huge shame. he was a tremendous talent and should have stuck it out. In fact, if I had been coaching Oregon, I would not have entered him in a xc race when he wasn't in shape. He got 62nd and quit. That had been the pattern with him. This is a guy who ran sub 4 (legit? I know he'd already run a sub 4 in a downhill mile) and 8:29 in high school at 18.
bump
Shame a huge high school talent faded into nothing.
Titan wrote:
Shame a huge high school talent faded into nothing.
"[F]aded?" He reportedly broke a collarbone, cracked a vertebrae and collapsed a lung. What level of damage is needed to qualify as something more precipitous than fading?
Didn't know that. Seems like a tough road back. Why doesn't he stick with running instead of the bicycling guys.
A poor kid. This is just simply a bad luck. He may have made the right decision leaving college since his goal was to make a living as a pro runner/tri. He wasn't going far in running so turning tri pro seemed like the logical and best choice at the time.
Wow. That has to be at least 30 lbs of weight gain. I guess he is done. What a bad luck.
He's quite a chunk now. He was sort of half dead or something right?
His future doesn't seem to have much life that's for sure.
Illinois Alum wrote:
He's quite a chunk now. He was sort of half dead or something right?
His future doesn't seem to have much life that's for sure.
If not running anymore meant having no real life to speak of, then this board wouldn't have one-third the traffic it does. The number of bitter former runners on this site (or is it "sight"?) is scary.
If doing well enough in life to afford an Internet connection is reason enough for you old moldering turds of the sport to keep breathing, then Lukas probably has a future as well.
Injuredd wrote:
Big fan of LV. I suffered a similar injury and live by his quote: "I can't be the same athlete I was. I have a whole new body to work with. But I do believe I can be a better athlete than I was. Eventually, if you don't give up, you will succeed, even if it's not at the same level."
Agree...
There's always Univ of Phoenix for you and bike crasher.
Hard to imagine that the best runner-turned-triathlete looks to actually be Matt McElroy....not Webb, not LV, etc.
Any updates on Lukas? I just browsed his Twitter and it’s mainly just commentary on current events. Is he officially done as a triathlete?
Just for info LV was a triathlete, who moved to running when his family moved to US. He never gAve up tri, he still did his tri training while simply competing on the high school xc and track teams. Since about 1990 tri is big enough in Europe that kids join the local tri club and come up as age groupers already proficient in all 3 sports by the u16 level. He won world Jrs in tri during his Sr year of high school, the same year he won FL/NXN and ran 3:59/8:29.
MapleSteaks wrote:
Any updates on Lukas? I just browsed his Twitter and it’s mainly just commentary on current events. Is he officially done as a triathlete?
I believe he retired a couple years ago. Took up weight lifting.
MapleSteaks wrote:
Any updates on Lukas? I just browsed his Twitter and it’s mainly just commentary on current events. Is he officially done as a triathlete?
He left his life of self-indulgence and hedonism to serve the greatest president of all time, Donald J Trump. Great to see a young Christian man lead his life with such principles.
His retirement was bought on by his accident, which nearly left him paralyzed, and instead, he ended up with stride problems and bowel control problems when of course wrecked any chance of elite professional career.
Oh Please wrote:
His retirement was bought on by his accident, which nearly left him paralyzed, and instead, he ended up with stride problems and bowel control problems when of course wrecked any chance of elite professional career.
His relationship with Christ brought him back
TAA wrote:
I believe he retired a couple years ago. Took up weight lifting.
Is their truth to this among the troll posts? His last IG post shows definitely a more normal-sized Verzbicas than the lean look he had during his Oregon/early professional Triathlete days.
I do know about his accident and subsequent comeback attempt in 2013-2014.
I do feel bad for the kid.
I've always wondered if Oregon trained him with only a running program and did not include biking or swimming. Seems to me he needed to complete a significant amount of his training at least on his bike. He is/was obviously a very unique blend of talent(s) and perhaps needed more differentiated training of which might be considered too unconventional in Eugene.