BTC Entries Posted for USAs . . . and no Evan Jager

Yes, BTC has had a lot of success, from Teg to Flanagan to Jager to Fisher. However, they are not really known for keeping athletes healthy or having athletes with long careers. Imagine if Teg had strung 4-5 years together without injury. Nelson, Bairu, Solinsky, Derrick, Fernandez, Heath, Hill, Jorgenson, Infeld, Hall, Quigley. And now Cranny, Schweizer, Frierichs, and Jager. I have zero inside info on this group, but from an outside perspective, BTC seems like a group which clearly does not have longevity in mind.

Jerry's best runner was Simon Bairu. Jerry ended it early for him. What a disaster.

While everyone is quick to claim BurritoGate - perhaps this is just an example of what happens when you train at a high intensity/level for a long time while clean? Long distance running at the volumes pros do it at isn't healthy, full stop. From a pure health perspective - some exercise is good. Too much or too little is bad.

What other groups are keeping athletes healthy for their entire careers with no setbacks? Kipchoge the most obvious example, but given a bunch of his pacers have been popped, I have serious questions there...

He has had one training partner popped. His pacers were just Nike athletes from all over and many had little relation to him. There was also a 5,000m runner who used to train under Sang, but he got popped after leaving the camp. But I mean plenty of teammates of Kipchoge’s have been frequently hurt -Kamworor notably. People point to the Norwegian system but Filip/Henrik have had tons of injuries. I don’t think BTC is injury-laden due to doping, I think the wide consensus is Jerry does not individualize for athletes coming back from injury. Quigley in an LA Times profile says he gives no direction as far as cross training, which likely doesn’t help either.

These silly debates and speculations happen in all pro sports. Think fan sites, ESPN, sports talk radio, twitter and instagram accounts, etc…

You need to do your part and stop taking comments on this board so seriously.

I like these Nike ad posts. How do I buy a slot to sell my headbands?

You guys are flogging a dead horse. BTC is a dead group. Schumacher is more focused on the collegiate athletes. Remote coaching does not work. How many of his athletes have relocated to Eugene?

Mahiedine Mekhissi-Benabbad might have something to say about this

If this last year has been an example of focusing on collegiate athletes, then that’s not going all that well either.

An indirect effect of no Lopez or Evan will be that Grant Fisher will not benefit from team tactics in some of the races where it benefits him to push the pace early. It was evident last year at USAs the plan BTC had to kill off pretenders early. Grant will have to run solo this year…against a former teammate who knows his every move.

Mekhissi is Algerian, which is in Africa. Thus Jager is the best non-African born steepler.

Teare is in the 5k. If he makes the 15 team you better believe he’s gonna take that thing out hard for grant

Quigley in an LA Times profile says he gives no direction as far as cross training, which likely doesn’t help either.

Not a fan of the BTC either, but I wouldn't expect Jerry to be involved in someone's cross-training while injured. There should be other coaches, athletic trainers, physical therapists for that. Once an athlete is free-of-injury and at some level of fitness, they rejoin the group. Best analogy would be an injured baseball player working his way back. He goes through rehab and some minor league appearances and rejoins the team when ready.

Born and raised in France. Also, 3 Olympic and 2 WC medals to 1 and 1 for Jager. I think just with those data points that a fairly convincing argument is made for MMB.

Well he didn’t delegate or have someone external providing direction there. So whether that’s directly or indirectly on him, it’s not great.

Alright then if we're going by where you are born then Mekhissi is European, but if you go geneology then he's African. But I agree that Mekhissi has a better career than Jager.

Yeah, @One or the other's post is ridiculous - like he/she/they has some insight into the training and we don't. ALL of us are speculating.

Pretty much no one on Letsrun has a clue about how the pros are training/eating/recovering/traveling etc and if they do, they certainly know not to post any specifics.

Would be great to have a former elite runner come on here and actually post very specific information about their training and life as a pro. My dream is to have someone who was super successful and doped give us the scoop, but not holding out for that one.

10.02 is wind-aided. He has a bye into the meet as defending World Champ in the 400m.

Unless France is now a part of Africa, why is Franzois being downvoted? Faster PR and more global medals.