Pete Julian on Jordan Hasay and Alexa Efraimson: "Will they both make it back? Absolutely. Yes. 100%"

Can you ask him about Mary Cain and whether she'll make it back?

Yep. I thought Pete was a great guest. And he's actually got me believing both these ladies will make some semblance of a 'comeback'.

Best coach interview so far.   I hope he’s right.   Alexa has had one promising race result recently.   I thought Jordan was taking an extended race break before she races again.

Lol good luck to them. Hope none of you are foolish enough to take anything from these comments. What else is a coach going to say? Hasay is done. I don’t know who Alexa is so I won’t comment on her 

That statement was probably more for the athletes than the LRC message board. For two athletes who have struggled for quite some time, To hear their coach go out and publicly say he believes in them and their future, can do a lot for an athletes confidence.

I dig it!

You could have asked some better questions Wejo!

First of all talent does go away when you get older or you have wrecked your body by doing too much.  Look at Chris Solinski.

Why didn't you ask about Jordan's terrible race results.  She is getting slower.   She was beat by Shalane in her last marathon.  What is the reason for this?

Jordan does not belong on that type of high performance team.  She is now a sub elite runner. 

When will Pete be held accountable to Nike for her terrible results?

In other sports athletes are not kept on the team when they can no longer perform.  They get cut or traded.  Running is such a weird sport.  Athletes rarely compete and they can stay on a high performance team for years w/o being productive.

Pete should have been asked some harder questions that made him uncomfortable.

Bad interview by the three of you gentlemen.

*Face palm

Hasay will probably be back to her usual DFLs, DNFs and getting lapped.

Letting his mouth write checks his coaching can't cash.

because he is such a good coach at keeping people healthy

Who is Alexa?

lol wejo. You couldn't have come up with a more diplomatic way to phrase your question than

???

Look, I can be extremely critical of PJ on a half dozen different areas, but this isn't a very productive question.

1) What's a coach going to say on a live show? "Ah yea now you mention guys we should probably a stick a fork in them." He won't throw his own athletes under the bus like that.

2) Why would he be spending his time coaching them if he thought there was zero hope? Why would a coach spend a second on a no-hoper which he could be spending on championship medal contenders like Brazier and Rogers? Does he think either are going to turn into world medalists? Quite possibly not, but he clearly thinks they can still improve while contributing something meaningful to the group or he would have sent them backing. He isn't the kind of guy to tolerate hangers-on.

I'd rather have found out why Klosterhalfen didn't race in the Lilac Grand Prix. Looks like not only is she still not back in her groove, but possibly injured again. That's one of my chief axes to grind with Julian; running one of the most talented runners of her generation into the ground.

What else is Julian going to say? I'm a terrible coach and I can't reverse the years-long decline of those two? Btw the entire Julian group with the exception of Rogers had terrible seasons last year, full of injuries/poor performances. Brazier -- injured, finishes last at the Trials. Engels finishes 4th at the Trials, doesn't make the team, losing to two college runners. Efraimson runs terribly, doesn't make the Trials finals. Rowbury, injured. Koko, injured the previous fall, doesn't even contest the 5,000, a distance she medalled at at the World Championships, runs the 10,000 and finishes 8th.

As much as I like Klosterhalfen as a person, truth be told, she only has herself to blame for running herself into the ground by underfueling for years now - this has been an issue way before she joined Pete's group. It was only a matter of time until her body broke and the injuries starting cropping up.

Easy answer: contractual obligation.

People on this forum have come up with the fanciful illusion that corporate employees like Julian and Schumacher have way more power than they really do.

If you listen to the interview you can sense that Julian understands 2021 was a hard year for his team. Sport isn’t perfect. That said he had four athletes finish in the top 10 at the Tokyo Olympics in events ranging from 800 to the Marathon. Osako, Rogers and Hull were all brilliant at the Games. If that’s a bad year, than I’ll look forward to what a good year looks like.

Sure, coach of a kid who moved to the US as a 20 year old (college age) has zero responsibility for her staying healthy. Compare how Brooks handled Ostrander vs how PJ has handled Konstanze.