Our quest to name the greatest American distance runner ever is heating up as we are down to our men's and women's finals. Jim Ryun vs. Frank Shorter and Deena Kastor vs Jenny Simpson.
Today the Colorado Buffs and Coach Mark Wetmore officially got behind Simpson.
The Colorado communications department sent us an email stating that Mark Wetmore would like everyone to know the following. “I wish it explicitly stated that she has made every World and Olympic team since 2007. I don't think any US distance runner has ever done that, female or male.”
Wetmore is correct in pointing out that Simpson's consistency is very impressive but for the record she's not the only person to make every US track team for 10 straight Worlds/Olympics. Shalane Flanagan made every US team from 2004 to 2016 just as Simpson has done it from 2007-2019.
CU then wrote back and asked us to the following, “It does not mention that she was #1 in the WORLD in '14 (I think that is the year), 2nd in '13, 3rd in '11 and top 8 of world for 8 years in a row. Nor 8 x 5th ave. mile winner.”
We didn't add that as we did mention in the overview that she was a world #1 (we just didn't mention the year) and if we start talking about 5th Avenue mile titles, we'd be spending all day talking about how many US road titles Kastor won (Tilastapaja says she has 24 us title total).
And Colorado also tweeted out the following.
https://twitter.com/CUBuffs/status/1252673839193980928
Will the actions of CU help Jenny? Currently, she narrowly trails Kastor 48% to 52%.
You can vote here:
https://www.letsrun.com/news/2020/04/american-distance-goat-vote-in-the-final-four/