I think kara and des’ concern with having to show proof of fitness is that it takes away from the top 3 qualifying model the US uses to determine olympians.
But how does it take away from the Trials system if the fitness test is so undemanding that any of the top 15 or 20 finishers would be capable of passing it, assuming they’re in marathon training and not seriously injured? And the only three runners who get to race the Olympics if they can pass the fitness test are the top three finishers at the trials.
Des running interference for her good friends the Cragg's. Not sure if it had been another coach/team if she would have inserted herself to this degree. Her "team" were hoping she could get to the start line and drop early without all this fanfare, but other athletes were genuinely concerned for her health as they watched her limping through her runs. Perhaps now USATF will take a role in ensuring selfish coach/agents don't "pressure" the athlete to perform...and yes, she was pressured.
Fiona is an Olympian. May she be on the road to recovery and have many more awe-inspiring performances like we saw at the trials.
Des running interference for her good friends the Cragg's. Not sure if it had been another coach/team if she would have inserted herself to this degree. Her "team" were hoping she could get to the start line and drop early without all this fanfare, but other athletes were genuinely concerned for her health as they watched her limping through her runs. Perhaps now USATF will take a role in ensuring selfish coach/agents don't "pressure" the athlete to perform...and yes, she was pressured.
Fiona is an Olympian. May she be on the road to recovery and have many more awe-inspiring performances like we saw at the trials.
I think Des is just extremely emotionally invested because she did a similar thing. She is really defending herself.
It was funny when Kara said "if people have a different opinion that's okay" and Des was like "yeah...well, no." lol
The thing to remember about Tuliamuk though is that if she had skipped the Tokyo Olympics, the alternate spot would have gone to ... wait for it ... Des. I don't know what Aliphine's thought process was, but many of us would have thought that Des was the last person to deserve an alternate spot after what she did in 2012. Given that, and given that a year and a half had gone by since the Trials, I was fine with Aliphine starting when she clearly wasn't the runner she had been when she won in Atlanta.
Which is wild because if Des would have set the precedent of allowing the alternate to take her spot in 2012, then maybe Aliphine would have done the same. Then Des still could have been a two time Olympian with two chances to compete while healthy.
So both Des and Kara are willing to do something that most of us think is unethical and immoral if the price is right. Interesting. This is the same defense that causes people to use performance enhancing drugs. They both have also justified use of thyroid meds. Everyone is able to justify bad behavior because it allows them to sleep at night.
Bingo. So Des and Kara are then just selfish, cheating dopers who are a poor representation of Team USA, but they're our lead analysts for distance running on the only TV network that really covers it? It’s like we are in a never ending loop of suck for why our women suck at distance running. This position makes me sick.
Parker Valby, please stay far away from any of these yahoo has-beens.
I find this deeply disturbing. I never had a negative view of Des before, but this situation has completely changed that. I'm disgusted by the selfishness of this viewpoint. Where is the line for them? What else would they defend to make it to the Olympics?
Des and Kara have one opinion and most of us have another. We can argue back and forth without ever changing anyone’s mind. Neither of these opinions do a thing to correct the real problem.
FIONA NEEDS HELP.
She most definitely has a poor relationship with eating. We have all seen it for a few years but no one has stepped in to help her. She was made out to be a hero with her excellent performance at the Olympic Trials. But we all knew there was a problem. She has been given positive reinforcement for negative (harmful) behavior.
Her DNF in Paris was not a surprise. Many of us predicted it because we knew that the bottom always falls out with people in this situation.
The frustration with Des and Kara is that they have a platform to potentially help Fiona by calling out this problem. Trust me, they both are well aware of the problem, but they simply defend her decision and ignore the real problem.
Des and Kara have one opinion and most of us have another. We can argue back and forth without ever changing anyone’s mind. Neither of these opinions do a thing to correct the real problem.
FIONA NEEDS HELP.
She most definitely has a poor relationship with eating. We have all seen it for a few years but no one has stepped in to help her. She was made out to be a hero with her excellent performance at the Olympic Trials. But we all knew there was a problem. She has been given positive reinforcement for negative (harmful) behavior.
Her DNF in Paris was not a surprise. Many of us predicted it because we knew that the bottom always falls out with people in this situation.
The frustration with Des and Kara is that they have a platform to potentially help Fiona by calling out this problem. Trust me, they both are well aware of the problem, but they simply defend her decision and ignore the real problem.
Fiona will not improve in her current situation.
This. It’s the hardest thing in our sport when we praise someone for their excellent running, but always have the elephant in the room surrounding an ED. I had a college teammate with a bad ED. She went to treatment and immediately came back to run her last cross country season. Before conference, she relapsed pretty bad and wanted to go back to treatment and consoled in me if she should get treatment or run to help the team. My answer was obviously to get treatment because your well being comes first. Sadly I don’t feel like anyone in Fiona’s court is encouraging such and you can see the cycle of injuries year after year happening along the same timeline, just as my teammate had kept running until she would skip outdoor track season every year. I hope the time is nearing where ED’s are addressed more, as my teammate’s ED got so bad they couldn’t run 10-15 minutes without being able to properly breathe before treatment.
Des and Kara have one opinion and most of us have another. We can argue back and forth without ever changing anyone’s mind. Neither of these opinions do a thing to correct the real problem.
FIONA NEEDS HELP.
She most definitely has a poor relationship with eating. We have all seen it for a few years but no one has stepped in to help her. She was made out to be a hero with her excellent performance at the Olympic Trials. But we all knew there was a problem. She has been given positive reinforcement for negative (harmful) behavior.
Her DNF in Paris was not a surprise. Many of us predicted it because we knew that the bottom always falls out with people in this situation.
The frustration with Des and Kara is that they have a platform to potentially help Fiona by calling out this problem. Trust me, they both are well aware of the problem, but they simply defend her decision and ignore the real problem.
Fiona will not improve in her current situation.
This. It’s the hardest thing in our sport when we praise someone for their excellent running, but always have the elephant in the room surrounding an ED. I had a college teammate with a bad ED. She went to treatment and immediately came back to run her last cross country season. Before conference, she relapsed pretty bad and wanted to go back to treatment and consoled in me if she should get treatment or run to help the team. My answer was obviously to get treatment because your well being comes first. Sadly I don’t feel like anyone in Fiona’s court is encouraging such and you can see the cycle of injuries year after year happening along the same timeline, just as my teammate had kept running until she would skip outdoor track season every year. I hope the time is nearing where ED’s are addressed more, as my teammate’s ED got so bad they couldn’t run 10-15 minutes without being able to properly breathe before treatment.
Elise Cranny is a poster child for this cycle. When she's eating healthy (i.e. enough calories), her weight is up, her muscle tone is up, and she's really freaking good. When she doesn't eat enough, she gets skinny, loses muscle, and gets hurt.
Fiona made it a mile. Several eye witnesses have said that. Why people keep saying 3 is beyond me as there was no way she was able to run 3 miles with the limp she had 400 meters in.
The only time Des and Kara come close to discussing a change that could be implemented in the future is when they state (toward the end of their O’Keeffe segment) that some people are advocating for USATF medical staff to make the final decision on whether a team member will start the race or be replaced by an alternate. They dismiss this proposal because it could create an unhealthy power dynamic by placing the decision in the hands of a “creepy” doctor.
Maybe some people have been advocating for team doctors to have the final say, and maybe that would create potential problems like the appearance of or actual bias or favoritism. But what would be the objection to requiring USA marathoners to submit proof of completion of a not overly demanding race-specific workout in the month prior to the race? Did O’Keeffe ever do a session that included at least 10km at marathon pace (not even a continuous 10k necessarily) after say July 1? If she did, and it was documented, I think the criticism she’s received for starting the race would have been a lot less harsh, at minimum, since it would defuse the allegations that she covered up an injury or injuries that had kept her far from race-fit all summer.
I’m just not seeing what downsides would come with instituting a modest fitness test requirement like I’ve described. It would separate the athletes who are actually just “dinged up” but still training at a high level at least some of the time, from those who have no genuine chance of replicating their trials performance at the Olympics because they’re seriously injured. It seems pretty clear that, for a variety of reasons, athletes in the latter camp are not going to honestly disclose their status if they can just say they’re “dinged up” without going into details.
You know they would have to do this test for every athlete on the US Olympic team right--basically undermining every trials selection process. That's why.
Des put Ritz on blast and now is BFFs with Kara who is another ASal runner. They both know this is the last time the'll be discussing Fiona as an elite. She is never making another team so they won't have to defend their support bc we all forget about past failures.
otter wrote: I can think of several times when I was a mess before a race and ran anyway. I am not exaggerating that. One time in particular my Doctor told me not to run. Out of the thirty Marathons I completed, at least five of them I would have not started if I took your advice.
And none of them or even collectively can be compared to an Olympic Marathon in terms of importance.
I know my opinion here on this is not popular but she earned her place and the decision to give it a shot that day. Nobody else deserved to take that from her. It’s as simple as that.
You were representing no one in those marathons. Respectfully sorry, likely no one else cared if you started or not, or cared if you finished or how well you did.
Fiona was earned the right to represent an entire country, whose process selected her as one of the three best chances that country had to not simply finish, but hopefully do well. She was in Paris and able to be on that starting line only because of that country. That country cared enough about that potential finish and place to bring in an alternate runner to take her place in case she was not able to give her best possible performance.
Whether or not a 100% healthy Fiona actually could have medaled or even finished in the top 10 is not relevant. That country had thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of people hoping, wishing, dreaming that she (or any other runner from that country) would make them proud and do well.
The U.S.A. deserved better than what she decided to give them.
This is such a sanctimonious take. No one in the U.S. sacrificed any personal dignity because one of our marathoners hobbled away injured before the 5k mark even. And she was NOT selected by her country. She won trials and that makes her eligible for the spot. Our trials process is not about selecting the three best chances. Deciding something like that is inherently subjective and political. No one on an official selection committee could have argued for Fiona as the best shot. That was her first marathon. No one could've made the argument for Dakota. They could for Emily Sisson and she did worse than Dakota.
If you're so deeply hurt by Fiona's performance, you have issues I can't even fathom. The only person who can moan about this on that level is Jess and she's been perfectly sanguine. This is sport. Many of you are treating this like a mission to save humanity. Like someone has to defuse a bomb and refused to tell the rightful parties they were color blind.