They all have studs in each group, but which is really the best? The quote of the day says Mammoth, but when you go to almost any meet these days, you see the OTC uni's on the podium, but then the project has Kara Goucher, Galen Rupp, Ritz, and now Webb... so who's the best?
Mammoth is way better.
OTC is Nike. It has 3 different coaches. One working in Eugene and 2 others in Portland. It is not a group. It is a company. How often does Ryan Bak train with Ritz or Teg? OTC is all Nike sponsored athletes that are living in the US.
From what I understand Bak now lives in St. Louis, so I would guess he never trains with Ritz or Teg
Too bad Mam/OTC/NOP came up short in Beijing and in Berlin.
Unlike World Class Elite and Hudson Smith Inc both in L.A.
10 the 32 USA T&F medals brought home from Berlin were by athletes listed by USATF as residing in Los Angeles County proper.
Yeah, but those are sprinting and field medals, they don't count.
$$$$$$$$$ They count $$$$$$$$$$
You can be sure of that.
Nike Oregon Project is the best group because it has my Wisconsin buddies on the team- Solinsky, Tegenkamp, Simon Bairu, Evan Jagger, Stuart Eagon, Tim Nelson and Jonathon Riley. They are the best guys around
Too bad nice guys finish last. They accounted for 0 medals in Berlin. At this rate I wonder how much longer they'll be around.
If memory serves me correctly, the Mammoth group accounted for 0 medals in Berlin too.
Jason Rexing and his testicles. End of thread.
We know what the 0 in OTC means, 0 coins from 2009 Berlin.
By "best" I don't take that to mean "the fastest."
There are runners whom I admire on all 3 of these groups, especially Mr. Solinsky and Mr. Asmeron in the OTC.
The "best" group I think is still the Hansons. They might not win a lot of Championships, but they take good, deserving runners, work together for a common purpose and improve a lot.
Jason
someone kind of explained it above but i never got the difference between OTC and the Oregon Nike Project, can someone give an in depth explanation of the set ups of both of these groups
If I'm correct, Nike 'send' their some of their athletes to OTC (Distance Project athletes like Kara Goucher, the Schumacher boys). I don't know what will happen with Rupp and Ritz. Probably they'll wear an OTC jersey soon.
Next to that is the OTC elite group with athletes like Will Leer, Russel Brown, Lauren Fleshman in it (www.otcelite.com). They do have a separate website that don't include any of the big Nike stars like Goucher of Teg.
I think at the moment the Sal/Schumacher group is the best. They were pretty dominant at USA's and got some outstanding performances during trackseason.
Mammoth athletes didn't perform that thrilling (yet) this season.
Btw, does anyone (Brojos maybe) know what happened to severall athletes on the Mammoth TC roster? According to their website
http://www.mammothtrackclub.com/
Olympian Ian Dobson and the Slattery-family aren't training in the Cali-mountaintown anymore and Alistair Cragg has moved to join Terence Mahon's group.
Pure Bred Distance wrote:
Yeah, but those are sprinting and field medals, they don't count.
Well then that means the US won a grand total of 1 bronze medal. And that was by disqualification.
The Illuminati, hands down. They have the best people and resources.
WCE and HSI are the two greatest clubs with the most Olympic and IAAF Champ medals in the history of track and field. They train less than three miles apart from each other at UCLA and WLAC
There are a few difference between OTC and Nike Oregon Project. First of all, technically, there is no more Oregon Project, it is all called Oregon Track Club. But, the original Oregon Track Club Elite is based out of Eugene, Nick Symmonds, Will Leer, Russel Brown, and others, those guys are for the most part a "b" team of Nike athletes (minus symmonds of course). They are all very good, but it's an environment for guys who probably would not have contracts without the group. The Eugene group is also mostly middle distance focused, there are some 5k 10k steeple guys, but it's 800 heavy.
The Portland group is coached by either Salazar or Schumaker, These guys are either transfers from the Wisconsin group (Teg Solinsky, Jager), Salazar Athletes (Rupp, Gouchers, Ritz), or Nike athletes that are high profile and were under performing so were forced to move to Salazar or lose the contract (Webb, maybe Ritz).
There are Nike athletes living in the states that don't run with either of these Groups, World Champs Qualifier Kyle Alcorn comes to mind first, who knows how long this will be the case.
To answer the original question, at least this year, the Portland group is by far teh best at least this year. They swept the Mens 10k, the Mens 5k, and had Begely and Goucher on the Women's side.
There are Nike athletes living in the states that don't run with either of these Groups, World Champs Qualifier Kyle Alcorn comes to mind first, who knows how long this will be the case.
Another is Brent Vaughn. What's going on with him lately. Is he still in Boulder? He seemed to have mixed success this year, not so hot at USA's, but some decent meets in Europe.
none of them are the best, Lagat got more medals by him self at the WC'c than any of them put together so his group is the best in the nation even if its just him. Maybe they should look at what he is doing. And if you're just going to say he has all the talent then you might as well give up any way and stop comparing one mediocre distance program to another because you don't really believe a native born American can do it.