Centroabitchicken wrote:
Obviously running. wrote:
Seems pretty obvious he doesn’t want to play second fiddle to Murphy and Engels and is making the change now in an off year so he has an established routine that works and is in place by 2019 so everything’s comfortable for 2020.
Murphy and Engles are going to be his biggest rivals in the US leading into 2020 so why would he want to stay and train full time with them. The beauty of the NOP in the past was they all competed in different events / for different countries, now they’ve brought in all the young studs from the same event and Centro probably doesn’t want to go into races where his biggest US rivals know his fitness, weaknesses from training together every day.
I guess he’ll still do altitude camps with them, but equally wouldn’t surprise me if he goes to flagstaff and is training with other guys rather than the other locations NOP tend to go to.
Still hoping Jenkins crushes it the next 2-3 years, really rate Pete Julian as a coach and hope he starts to get more credit for what he’s doing with some of the middle distance guys whilst Alberto starts to step back from being the main coach.
Centro's great but it's a fact he was pissing and moaning when he found out Murphy was coming in, surprising that wasn't discussed here. People were too busy attacking Rupp and covering their eyes about Aden and all the usual hypocritical goings on apparently. Centro knows Murphy has far greater potential and by 2019 Centro will not be able to handle Murphy in any kind of race at 1500 (never mind the 800 where Murphy will probably take down the AR this year).
Centro has had a fantastic career at the 1500 but he'd better start making the transition to the 5k because he won't be the top dog in the US at the 1500 much longer. Murphy may knock him off this season. Centro has his Oly Gold and WC medals, but it's time to move on. Centro has always been a bit snarky about Murphy, all that ever did was show he could see the kid's potential was far better than his own. Murphy may never win Oly Gold but he's going to run significantly faster over the 1500 than Centro ever will. You can bet on it.
This is basically the same thing Rowbury did when Hassan moved to NOP. Hassan gets there and Rowbury instantly goes elsewhere to Mexico, Albuquerque, etc while Hassan is in Portland. At least she's from another country, but in Centro's case, Engels and Murphy are both fighting for 1500 sport and Robby is a wonderful championship racer. That's not even including another wild card like Gregorek.
I think Centro will be fine, but it's not necessarily an easy situation. Not saying Centro should move up to the 5k, but he definitely has 13:00-13:05 potential while holding 3:30-3:32 fitness which would be dangerous in a championship style race,