An 18 year old running wire to wire sub 1:45 indoors is super impressive. Symmonds ran great in the semis but he is a) focused on outdoors b) not a sub 1:46 guy indoors yet.
There is nothing to be ashamed about being top 6 in the world. Especially in the 800.
Excellent race by everyone in the field. Everyone deserve some praise.
maybe I'm seeing things, but does anyone else think Kaki looks and runs similar to Kipketer?
The 18 yr old ran the fastest time ever by a teenager indoors and jumped into the all-time top 10 indoors- so it's NOT a surprise that noone was able to defeat him. His focused is now the outdoor WJR in which he will have to run sub 1:43.7. Anyone doubt he will do it?
Nick ran a very good race and hopeful his preparation for the main goal the Olympic will yield a higher finish in the Olympic 800m final!
I think it is disappointing on the whole to see American athletes develop over years, and we take a personal interest and third-person stake in the process, as solid American track fans, and then come Worlds or Olympics, 18 year old Sudanese, Kenyans, or Bahranians via Kenya step up and win medals, as if it's a state high school meet, no big deal.
Can you imagine if we had athlete after athlete, year after year, major international competition after major international competition, who could just show up, sight unseen by the general viewing audience, and win medals?
Congrats to Nick Symmonds for a personal best, but anyone else see the essential futility of this general effort? How do we change this, or can we?
How to change this?
Abolish school buses, pesticides, Xboxes, Gameboys, myspace, facebook, McDonalds, laptops, and the NFL & the NBA.
Just like Americans can't stem the Chinese and the Indians from buying more cars (and ultimately raising overall fuel prices) or having American jobs being outsourced, neither can we stop East Africans from rising to the top. Recently, we have started to see a scary trend: Other East Africans getting into the mix besides Ethio or Kenya(Sudan, Eritrea, Uganda,Middle East (transplanted Kenyans)). Those 3rd,4th,5th ranked guys jump ship to other countries, thereby further deepening the championship field (with more talented East African-born runners). What do you get when this happens? A slow phasing-out of non-africans (and ultimately a decline in popularity of the sport) and all-african medal stands.
Ironically, a lot of these East Africans runners are sponsored/funded by American companies. This is the proverbial "globaziation" of running. This is not the same Caucasian sport your grandpa grew up watching.
Become a sprint fan
terps wrote:
I think it is disappointing on the whole to see American athletes develop over years, and we take a personal interest and third-person stake in the process, as solid American track fans, and then come Worlds or Olympics, 18 year old Sudanese, Kenyans, or Bahranians via Kenya step up and win medals, as if it's a state high school meet, no big deal.
Can you imagine if we had athlete after athlete, year after year, major international competition after major international competition, who could just show up, sight unseen by the general viewing audience, and win medals?
Congrats to Nick Symmonds for a personal best, but anyone else see the essential futility of this general effort? How do we change this, or can we?
Personally, I think most American high school coaches, and, taken one step further, college coaches, look to the short sighted local idiotic events, dual meets against your "rivals," as some type of stepping stone to American distance running manhood, when really they have been setting the athletes back, and in the way of development, for many years. Same thing in soccer, incredible number of participants, nobody looking at the big development picture, coaches just trying to win their local conference, region or state.
So it's really ex-runners with a warped localized competitive ego creating more American nobodies, year after year, decade after decade, as they collect that extra 3-5 grand on top of their teaching salaries. Every once in a while, as in soccer, somebody suceeds despite the high school coaching.
Lopez Lomong, and now this Abubaker Kaki teenager...here come the Sudanese. watch out Kenya, Ethiopia, and Moracco.
you are an idiot
hopeandchange wrote:
How to change this?
Abolish school buses, pesticides, Xboxes, Gameboys, myspace, facebook, McDonalds, laptops, and the NFL & the NBA.
terps wrote:
Personally, I think most American high school coaches, and, taken one step further, college coaches, look to the short sighted local idiotic events, dual meets against your "rivals," as some type of stepping stone to American distance running manhood, when really they have been setting the athletes back, and in the way of development, for many years. ...
So it's really ex-runners with a warped localized competitive ego creating more American nobodies, year after year, decade after decade, as they collect that extra 3-5 grand on top of their teaching salaries. Every once in a while, as in soccer, somebody suceeds despite the high school coaching.
Here we go again. So....., the story goes, if we just changed the system, the freaking system man, and had our kids growing up in an ideal running environment like East Africa has (ya know, with the AIDS and malaria and other diseases, the extreme poverty, the famines, the wars, the strife, and the terrible government, etc, etc), then we too would be producing 18 y.o.'s that run 1:44 indoors and win world champs, and runners like geb and bekele who run 26:17-22 for 10k, and we would be dominating world cross every year, and have women like Defar who can finish distance races nearly as fast a them men, etc, etc. Yup. Talent has NOOOOOOTHING to do with it. It's the system and our environment that are to blame. Talent Schmalent.
I know most Sudanese in the states don't know what their age is because many times they are displaced from their families because of war. I would assume there are similar situations with people still in Sudan. I don't know this guy's story, but it would be interesting to find out. Obviously, even if he were 24 this is still an incredible accomplishment.
The USA is still the premier track and field power and the number of events that Africans dominate considerably are really only 5K, 10K, Steeple for men and 5k and 10K for women. There are comparable 800m and 1500m guys outside of Africa and the top 800m and 1500m and steeple women are Russians as well as Africans , so please let us keep cool.
Americans dominate 100,200,400 and 400 hurdles and never lose the 4x400 relay and the USA women do rather well in atleast 4 events. So whats the big deal.
The globals are 47 events and I have not seen too many African field eventers.
We do not know that this kid is actually 18. He's young, but I'd be willing to be that he is not 18. Regardless of that, he is still world champ which is impressive.....but, before everyone annoints this guy the next wilson kipketer, lets remember that we have seen this before. Japheth Kimutai anyone? Where the hell is he? He burnt real fast.....I'm not trying to downplay what Kaki did. He's a hell of a talent. I'm just saying that lets see what happens next and in the next few years. Kipketer was a model for consistency.
Africans Have much more natural talent when it comes to running form and technique. American runners lack that natural flowing motion. I don't know about you but whenever i see an African runner run next to an American I am just amazed at how the African makes it look so much easier.
wysdsd wrote:
What do you get when this happens? A slow phasing-out of non-africans (and ultimately a decline in popularity of the sport) and all-african medal stands.
Ironically, a lot of these East Africans runners are sponsored/funded by American companies. This is the proverbial "globaziation" of running. This is not the same Caucasian sport your grandpa grew up watching.
I would bet that this is actually less true than it was five years ago. I know that's a short period of time for studying a trend, but a lot of people here probably changed their perceptions based on one guy in one race. Think about how Hall, Tegenkamp, Webb, Baldini, Borzakovsky, and Mottram have made such a big splash. Just to focus on the men. Yeah distance running is African dominated, especially XC, the steeple, and the 10k, but I don't see that the phasing out has been continuing in the past few years. There's still some diversity. Around 2000-2003 I think Africans were more dominant than now.
Obviously different from my grandpa's era, when so much wasa different.
wanna know what else is awesome?
check out what he's got on his feet.... cross country spikes.
unless that's just a forever upper with a track plate, that is.... but it is a forever upper!
What a baller! I am stoked to se what this guy is going to do outdoors this year (he is younger than me!).
wibbles wrote:
Americans dominate 100,200,400 and 400 hurdles and never lose the 4x400 relay and the USA women do rather well in atleast 4 events. So whats the big deal.
And where the hell do you think those guys ancestors mostly all originate from?? AF-RI-CA.
wibbles wrote: The globals are 47 events and I have not seen too many African field eventers.
No shit sherlock. We are talking about middle distance/distance running. The East Africans dominate, end of story. Look how the Great White Dope, Mottram, did in his last 2 WC's (2007 outdoors and 2008 indoors): he got smoked. And in the sprints, runners whose ancestors are from West Africa dominate. Get it? West Africa + East African =
dominance and WR's in EVERY running event from 100-marathon (except the Chinese cat Xiang, or whatever his name is). There's no use trying to pretend otherwise. Yeah, now again you get a Wariner in the 400 (but not the 100 or 200), and now again you get a Mottram in the distance races. But that's about it (oh sure, Hall and Teg and Webb will have their good days, but they will never be on the same level as the very, very best from Africa). Facts are facts. Look up your men's WR's in running events and tell me how many were not either born in Africa or are several generations removed from Africa. I'll save you the time: 1.