Both Men and Women, Hurdles or no hurdles, relay or open, why are we so good at the distance?
Both Men and Women, Hurdles or no hurdles, relay or open, why are we so good at the distance?
Because a lot of people run it. They might not be quite fast enough for the 100 and 200, but they can succeed here without having to put in the ungodly work needed for 800 meters on up. At least they think the work is ungodly.
Beijing 400m final results will be as follows.
1. Jeremy Wariner
2. Lashawn Merritt
3. Chris Brown (BAH)
4. Tyler Christopher (CAN)
The US will blow everyone in the relay.
Sanya will kill the field in the women's race.
The US will blow everyone in the women's relay (unless of course God intervenes.
Why is the US good?
I wish I knew.
What I do know is that JEremy Wariner will get back his usual gait after Beijing...........and cooler shades.
Americans are the best doped athletes in the world. End of story.
Well, the US is BY FAR the dominate nation in the sprints in general. The US is almost as good at the 200 as the 400. I think it's that a lot of the Jamaican guys etc. run the 100 so due to the relative lack of competition, the US seems a lot better in the 400. The 400 involves more hard work than the 100, so you have a ton of very talented sprinters in the US who step up to the 400 and do very well with solid coaching and hard work, whereas the Caribbean guys tend to stick to the 100 for whatever reason.
fight fire with fire wrote:
Americans are the best doped athletes in the world. End of story.
jealousy...tsk tsk.
Track is far from state sponsered in the U.S. You should start with the state controlled programs. As bad as Trevor Graham was, and he was a dirty SOB, there are dirtier programs and coaches, and a lot of it is run by the state, with national funding.
In the U.S we throw our track coaches in jail for that kinda stuff. Hard to say the U.S is the dirtiest. You might want to put the Eastern European countries, China, Morrocco ahead of the U.S before you go B/Sing around here.
At least act unbiased, then you might be believable.
You may want to insert Angela Taylor into the number 3 slot.
ergierg wrote:
You may want to insert Angela Taylor into the number 3 slot.
I'd probably give him fourth but it'll be a close call. I thin Chris Brown is having a roll currently. I respect Angela Taylor.
I know that a number of people felt that the American dominance in the event was certainly enhanced, in the first half of the last century, by the frequent running of the race on a "pothook" track.
That track had an opening 220y straightaway, one curve, and a finishing straight. No lanes--just line 'em up and fire the gun. If you didn't run the first half of the race in a time close to your best time for *just* the 220, your competitors would likely have better position around the curve. You'd have to slow your momentum and/or run extra distance, a huge handicap to winning.
As a result, a lot of American quarter-milers got used to running the first 220y FAST and worked on learning to extend that speed, i.e. they (properly) treated the race as a long sprint and not a short middle-distance race. Europeans were less likely to run pothook races and less likely to make such a commitment to the opening pace. (Less likely to "rig" in the homestraight, too; but also less likely to find the athletes who could "get out fast, pick it up in the middle, and kick it in.")
Plus, American guys ran a ton of dual meets (remember those?) in HS and college, and a dual ended with the mile relay, wherein (frequently) winning or losing the meet hung in the balance. So a team's top runners all had opportunities to run a quarter, whether open or relay; and, again, identifying top quarter-milers was a natural result.
Tradition, then, was a big part of it. But (as someone pointed out above), the fact that there were so many great 100y men in the US was certainly a motivation for some dashmen to give the longer sprints a try.
Angelo Taylor didn't make the team in the 400, he's running the hurdles. Angela Taylor didn't make it either.
if you want to build a good HS track team you focus on the 400. Your 400 runners can move down to the 200 up to the 800 maybe hurdle and run all the relays. Every kid in the northeast wants to run the 4x400 at the Penn Relays. We have an incredible talent pool here. Many good coaches have told me that the 4x100 is a crapshoot, that anything can happen and unless you have "real" sprinters they move them up to the 400.
Cerutty came to this country 45 years ago and told us we were too lazy to be distance runners and he was probably right.
so so so wrote:
jealousy...tsk tsk.
Track is far from state sponsered in the U.S. You should start with the state controlled programs. As bad as Trevor Graham was, and he was a dirty SOB, there are dirtier programs and coaches, and a lot of it is run by the state, with national funding.
The state controlled programmes are bad, but the Americans are ruled by the large clothing companies. You think Nike put a lot of money into anti-doping?
The USA is the dirtiest nation the World.
On any HS or College level team in the USA everyone is in the 4x400 pool.
but Nike supports athletes from all over the world...
dur dur dur...
dur dur dur.