Daniel Do Nascimento Idiot or Baller?

Gary Fanelli revisited.

Steve Jones went out even faster at the half marathon mark in the 1985 Chicago Marathon and won in a near world record.

Baller. I was glued to the TV before his :18 poop break and was only rooting harder then. Saw the blowup like we all did from 26 miles away, but damn did he make that race worth a watch.

In an age where athletes over calculate and under perform, it was remarkably refreshing to watch a guy gnash his teeth and run it down people's throats (until he didn't).

Heart goes out to the guy; hope he's ok because you can guarentee people will tune in for him. Without his performance, this is a very, VERY, ho-hum marathon

Any reports on his condition? He must be ok or we would have heard. Bottom line, you can be both a baller and an idiot. That’s what we saw today. What he did was brave, glorious, memorable AND ill-advised, insane, nonsensical all at once. It’s essential that somebody interview him asap and find out what he was thinking would happen, and when he realized he bit off way more than he could chew and it was all going to sh-t.

Yea, I love people who go all in, but this guy seems very much a dude who's plan is to get as much coverage as possible. That pace on that day is someone trying to get airtime.

Seems like a bit of a drama queen.

Always puts on the theatrics once he realises the camera is on him.

He appeared to pull up fine, as though he was simply going to walk off the course, then hesitated and realised that he was on live television. He then proceeded to fling himself to the ground and lay face down as though he'd just been shot.

This. Certainly, this was a very poor strategy to win, but perhaps this wasn't the only reason he ran the way he did. The drama adds interest, gets he name out there for more than just the hard core runners, and makes him more marketable

It's an interesting proposition right? Baller or fool? I tend to side with the latter because ultimately the point of running a race is to finish and if you can't due to messing up things in control that aren't unknowns then you're kind of stupid.

Would David Rudisha have been a baller if took out the Olympic 800m final in 47.0 then exploded spectacularly with 200m to go and collapsed on the track? No.

Anyways what I really wanted to give kudos for was the Shawn Kemp reference. The BEST in-game dunker ever. Perfect time to to drop an NBA all-time top ten in a running thread...

It’s one thing to go out full gas, making a bold move for the win, and another to go out full gas faster than you’re capable of on that day day. That’s what DDN did, and it was a bad move.
People will say, “not a bad move, because he could have held it; he has a 2:04 PR.” Those people are wrong, given the conditions today, and DDN should have realized it.

Joan Benoit-Samuelson, did blow up in 1984.

Women's Olympic Marathon 1984. Hugh lead, over 75° at the finish. Humidity was ~50%, but winds were 7-9 mph the last hour (from Weather Underground).

did *NOT* blow up

Idiot.

We all know what we are capable of at a given time. We all know how heat affects us. There are no magical Hollywood movie endings in reality, where will, desire, heart, overcome our physical limits to that degree. There's no way anything in his training and race experience told him he could succeed at that pace, and therefore he's a complete idiot.

His race entertained us but had no chance to succeed. It was completely foolish.

Has someone really survived this? Would love to hear that story.

Not the first crash and burn for this guy. Hopefully he is alright…

Olympic marathon runner collapses at ‘suicidal’ pace

I actually like this description.

I think we are all in a way ultimately captivated by situations like this based on the concept of wishful thinking, where as you said, we hold out hope that their will be some magical moment where desire and heart overcome physical realities.

This today was a perfect example of that. Well said.

Given all the illegitimate children he fathered, there are probably a few here on LetsRun?

The only other event more improbable than this guy winning is Rojo breaking 4 hours in the marathon.