Unluckiest runner you never heard of?

Mariya Sergeyevna Savinova

morgan uceny

I'm sure there's many who are unluckier but Alison Bishop losing olympic gold to two men comes to mind.

Hdnafb wrote:

I'm sure there's many who are unluckier but Alison Bishop losing olympic gold to two men comes to mind.

GB had a lot of crazy talent after the golden 80s that was denied through injuries, career switches, giving up in the face of EPIOPIAN competition etc.

David Grindley is the biggest 'what if' for me that not many outside of 90's track fans would know. Probably the greatest 400m talent since Juantorena, but hampered and ultimately destroyed by calf injuries :

*meant 'greatest white talent since Juantorena' obviously.

Coevett wrote:

*meant 'greatest white talent since Juantorena' obviously.

well I guess you never heard of Andrew Rock, he's white and ran faster.

well i guess wrote:

Coevett wrote:

*meant 'greatest white talent since Juantorena' obviously.

well I guess you never heard of Andrew Rock, he's white and ran faster.

Hard to say, but Grindley ran his PB of 44.4 which is only fractionally slower than your guy while he was still a teenager and then started having calf problems. He was also over a decade earlier. He would almost certainly have medalled at the 93 world championships. The Lausanne race I posted above he destroyed the Kenyan who went on to get the bronze, and he was still only 21 at the time. Unfortunately, his calves blew again before Stuttgart. Looked like he could have threatened sub 44 there with Johnson as a rabbit if hadn't been injured.

I guess the white American sprinters are disadvantaged with the better competition, especially when they have to face black athletes in the junior rankings who are physically more mature at the same age.

Coevett wrote:

well i guess wrote:

well I guess you never heard of Andrew Rock, he's white and ran faster.

Hard to say, but Grindley ran his PB of 44.4 which is only fractionally slower than your guy while he was still a teenager and then started having calf problems. He was also over a decade earlier. He would almost certainly have medalled at the 93 world championships. The Lausanne race I posted above he destroyed the Kenyan who went on to get the bronze, and he was still only 21 at the time. Unfortunately, his calves blew again before Stuttgart. Looked like he could have threatened sub 44 there with Johnson as a rabbit if hadn't been injured.

I guess the white American sprinters are disadvantaged with the better competition, especially when they have to face black athletes in the junior rankings who are physically more mature at the same age.

Remaining healthy, resistance to injury, and the ability to absorb intense training is a component of talent. Or if you want to be semantic, it's a different kind of talent that's still integral to performing at the highest level. It's too bad Grindley didn't have the full equation. Junior age stars who burned out after increasing their workload in order to remain competitive in the senior ranks are a dime a dozen.

Alan Webb

I agree to some extent with regards to your point about injuries not necessarily being bad luck. Still, I think Grindley was clearly more talented and even though is career was curtailed has a much better resume even if a slightly inferior career pb. I don't know enough about the details of his career to say what the cause of his injuries were or if it was overtraining as a junior. It can be bad luck, and it can certainly be bad luck to happen at certain times such as days or weeks before major championships, and it can also be down to things such as the standard of medical care you receive, which was notoriously awful in the UK in the 80's and 90's.

Also, I think you're stretching the definition of talent till it has no meaning if you include things like 'ability to withstand injuries in your twenties' etc. talent is potential. If you include everything like you're doing, then there is no difference between talent and achievement. For example, when Jim Ryun was breaking records as a teen, it was safe to say he had amazing talent. Looking back in retrospect, and the fact that he fizzled out in his early 20s and never won Olympic Gold, we can say it's a shame he didn't have the mental fortitude and longevity to go with the talent, as well as the genuine bad luck (68 being at altitude, tripping in 72 etc). We can't say - oh he really didn't have so much talent after all, even if it's true he was pushed too hard as a teen and that likely produced burnout. At the end of the day, he didn't fulfill his talent (despite being a WR breaker etc.)

Hdnafb wrote:

I'm sure there's many who are unluckier but Alison Bishop losing olympic gold to two men comes to mind.

1) It's Melissa Bishop

2) It's bad juju to mention Melissa Bishop without pics

3) Did you mean to say she lost silver to 2 men?

If I've never heard of them, how would I know their name?

This guy:

http://images.gawker.com/afscuecqn42cpv1comlf/c_fit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_636.jpg

my first thought wrote:

morgan uceny

Came here to write this. By far he most unlucky runner I’ve heard of. Fell in the final of the world champs and Olympic final.

That’s good then you can wrote:

my first thought wrote:

morgan uceny

Came here to write this. By far he most unlucky runner I’ve heard of. Fell in the final of the world champs and Olympic final.

But in a case lack that, where it happens repeatedly, is it really bad luck, or more of a lack of spatial awareness? I would say runners like Uceny, Paul Chelimo, and Brenda Martinez often have problems with bumping into others because of the way they run.

Typical "Homer" Brit Announcers. The only one they really showed was the British guy.

I'd say you could count just about any international class South African runners from the apartheid era there. None of them created the apartheid system, some opposed it, yet suffered the consequences and were banned from international competition. Many of them were black and were double whammied. I'd add any US runners who made the 1980 non-team to that list but the "never heard of" thing often doesn't apply.

Ah but one thing we can say of Ryun and others is they were pioneers. They taught us "what not to do."

Youngsters fail to recognize that they would not be running as fast without someone going before and blazing the trails.