Ryan Wilson----fastest ever to just walk away?

How about Daniel Komen?

wefweefwfe wrote:

Fear of dragons. It must have been tough for El G and Holmes.

iill give you one guess wrote:

ill give you one guess for the reasons behind both these sudden retirements.

the word starts with 'dr' and ends in 'gs.'

Do us all a favor and stfu

oh, that's great...another person who blindly and naively thinks that there is no waaaay his hero el g would ever take drugs...better learn sooner than later that things are not always what they seem....especially with the moroccans...

Again to Carthage didn't make it out your way yet?

fish had major problems with one of his big toes. the knuckle shaved down, but still wasnt nearly 100% healthy after '92. he would soak the foot before every run to loosen it up...

zevon wrote:

He didn't just walk away any more than John Trautmann.

800 dude wrote:

There was this miler from Florida who took the silver in Montreal. Just kind of disappeared after that.

Psh, just because he didn't run in the Olympics, not sure I wouldn't consider qualifying for the team "disappearing."

Nick Rogers: 13:18 (2000) and not much to notice after that.

Judging from the names being thrown around here, it seems like anyone who retires qualifies as "walking away from it." Most of the people mentioned either had solid careers before retiring, or got chronic injuries that they weren't able to shake and eventually retired. That's certainly the case for people like Ryan Wilson, Trautman, Falcon, and so on. If those guys could have stayed healthy, they would have kept running.

As someone else pointed out, most of the people who "walked away" at a point when they probably could have continued getting faster came in the pre-professional days. Elliot and Bannister are two obvious examples of guys who retired while young and healthy, though they're certainly not the only ones.

As for Bohica's list of Arkansas names, maybe I didn't understand its purpose. Some of the names on that list had exceptionally successful post-collegiate careers, including WC finals and Olympic teams.

Don Sage, 3:39 1500m

I still haven't heard what his story was as far as why he was no longer in the running scene. I know he ran a cross race this past fall and seemed to run it pretty well. Does that mean anything as far as him getting back into competitive running?

Sage up and moved to Oregon on a whim...

I hear it was to woo a girl.

The ladies love fast guys.

TOP THIS.....if you can.

The enigma that is Johanna Nilsson (Northern Arizona University & Sweden). Multi NCAA champ in x-c and track and European x-c champion; literally walked away after her junior year...no injuries, no nothing...simply sick of running/the sport. Could have easily been a sucessful pro runner - at least the level of Kim Smith (NZ).

At least Daniel Komen attempted to keep racing after his best years were behind him.

I have a fall-back candidate.

Marilyn Neufville (Jamaica) the fantastically talented London schoolgirl who won 1970 Commonwealth Games in world record time at age 17. Never raced again.

You can see her race on a Youtube thread floating around here recently (the last 2 or 3 pages) of this message board.

Do we have a winner?

Flo-Jo, but then she was probably dirty and cut a deal to keep her medals if she would go away.

thurstin howell, III wrote:

oh, that's great...another person who blindly and naively thinks that there is no waaaay his hero el g would ever take drugs...better learn sooner than later that things are not always what they seem....especially with the moroccans...

watch it bro.. you are on shaky ground

{freakin' hypocrite}