Peter Snell Calls US Middle Distance Running "Pathetic"

Certainly Willis' coach is American as they come. And it's not like Willis has any other NZ guys anywhere near him. Snell is a great champion, but he is way off on this one.

He should instead be targeting the Brits.

I don't think he's way off. We SHOULD have wayyy more top performers. We should have a couple guys running 1:42 or 1:43 every year. We SHOULD see more of our guys on the olympic/WC podium. I believe that we have all of the talent necesarry to do both of those things. We have the shear quantity of athletes necesarry to do both of those things. The fact of the matter is, the majority of our young talent gets wasted.

However, I do optimistically, and maybe even naiively, believe that US middle distance running is on the up and up. We have some very exciting young prospects right now. ROBBY ANDREWS, CAS LOXSOM, ANDREW WHEATING, out of those 3, I guarantee at least one will do extremely huge things. All 3 have the talent. The odds say that for at least one of them EVERYTHING WILL GO RIGHT.

No he's way off.

We have the population, but we have so many other sports young people can choose from that are just so much more popular in our society.

the population doing track in high school etc. is large enough. The scholastic system combined with "less is more"

lead to fewer champions. The tide turning, however, the Americans have the work ethic. The future is bright.

fff wrote:

the population doing track in high school etc. is large enough. The scholastic system combined with "less is more"

lead to fewer champions. The tide turning, however, the Americans have the work ethic. The future is bright.

+1

And to the guy above you, yeah, I meant we have enough quantity OF RUNNERS. I wasn't talking about the population of America, because as you pointed out that is obviously not relevant.

a few years ago this would have been right, but it is not any more. With Wheating, Webb, Lagat, Symmonds, Lomong, Manzano, and other bright talents not far off at 800/1500, we are more competitive than we have been since the 1970s.

It strikes me as natural that someone from a different country will not focus so much on the U. S. and as a result will have a more general impression built up over the years of where American middle distance is at. I doubt that Wheating is much more than a blip for Snell and Robby Andrews does not even exist.

So, I think that Snell's comments are spot on...for three years ago. And this is exactly where I would expect them to be.

"Less is more" seems to work for Wheating and Lagat. Good coaching is independent of mileage formulas.

fff wrote:

the population doing track in high school etc. is large enough. The scholastic system combined with "less is more"

lead to fewer champions. The tide turning, however, the Americans have the work ethic. The future is bright.

long dong silver wrote:

fff wrote:

the population doing track in high school etc. is large enough. The scholastic system combined with "less is more"

lead to fewer champions. The tide turning, however, the Americans have the work ethic. The future is bright.

+1

And to the guy above you, yeah, I meant we have enough quantity OF RUNNERS. I wasn't talking about the population of America, because as you pointed out that is obviously not relevant.

High School T&F and Cross Country may be a large population, but it does not attract the country's best athletes. Sorry. If I know the story correctly, wasn't by chance that Wheating happened upon T&F himself? Lots of "Wheatings" out there playing many other sports.

jjjjjjjjjjj wrote:

a few years ago this would have been right, but it is not any more. With Wheating, Webb, Lagat, Symmonds, Lomong, Manzano, and other bright talents not far off at 800/1500, we are more competitive than we have been since the 1970s.

And don't forget the women! Pretty strong there too.

The U.S. is the strongest middle distance an distance running country outside of Africa. I don't there's much disputing that. As to New Zealand, Nick Willis' success doesn't seem to have spawned much in the way of emulators.

As to Snell's point about our "science" - that can be both a blessing and a curse. Yeah, Alter-G treadmills which allow people with certain injuries to keep doing some training are good things. "Cryosaunas" that you put your best marathoner in the day he's going to race 26.2 miles are just pure insanity.

Snell is 100% correct. With a huge population and a university system second to none, the US should dominate World middle-distance running. Wheating, Symonds and Manzano have won nothing globally - instead the US has to rely on imports such as Lagat to achieve at World Champs and Olympics. As someone else wrote - he could easily address his remarks at the Brits as well. Now that is a sad reflection of former glories!!

We all know that Peter Snell is the greatest middle distance runner of all time. Therefore, even the baying LR trolls cannot respond with their usual denunciations of intellect, experience and common sense.

Instead, they scratch their heads like Wil E, trying to understand what exactly he means.

But it's simple.

Olympic titles.

The US may have 3 athletes in the top 10 in some mid-D events, from 2010, and it's true that's more depth than most other nations possess. But how many Olympic titles did these athletes win? Peter Snell - by himself - has more Olympic titles than all these top-10 ranked US athletes combined. Now, that might indeed be worth calling "pathetic."

A little harsh perhaps, but seeking ultimate performance requires facing the sometimes unpalatable facts.

Peter Snell has to take in account the amount of money and attention the U.S. gives to football, baseball, basketball, hockey, soccer, swimming, etc...before track. No disrespect to Peter Snell, but how many total medals did New Zealand have in the Beijing Olympics?

High School T&F and Cross Country may be a large population, but it does not attract the country's best athletes. Sorry. If I know the story correctly, wasn't by chance that Wheating happened upon T&F himself? Lots of "Wheatings" out there playing many other sports.[/quote]

It doesn't have to attract our best athletes. It just has to attract ENOUGH talent to do big things on the world stage. And it does attract ENOUGH talent to do big things on the world stage. That's why it should do big things on the world stage.

IF Peter Snell were born 24 years ago he would have a hard time matching the accomplishments of Nick Willis. When Snell ran the population of serious runners was 1/10th of what it is now and african runners were but a speck on the horizon. You can argue all you want about the new tracks and training methods, etc etc but the primary driver of advancement in athletics is the growth in people both in the sport and staying with the sport esp in the african nations which now have enough people not preoccupied with susistence living that they can chase the dollars in the sport. The recent upward trend in US HS and college reflects the boomlet age group going through the prime competitive years. Now however we have the rest of the world to compete with not just the rich parts as in the 50's, 60's, and 70's.

You think US looked bad in the 90's wait till 20 years from now.

In the end statistics wins.

I don't think Snell called out the US success without acknowledging that the NZ system also has to be looking at what they're doing.

But on the numbers alone:

USA Pop: 300 Million

NZL Pop: 4 Million

Current USA born OG and WC Mid distance medalists: 0

Current NZL born OG and WC Mid distance medalists: 1

NZL has the talent pool to win more medals on a world stage and they need to reassess how to do so, but the USA is really under-performing when it comes to producing international medalists and has a lot more work to do to move from no medals to a realistic per-capita haul.

Snell is right, I've been saying it for years. Given our population, and the huge amount of successful 400 guys we have, and the budding depth at 1500-5k, you would think we would have a lot more quality 800m guys (several sub-1:44 at least, and at least one guy testing 1:42 or so every year). Even the world as a whole hasn't been too strong at 800m lately... aside from guys like Rudisha, Kaki, Lalang, Yego, and Mulaudzi.

the loss of prime beef to other sports does hurt

iirc, the top end of the curve for increased population is quantified by

(n)^0.5

therefore, if say we are producing 2 sub-1'44 guys a year consistently ( the names may change year on year )

then if ~5 times the top population is lost to 'ball : n = 6 -> number of < 1'43 guys we produce shoud be : (6)*(0.5)^2 =

4.9

or call it 5

from there, it's reasonable to assume possibly 2 will < 1'43 with obviously no upper bound on how much < 1'43...