My guess is Karissa and Grant are out after this year. Who else ya got?
Highly doubt that Grant is out but could believe Karissa. They need to revamp the women's squad. They were thriving best when they had the larger group.
Coop is definitely out….. but could see karissa staying to train with Elise. She ran 30:18 in a world final last year so her training partners could be Elise or Alicia and Ritz won’t take another American 5k/10k girl.
It will be interesting to see if Jerry has to get more coaching help with either the BTC pro group or the U of O college teams. I understand the "synergy" idea to have BTC in Eugene while Jerry is the new U of O coach, but they both seem like full-time jobs.
exactly, but on the other hand: why is it working with Mike Smith? Location (altitude, situation where athletes sign up to compared to a coach that is available anymore)
Nonetheless, I think BTC didn't rejuvenate early enough. Bringing in Hicks won't do anything for US teams as he's a Brit (just like Ahmed runs for Canada). You see it happen in almost any teamsport where they stick with the old (winning) team (football, bb, soccer).
It is sad to see Nike's no 1 team in recent years crumble from a certain amount of US team qualifiers to hardly anyone in the distances. UAC, Nike's 2nd team/mid-distance squad got a few, but other teams/coaches got their fair pair of the US teams slots.
Would be nice to see if a comparison of the teams/traininggroups over the last few WC/OG teams, to see any shifts.
The assistant coach / additional help is an interesting piece of the puzzle. As it obviously used to be Jerry and Shalane full time focus on BTC + Pascal Dolbert. Now Jerry and Shalane seem to be trying to divide up their time as much as possible for all their athletes. Pascal also seems to be totally gone. Anyone know what happened to that guy?
The assistant coach / additional help is an interesting piece of the puzzle. As it obviously used to be Jerry and Shalane full time focus on BTC + Pascal Dolbert. Now Jerry and Shalane seem to be trying to divide up their time as much as possible for all their athletes. Pascal also seems to be totally gone. Anyone know what happened to that guy?
Careers are short. A fresh start might be good for both.
I don't think anyone is leaving. They have the best resources through Nike and are part of a group that regularly experiences success. Only the BTC could consider a 5k/10k US women's champ and a 5k/10k US men's qualifier a failure lol.
For Karissa, it just seemed like she didn't have enough time to return from her surgery. Fisher was pushing the envelope in training to reach the medal stand (which letsrun should honestly be excited he made the attempt). Who else ran considerably worse than planned? Cooper Teare insists that he's a 1500 runner and wanted to do the 1500/5000 double. This is something Jerry rarely would let an athlete do unless they were clearly among the best (Karissa). Cooper made his own bed because he could commit to one distance or the other. He'll be fine. Give him another year to adjust to the BTC system (it took Grant a couple years) and he'll be back near the top competing.
You guys can't blame Jerry for everything. Maybe these athletes need more self control in training. I think its possible Jerry needs to let certain guys like Teare race more (and i bet he will after missing this team), but athletes getting injured is also just the stress of being part of an elite team. You feel a lot of pressure and stop listening to your body.
Grass isn't always greener. GDS leaves and has spent the last 2 seasons more injured than she ever was at BTC. Let's just face it, running at the pro level is often living on a razors edge.
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