Renato Canova slamming American marathoners?

It's also the least interesting race for the average fan to watch, with the possible exception of the 20 KM walk.

To the OP - pointing out the obvious is not "slamming".

Also, if you have a look at many of these athletes, they move around from coach to coach, area to area and never allow time for long term development to occur.

Take a look at Cabada - seems like he has plenty of talent, but he has bounced around between coaches and programs for his entire career. Hall has done basically the same thing Mahone, God, Canova, God, etc. Hartman has jumped around quite a bit as well.

These guys seem to be looking for short term (

RuKiddingMe!! wrote:

....don't care how good "so called" coach Renato Canova is, I wished he would crawl back under a rock....with his opinions....coaching africans to run distance is like teaching fish to swim, I have no respect for anything he saids....unless you can show me someone he actually developed who wasn't african

Don't yap when you're so ignorant. You look like an idiot.

Canova was a top coach in Italy for years before he started connecting with Kenyan runners.

He coaches Kenyans because of the talent, obviously, and also because they are willing to work in a way that most Italians aren't. He has said this many times.

steve red wrote:

When was the last USA mens medal in the Olympic or World Champs marathon?

Frank Shorter in 1972?

crazy raisin wrote:

From his latest review of the Men's WC Marathon:

Ouch... Is he just completely dismissing Ritzenhein and Hall?

And especially with this part "must be still young, not injured, well motivated, and has to do different training from what the most part of American marathon runners normally use." Are Hall, Ritz, and Abdi doing something completely wrong right now? Or is he only referring more the 2:10-2:15 guys in this part?

If he is completely dismissing Ritz and Hall he is certainly right to do so. Neither has a snowball's chance in hell of getting on the podium at a major.

steve red wrote:

When was the last USA mens medal in the Olympic or World Champs marathon?

2004 Meb Silver medal

2012 Meb 4th place near miss

Okay, 9 years ago. Nothing in 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013. And before that when was it? Frank Shorter 1976 silver medal?

Curious question: Is Meb American born or more or less Lagat like?

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Renato Canova wrote:

How everybody can see, 12 among the best 16 times 2012 in US were during OT in Houston, that seems to be the only marathon really interesting American runners.

If we go to analyse what the above athletes did this season, we can see that 10 of them didn't run any marathon

...

Anyway, I speak about the fact. It's up to who knows to explain the reasons.

Most of the guys in the Olympic trials weren't really even marathoners to begin with. They simply showed up at the trials after running a half-marathon in 65 minutes or less. And particularly when you consider that almost any point-to-point half-marathon satisfies the OT standard, it's pretty easy for a moderately fast 10K runner to get to the OT marathon by cruising through a half-marathon without the inconvenience of marathon training or racing.

It's not too much to ask of an Olympic trials qualifier that he actually run a marathon. The OT standards committee has rightly tightened up the marathon standard a bit to qualify for the OT, but has completely undermined that higher marathon standard by continuing to allow OT marathon qualification with a 65-minute point-to-point half-marathon.

Nappy Roots wrote:

yuiop wrote:

Considering our marathoning depth 30 years ago, something isn't right with U.S. marathoning.

Totally disagree. I think you could have made this argument about 15 years ago, but the depth of US distance AND marathoning is best in history.

More depth in 2013 than in 1983? Are you serious?

In 1983, there were 1096 sub-2:20 marathon performances in the world, and 267 of them were by U.S. marathoners. What do think the numbers are so far in 2013?

I don't see any reason for putting limits about the participation to OT.

Marathon is not track. Let the race free for everybody wants to try, exactly like a popular marathon.

If there are 10000 people running, somebody in 5 hours, can be good for organisers, sponsors and media, and this doesn't produce any damage for top runners.

Also, the current limits are frankly ridiculous, since there is not equivalence between the limits for 10000m and the limits in HM,

Remember that marathon is a "social phenomenon" able to change the mentality of normal people, and with different mentality who can be a good runner can have more knowledge and motivation for becoming better.

Also when I read the most part of comments, I see in US there is no idea about what is possible to do with proper and specific training for marathon.

Speaking about the possibility than many athletes able running 10k between 28:00 and 28:30 can run full marathon between 2:10 and 2:14 is ridiculous.

Every athlete with 30:00 of PB in 10000m, the mental talent for long distances and proper training, can run under 2:14, and athletes knowing marathon (training and interpretation), of course with specific attitude (it's not correct to think all people running the same time in 10000m can run the same time in marathon, also in this event there is some quality highly specific), running 28:30, can run under 2:09 without big problems.

How already I wrote some year ago, the first step is to change American mentality about the equivalence between 10000m and marathon : till when for you 2:12 is something good, for runners able running under 29:00, never you can produce a good marathon runner inside the system, also if there is some group with correct knowledge.

Another problem in US is that coaches with good knowledge of marathon training don't have any interest to release their type of training, because don't want to help other groups.

So, the fact there are no discussion at top level about the real training is a limit for the development of modern and correct methodologies.

US is a very big Country, and it's not possible to have only 2-3 good marathon coaches. What all the athletes who want become marathon runners have to do ? Do you really think everybody can train without any coach, thinking "nobody can know my body better than me", reading some training plan published in magazines made for amateurs ?

If is true nobody can know his body better than the owner of the body, is also true the problem is not to know the body, but to know WHAT ATHLETES HAVE TO DO IN ORDER TO CHANGE THEIR BODY. And, when you know what you have to do, you can adapt this to your body (as Kenyans and Ethiopians do), using the feeling which you can't have if you don't try to do something you never did before.

As I always say, coaches and athletes, if want to succeed, need to have the mentality of an explorer. They need to try every time something new, going with a little step in a dark room they don't know, and searching the switch for the light. If they are not able to find the switch, is very easy to do only one short step back, and they are in the light again. But, if they find the switch, your room of knowledge becomes bigger, and this is the base of any improvement, not only in athletics.

Brilliant insight -

As I always say, coaches and athletes, if want to succeed, need to have the mentality of an explorer. They need to try every time something new, going with a little step in a dark room they don't know, and searching the switch for the light. If they are not able to find the switch, is very easy to do only one short step back, and they are in the light again. But, if they find the switch, your room of knowledge becomes bigger, and this is the base of any improvement, not only in athletics.

knower5434 wrote:

Frank Shorter in 1972?

are you that out of it? that wasn't even Frank Shorter's last medal. read the other replies before posting your own

Americans are smart enough not to run a marathon (for free) at the world champs. Ritz and FLANAGAN are smart enough to race a 10,000m in moscow and then go make some $ later in a marathon.

By the results, it looks like all the top Kenyan marathoners have also figured this out.

It is about the money, period.

Ethiopia and Kenya are two of the poorest countries with an average income of under $1000.

The US is not one of the poorest countries, and the "talent pool" for top marathoners in this country is made up mostly of college/university graduates. Their alternatives for making a living are much more varied, than that of a similarly talented East African.

So yes, it is about the motivation. And a pure sport motivation is less strong than that of fulfilling a basic need.

So if you have 1000 equally talented athletes in their later teens in these countries, you will certainly arrive at different outcomes.

And the marathon is long and hard, and training for it properly is harder.

It really is survival of the fittest ... but survival on a marathon course means different things to different people.

Why does everyone compare 1983 with the current playing field? They are completely different.

Sub-2:20 is not the right mark for comparison, it can no longer be considered competitive on a global scale (it is still darn fast).

100th best time in 1983: 2:12:41

100th best time last year: 2:08:05

So the landscape for world-class marathoning has improved by nearly 5 minutes (or about a mile). A look at the 200th best performance is similar.

Now, the 100th best performance is better than the best performance thirty years ago.

Just because the U.S. has a large population of relatively active people, does not mean they will attempt to be competitive in the marathon.

30 years is a long time wrote:

Why does everyone compare 1983 with the current playing field? They are completely different.

Sub-2:20 is not the right mark for comparison, it can no longer be considered competitive on a global scale (it is still darn fast).

100th best time in 1983: 2:12:41

100th best time last year: 2:08:05

I agree. In fact, there is a pretty consistent four-minute improvement in "time for place" all the way up through the 1,000th best time, so that (for example) a 2:20 in 1983 would have ranked about the same as a 2:16 now. But I wanted to obviate any arguments about differences in participation by East Africans, especially Kenyans, who now account for the most of the top 1,000 performances each year.

"I don't see any reason for putting limits about the participation to OT.

Marathon is not track. Let the race free for everybody wants to try, exactly like a popular marathon.

If there are 10000 people running, somebody in 5 hours, can be good for organisers, sponsors and media, and this doesn't produce any damage for top runners.

Also, the current limits are frankly ridiculous, since there is not equivalence between the limits for 10000m and the limits in HM,"

What a great idea. Would be amazing for interest in the sport, unlike the current 100-man trials, which have less fans on the street than ANY OTHER MARATHON.

Why NOT let anyone run the trials marathon? What difference would it make to the contenders? NONE.

Choose a trials race the year before each championship, as is done anyway (NYC for 2008, Houston for 2012), but DON'T make the trials a separate race the day before.

The only people who would be bothered would be the 60th-placers feeling less special about themselves.

domestic pro wrote:

The best answer is often the simplest.

People really need to think about the things "domestic pro" said a bit more carefully. I grew up on the east coast of the US and took bad weather for granted until I moved to the west coast. You don't realize all the times it hurts your training just a little bit, or maybe you do and figure that there just isn't much you can do about the weather, or you realize that it's probably smarter to take it a bit easy than to do something kind of crazy.

domestic pro wrote:

having lived and trained at sea-level and altitude for years at a time i feel very strongly that it's not possible to compete at the top in the marathon without living around 6500'-8000'.

There was a Danish study in 2000 that summized that while there was an advantage to living at altitude in the short-term, there was no advantage to living at altitude year round.

There's a documentary about in on youtube. Thhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTQVHZU4WzE