German Fernandez... just not the same runner any more

He still has it, just has to stay healthy and rethink things.

According to 90 percent of letsrun, Hall is washed up too...

Clay Mayes III? haha. He's told me stories of his time at OSU and it matches up with what you're saying.

swummer wrote:

Clay Mayes III? haha. He's told me stories of his time at OSU and it matches up with what you're saying.

I never knew Clay, but I did talk to some of the guys who were on the team around the same time as him. I don't think it's coincidence 3/4 of the runners OSU gets leave the program, and half of those who stay never do anything.

lucky shoots wrote:

Wise Ass wrote:

True. True. But not to soon to write him off!

But not "too" soon to write him off. Wow.

Ummmm... pretty sure it was on purpose.

C'mon dude, get with the program. The same joke every single time and still there are idiots like you who don't recognize it.

JFC!

Read this:http://www.flotrack.org/article/6110-German-Fernandez-hell-be-back

Jimmy Slim wrote:I never knew Clay, but I did talk to some of the guys who were on the team around the same time as him. I don't think it's coincidence 3/4 of the runners OSU gets leave the program, and half of those who stay never do anything.

Not sure what you mean by half of the guys who stay not doing anything. More of the guys who stayed are national XC champs than anywhere else, right?

There are excellent athletes who don't crack the starting lineup in all sports at all schools who leave for better opportunities, so there are explanations for departures -- other than "coincidence" -- that have nothing to do with the quality of the coaching.

I'm holding off on deciding whether GF is the same runner he once was until at least June. Seems like he is healthy and expects to have a good season from his flotrack interviews. And the ultimate test of how good the OSU program is for him will be Olympic trials next year.

people here need to make the distinction between people saying

A) something is very wrong at the moment(alot of people saying this)

and people saying

B) German is washed up and will never run fast again.( very few saying this seriously)

You all point to Hall, Webb etc saying that had rough patches in college.. you know what, they did. And you know when that got better? when they changed coaches and training environments. Dave Smith might be an ok coach, but IT IS NOT WORKING FOR GERMAN.

And it won't until he moves on.

I thought it was ridiculous when it was suggested last year, but I am starting to agree that perhaps Dave Smith is purposefully not pushing him at all to be terribly competitive because he doesn't want him to go pro before winning another NCAA Cross Country title. Watching him at Stanford, the "fire" he had in HS looked non-existent.

These time trials to run fast enough just to qualify for certain events or "tempoing" cross races makes one realize German has truly raced (all out effort) only a couple times since he arrived at Ok State.

every top program in every sport is going to bring in a bunch of extra runners, hoping for the few people to break through big time while weeding out those who can't make the leap. Farrell, Lowe, Vail, and Fernandez, among others made the leap, and among those guys only Fernandez regressed but he is still running well enough to be top ten at NCAA's xc (something webb could not do).