Can somebody PLEASE explain to me why nobody has been talking about the 16 yr old American who ran 3:46 at Junior Worlds

C'mon people... wrote:

Jacob Burcham ran 3:46.55 to take 7th place among the world's best in the final at Junior Worlds. The kid is 16 years old and just started running a few years ago. This was his first big international competition.

I'm just appalled that nobody is talking about this. We may have the next big American miler on our hands here. He's already ahead of where Alan Webb was at this point in his high school career.

Maybe because it was Youth Worlds, not Junior Worlds?

Maybe because Rob Denault of Canada ran 3:45 as a 16 year old. I understand America does not count better Canadian performances, but we have you beat on this one.

3:45. Rob F'in Denault.

the main insight wrote:

Maybe because Rob Denault of Canada ran 3:45 as a 16 year old. I understand America does not count better Canadian performances, but we have you beat on this one.

3:45. Rob F'in Denault.

Or maybe because he is from Canada and we are talking about all-time great US milers. If you want that to count you should let us annex your piece of sheeet, America wannabe country as the 51st state.

Rob was 17 when he ran his 3'45, while Jacob is still 16 yrs old. Give him another year and see what happens. And in the US we see these kids but many of them never have great collegiate careers and so we don't hype them up too much until they are in college. Hope this kid gets some rest and can finish off a great high school career though.

And US sophomore record belongs to Jeff See's.

Cheserek has sophomore record overall but is not a US citizen.

numiler22 wrote:

And US sophomore record belongs to Jeff See's.

Cheserek has sophomore record overall but is not a US citizen.

What kind of garbage is this? The US Sophomore record and the US overall HS record? None of these is particularly official, but I am declaring myself the official keeper of class records, and citizenship does not matter (like how it was not an issue in declaring Verzbicas the 5th US HS sub-4). All that matters is enrollment in a US high school. It is this "everyone gets a trophy" mentality that is screwing America up.

Official list of good Sophomore milers: Ryun 4.07, Webb 4.06, See 4.06, Burcham 4.04ish converted from 3.46 1500, Cheserek 4.03.

I hate the everyone gets a trophy thing..competition is competition..but when a kid comes over from another country and runs in the US, at any level it doesn't matter what school he attended, but what nationality. In Verzbicas case, he has all intention to run for the USA, all paperwork in the process. But I do agree that he is still not a US citizen. If its a US high school record it should be open to US high schoolers legally. If you open this up to anyone, there will be coaches that will begin to stack there teams with foreign athletes just to have a good record, like NAIA schools. That is not fair to our system. I have nothing against Cheserek, but US and overall should be kept seperate as they do in every level of competition.

Look grandpa, spin your wheels all day long justifying a difference between Cheserek and Verzbicas and there will be no distinction relevant to our discussion apart from their skin color.

"Everyone gets a trophy" is bullshit, especially for something so inconsequential as a 10th grade mile record. Maybe in the Olympics we can note who the first person born on American soil is because the stage is big. But as for 10th grade milers, Cheserk was fastest, big deal move on. "If its a US high school record it should be open to US high schoolers legally." Cheserk is a US high schooler. It is open to anyone and no one is "gaming" the system and maybe a few people do or would, this is peanuts, high school sports in a non-glamorous sport to boot. "US and overall should be kept seperate as they do in every level of competition." Aside from separate but equal not having proved out, there are several notable places where the US and overall are not separated, to wit the Olympic gold medal and the IAAF sanctioned world record. The easiest thing to do is to have a blonde haired, blue eyed, born in the Midwest, man set all WRs and win all gold medals, then any further debt regarding how deep we should go to give out participant medals would be mute, mein fuhrer.

They are both foreigners to me. I am not a old. I give it to them that they are fast and maybe future US hopefuls, but we still need to keep encouraging our high schoolers.

Some coaches and parents are crazy enough to go out and adopt or house foreign athletes just to have a winning team. I know this and I hate the fact that they do that. I have seen soccer teams (at all ages 6-18) full of athletes that are not citizens play on US teams. Its like taking Kenyans and placing them into USATF. USATF is there to keep US running within US running. HS competition should be the same. Coaches do whatever means to keep there jobs, steroids, EPO, HGH, etc. and this is happening at the HS level. A line needs to be drawn somewhere.

They have all rights to be here and study here and every opportunity they can get in the US, but we must recognize that if there is no limitations, then coaches/people will go to the extremes. Yes, Cheserek is the fastest sophomore miler, but US runner is See. At least for now.

Nothing against the competition either, the more and bettr the the comp, the stronger we get. US high schoolers and NCAA athletes need better competition if they plan to run at a world class level.

Incorrect. He has the Canadian U17 1500m record at 3:45.87.

Look at ESPNRise summary of the Youth Worlds. Here it is:

Then in the boys 1500, Burcham (Cabell-Midland WV) had simply a jaw-dropping performance. He wasn’t going to try and run with the Kenyans and Ethiopians as they dropped sub-60 laps, but the second group he raced with was barely slower than that, averaging 61s. Amazingly, as he passed 1200 in 3:03+, Burcham launched a big kick and tried to close on the stragglers from the lead pack. In the final meters, he faded a little and lost a spot to 7th, but the sophomore’s final time of 3:46.55 stands as the US#1 (splits were not taken in Lukas Verzbicas’ 3:59.71 Dream Mile) and took down a 33-year-old US soph record (Jeff Warwick FL, 3:48.4, 1978) by nearly two seconds.

Canadian U17 includes 17 yr olds and under..His was born April 1993, which makes him 18 already.

A Paul wrote:

I'm appalled that it took this long for the OP to be apalled. Why didn't he start a thread earlier and get some conversation going? I guess he just doesn't care that much about the next great American miler. Simply appalling.

I'm outraged that you're appalled it took so long for the OP to be appalled.

You can look up DOB's and performances at this link.

http://www.iaaf.org/athletes/biographies/index.html

Denault was 17 years, 2 months when he ran the 3:45.87 in June 2010.

I'm outraged it took you so long to be outraged that A Paul was appalled at how long it took the OP to be appalled.

rojo wrote:

Here is the original thread:

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=4131005

Also there are a ton of other threads on this guy.

http://www.google.com/search?q=Burcham+site%3Aletsrun.com&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

I am really Appaled the the OP did not read these other threads first before beoming appaled! This just makes me Appaled!!

statisticsknower wrote:

records wrote:

Jeff See's record stands.

Jeff See's record only stands as the number 2 sophomore time after Cheserk broke it a couple months ago. Burcham v. Cheserek looks like a great combination to get the 2nd and 3rd underclassmen sub-4s.

...and were it not for the fact that Cheserek is actually 23 years old now (04/11/88), his "sophomore" class record might actually be impressive.

latently homosexual teenager wrote:

There is absolutely no way on this earth that the Kenyan is 13 yrs old.....no way. For the love of evolution, can't we carbon date humans if we can carbon date dinosaurs?? The Kenyans are straight up just mocking the IAAF system now. Seriously.....13 yrs old...my nephew is 12 and I just can't see how this would be possible, any pics of this kid??

There is a way to accurately ascertain the age of Kenyans, although it does hurt a bit. You simply cut one of their fingers off and count the rings.

Does anyone know anything here?

Here is the list of record holders for the sophomore mile record from least to most current:

Alan Webb - 4:06.94

Jeff See - 4:06.07

Lukas Verzbicas - 4:04.38

Edward Cheserek - 4:03.29

You can debate all you want about Cheserek's age, or whether Verzbicas should have ever held it in the first place being a year older as a sophomore, but this IS the list of sophomore class record holders for the mile.

Facto wrote:

Look at ESPNRise summary of the Youth Worlds. Here it is:

Then in the boys 1500, Burcham (Cabell-Midland WV) had simply a jaw-dropping performance. He wasn’t going to try and run with the Kenyans and Ethiopians as they dropped sub-60 laps, but the second group he raced with was barely slower than that, averaging 61s. Amazingly, as he passed 1200 in 3:03+, Burcham launched a big kick and tried to close on the stragglers from the lead pack. In the final meters, he faded a little and lost a spot to 7th, but the sophomore’s final time of 3:46.55 stands as the US#1 (splits were not taken in Lukas Verzbicas’ 3:59.71 Dream Mile) and took down a 33-year-old US soph record (Jeff Warwick FL, 3:48.4, 1978) by nearly two seconds.

Verzbicas' 1500m split was 3:43.29 as show in this video...