Stefano Baldini and the Italians

euro. epo.

Then who do you think shoud win without being accused of EPO use?

I believe he is one the top runners in Europe this year. And I think he won the Eruopean 1/2Marathon too. Most importantly, he lost to Gezahgne Abera of Ethiopia at the London marathon although both had the same time(2:07:56). He is one the most talented runners in Europe at this time. I am glad finally he won a medal.

In fact Baldini also got Bronze in 2001 and was European champion in 1998. A great runner.

He's generally a good big race guy, as London proved. But at NYC in the fall, he never really even got into the mix.

I had no idea who the other italians but Stephano Baldini has been consistent.. and i was hoping for him to win the gold..

I am happy that Morocco is back on top... they had slipped a little. and only have El G as a real threat

Well the results are in from the mens marathon and quite honestly no surprises. Good effort by Kevin Collins. Sort of expected he would be the top finisher as his confidence in his training and ability has been soaring since the trials race in February. Appears he kept a low key approach, kept everything in perspective and had a good race.

As for Baldini and the italian team, and we might as well figure in the other medal winners and top performers, say what you will about EPO, drugs etc and that being the only reason why they run well. Perhaps they just know how to peak propoerly when it comes down to showing their cards in the big championship races. Perhaps the U.S. should really take a look at how good we really are not instead of how well 214 guys appear to be. Culpepper has a 209 to his credit, but so does David Morris and AC is probably at least 1:15 quicker over a 10k than David. AC should be a 207 guy at least, as is Baldini. Hell, Benji Durden and Ron Tabb ran 209 and they were waaaayyyy slower than Culpepper, Brown, etc.

Maybe the US should hire a national marathon team/distance coach, from say japan or some other distacne running successful country whose athletes and culture are simular to the U.S. Forget kenya or ethiopia, or tanzania.

For those of you who think the top performers are on something....if you make that much money, you probably can afford to have a pharmacist/toxicologist on staff to stay on step ahead of the testing.

I haven't heard much about Morris lately. When he broke through at Chicago 4 or so year ago I recall he was training with a corporate team in Japan.

At some point he decided he wasn't happy with the training program and came back to the states. I think it was the following year when he came back to run Chicago and didn't do as well as he did the previous year.

Do you recall what were the issues he had with the Japanese corporate team? I honestly do not know what the issue was, so this is why I ask.

He did pretty well under that program and the Japanese do seem to be very competitive in the marathon.

Any info would be appreciated.

It was Culpepper's first marathon, though. You can expect a significant imrpovement from your first to second.

we'll see..unless he decides to run Chicago he will not run faster than his debut 209 until he decides to focus on the marathon and mix it up in a race like London, Fukuoka or Lake Biwa and the like. Chicago is a time trial course although the field is strong for the top ten or so places. I'll say he runs the trials winning time will be in the 214 range again, with no medal contenders in Athens, unless Meb decides he and AC (assuming they make the marathon team)will go for broke to medal and be in the lead pack at 30k or so when the break is made.

To get back to the Italians!

Baldini is without doubt of teh best marathon runners round and he rarely disappoints. His commitment to championship racing is matched only by his Italian team mates and also the Spanish/Portuguese guys.

Can a US marathoner ever show such commitment? - possibly but the Italians and Spanish have incentives. They are more or less full time employed by the federations and as such as obliged to run these champs.

As for training, I'm not too sure but I'm told he has the same coach as Bordin had. Someone recently posted a great link to Bordins training.

Baldini is a great tactician and certainly an advocate of even paced running. I watched the London Martahon in 2002 when the pacers went through half in about 62.5. At 5 miles Baldini was by himself about 200m behind the pack just biding his time. He finished strongly and managed 5-6th.

wannabekila wrote:

Baldini is a great tactician and certainly an advocate of even paced running. I watched the London Martahon in 2002 when the pacers went through half in about 62.5. At 5 miles Baldini was by himself about 200m behind the pack just biding his time. He finished strongly and managed 5-6th.

Since someone brought Alan Culpepper up, isn't that exactly what he did at Chicago?

Italians Caimmi and DeCecco have been bumping round the 5th-10th slots in big European races for a while.

as for ther USOT,

"Mizuno Runbird" wrote: "I'll say he runs the trials winning time will be in the 214 range again..."

Was just thinkign out loud abt this with a couple of guys the other day. There's the Khannouchi factor to practically guarantee that it'll be faster than that

I speculated (with no foundation) that he might go right to the front and run 2:11:30 pace perhaps even to the finish, as:

(a) a favor to the guys needing an "A" mark -- because barring serious injury he could win the thing at any pace and might want to just help some fellas out of kindness w/o risking the win, and

(b) a way to mark his territory -- to let people know that he can cruise at a pace that the rest have to fight to keep.

And that if anyone was still close at 23-24mi, Khannouchi could just skate away like he does against much mroe accomplished runenrs.

Anybody have his training ?

If Baldini can win London it would be pretty incredible.

I have read something about Baldinis training. It is not very conventional marathon training. He says, he don´t like LSD runs and therefore doesn´t do any. He does a lot of his training on the track or running hills. He doesn´t log alot of miles, but seldom runs slower 6min/mi. His longest runs are about 90min, but as I said he runs usually very fast.

Check out the article by Renalto Canova on Mensracing.com. He talks about Baldini's training and going over three hours on his long run for the first time in his career.

prediction for London?