Please Stephanie Garcia STOP running the Steeple

How hard is it to jump over a 2 foot barrier? For God's sake she's a professional runner; this is all she does for a living. No reason you can't figure out how to jump over a hurdle. The Africans don't even practice and they totally dominate the event. If you can't figure it out move to a different event.

Her 1500 pb is only a 4:05 from 2 years ago so maybe she doesn't have a choice.

Women's hurdles are 30 inches, which is 2 1/2 feet.

Coburn is a bad hurdler and it seem to work out for her.

not important wrote:

Coburn is a bad hurdler and it seem to work out for her.

Have you watched the two of them? Coburn's hurdling is galaxies ahead of Garcia's.

Wikilooker wrote:

Her 1500 pb is only a 4:05 from 2 years ago so maybe she doesn't have a choice.

Didn't she run a 4:04 the other week, or was it another 4:05. ~4:24 flat in the mile last week. So her mile is a mile ahead of her steeple right now.

She fell on a hurdle I think at the trials, so she might be nervous or apprehensive. If she gets over it she might go considerably faster. Middleclass suburban girls don't know how to ball hard in the paint, you see this alot. Tons of talent, then get scared of a hurdle.

No.

I don't think her hurdling has even been a problem until this year. She ran 9:19 last year and even ran pretty well in doha and at pre. I think it started at USAs as she was probably overthinking her chances of making the team. She's definitely got some mental obstacles to get through and I'd say she's probably in around PR shape physically. Her mile last weekend was really solid and she's run like 15:16 for 5k. This is all mental for sure.

Just another coach wrote:

It is horrible watching a fine athlete like Stephanie Garcia, who is in great form this year in the 1500 meters try to run the steeple. Just finished watching the Diamond League meet in Rabat. Ouch. In all my years of coaching I have never seen someone with such poor technique. She loses 3-4 meters on every barrier, and almost comes to a stop at the water pit. Why in Gods name is she still trying to run it. Wouldn't a better strategy be to finish out the season with great 1500's, and then go back to the drawing board trying to improve her technique? If she can not do so, then just focus on the 1500 meters where she is very, very good. What do the rest of you think?

Sigh....as much as I hate the negativity on this board, this is pretty accurate. Not only is her hurdling form suspect, she also tends to put herself in bad position heading into the hurdle. When she does have clean sight lines she is not as bad but that doesn't happen often. Its almost as if she only thinks about where she needs to be when she is right up on the hurdle rather then several strides before.

Maybe she's trying to copy the Kenyan hurdling technique.

I literally came to LRC today to post this. Steph layed an egg of 9:40 at DL today. That's 45 seconds off what the world's best can do in that event. Pretty sad for an event that takes just 9 min. Heck I'm closer to elite times than she is right now and I'm just a regular guy with no sponsorship. How sad.

Im guessing she looks really smooth in practice and everything goes to hell when the pressure is on and shes tired.

oopsie wrote:

Maybe she's trying to copy the Kenyan hurdling technique.

She looked different at the Trials. She is now either completely spooked or is trying something different.

I subscribe to the NBC Sports Gold package, and on the international feed of the Lausanne or London meet broadcast — can't recall which — Tim Hutchings or Steve Cram mentioned Garcia had been working on revamping her hurdling technique. Hutchings kept commenting on how often she was stutter-stepping coming up to the hurdles in the meet. Then said something to the effect that paying so much attention to her hurdling had messed it up for the time being, unlike the Kenyans who typically have poor form but just do things naturally and don't overthink it.

Hope Garcia can get over whatever the issue is in trying to make over her technique.

well how about det apels wrote:

I literally came to LRC today to post this. Steph layed an egg of 9:40 at DL today. That's 45 seconds off what the world's best can do in that event. Pretty sad for an event that takes just 9 min. Heck I'm closer to elite times than she is right now and I'm just a regular guy with no sponsorship. How sad.

Has run 9:19 last year and 9:25 this year which are 12 and 18 sec off of the American record if you struggle with the math. And the 4:24 mile last week was good.

She's obviously run into some problems with confidence and technique since May. But that can be fixed. You on the other hand seem stupid. Can't fix that. Sorry.

Garcia gave an interview stating that her coach this year tried to change her technique, which has obviously led to disastrous results -- overthinking, freezing, basic distrust and discomfort with the new technique. Probably why she has run a couple flat races just to focus on running and not worrying about technique before returning to her bread and butter event. Obviously, the break from the steeple did not work.

The excessive stutter stepping does seem to come from a lack of confidence/overthinking. She need to go to a park and just start jumping over stuff (park benches, bushes, sleeping vagrants) just to remember what its like to hurdle stuff naturally. At least that would be my armchair-quarterback advise.

I need to add. No matter how bad her hurdle technique looks, it doesn't look half as bad as the "butt-crack" black line that runs down the back of the New Balance racing shorts. Why in the world did they put that line there? Why not just put little black circles for nipples on the sports bra. I don't get it. It looks awful. I like New Balance, but that black line on the butt just looks horrible.

Les is right.

Jonathan Gault wrote:

She's not injured. She said that this is actually the fittest she's ever been.

The reason for her struggles over the hurdles is that she tried to change her technique this year, but she admitted to us after the race that she's still not totally confident in it. Hesitating before a barrier is not something you want to do in the steeple, but if you don't trust your form, you hesitate, which leads to bad hurdles and a fall like the one she suffered in Sacramento.

Garcia's interview may have been the best one I conducted at USAs yesterday. She very candidly discussed the problem in a way that most pros would be unwilling to. Props to her.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dVX5o9GDzw