This meet was once one of the top Collegiate Meets in the country. Now there are no top 10 teams in the Country that even show up.
Why? What happened?
This meet was once one of the top Collegiate Meets in the country. Now there are no top 10 teams in the Country that even show up.
Why? What happened?
It happens - meets flow and ebb in size. Paul Short used to just be a tiny meet that teams from PA and NY went to.
Florida, Florida State, Stanford, Princeton, and Oregon all used to host sizeable meets too.
UVA's meet was just a handful of teams for years, etc.
This post was removed.
Amazing! You ran at Griak before you were conceived?
Minnesota is selling the Bolstad Golf Course where the Griak meet is run. This is probably the final edition unless the Gophers can find another venue.
It's a difficult course and xc is not about difficult courses anymore
A few things contributed to Griak's decline: first, more competitive meets hosted by Wisconsin and Oregon around the same time of year. Second, declining strength of midwestern teams and increasing importance of racing against the top teams nationally. Third, decreasing emphasis by the host institution (University of Minnesota) on XC and track. It's worth noting that not only are the DI races weaker, the DII and DIII races are too.
Xc is soft wrote:
It's a difficult course and xc is not about difficult courses anymore
It is also 150-200m long
regional competition wrote:
A few things contributed to Griak's decline: first, more competitive meets hosted by Wisconsin and Oregon around the same time of year. Second, declining strength of midwestern teams and increasing importance of racing against the top teams nationally. Third, decreasing emphasis by the host institution (University of Minnesota) on XC and track. It's worth noting that not only are the DI races weaker, the DII and DIII races are too.
Add in that for D1 they only now need 5 meets to 'complete' a season.
1 is a home opener, 5 is conference, and 4 often Pre-nats.
That leaves only 2 meets per team that matter.
The top teams choose to go to races held on national champ courses like UVA, Missouri, Wisco, Oklahoma St.
So races like Griak just become less attended and less important.
I would think Minnesota would have no problem finding a new venue...it's Minesota and everywhere you look is a perfect xc course. Also the high school meet still important.