Craig "Big Mouth" Mottram will not medal at Worlds

Mottram's always been very outspoken about his objective. He has been saying, for the past 5 years, that his goal is to bust up the African dominance. He's a white guy who wants to represent. There is nothing wrong with that at all. People can say whatever they want about him being brash...

How many of you knocking Buster have raced around the track with nothing but East Africans surrounding you? It's a pretty solitary experience when it seems everybody else is working together as a team. Revert back to Sydeny '00. As a 20 yr old Buster missed out on the 5000m final by less than seconds. Noody knew who he was, and in reality, he didn't even know who he was yet. Craig had only started competing 2 years before that. He had no idea how to race against them.

Athens '04 he finished 8th in the final. He had run sub 13--including that awesome race finishing second to Haile--the previous season. But in Athens he still hadn't figured out how to successfully race against the East African teams.

At the Commonwealth '06 games Buster took Kenya to town. He kicked too soon and Choge sat on his push the whole time. Mottramn silvered in 12.58, a solid 7 seconds ahead of bronze winner Ben Limo. He shattered their team and, while he didn't gold, he proved to himself and the world that it could be done.

Mottram has now learned how to race against the East Africans. And he does it on his own. He's not the 20 yr old fresh on the scene like he was in Sydney. He's not the promising sub 13 white guy in the Athens final. He's proven--the big Australian who took the scalp of Kenenisa Bekele over 3000m. He's the mazunga that just won a golden league event, a bloody champion for sure!

The guy has been running and training to cross the line before everyone else. He's arrived. If he didn't scream, shout and yell, "I am great!" there would be something wrong with him. You don't just invest 8 years into something and work up to world excellence to be humble. You talk about the size of your balls; when you finish a battle you hold up the heads you've taken while raising your arms.

on a side note, when Bekele pulled out in Mombasa the Kenyan crowds cheered. They shouted and danced with elation. Pretty humble.

[quote

on a side note, when Bekele pulled out in Mombasa the Kenyan crowds cheered. They shouted and danced with elation. Pretty humble.[/quote]

what?

what does this say about Bekele's humility.....

you make no sense..

is there no end to mottram's stupid big mouth?

his competition keeps their mouth shut, even in victory. african 15 year olds are more mature than mottram.

kenyans have been running sub 1255 for years...since when does the world care about mottram's feats?

mottram will never be able to compete with africans at the peak of the season, in the quick races. just watch and see...

he'd be incredibly lucky to break 1250. he'll never touch 12:45 and 12:30s aren't for whities.

my god.

I was responding to the idea that humility was a prevalent trait of the East Africans, in general. If you scroll through the other posts you'll catch that. Obviously my side note illustrated the Kenyan attitude toward Bekele dropping out. One of the articles I read had said the Kenyans were quite rude about cheering over Bekele's misfortune.

so I did make sense. You just seemed to think I was addressing Bekele's humility?

I don't get why we assume all Africans are so ridiculously humble and ego-less. How do we know? Most of them don't speak English as a first language. Certainly they don't seem like huge talkers, but that can also be a cultural thing much like others have mentioned. As for your second point, a bronze at World Champs shows he can compete with them at the peak of a season. Quick races in champ 5Ks? How many of those have there been? WC's 2003 5K yes, but that was with KB killing the early pace and Kipchoge with El G. That also illustrates the crazy pedastal we seem to be placing the Africans on. Look at Kipchoge's career. Wins 2003 WC's at age 19 looks like he'll be able to run sub 12:40 and be a dominant runner. Instead, he's very inconsistent. Same with Limo and others. Besides K. Bekele who is beatable in the 5K, albeit not in the 10K, it seems the faces change, and there's not a consistent guy who can drill Mottram. Mottram has seemed to be as consistent as most of these guys. So, on a given day who knows? No one cares that much how he does versus K. Bekele or Kipchoge in a time trial race. Legacy depends on championship performance. We'll see if Mottram will back it up at the WC's, so far he has this season.

666 wrote:

Fact: A large part of the reason why Mottram gets this kind of attention is because he's white.

Fact #2: The people who are giving Mottram most of that attention are corny white long distance guys.

Fact #3: Non corny white guys and practically all non-white guys still don't, and probably won't ever, give a shit.

As for me, I could care less; Mottram is just another foreigner who runs fast.

you must be really cool i guess... just the fact that you post on a running forum makes you corny

Get over yourselfs! wrote:

If you think Mottram is Trash talking Bekele or anyone else for that matter, go back to school and learn english.

He said he smashed them, how is that not considered talking down to someone. Unless you want to race me in a 5k, I'll beat you by a second after outkicking you, turn around right after we cross the line and go "duuuuddee, I just smashed you"

your first response would probably be...."uhhh no you didn't"

stupid letsrunners wrote:

Much of his competition can comfortably to 2s/lap faster than him for the duration of the race, and if he even tries to hang with that, the "Buster Smash" (ugh) on the homestretch is not going to be to be pretty.

Mottram has run 12:55 with a very fast finish. If you know anyone who can run 12:55 - (12.5 x 2) = 12:30 "comfortably," or even at all, then I guess you've got me. But can MOST OF HIS COMPETITION comfortably run 12:30?

espèce de petit con d'enculé...je te pisse à la raie

sorry but reading all these posts has lead me to one big post myself.

yer- tariku would not come in the top 20 of an ethiopian/kenyan 5k- are you having a laugh- tariku is probably one of their leading lights at the minute. stop putting africa on such a pedestal.

fair enough choge, k bekele and maybe even songok (who had his ass-kicked by mottram,bekele and feleke last week) are not running the 5k in osaka but thats it, shihine,kipchoge,limo or whoever you hope is going to wipe the floor with mottram are all going to run (or try to run).

as for the comment about mottram being lucky tafrica can only send 3 to osaka- that didnt seem to bother him last week- how many were on his shoulder before he ran away from them- you can have the video if you like.

also the poster who dropped the comment about 'the africans' being able to drop mottram from the start because he cant run a fast time - i.e sub 12.50. if you knew much about distance running then you would know mottram generally doesnt chase times (in 12.50 golden league races) - he runs to win. his best 5ks at crystal palace 12.55/56 havent been amazingly quick races like in the golden leagues but rather quick ( 55 second last laps). i doubt you would have given him much chance of running 8.03 celebrating 40 metres out but he did.

so can evryone just accpet the fact that its not a case of africa v mottram there are several amazing athletes in the 5k for osaka all with a chance to win and whoever runs best on the day will be world champion.

Hahaha, you talk about Mottram choking and then bring up Webb!?!?

That's fuc\kin' epic, man.

Mottram is the man!!! He is insane and can run with anyone he wants!!

Mottram will place in the top 3 at worlds. He will also run under 13:00 that race.

-Hiro from the Future

No-one will run under 13.15 in Osaka. The conditions will make it very tough for Mottram to win a medal.

i predict tegenkamp will beat mottram at WCs.

contrary to popular thought, mottram's balls aren't big enough.

Is that really Bill Roe?

Bill Roe has better logic than that.

Mottram will medal abut not win it in my opinion. I think Silver is possible but suspect bronze is more likely. They wont let it come to a 400m burn-up like Ostrava.