Great article on Adrian Royle (albeit 30 years late)

Thanks. Good article.

Good reading... thanks!

great articles!

The recent article says:

"My first big win was in the National Junior Cross Country Championships. I won it by a country mile."

This was really the National Junior COLLEGE Championship.

and "But after the World Cross win, I concentrated on 5,000m and 10,000m running."

I guess he means National?

But he makes the mistake again ...

He said: "I did some track races which I rank alongside the World Cross triumph."

I KNOW that he is not trying to be disingenuous, I just don't know how he can keep saying it? Everybody calls WCCC "World Cross" and clearly he wouldn't mix those two races up.

If his time table is accurate (returning to the UK in 1983 after being ill 18 months), then he must have gotten sick just after when he ran 27:47 for 3rd in the Rono-Salazar battle in April over 10k.

I think that Nenow had his big break at MtSAC in '81 (27:36), so the 27:55 he talks about must be '82? But he talks about missing the Worlds team so maybe that was '83? I had a sub for SI back then and remember the article. What I find funny about it then and now is the focus on Salazar. I guess they had to considering that he was an American WR-holder and just five weeks before.

What I find most funny is that Ron Tabb is referred to as "an Adidas rep." Jeez, Tabb was fourth at the '80 Trials and had run a string of other 2:11-2:14 marathons by that point. His fastest was yet to come, and he ran in the '83 WC (2:13) and ran 2:09 at Boston.

A bit of Johnny Lydon in that one.

Nice catch Joe.

Great read.

Too bad they didn't have a higher res shot from Burbank.

D

Yeah, those were all shot on 35mm slide film. Conditions were quite overcast that day at the TAC meet. My shots from the women's race were nearly worthless.

I had forgotten that he had run such a fast 10,000m at Mt. SAC.

Royle has some insights regarding the decline of UK distance running. If some of the younger runners can head this, could there be a resurgence of British distance running as we starting to experience here in the US?

_________________________________________

"Royle is uncompromising when talking about today's standards and their root cause.

The former Grimsby schoolboy lashed out at today's school system – one he believes rewards underachievers and holds back true talent.

He blasted: "People in general are lazy now.

"Standards have dropped to a point where what is good now would have been met with 'pull your finger out' 30 years ago.

"Things are rigged at school so that no-one looks bad. You are not allowed to be elite. You have to be average so nobody is seen to be bad.

"Talented youngsters now have to break through all the mediocrity.

"Runners don't have the background as kids as we used to have as schoolboys. Parents drive their children to school now.

"I used to go on 75-mile bike rides on a Saturday or Sunday when I was a 15-year-old.

"Children now, their muscles do not have a chance to develop and their cardiovascular systems are very weak.

"Jogging has also taken over, which I hate. It is light years away from running. Even if you are a slow runner it is better than being a jogger, at least there is still a competitive element."

What resurgence?

Oh look, another keyboard virtuoso for whom 3:46,12:55 and 26:59 just isn't good enough.

hardset nipples wrote:

What resurgence?

And another sorry Amerocentric ignoramus who fails to grasp the context of where those stand on the world stage in 2011. We're back to where we should be relative to the world based on where we were in the middle to late '80s, and it required overcoming the doldrums of the '90s, but this idea that there will be US runners routinely challenging for the podium at the WC and OG or running sub-2:20 in anywhere close to the numbers of the mid-'80s is complete delusion. We should shoot for that ideal, but wake up and be real in assessing the chances of it happening.

pre-nuptial turnon wrote:

Oh look, another keyboard virtuoso for whom 3:46,12:55 and 26:59 just isn't good enough.

hardset nipples wrote:

What resurgence?

Thanks LR for the front page status on Adrian Royle.

Here are some great pics I found from that TAC race. Actually, this entire site is pretty great - spent the entire morning going through some pretty historical moments!

http://runningentertainment.com/runningshots11.html

Not only was Royle fast, he looked pretty bad ass as well! Ben Blankenship from Minnesota seemed to be going for the look this year and nailed it spot on.

I wonder what his "mystery" illness was? My bet would be a post-viral fatigue syndrome or chronic fatigue syndrome. I wonder if he ever expounded upon it. Interesting that he trained out of Reno, because the first ever recognized CFS cluster epidemic in the US appeared around Reno/Incline Village @ 1984.

Nice front page quote by Adrian. It typifies the competitive attitude that brought him such success.

Nice one Joe ;-)