"Kind of hurt my feelings"- Ritz questions Hoare's desire to compete and race.

Why would any athlete share their private conversations with their coach?
That is the definition of uncoachable.

lmao. Disagree about the 'gay' part, but agree that they do tend to drone on in a way that's hard to listen to sometimes.

I do not see Ollie and Ritz staying together a whole lot longer.

Doesn’t seem like he cares about being on the team anymore. Not a good look when trying to join other groups in the future though. Perfectly fine to disagree with your coach and have hard conversations, but I’d never want to coach someone that would air things out in public.

Olli just isn't great and things often come to this point when the 2nd tier athlete and their coaches realize they are done progressing, and blame needs to be placed somewhere. This is just god doing work. Olli has done quite a bit with what the good lord gave him. There will be another year or two or three of frustration, and then he will move on to the next phase of his life.

all this tells me is ritz was probably right to ask the questions

It could have been something like “hey let’s not race if you aren’t fully confident, you don’t seem hungry and confident. If we are throwing you into a world record race you better be locked the f$€k in brah.”

seems fair to ask an athlete.

Ritz is insane competitive. The story of his career was basically his body not being able to keep up with this work ethic.

Ritz seems to get great results from his guys in their first couple of seasons with OAC but there's definitely been a drop off for guys who have been there since the start like Klecker and Olli. Whether that's because of injuries or overtraining or something else is hard to say.

would have to assume he expects the same from his athletes... I wouldn't write Ollie off just yet.. he's not that far removed for 3:29 1500m but if he's no longer hungry moving up to 5000m isn't going to work for him

Ollie should go home and access the Aussie super blast boosting power of the southern hemisphere that has propelled Jess Hull to near world beater status. Once he left the soy heavy boulder softies and started driving a proper Ute on the Gold Coast there will be an inverse relationship between his T levels and times.

If so that's ok. Everything doesn't work out for everyone. Pros leave groups come and go. Look at what this did for fisher, hull etc

Where would he even go? He’s signed with On long-term and they don’t have multiple US coaching bases like Nike. Can’t imagine he’d be willing to join either the European or AUS OAC teams either.

Outside of the mega mega stars this is kind of how a pro career goes. Very limited window to bang the drum.

You might only get one Olympic cycle at the top. This sport is REALLY unforgiving

Ollie was the guy to beat a few years ago?

had an injury that knocked him out then this new wave of guys took over? Nuguse, Kerr, Hocker, Kessler

has to be discouraging for him how it’s unfolded

He is 28, by 1500 standards that’s old. Not many dudes are competitive at that age.

He was in Kerr's wave, he was beating Kerr. In 2022, Hoare was arguably the second best guy on the circuit even though he screwed the pooch at the World Champs. Maybe Kerr has a better coach who knows how to get him in peak shape at the right time?

I also find Ritz's comments off base considering Hoare raced for the win at NBIGP just a week ago. He came up short but he was pushing and in with a shot up to the last 100. That's just a matter of fitness, not an unwillingness to compete. A miler running a poor 3k shouldn't be a matter for an existential crisis for the coach.

My guy needs a sports psychologist or just the right person in his. Going through a predictably difficult patch. There's a way to manage this to get the best outcome for his body + career, regardless of whether that's a medal contender or something in a tier below. He might not quite have the talent to keep up with the group hitting insane times at the top of the sport. Doesn't mean he can't still be a high level pro and get the most out of himself, but that's not something everyone can motivate themselves to do. Gotta figure out what he really wants and come up with a plan to get that.