Old School wrote:
* Excellent Point - I stand corrected on Meb/Broe for the 2004 Trials given the OT Marathon Trials & Injuries. However, I stand by my point that they never intended to represent their country in 2005 & that they are not showing the necessary leadership that we need.
Uhh in your last paragraph you say:
"I never said that our best have to compete in each IAAF championship event each time..."
so which is it? Meb and co. didn't run it this one time (for legitimate reasons) but you say that is bad. How do YOU know that they never intended to run it? Most athletes don't put out press releases three months before each of their races saying whether they are going to run or not. Look at US Cross this year, there were a ton of last minute signons.
You make this whole big deal about a TEAM. But a TEAM is a group of people who work together throughout the year to work towards a common goal. Unless you want all the top US athletes to train together for 2 months or 1 month before world cross and pay for their support and somehow get them all to train similarily you are really conflating things by saying this is a team. A TEAM for world cross is simply the best group of people we can put on the line at the time. This whole thing about leadership you're exaggerating especially given how we had goucher and ritz et al on the line anyway. How much leadership do you need? IS Meb going to come up with some awesome strategy and pitch it to the group the night before the race at the team meeting and that is going to somehow change things? Wake up. Each individual prepares on his own and prepares for the race on his own. You'd be hard pressed to come up with instances of team captains impacting things.
For 2004, Eduardo Torres & Alan Webb are on my "Broe List" for qualifying and then gaffing their country. I also think Robert Gary should have doubled just like Jorge should have this year -- at least he was there. Collectively, if we cared about our national pride, we would have recognized the inevitable marathon scheduling conflict & really rallied to fill the gap in 2004. Where was Fam, Mike Donnelly, Slattery? Where were our Stember-Sage-Lunn crew...you know, our our Non-A Time/Non XC Miler Club...
You act like all these guys ducked the race, but we can only send 12 guys to the f***ing world champs!!! In addition, out of the select handful that needed to be replaced (very small mind you) we had pretty decent replacement that were on par with the guys that you just talked about above. Or maybe you don't think the elites we sent were elite. Probably not since you like to bash our elites.
I won't even get into the miler discussion, that has been hashed before. You seem to miss the boat on how milers train. Look at the 4k lists and tell me which world class milers ran the race. Could our US milers have run it? Yeah probably, but we got guys who specialize in cross and 5k to run for the team, I think that's a better trade.
Also, a lot of guys in the past wouldn't have bothered to run cross before, and now guys like Webb are. That is awesome for the sport, even if they just run US cross because it makes our fields deeper and more competitive and pulls our developing guys along more. If there are milers in the trials race I say that's awesome.
the guys who run tactical all the time because they don't have the strength to go for it on all 4 laps? Where was Jonathon Riley to pick-up the slack?
Gee I don't know, maybe US indoors - he focused on indoors btw. Some people do one or the other, not always both. Why don't you pick on Geb for not doing cross in the late 90s.
I give Dan Lincoln a bye since he was busy helping his TEAM...Arkansas win national championships. In fact we did pretty damn good in the 4K (7th Place), but are we going to accept that Canada kicked our ass by 30-some odd points?
no, but when are you going to accept that sometimes a good team has a bad race and no level of elites will change that. You don't have to throw a fit on one bad race. I can understand if we had a whole string of back in the pack of performances over the years, but like you pointed out, we have had some ok performances in the 2000s, so doesn't it seem more likely this was an anomoly, and not the big continuing disaster you are blowing things up to be?
You wan an example of "Old School" leadership: Salazar's efforts in assembling a badass Track 10K at Hayward in his prime so that Americans could go for fast times...HERE IN AMERICA...not in Europe.
are you completely oblivious to track in the US? What about the stanford meets where Meb and Deena have set AR's in the 10000? Mt.Sac? Home Depot? Eugene GP? Hello!!!!!! Those are places where Americans can go fast times the last 5 years!!! Which is another good point. A lot of those fast Stanford races are in the end of March and April, there are people who prepare especially for them (10k and 5k) to get qualifying times out of the way early. IF you are prepping for that particular track race, going to world cross a few weeks before your mini-peak won't help.
I fail to see how Salazar making a fast meet has anythign to do with world cross leadership. Should Meb make a meet the day before world cross so we can run fast times? give me a break. these guys that you berate show leadership by being on the teams and getting medals and going to the finals for the US. don't backslide on this.
* I'm tone deaf to the "What's right for me as an individual..." argument. I'm arguing that #1 I'm not asking the athletes to even peak (although I think they should) for World XC...I'm asking for the lowest common denominator -- particiaption -- on their bad days there still good. #2 Unlike most, I view XC as first a Team Sport. #3 I don't accept that we can't do better.
once again, we fielded two full mens teams, one of the few countries to do so. that is FULL participation. by denying this you are basically slamming the guys that did run.
* Go USA: Not one time have I argued that doing World XC is the panacea for improvign USA LDR! There is no silver bullet...your right, we have to prioritize. I argue we focus on World XC as a team and obviously Track in the summer.
when you can actually define what team means we can have an intelligent discussion. basically all you say is to force our top guys (whoever they are) to run world cross. i really see no team in that.
When we have Tim Broe, Abdi, Fam, Culpeper running these b.s. road races during the same period of World XC --- these are examples of poor priorities.
it makes sense if it fits within their overall scheme of how best to perform in the summer. you don't know what is best for them. and you'd be a fool if you didn't think the 15k and 8k were not competitive races. these races were awesome for two reasons:
1. get a larhe group of americans competing in one place (sounds a lot like your salazar argument). that 8k will be one of the deepest road races this year.
2. get more public exposure.
* On athletes running World XC Year in and Out. Yes your exactly right. The World XC Championships should be that one time a year where the LDR comes together to put its best face forward as a TEAM each year. I never said that our best have to compete in each IAAF championship event each time...check the thread.
ok well you contradicted your first paragraph so who knows what your point is anymore.
USATF sponsors all these b.s. USA Road Races...fine, I think they're B.S...like Liquori said...its rock'n'roll compared Carnegie Hall (international competition). Have I raged on the hypocrisy of many of our guys focusing on the Grand Prix, but gaffing the opportunity to come together as a TEAM for the World 1/2, Eikeden, etc....NO...but I could. There is a place for Road Races in my Campaign to Victory that you'll see soon.
You want to know why those races are good? Because it gives a chance for up and coming elites to race each other in competitive settings and also race the guys they want to become down the road. Not everyone can make a world cross team, that's only for 12 people. and there a lot of other guys who will have to do something right? they can't go to europe obviously because they aren't fast enough yet. these USA races are perfect stepping stones for them. you'd be an idiot to take them out like you propose.
Wannabekile had the best post of this thread honestly - a lot of countries have the same trend as we do, and in many cases we aren't losing the same amount of guys they do and can actually field full teams. You are simply overexaggerating the need for a full world cross team and fail to show how forcing athletes to run it will change anything.