MO FARAH to train with OTC

Al Sal's group is the Nike Oregon Project. They were in OTC uniforms for a bit but have tried to make it clear this year by wearing a different black uniform. See Alan Webb (indoor) and Kara Goucher (USA Cross) and of course Galan in his record run. OTC wears the green one.

As for Mo switching to Nike for money? If that does happen which is very likely then yes maybe some good money. But the poster saying that it would be good for Nike to boost Mo up leading into the Olympics? Great Britain has an Adidas sponsor so unless this has changed Mo will be back in the 3 stripes of Adidas at the Olympics.

My take on it wrote:

Salazaar and Rupp are the best athlete-coach combination since Peter and Seb Coe. Rupp improves ever year. Does he have huge breakthroughs like Solinsky or Ritz? No, at least not yet. But he has steadily improved, and is only 24.

Before Seb was 24, he won 2 Olympic medals and held at least 4 world records!

Have you heard of Lagat and Dr. Li?

El Guerrouj and Abdelkader Kada?

Allyson Felix and Bob Kersee?

Typical arrogance from the Oregon whiners that don't win anything.

Rupp doesn't belong on the same page with Sebastian Coe.

One note, when wathing the race video of the 5k record Mo covered his front Adidas logo with his hip/chest number. They always tell you not to cover your logo and knowing Mo he did this on purpose. This is a big sign that he is going with Nike

I see your point, like MJ in Basketball Olympics medal ceremony when he covered the logo with the USA flag.

He did take the number off just after he finished that covered the Addidas logo

shoe guy wrote:

True, but running 60:00 in the half and getting a bronze medal at the WORLD championships is better than any of Mo's achievements thus far. It doesn't matter that Mo doesn't run the half, he doesn't have the hardware that Ritz has on the world stage in his best event.

Bronze at half marathon "world championships" is kind of like bronze at many of the "US championship" road races. We all know it doesn't represent the best runners on offer that year. Huge respect for getting the hardware, and huge respect for the time, but that 60:00 was THIRTY-FIRST in the world that year. (Mo's 5,0000 and 10,000 last year? 21st and 23rd.) So don't go too far representing that WC bronze as proof of Ritz > Mo.

umm UK rules.

What I meant by that was Seb Coe would not have accomplished what he did with any other coach. Galen would be nothing without Salazar. I realize that there are better athletes than Galen, it is simply they mesh more than any other team since then, in my opinion. Yes, this is pure conjecture.

My take on it wrote:

I realize that there are better athletes than Galen, it is simply they mesh more than any other team since then, in my opinion. Yes, this is pure conjecture.

I see what you're saying, but Lagat/Li has got to be up there. How many times have people written Lagat off based on some early season performance, and how many times has he trusted the program and stayed the course to run PRs, ARs and championship wins when it matters? Great team.

I couldn't have said it better

paparazzi shy wrote:

I would guess he was also looking for a way out of the UK in the media frenzy that will surround him leading up to 2012. The paps are INSANE over there.

There will be focus on Mo, but the focus on him will be minute compared to Jessica Ennis and Tom Daley (Perhaps Hoy/Pendleton and Adlington next). They're the ones that are going to be under the most scrutiny.

The rest of the pressure will be spread out amongst a large number of other 'hopefuls', so hopefully won't be so intense.

BTW Mo's 10,000 pb is 27.28.8 from Marseilles last year

the smartest lestsrunner wrote:

[quote]shoe guy wrote:

Bronze at half marathon "world championships" is kind of like bronze at many of the "US championship" road races. We all know it doesn't represent the best runners on offer that year. Huge respect for getting the hardware, and huge respect for the time, but that 60:00 was THIRTY-FIRST in the world that year. (Mo's 5,0000 and 10,000 last year? 21st and 23rd.) So don't go too far representing that WC bronze as proof of Ritz > Mo.

This is a pretty rediculous statement. First 60 minutes in a hilly rainy Birmingham is not the same as 60 minutes in Lisbon or somewhere in the Netherlands or wherever else all the africans ran fast. Second, he beat 2 sub 59 guys in the race and another handfull of world class runners. I would argue that his bronze at the World Half is the greatest single thing any male american distance runner outside of Lagat has done in the last decade, though Ryan's 2:06 was pretty damn good. Its definitely better than Ryan's AR or Solinski's AR.

do you? wrote:

I would argue that his bronze at the World Half is the greatest single thing any male american distance runner outside of Lagat has done in the last decade, though Ryan's 2:06 was pretty damn good. Its definitely better than Ryan's AR or Solinski's AR.

Meb won an Olympic silver medal in the marathon

Krummenacker beat Wilson Kipketer to win the World Indoor title

Wow quite the fanboy with stars in his eyes.

do you? wrote:

I would argue that his bronze at the World Half is the greatest single thing any male american distance runner outside of Lagat has done in the last decade, though Ryan's 2:06 was pretty damn good. Its definitely better than Ryan's AR or Solinski's AR.

Listen to a very recent interview with Tim Hutchings on MarathonTalk.com He mentions Mo Farah in the interview as well as other very, very good insight.

Um, by "greatest thing any male american distance runners has done" do you mean "greatest thing any lily white american distance runner has done"?

Because there's this guy called Keflezghi who got silver at the Olympics. Slightly higher profile than "world HM championships." Also, someone called Krummenacker won world indoors.

As for the 2009 world half marathon championships, let's look at runners ahead of Ritz in the rankings that year:

#1 Makau: not in the race.

#4 Maiyo: not in the race.

#5 Kwambai: not in the race.

#8 Merga: not in the race.

#9 John Kiprotich: not in the race.

#10 Mutai: not in the race.

I could go on, through all 30 runners with a faster HM than Ritz in 2009, but you get the point. Like most years, the WC HM was VERY diluted in 2009. Good on Ritz for taking the bronze - if you don't show up, you can't compete, of course. But this was NOT a true WC, and Ritz is not worthy of comparison to our true WC medalists. And Farrah is better.

how many top guys missed or did not finish in Athens?

'And Farrah is better'

So farr so good!.

Who cares they are both good - its aint over yet for either of them

jjjjjjj wrote:

how many top guys missed or did not finish in Athens?

Agreed that Olympic marathons can be missing some greats (3 per country does that), but the 2004 Olympic marathon was actually pretty loaded.

Don't know who didn't finish, but to DNF is obviously completely different than to not enter. I'm not talking about runners who can trash Ritz who DNFed. I'm talking about runners who can trash Ritz who didn't bother with world HM WC that year.

If all those better half marathoners than Ritz had started Birmingham and DNFed, this would be a different discussion and your fanboy fantasies would be true, yes. But they didn't, and your fantasies are just that. He took some good scalps, yes, but that bronze was in a severely diluted field. And Farrah is better.