Doping apologists out in force with their hate in this thread.
If it wasn't for the Tokyo delay to 2021, and the fact that in 2004 as a 21 yo he was up against literally dozens of full throttle EPO cheats, he would have reached 5 successive Olympic 1500m finals.
It's almost like Gladwell is just a weird, unmarried old guy who prances about in split-leg shorts and doesn't know what he's talking about but has somehow built a career on generating "unconventional" takes ...
Agree. Malcolm is a successful writer and speaker. He gets paid to put his opinion out there. He is off the mark with his Centro/Willis comment but he does have some good points. He knows track and competition as he was an outstanding age group runner growing up in Toronto. He has talent at the sport.
Malcolm is a lightning rod for criticism but it may be largely due to the fact that he is in the public eye being asked "what do you think about this and what do you think about that?" all the time.
I like Centro. He won Olympic Gold and that's an incredible achievement. Nick is great too. They are in the same conversation and ballpark.
I looked up this Nick Willis guy up on WA and on his profile page under 'Honours' it lists four races all of which he lost.
Doping apologists out in force with their hate in this thread.
If it wasn't for the Tokyo delay to 2021, and the fact that in 2004 as a 21 yo he was up against literally dozens of full throttle EPO cheats, he would have reached 5 successive Olympic 1500m finals.
No, if I was such an apologist I'd have claimed Kiprop was better, or Lagat. I have no time for either. But I can't remember a single race that was exciting because of something Nick Willis did in it.
Doping apologists out in force with their hate in this thread.
If it wasn't for the Tokyo delay to 2021, and the fact that in 2004 as a 21 yo he was up against literally dozens of full throttle EPO cheats, he would have reached 5 successive Olympic 1500m finals.
No, if I was such an apologist I'd have claimed Kiprop was better, or Lagat. I have no time for either. But I can't remember a single race that was exciting because of something Nick Willis did in it.
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While I generally agree that Willis has often seemed to kick for a medal rather than for the win, at the 2016 World Indoors 1500 he took his shot. Interestingly, it worked out about the same as his typical strategy when it was all said and done.
Something that has been forgotten in this discussion: Gladwell does the voiceover for Tracksmith commercials and Willis now works for Tracksmith. They probably have met before, and Gladwell has some bias based off this interaction. It’s not wrong to have a favorite runner, but don’t down play the career of legend while he is down (Centro just had season-ending surgery). For what it’s worth I view Willis and Centro in the same tier for mid-distance runners of the past two decades.
they were both world class milers of similar abilities, I think Centrowitz came away with more hardware in his career and an Olympic title.
No idea why MG would try and suggest they are so different.
You know exactly what hardware that Centrowitz came away with.
Both have had solid careers but winning a gold medal on one day when the stars aligned for you doesn't make you better than Nick Willis and his long career.
They should both be mentioned in the same breathe.
It’s like Gladwell in that Salazar doc. Dude is such a homer for his favorite runners/teams. Which is fine as a fan, but let’s not pretend that he’s providing any objectively sound analysis in these cases.
MG's whole thing is that he "examines" some concept through an ultra-specific lens and purports the "results" as an observable truth. In this case, he's looking at some stat categories and ignoring others, in order to support his original opinion. Pretty stupid for a smart guy, right?
Nick has had a great career but he never even tried to win a major race, except commonwealth games after Mottrom fell. Nick always hung back timidly and picked up the scraps in the last lap. Centro tried to win races and was aggressive about it. The only conversation Centro ain’t in is the one about 1500m greats without Olympic 1500m gold, and that is an extensive list.