this was not XC, road run....
this was not XC, road run....
greatest talent in American running in 30 years?????
Naw.
definately the best talent.
think about how he has consistently peformed Amazingly between injuries. pre, shorter, lindgren, ryun...they all had longer spells of training to produce the fruits of their talent. ritz is cranking out better results on less training which equals MORE talent.
Don't know about that. It's not like Ritz isn't training while injured. He probably does harder cross-training than we can understand, and his fitness is high all the time.
Ritz is a huge talent, but he is a product of training.
Vipam wrote:Is he one of the first Americans at that age to go to European X-Country in decades, anyone know of another American at that age competing/have competed X-Country overseas?
VIPAM
There was a guy by the name of Craig Virgin who did it, and did it very well.
I suppose the reason for the error is that fascism is fascism. Oh wait: that was sixty years ago. Never mind.
E wrote:
Yeah that Italian article that the front letsrun page references sure was hard to translate... given it was in German.
On December 13, Lebid easily (over 20 seconds) won a 9.64 km cross-country race in 27:31.
Also, as best I can tell, Baldini's PRs are 13:23 and 27:43.
When you talk talent you have to look at speed. Webb isn't close to being a Ryun middle distance talent because he doesn't have anything close to Ryun's 800m speed. Ritz is now 22 years old and has never run a fast mile, not close to Pre or Kennedy. As of now, Ritz's demonstrated mile speed would put him in the Salazar category. It's enough that he may run very good times at 5K and 10K and he may be a great marathoner but "greatest talent in 30 years" is a big stretch.
Ritz ran 3:42 as a freshman, and has had few opportunities to improve on it since. I'd give him at least 3:55-56 this year. Not too shabby at all.
He is young , he will have to learn to race world class which takes time.
Lets see how he develops/races in world cross and if he can make the final for the world champs this summer in the 10k.
Baldini would have much faster times if he concentrated on it. He usually beats much better athletes on the road. The way to look at it is 28:23 on cobblestones is way slower than the track so all three of those athletes are in sub 27:50 shape on a good night. Baldini and Lebid both have great strength and use it to beat very fast athletes.
\"Webb isn\'t close to being a Ryun middle distance talent\"
uh, I think Jim Ryun was an amazing talent, but his best was 3:51.1 when he was 20 years old . . . . Webb has run a 3:50 at age 21. I understand all of the improvements in track surface, shoes, weight training etc. but to say that Webb isn\'t close I think is a bit unfair.
Of course, I believe it was Liquori who commented that if Ryun had gone to Villanova and trained under Elliott instead of following Timmons to KU he might have been the greatest miler of all time.
dude, webb has way more leg speed than ryun did. didn't webb run a 1:48 and 49 in high school? yeah i'd say he has pretty damn good speed. if i rememeber correctly steve scott holds the american mile record and he is quoted as saying something like "i think he'll(webb) break my record, he's got more legspeed than me." i know this is off subject to ritz's race. go ritz!! good job!!
jon boda wrote:
dude, webb has way more leg speed than ryun did. didn't webb run a 1:48 and 49 in high school?
Jim Ryun held the World Record for 880 Yds. at age 19. He ran 1:44.9 for 880yds. which is worth 1:44.3 for 800m.
go to the IAAF site. there is a picture and story now.
Ritz may have great PRs, but he always comes in 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc.
He isn't tough enough yet to win.
He did finish just behind the five times European XC champ and Olympic marathon gold medalist. Tough crowd.
That's like saying Sihine's not all that great because Bekele always beats him.
Great picture and story!
You're an idiot. I don't know what else to say, but that.