What happened to Cheserek today?

Would of won wrote:

Take those bananas wrote:

Couldn't of said it better myself. .

That's too bad because you really could with a little help.

Yes, you easily could have.

Ches plain ol' got Hillaried.

He went to Terre Haute for a coronation with a title for which he didn't think there was real competition. He was surrounded by people and media and headlines which he started to believe.

Either that or he was too busy studying for an Organic Chemistry final - whew, that class is tough.

Fakename wrote:

I was happy to see him get beat after he thought he had it in the bag. Early on he was looking around, yucking it up, smiling thinking he was just playing with the field. Then the race began.

Have you ever watched him race before? He always is looking around at people trying to gage how they feel, etc. This race was no different, he just got beaten.

The King said it himself in a post race interview he was running on a bad hamstring I wonder why he didn't just dust the field by 40-50 seconds

white euro global cooling wrote:

Cold weather. Africans can't hack it.

Looking thru the pics I noticed a couple in compression socks/calf sleeves. Do they lose their EA cards for such offenses?

I could tell that when knight and Tiernan made their move that Chez tried to respond and couldnt. His stride then got a whole lot smaller and you could tell his hamstring was not allowing him to open up his stride.

imsofast wrote:

I could tell that when knight and Tiernan made their move that Chez tried to respond and couldnt. His stride then got a whole lot smaller and you could tell his hamstring was not allowing him to open up his stride.

The hamstring is a great excuse! Hey, Tiernan wanted to keep up last year but couldn't because his hamstring tightened up too!!

humptee wrote:

imsofast wrote:

I could tell that when knight and Tiernan made their move that Chez tried to respond and couldnt. His stride then got a whole lot smaller and you could tell his hamstring was not allowing him to open up his stride.

The hamstring is a great excuse! Hey, Tiernan wanted to keep up last year but couldn't because his hamstring tightened up too!!

I never heard Tiernen say that last year. I think you're making things up.

humptee wrote:

[quote]imsofast wrote:

I could tell that when knight and Tiernan made their move that Chez tried to respond and couldnt. His stride then got a whole lot smaller and you could tell his hamstring was not allowing him to open up his stride.

The hamstring is a great excuse!

Or the reason Ches lost.

Still, 3 titles and 1 3rd place ties him with Prefontaine for greatest NCAA X-Country career.

By the way. Lindgren and Mike Ryan of Air Force beat Pre in his freshman year.

Pressure probably got to him and Tiernan and Knight were underdogs and that really motivated them to beat The King. Not to mention Tiernan's tactics were absolutely perfect. Pushed the pace and slowed it down to mess everyone's race plan. Then took the kick out of Justyn by surging when he was drafting behind him. Look at the race on youtube he literally does a fartlek the entire way and hammers the last couple Ks.

pert wrote:

Goucher, Ritz, those races must of been fixed

"...must of..."

So typical of the intelligence exhibited on this site.

Take those bananas wrote: Couldn't of said it better myself. At least I didn't have to see him flap his stupid little arms and fiddle with his shorts at the end.

"Couldn't of..."

So typical of the intelligence exhibited on this site.

From my view of the race, it appears that even at his best Cheserek would have had difficulty winning (although I think he would have done so because he kicks so well). He was not at his best, and Tiernan (and Knight) put in tremendous performances, with a really punishing pace for the last 5k on a windy, cold day. NCAA Division 1 cross country championships are one of the most difficult and intense races around, so congratulations to all three for a tough and hard earned performance, even if in Cheserek's case it fell short of expectations.

Bluntly, anyone in the top 10 has nothing to be ashamed of. I was a middle schooler when I saw Nick Rose dominate the field in Bloomington, Indiana (like Tiernan's performance). John Ngeno, a great runner, wasn't really close in second, Oregon went 4.5. and 6 in a great display of teaming running, and Craig Virgin, favored to win, I believe was in 12th. A not so good day for him, but he went on to have great days in the future, including a NCCA title and a world title, so he may have learned a lot from his performance that day. All of them earned my respect - it was a tough race. And I come to the same conclusion for the top 10 or so in this race. Easy to talk about, hard to do.