National Cross Country- Sunderland

Not a problem with 78 weeks in a year. Plenty of room for all four.

(Every other XC season would be in hot weather which would change the nature of Parliament Hill but would help us be better adjusted when the World Cross is somewhere warm.)

I'm 17 and for me, until recently, the National was never really portrayed to me as a big race. For me the target would be the English Schools and Inter Counties whilst the National, if we bothered to go down and do it, was more of a mickey mouse event that you just 'did for the club'. I think the National needs to be advertised in a way that appeals to people, if it's ever going to have a status anywhere near that of 20 years ago then young people need ot WANT to do it. I agree with the people who say it should be a trial race, if not for the Worlds then at least for a smaller cross country event in Europe (although this would probably mean holding the National a little earlier in the year). This year, for the first time, the National was much more serious for me and we did really well. It's all a case of marketing; if people think it is an important event that they will be rewarded for runnign well in then they will target it as a 'big race' and the prestige would begin to be restored.

Matt, I assume by now that you have got the arse because you are repeatedly shown up.

Yes the juniors take as long to acclimatise,but they cannot get the time off school or Uni to spend abroad. They also run significantly shorter distances therefore the heat is less of an issue. So no mockery unless you have information not currently in the public domain.

As for a popular move - that is an absolutely stupid comment showing you at your ridiculous best. Which of the runners who wanted to make the team didnt travel to Bath ? All of the fxxxxxs did. The fact that BUSA + 13 or whatever was the total of those athletes with a chance of making the team is a numerical fact, not a reason to suggest it was the wrong venue or date.

As for suggesting that Mombasa is a better place to acclimatise than Durban, you really are reaching to the bottom of your very sorry barrel to try to find some sort of fault with UKA's attempt to help the athletes selected.

Do you know anybody who goes warm weather training in Mombasa. Do you have any idea how dangerous it is outside the hotel complex ? Do you know anywhere you can actually train in Mombasa ? I suggest the answer to all of those questions is a resounding NO. If it isnt then lets us have the benefit of your local knowledge here as soon as possible. If, as I suspect, that you know fxxk all about it then please will you contact one of the athletes currently in Durban and ask them what they think about the situation, cos I think that they might know far more than you do.

When you have that info please come back here, quote names, and lets us see if your suggestions are crap or UKA may, just, be a step ahead of you on this occasion.

I wait for your response.

Agree with you about Tipton. They have been putting in lots of off road training over muddy tough hilly courses for the past 2 weeks which will make them ready for this course. Average mileage has been 85 to 100 per week in build up during February. Think this intensive hard work will reap benefits for those guys out there.

everyone else does that too. And, more crucially the race was last week and they got beat!

bump

There were actually a few more who ran in the trial but didn't finish for whatever reason (injury or dropped out once they had dropped out of the top 10)

So in a way the fact that only 13 non BUSA athletes finished the race doesn't quite allustrate the number of non BUSA athletes that started. Although this number would have only been around 20. The point is that all the athletes of the required standard who wanted to compete at World XC in Kenya were given the opportunity to compete for a place on the team at the BUSA champs. Those who didn't run in Bath were those who didn't have World xc in their plans.

I don't recall being shown up and i have'nt got the arse, sounds like you have. Firstly, you've ignored half of what i said and become abusive which not a very professional manner for someone who implies they work for UKa to behave. I was'nt suggesting that you send the team to Mombassa but the point i was getting at was that there was no need to have the trial at the BUSAs, it could have been held at the inter-counties along with the juniors and the team could have travelled out to Kenya to acclimatise a couple of weeks before like some other teams have.

You ignored the point that half the team competed at the inter-counties anyway, it makes the selection look stupid when you have athletes not selected beating those that have been. Not any of the athletes fault but still not an ideal situation!

The point about shorter distances and time off does not make sense, surely easier to get time off uni and school than work and the difference between 8k and 12k can't great but obviously those 4k make all the difference!

Matt - I've said already (probably under some other pseudonym) that i understand that the reason the trial was held in early feb was to give the seniors the time to organise themselves for 3 weeks acclimatisation. Jabs is probably less of an issue - people in with a shout could get them done earlier. Not an ahtletic reason per se but an organisational one. So please quit moaning about that because I've explained it. I'm close friends with one of the team members and that is pretty much what he told me.

The reason for this is because UKA has made the decision that the juniors would not be going to Durban (not worth the money - decision to focus on prepping the seniors properly instead) so therefore the trial there was Inter Counties. Obviously some of the juniors would be running BUSA as well so it would not be appropriate to have the juniors trial there.

I persoanlly don't see much of an issue with the selection process - the only people who got amongst the world team (mens anyway) at IC were people who didn't run the trail anyway. We can probably assume they were not interested in selection so therefore the strongest team is out there.

I think Saturday will be embarassing, several of the team were clearly on the way down after the trial, as illustrated at Nottingham, they have planned their season to be at a peak to 'make the team' and their seasons are effectively over. I think it will be the worst GB display ever.

marathoner smarathoner wrote:

I think it will be the worst GB display ever.

until next year, when it will be even worse! :)

Next year Frank will be doing it and will win, WORLD CHAMPION

well we know the hotel will be tip top as Mr Barden has apparently done some senior co-ordinating by taking a trip out there already just to make sure. I'm sure that couldn't have been done on-line or via a travel agent....

Spencer Burden wrote:

well we know the hotel will be tip top as Mr Barden has apparently done some senior co-ordinating by taking a trip out there already just to make sure. I'm sure that couldn't have been done on-line or via a travel agent....

Yeah, and then when it turned out to be a shit hole no one here would have been having a ago at UKA for not sorting out proper accommodation for the athletes would they?

There are no doubt many things wrong with the management of the sport in this country and where money is spent, but spending a couple of thousand pounds, if that, on sorting out twenty athletes accommodation is not really top of the list.

I know nothing about the trip in question, just don't like people whinging for the sake of whinging, particularly when it involves a sly dig at someone.

You don't think it's possible any of the guys were in a period of hard training at Nottingham as they had a really big race a month away?

Why slate the guys who did make the team?

I don't know everyone on the teams but those I do know have put in the dog hard work to get there. The fault for the standard of distance running in the UK does not lie with them. Part of the problem does lie in the fact that anyone who is near the top of the sport finds themselves taking cheap and pointless comments if they're not medalling at major champs.

Thats right, because nobody at UKA already has knowledge of hotels in South Africa do they? No British athletes have ever trained in South Africa in the winter have they? Come on stop making excuses, reminds me of a trip by the management to Japan a couple of years ago, and then they stated that they might not send a full bloody team, what a joke!

Agree with your comments- sounds like jealousy and sour grapes by others in the sport.

We need to start appreciating and encouraging these lads who tirelessly slog it out in training with little praise just criticism.

Well done lads and keep up the hard work. Just show the doubters that you can do it!

For f***s sake......

Is the climate right, is the hotel big enough, are we likely to be giving them food poisoning, are there places to run to keep 20 runners happy for 3 weeks without injuring themselves or going crazy, is the track decent, is it open???, the list goes on and on.

People need to get a f***ing life and do something positive to help the sport instead of taking easy pots on here. Piss off the lot of you.

Nbody from UKA went to Fukuoka proir to the World Cross.

Nobody from UKA has been to Mombasa prior to the World Cross. Where did those allegations come from ?

The hotel the team will stay in Mombasa is allocated by IAAF, UKA have no say in the matter. It probably will not be as good as UKA would like, but they will be stuck with it.

Spencer Barden did go out to Durban for 3 days to look at track, off road running, gyms, medical facilities and hotels. Not because nobody from UK had ever been to South Africa before but because the altitude venue used by Brits was not appropriate to go straight to Mombasa, and the only other city used by Brits on a regular basis does not have enough off road running to be suitable for a cross country team.

Yet again we have baseless allegations made by faceless people who actually know very little about what goes on.

I suspect that Jason Ward, Alan Buckley and Phil Nicholls have some street cred with the distance running population, why dont we ask them if UKA staff are just taking the piss and having nice holidays at somebodys expense - or perhaps now they have made a team their views are not acceptable to the critical mass ?