WTF is happening in the 400 hurdles?

US is sucking a lot at this WC.

I think Andersen is feeling the effects of doing NCAAs and WCs in the same season. And I don't think Clement has been having a good year.

Not having a good year my azz. You don't go from being a medal contender (legitimate btw) to running 52 seconds. Something serious is affecting these ridiculously sub-par performances by so many Americans. First Goucher gets lapped and now Clement running college invite times. Where's Sprint Geezer when you need him? Any ideas Geezer??

New doping controls.... slower times.... hmmmmm

ChaChing!

Methinks.... wrote:

New doping controls.... slower times.... hmmmmm

I simply do not understand why athletes run a full collegiate program during major championship years? It's too much! Hasn't anyone looked at this?

NYRun1 wrote:

I simply do not understand why athletes run a full collegiate program during major championship years? It's too much! Hasn't anyone looked at this?

So everyone should take off three out of four years?

Jeff Wigand wrote:

[quote]NYRun1 wrote:

I simply do not understand why athletes run a full collegiate program during major championship years? It's too much! Hasn't anyone looked at this?

Well, it seems to be working for Kirani James. He ran a full collegiate program and is a medal contender tonight.

Anderson competed recently in the World University Games. Maybe that wasn't such a great decision looking retrospectively. He's also very raw and is not quite ready for this level.

And newsflash: Klement has been running slow all year. If you actually expected him to qualify for the final you are nuts.

do you mind explaining your math?

It wasn't my post, but here's the math. Three out of every four years, there is either a WC or Olympics. So if you want collegiate T&F athletes to abbreviate their NCAA schedule during championship years, they'd have to do it 3/4 of all years.

has it worked for james? are you sure he ran a full program?

it hasn't worked for any other athlete. and it hasn't worked for any other athlete for years.

just how much do you think the body can take trying to peak for collegiate championships, then national championships, then diamond league races then the two majors?

for olympic and wc years there should be a reduced schedule of collegiate events.

why do you think the jamaicans are now more likely to stay in jamaica? because it's a fact that the collegiate scene just chew them up and spit em out.

NYRun1 wrote:

do you mind explaining your math?

The World Championships are held every other year, and the Olympic Games in one of the two remaining years in a four year cycle. By your reasoning, only in one of every four years would a collegiate contender be wise to run a full collegiate season.

thank you for the explanation

well wisdom will always trump foolishness. is it the goal to win olympic and world championships or is it not?

and notice i said a reduced schedule of events at the college level. would it not be possible for the governing bodies to half the number of events in those years so that athletes have fresher legs for the stellar events?

NYRun1 wrote:

thank you for the explanation

well wisdom will always trump foolishness. is it the goal to win olympic and world championships or is it not?

No, it's not. The primary goal is to win as many titles and awards for the university that's paying the coach and subsidizing the athlete's education. Sure, it's nice when a university athlete ends up making a national team, and even better when the football coach goes along with a redshirt to accommodate the major championship, but running for the school comes first. Oregon is just about the only school that will be totally on board with redshirting a whole season for the purposes of making a team (as opposed to a redshirt following a World or Olympic competition).

NYRun1 wrote:

has it worked for james? are you sure he ran a full program?

it hasn't worked for any other athlete. and it hasn't worked for any other athlete for years.

just how much do you think the body can take trying to peak for collegiate championships, then national championships, then diamond league races then the two majors?

for olympic and wc years there should be a reduced schedule of collegiate events.

why do you think the jamaicans are now more likely to stay in jamaica? because it's a fact that the collegiate scene just chew them up and spit em out.

James ran indoor and outdoor for Alabama. He ran 44.80 indoors in Arkansas in February '11. If I remember correctly, he got tripped at NCAA indoors and fell off the track. He won outdoors. So the "Full" NCAA program worked for him.

Why would you shorten the NCAA season for just a few of the athletes? What about the rest of the athletes? Doesn't seem fair to the majority of student-athletes for which the NCAA was designed. I would think that if an athlete didn't want to compete in a full season, he or she could REDSHIRT like Centrowitz or Barringer has done.

Most of the collegiate athletes who made it to Daegu are no where near being good enough to compete with the world's best. Anderson is a good example. He'll get there, but he's not at a level where he can compete in 3 rounds against the world's best. It's a little bit different in the NCAA vs. the Diamond League.

And athletes in others countries race as much or more than the NCAA! Take a look at some of the European youngsters and you'll see that they race as much or more than the ones running in US colleges.

Sure looks like a full season and he's still running strong:

http://www.tfrrs.org/athletes/2787629.html

NYRun1 wrote:

thank you for the explanation

well wisdom will always trump foolishness. is it the goal to win olympic and world championships or is it not?

and notice i said a reduced schedule of events at the college level. would it not be possible for the governing bodies to half the number of events in those years so that athletes have fresher legs for the stellar events?

Lol, you say wisdom will always trump foolishness, then you go on to propose that every 3 out of 4 years we cut the number of college races in half to accomodate 10-15 athletes who MIGHT make a worlds team? Get real.

There are over 400,000 NCAA student-athletes and most of us will be going pro in something other than sports!

Nappy Roots wrote:

Not having a good year my azz. You don't go from being a medal contender (legitimate btw) to running 52 seconds. Something serious is affecting these ridiculously sub-par performances by so many Americans. First Goucher gets lapped and now Clement running college invite times. Where's Sprint Geezer when you need him? Any ideas Geezer??

I have a couple of ideas:

First, competing in Asia sucks, unless you can eat consistently at a verified McDonald's! I think that Americans have weaker gastrointestinal constitutions than much of the ROW, and have a harder time with the food, water, and general environment. Also the time difference sucks, and I don't know what their acclimation schedule was. They should have been there for AT LEAST 2 full weeks--were they?

Also, of course there is some drug use among Americans that has been curtailed. You would expect to see the same of athletes from elsewhere, however, and I don't know if that's the case--are good athletes from other countries flaming too?

Also, given a very few credible performances from an athlete, IMHO Americans instantly glorify that athlete in a kind of hero worship. Really, I mean really, how good are the American athletes? They tend to have a very few performances that reach the level of performances others in the world can do every second day, with some exceptions like the decathletes (I could be wrong on this).

And Americans, counterintuitively, have a sense of entitlement and therefore lack competitiveness. When things even out, you really have to FIGHT, and fight HARD--like Dix, who never gives up even though he is ALWAYS far behind, like Felix, gutting it out down the homestretch. Americans tend to not be flexible in their race strategies, but to believe in a kind of "manifest racing destiny", that if they can just do what they have been told will guarantee success, then they will succeed.

That mentality doesn't work unless you are intrinsically better than everybody else in the race. Look at what happened with Felix and Montsho. Sure Felix wanted the race and competed hard down the homestretch--but for all the effort that she put in, Montsho competed HARDER. Felix went out fast and was almost even with Montsho at 70m, and the instant Montsho saw her on her shoulder, she made the move that won her the race. By 200m, Montsho was 6m ahead, and led all the way to the wire. She ADAPTED, she knew she had to make up for a missed start--she didn't just go out and run her own race, she did what she needed to to WIN.

That's symbolic of the whole American arrogant mentality (and I'm not picking on Felix in particular--she is a shining example of someone who does NOT embody that mentality, and she very nearly won). Americans think that if they play by the book that they wrote, that they will naturally win--when in reality the story of each race is written as the race is run.

Even in sprints, where you really do need to run your own race and try to forget about everybody else, sometimes being down just a little bit can make you find something extra down deep, that you didn't know you had. Mechanical guys like Lemaitre don't find it, but real competitors can find it and surprise even themselves--Bailey in 96, Lewis in 91, Bolt beating Powell this year, etc--they didn't run exactly their own race, they did what they needed to, to WIN.

And too many bullcrap excuses from Americans. If you lost because you suck, or because you just aren't the fastest, OWN it. You can hold your head high as a competitor who did all you could to win, and who will try to improve the next time, to do everything you can to win. If you are honest about your effort and your failure, you have the possibility of improving the next time.

Face it--there is no intrinsic reason Americans should be better than anybody else, especially now that the NCAA ranks are swollen with international talent, many of whom go on to perform internationally.

And I think Americans need to start looking at Bronze and Silver as victories, as well as Gold. Really, at the top of the ranks in many events, the difference between the 3 is slight, and signifies only that 1 competitor had a better competition than others, NOT that they are a better athlete. Of course there are exceptions to this, like Rudisha, but very few.

So in addition to gold medals, look to athletes like Merritt, Dix, and Felix who took silver, and Camarena-Williams who took bronze, and to unexpected medallists who worked hard for their victories and who may have gotten lucky, but who WORKED HARD for that luck, people like gold-medallists Reese and Richardson.

Also, it's late in the year, and some Americans were very active on the circuit this year. It takes something out of you over time if you don't manage it correctly--but again, that is failure due to bad decision-making, something within the control of the athlete.

And one final thing: I have seen lots of Kenyans, Ethiopians, and Somalis in my day--LOTS. Anybody who denies that they have a basic physiognomic advantage over others is a fool. Of course that only gets you so far, but all other things being equal, it will be the deciding factor. I have seen guys my height who weigh 115 lbs, who have a 16" long torso and a 34" inseam, and whose wrists and ankles look like those of a 7-year-old.

They will NEVER be able to sprint like me, will NEVER be anywhere near as strong as me, but at some point the ROW has to accept the basic fact that they are built better for distance running. Period. Of course there will be some exceptions, there always are--some Japanese microbe in the marathon, whatever--but who cares. It is time to own it.

It's great to see them cleaning up in distance, because you sure don't see any Kenyan, Ethiopian, or Somali competitors in any of the sprints, throws, or jumps, and that is fine, too. Whatever, to each his own.

Why complain? Be competitive where you can. You don't hear Nigerians complaining that they can't medal in the distance events, why should America complain? Until America becomes more cosmopolitan and recruits distance athletes from the various immigrant communities on US soil that currently go largely ignored, there is no reasonable expectation that Americans should be able to compete well against East Africans.

And one final thing: technique. In the jumps and throws, technique is almost everything. Ever throw a discus? I'm not saying that American technique is universally bad, it isn't--but here's the difference: with especially throwers from Europe, you can sense that the technique has been optimized for the individual athlete, and that they exhibit the technique that is best for them, through intense, committed study and training (same for PV). IMHO, you don't see that among American throwers, because compared to the Euros, America doesn't care about throwing--and if you really don't care, you have no grounds for complaint when you have nobody medal in women's or men's discus or PV, and nobody even on the board in men's hammer. I know men's shot should be outstanding, but that is an anomaly among the jumps and throws.

The bottom line? Along with unavoidable factors, unlike us here on letsrun.com, America doesn't really care about track enough to dominate anything.

Where are people from who do well? Generally, they are from places that CARE--Scandinavia in the jav, west Africa in distance, eastern Europe in the hammer, the Caribbean in the 100m, etc.

On the whole, I'd say that America is doing rather well relative to the level of caring. In T&F, though, America is the jack of all trades (except racewalk), and the master of none.