Who is more talented? German Fernandez or Dathan Ritzenhein?

Pure talent? German.

I think German has more speed. In that way he's more talented. But as 5k and 10k runners, I think Ritz wins.

German for sure. 3:55 is better than anything Ritz did up until this point in his career.

Ummm... ever heard of Jordan Hasay?

She isn't as talented as either of them.

She sure is. Talk about a REAL age group phenom.

German is the obvious answer because he did not do anything close to 90mpw in hs, unlike Ritz, and German started running much later and didn't even do hard speed training (coach said he did not run faster than 30 s 200s in hs), but still ran a lot faster at 2M and 1M, before running faster by far as a freshman in the mile than Ritz has ever run, running a few seconds faster in the 5k, despite being a year younger and having his training interrupted several times the same year by injuries. In other words, German does far less, starts later, and still outperforms Ritz in everything other than xc. What Ritz has is a work ethic and an incredible competitive attitude. Neither one has the talent of good health.

Ritz!!! His 2003 XC win is mind boggling... 14 months prior to that win he had 3 stress fractures and didn't run a single mile that entire summer until late August where he was doing 10-20 minute jogs. He had about a month of training in before and managed to pull of the win. His pain tolerance is unbelievable!! In that same race he basically went into a Coma after finishing..

The point is if Dathan didn't just run 12:56 and 60 mins we wouldn't even be having this discussion, so German would win the argument; just lately Dathan's talent has been showing..

[quote]coach bigfoot wrote:

I pick Dathan. He is older and we can see his potential coming through now. Time will tell if I'm right.

Dathan:

-13:27 as frosh at stanford

quote]

Dat went to CU

DatGerm is good wrote:

[quote]coach bigfoot wrote:

I pick Dathan. He is older and we can see his potential coming through now. Time will tell if I'm right.

Dathan:

-13:27 as frosh at stanford

quote]

Dat went to CU

....I know, and he ran 1327 at stanford(or was it mt sac?)

jjjjjjjjjjjj wrote:

German is the obvious answer because he did not do anything close to 90mpw in hs, unlike Ritz, and German started running much later and didn't even do hard speed training (coach said he did not run faster than 30 s 200s in hs), but still ran a lot faster at 2M and 1M, before running faster by far as a freshman in the mile than Ritz has ever run, running a few seconds faster in the 5k, despite being a year younger and having his training interrupted several times the same year by injuries. In other words, German does far less, starts later, and still outperforms Ritz in everything other than xc. What Ritz has is a work ethic and an incredible competitive attitude. Neither one has the talent of good health.

50% of this information is wrong. Dathan and German ran 1327 and 1325, only German did it the summer going into sophomore year and Dathan did it during the season (sooner).

And just because German ran no faster than 30 second 200s doesn't mean he didn't run 2:00 800s.

bagel time wrote:

50% of this information is wrong. Dathan and German ran 1327 and 1325, only German did it the summer going into sophomore year and Dathan did it during the season (sooner).

"Sooner" is actually a subjective word here.

Ritz's 13:27 was May 3, 2002. He was about 19 years, 4 months at the time. He was a freshman. By some accounts he had several years of heavy training volume under him already.

German's 13:25 was June 26, 2009. He was about 18 years, 8 months at the time. He was also a freshman. By some accounts his training had been sporadic and of a lower volume than Ritz.

So yes, Ritz's time was earlier in his freshman year by almost 8 weeks. However, German was younger in real years, and possibly in "training years". So who was sooner? Depends on your definition.

It's hard to compare XC performances. I think the measure of this has to be track times, that's the only way to objectively compare them.

German ran faster at 2 miles in high school. Freshman year he ran faster 3k indoors and a faster 5k outdoors. His mile and 1500 pr's are already faster than Ritz's lifetime marks. So I think it's fair to say German is the more talented middle distance runner up to 3k.

As for 5k and above, the only evidence we have is the one 5k where their times were 2 seconds apart. That's not enough evidence to making a sweeping statement over 4 distances (5k-10k-half-marathon). The verdict is still out about their distance talent.

coach bigfoot wrote:

I pick Dathan. He is older and we can see his potential coming through now. Time will tell if I'm right.

Dathan:

-WC bronze

-2x footlocker champ (8th as a sophomore)

-multiple two mile national champ

-13:44.7 (missing Lindgren's school record by about .7)

-NCAA XC champ off limited training over Craig and Hall.

-13:27 as frosh at stanford

-27:38 as redshirt sophomore (someone correct me if I'm wrong)

German:

-3rd at footlocker

-2 mile hs record

-3:57 off limited training (season opener)

-3:55, 7:47

-13:25 as frosh during summer

I'm sick of thinking of stuff, but feel free to add more.

and you people call me a troll?

literalist wrote:

It's hard to compare XC performances. I think the measure of this has to be track times, that's the only way to objectively compare them.

I don't think German could have beaten the field that Dathan beat anyway...both years. In those two years he beat Ian Dobson, Alan Webb, Teg, Ryan Hall, Solinsky(who was young, but I'm just listing names now).

Dathan > German

It doesnt matter who he beat back then, it means nothing. Tim moore rocked solinsky and rupp, where is he now? (not knocking moore, he had a solid college career.)

hhtams wrote:

literalist wrote:

It's hard to compare XC performances. I think the measure of this has to be track times, that's the only way to objectively compare them.

I don't think German could have beaten the field that Dathan beat anyway...both years. In those two years he beat Ian Dobson, Alan Webb, Teg, Ryan Hall, Solinsky(who was young, but I'm just listing names now).

Dathan > German

bagel time wrote:

50% of this information is wrong. Dathan and German ran 1327 and 1325, only German did it the summer going into sophomore year and Dathan did it during the season (sooner).

And just because German ran no faster than 30 second 200s doesn't mean he didn't run 2:00 800s.

German was over a year younger when he ran 13:25 than when Ritz ran 13:27. If they had raced on the same day, a 19-year old Ritz would have gotten beat by an 18-yr old kid.

Different forms of talent. Fernandez has more speed but can't do the kind of training that Ritz can in order to excel in xc and longer distances.