Craig Virgin Comments: World Cross Country

NoSense wrote:

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$$$$$$ $$$$$$ Nice to see what motivates our runners, I used to think these guys dreamed of running for their country and wearing their nation's three proud lettered uniform.

Bottom line, we have the guys and if they don't step up they need to get out of the way. Their true, TRUE, colors should be RED, WHITE, & BLUE. Period.

Grow up. What are you, 14?

I don't know if you were intentionally replying to me, but yes, they very well may have. I certainly wasn't belittling the US CC team and never have. Running against the Kenyans and Ethiopians is quite a feat. They live for CC, train for CC, and have many disadvantages that they turn into advantages by sheer will power and determination. They are gifted, most started running at a young age and their bodies are used to it, hence less injuries with a base the size of Mount Rushmore and legs of steel.

Yes, some get injured, of course, but the majority seem to weather things that would sideline a US runner much too quickly.

As soon as Craig Virgin figures out what pyschos the Taylors are, he'll regret he got involved with them.

malmo wrote:

The only way those guys will ever go to world xc again is if you carry them to the airport in a gilded litter and put them up in a luxury spa with rose petal bathwater.

Or maybe they don't care about world XC because it's become irrelevant. That's great that it was a major event in the 70's and 80's, but it's not that way now.

Let's look at the ten fastest 3000, steeple, 5000, 10,000, HM, and Marathoners in the world in 2010. How many ran world XC in 2010 out of this group of 60 athletes? (OK, maybe it is more like 50 athletes due to some overlap...)

The answer - 4. Four out of the 50 fastest runners in the world bothered to show up for world XC. That tells you all you need to know.

xc is dead wrote:

Or maybe they don't care about world XC because it's become irrelevant. That's great that it was a major event in the 70's and 80's, but it's not that way now.

Let's look at the ten fastest 3000, steeple, 5000, 10,000, HM, and Marathoners in the world in 2010. How many ran world XC in 2010 out of this group of 60 athletes? (OK, maybe it is more like 50 athletes due to some overlap...)

The answer - 4. Four out of the 50 fastest runners in the world bothered to show up for world XC. That tells you all you need to know.

I think your metric is irrelevant. Why include the 3000, steeple, HM and marathon in your analysis. I wouldn't expect the top ten in each of those events to be at World Cross Country.

Why don't you do the same analysis with a relevant metric. Compare the top TWENTY in each the 5k and 10k. Do that with 2010, and not just one isolated year, do that for each of the last 10 years. I'll wait patiently for your report.

Why would the top 20 be even more relevant? The top ten is the cream of the crop, and the cream of the crop aren't doing it is the point, so berating US runners for not doing it seems a bit silly. I agree with "xc dead" - world xc champs is not what it used to be. Even if you don't want to do the stat analysis, the meet has had a hard time finding hosts recently, sponsors as well as it is dead hard even to get a broadcast of it. At one point the IAAF was considering moving it to every other year. Europeans care less about the meet compared to 20+ years ago as well. Ignoring these obvious signs is a bit ignorant. Bottom line is that an American win in a big marathon like Boston or NYC is going to do way more good publicity than a win at WXC. I can't imagine anyone debating that without feigning ignorance. This is just the reality of **2010**, 1980.

Wow some are pretty harsh here. Okay, probably won't beat Kenya, but people act like 50 Africans will place before all of the potential team.

Ritz-sub 13, 60 min half. Was he buried by the Africans in his 5k?

Teg-sub 13.

Solinski-sub 13, mixes it up just a couple seconds behind the top Africans in 5k

Rupp-Almost sub 13, should be sub 27.

Throw in Webb/Hall/Meb.

They don't need to all have career days to beat Uganda or South Africa.

malmo wrote:

I think your metric is irrelevant. Why include the 3000, steeple, HM and marathon in your analysis. I wouldn't expect the top ten in each of those events to be at World Cross Country.

Why don't you do the same analysis with a relevant metric. Compare the top TWENTY in each the 5k and 10k. Do that with 2010, and not just one isolated year, do that for each of the last 10 years. I'll wait patiently for your report.

I disagree that including 3k, steeplers, marathoners, and half marathoners is irrelevant, but for the sake of argument - OK. Let's just look at the 5k and 10k lists. I would like to do this right, and if the stats prove me wrong, so be it. I'm not about to dig up 10 years worth of data but let's see what happens with 2010.

When we go 20 deep on both lists, 5 people show up on both lists, so we're working with 35 individuals here. The first thing that jumps out at you on this combined list is how many are Kenyan - a full 22 out of 35. We've also got 1 Canadian, 1 Spaniard, 5 Ethiopians, 2 from Great Britain, 1 from Uganda, 3 from the United States. The fact that there are 22 Kenyans poses two problems:

(1) Since Kenya can only send 7 men to World XC, immediately that eliminates 15 guys right off the bat. That's 15 out 22 of the country's fastest runners who can't go to World XC simply because their country is too competitive. So my 4 out of 50 claim from before - highly influenced by this.

(2) The point of this analysis is whether the top guys run World XC any more. We could define the 1 Canadian, 1 Spaniard, 5 Ethiopians, 2 from Great Britain, 1 from Uganda, 3 from the United States as truly top guys (and they are - the Americans are Lagat, Solinsky, and Rupp for reference). But if we're looking 22 deep at the Kenyan list, I mean, is the # 22 guy a top Kenyan? Sure he's elite in the world, but honestly he's Kenyan D squad. We want to figure out how many countries' A and B guys are there. What to do?

So instead I've done this - for now let's ignore the Kenyans. We're trying to find the global trend anyway, we can take out one nation if it is giving us problems with the math. Let's go 20 deep in the 5k and 10k for all non-Kenyans and see how many of them did World XC. When we do this we get 32 individuals representing 13 nations.

And how many of them ran World XC? The answer is...14. Interestingly, the countries with more people on the list sent fewer people. Ethiopia had 7 people among the top 32 non-Kenyans, and they only sent 1 of those 7 to World XC. Japan had 6 people, they sent 0 of their top 6. USA had 5 people and sent 1 of them (Bobby Curtis). On the other hand, countries with 1 or 2 people on the list (ie, they don't have as many fast people in their country), tended to send those 1 or 2 people. Australia, Canada, Bahrain, Eritrea, Spain, Morocco, and Uganda all sent their 1 or 2 fastest guys. Qatar and Great Britain had 2 guys in the top 32 and send 1 each.

What does this all mean? Globally I think World XC is NOT dead. Seems like in most countries, if you have a very fast guy who will run fast on the track, he is going to run world XC. Funny that it's the countries with more fast people who don't seem to care as much. And of course there is Kenya - just in a category all its own.

That's what you said in 1990. And now the evidence is everywhere. Perhaps the field is now level and the game is on.

But the game needs to be played in a different field. Time for a change in field, or who cares?

I made a start on the analysis malmo suggested - pulled up the 2010 top lists for 5000m and 10,000m/10km road (I combined these because of the lack of top track races over the distance, and great road performances by Komon, Kitwara, and one or two others) and combined this to make a list of 37 individuals (the three on both lists were Komon, Menjo, and Solinsky - good company for an American).

24 of the 37 have run World Cross at some point in their careers - 65 percent. If you choose to consider the senior races only, and disregard individuals who have only run the junior race to date, the number drops from 24 to 17 of 37 - 46 percent.

Will revisit this tomorrow, look at top 5K/10K lists from years prior to 2010.

I have written about the USA's lack of particapation in world cross many times. I will not repeat any of that other than to say it is weird that our elite athletes would choose not that to do world cross when it is apparently the single most important thing to distance running community.

Why does WXC and a spring marathon have to be mutually exclusive.

Please tell why.

Regardless of how much overlap there is between participation in the world cross championships and inclusion on various yearly lists of top times on road or track, let's keep in mind that the East African nations (and the Middle Eastern countries that have recruited top East African runners) go to great lengths to get their best runners to the world cross championships. If a guy is good enough to make the world cross team for Kenya, he's a world class runner, even if he's never broken 29 minutes for 10,000 meters on a 400-meter track. Conversely, if a Kenyan is on a top-10 list for some event or another but has never participated in the world cross championships, there's a good chance that he just wasn't good enough to make the team.

the time to prepare and train

Sir Lance-alot wrote:

[quote]HolySh** wrote:

We have five guys who could arguably run 13:00 or faster, only a few other countries can sport that number.

Nope. Kenya and Ethiopia have five guys who can arguably run 13:00 or faster on world cross RACE DAY. US has five guys who at one point in their careers came close to an equivalent of 13:00 or faster, but not come this March. Big difference. Webb is NOT in sub 13:00 shape. Teg is NOT in sub 13:00 shape. Ritz is NOT in sub 13:00 shape. Rupp is NOT in sub 13:00 shape. Solinski and Lagat are the only one that might be close to Kenyan shape, and 2 people will not make a team.

You are basically composing a team of American performances, not of actual members. If you are to argue the validity of such an American team, then you have to compare them to a team of top African performances. That would mean team Ethiopia would be 26:40 Sahine, world champ Gebremarian, 26:20 Kenenisa, 12:50 younger Bekele + the other guy who was tearing it up in the 5000 last summer. Team Kenya would be made of seven 2:05 marathoners. Seven! And that would still not be Kenya's top performance team.

Kenya and Ethiopia on an average day are 1st and 2nd and the U.S. on a good day is 3rd.

If the U.S. can get a team of Rupp/Ritz/Hall/Meb/Teg/Solinski/Hall/(Lagat/Webbb?); basically the best we have and if these guys are ready to go and if Kenya and/or Ethiopia has a bad day...who knows what can happen.

I agree, but I'm not sure I agree with those who are so quick to put Hall on that list. If the race is the Half or full marathon, of course, and I know he won a USA XC and came in second at the NCAA XC, but those were many years ago. Has he shown anything since 2007 that would lead one to think he could run sub 27:45?

TrackCoach wrote:

Kenya and Ethiopia on an average day are 1st and 2nd and the U.S. on a good day is 3rd.

If the U.S. can get a team of Rupp/Ritz/Hall/Meb/Teg/Solinski/Hall/(Lagat/Webbb?); basically the best we have and if these guys are ready to go and if Kenya and/or Ethiopia has a bad day...who knows what can happen.

I don't know if anyone still cares, but:

Of the top 5K & 10K runners in 2010, 65 percent (24 of 37) have raced World Cross at some point in their careers - 46 percent (17 of 37) have raced as seniors.

Of the top 5K & 10K runners from 2006 through 2010, 70 percent (63 of 90) have raced World Cross at some point in their careers - 59 percent (53 of 90) have raced as seniors.

Can someone explain why there is all this talk about running a marathon? The lists on guys we want running only has 2 guys that have even ran a marathon and of those 2 only one is even a full time marithoner. In the end a fall marathon had jack and shit to do with why top guys don't run it.