Dick Telford is an expert on talent identification and recruitment, an often-overlooked component of getting great runners. Watch the NOVA video, “Can Science Build a Champion Athlete?” to see the interview with Telford on this topic. It is the fastest way to get a talented athlete for a sport: basically screen large numbers of the population with general fitness tests that test for the physical attributes needed to excel in that sport, select a manageable # of them, then do physiological lab testing of exhaled gases and blood waste products at higher levels of effort for representative durations of the sport, then select those whose attributes most closely match the demands of the sport. The Australians learned to apply this by studying the East German system of talent identification and recruitment after Communism fell. Within 2 years, the Australian women won the World Junior Rowing Championships in the 2 person rowing shell in a sport which normally takes around 10 years to reach world class status by training alone. Dick Telford & crew proved their method by choosing a sport which, as he said “You can spot great runners running on tracks, in parks, on roads, but you don’t see rowers rowing down the street, so we needed to devise tests to find them.” Those 2 women had never rowed before. It’s not all about training.
I don’t doubt this. But it doesn’t seem to apply to this kid. Telford did not identify Myers, has never been his coach, and only became loosely tied to his training later in Myers’ development when his real coach (Lee Bobbin) asked if Myers and another of his top runners could join with some of Telford’s runners on certain training sessions.
See the Runner’s Tribe interview with Bobbin posted above for more details.
Damn...now he's lost the greatest talent in history.
Here's the secret sauce.
He was a raw, but average national level kid a few years ago.
Puberty was kind to him, he developed rapidly.
He moves well, he is intelligent, he has experienced and strong training partners, his development Coach and Telford recently, are making smart decisions in his best interests.
No self serving leeches yet. True greatness awaits if he doesn't become a slave to a college, pro team/coach/brand.
Sorry, no secret sauce. Just a tonne of talent, hard work, and surrounded by good people.
This is why cyclists are more 'fit' than runners. This guy is mega hyped and he only runs 6 hours a week. That's barely any exercise. Pogi rides 30 hours per week and therefore is in WAY better physical condition. It's not even comparable.
This is why cyclists are more 'fit' than runners. This guy is mega hyped and he only runs 6 hours a week. That's barely any exercise. Pogi rides 30 hours per week and therefore is in WAY better physical condition. It's not even comparable.
You're comparing apples with oranges. You'd prefer he trained 30hrs per week and ran 3.45? Training is the process, performance is the function.