NY Times says Lauren Fleshman is the "best American distance runner never to make an Olympic team"

If the Times says it's so, it must be so.

Would not surprise me in the least if Oiselle has shelled out serious dough for NYT ad space the past few months.

It is a whore of a newspaper.

Six months from now it will be telling us we have to invade Country X in order to save the Free World.

opinionated guy wrote:

After today, how about Keni Harrison for all women, not exclusively distance.

It's hard to argue with this.

rojo wrote:

I think it would be useful to come up wth a list of "Best Americans never to make an Olympic team" for both men and women. Let's try to come up with 5-10 each.

I'll start with the obvous.

Men

1. Solinksy (He's #1 now as he's the only one on the list)

Women

1. Fleshman (She's #1 as she's the only one on the list)

You need to decide what you value. Take a guy like Solinsky. He was probably the best top end guy ever not to make an olympic team in that 12:55/26:59 are better than what fleshman did. But the dude had like a 3 year career. Fleshman on the other hand never hit the peak but she was around the top for like 8+ years. But she was never really an overwhelming favorite to make the team. She was just on the list of 5 or so people with excellent chances.

As far as top collegate runner, you would struggle to say she was better than say Jen Rhines. Or Prefontaine. And if you start counting 1500 or 800, Vickey Huber and SFH were clearly better. But the point of the article here isn't accuracy. It is to get across that she was good. The author really should have said one of the finest as the best pretty much always debatable (ok if you want to say SFH was the best 1500m runner in collage history, that might not be too debateable. Even Ryun didn't win ever championship race he ran). Don't let your views of Fleshman's nonTrack stuff distract you for how decent she was.

lmb wrote:

Dave Patrick. Look it up.

And he got screwed by Bowerman. Forty years later Peyton Jordan publicly "pissed on Bowerman's" leg saying Patrick should have been chosen, in an attempt to right a wrong.

In many ways Bowerman's actions in 1968 created the corrupt and underhanded Nike corporate culture we see today. If there is justice in the world the Bowerman award would be scrapped in favor of the Dave Patrick award.

More on the 1968 trials.

this. and...the article was a love letter to fleshman and oiselle. puke. she's not the best, she never was. there is no such thing as "injury prone." you either know how to train, and listen to your body or you don't. and does anyone really care that she's retired? she hasn't been relevant for awhile except blogging and twitter which does not make you an athlete.

Larry Laphroaig wrote:

If the Times says it's so, it must be so.

Would not surprise me in the least if Oiselle has shelled out serious dough for NYT ad space the past few months.

It is a whore of a newspaper.

Six months from now it will be telling us we have to invade Country X in order to save the Free World.

Patty Dillon came from being a non-runner and smoker to set many American and World records yet did not make an Olympic team. And she is Mic Mac too.

you're benevolent mini-brains wrote:

rojo wrote:

Some of my favorite kids were the ones with the worse grades. They were interesting.

I bet the had the "worse" grades because of your teaching skills.

....And he must have taught you how to proof read before posting.

malmo wrote:

lmb wrote:

Dave Patrick. Look it up.

And he got screwed by Bowerman. Forty years later Peyton Jordan publicly "pissed on Bowerman's" leg saying Patrick should have been chosen, in an attempt to right a wrong.

In many ways Bowerman's actions in 1968 created the corrupt and underhanded Nike corporate culture we see today. If there is justice in the world the Bowerman award would be scrapped in favor of the Dave Patrick award.

Dave Patrick was unbeatable indoors. Big races indoors every weekend back in his day.

Two sets of Only trials in 68. Bowerman wanted to bounce Dave Wottle in 72 cause he got married. Called it a distraction.

wejo wrote:

The Times didn't qualify what they started the article with, "Lauren Fleshman was the top collegiate distance runner in American history."

That is crazy. She didn't win NCAA cross and she doesn't have the most track titles. Maybe she has the most track titles by an American runner over 1500m? Is that the case? She won 4 individual titles (3 outdoor 5ks, one indoor 3k, and a DMR).

Then state that. Maybe that is the claim they are going off of?

I thought of this thread as walking into the stadium Jon and I were talking about Abbey D'Agostino and he mentioned how she has SEVEN individual NCAA titles including an NCAA cross.

I couldn't believe Abbey D had that many, but on that criteria she was a better than Lauren at NCAAs and could be considered the best NCAA American long distance runner.

Five pages in, lots of whining and bile from the usual basement dwellers, and none of the posters who hate on Fleshman have named a faster distance runner (woman) not to make a team!