Verzbicas Competing Sunday in Hungary at World Tri Champs

That's why I said, when they are in peak running shape. Look at guys like Brian Mcgovern who was a 14min guy in college, or Simon Whitfield who has placed top 10 at canadian XC champs.

The point is, these guys are good runners. The gap between LV and them isn't as great as between him and those Juniors. At best, he'll be in what 20-30sec better 5k shape than the other pro's? Because you have to acknowledge that LV isn't going to be in top 5k shape either.

I agree with the rest of your post, let him do whatever he wants.

The above "let him do whatever he wants" comment spurred this thought:

LV's triathlon coach, in an interview earlier this year, stated that the running community knows LV as a national champion runner but does not realize he's world-class at this level in the triathlon.

Now, in his first World Jr. Tri, he finishes 4th.

LV has stated his intentions of trying out for the 2012 USA Oly Tri team. (By the way, Oly distances are double Jr. distances, so it ends with a 10k which LV has never run and would be rather daunting on only 40-50 miles/week.)

I believe he has to be considering skipping college until the fall of 2012.

He may be good enough to receive funding from USA Triathlon to live at their training center (Colorado Springs?) to prepare for the Oly Trials.

Or, he may do what Webb did at George Mason and Evan Jaeger is doing now at Portland State, namely, continue to live at home in Orland Park, IL while attending the local JC or 4-year college just as a student while taking the minimum number of units to allow time for training with his current tri club coach.

I think it will be very difficult for him to put together a "deal" with a big-time Div I track/xc program to be on scholarship while competing only during xc or just a small portion of the track season.

For what it's worth, Stanford recruited a top junior triathlete-distance runner from Maryland several years ago named Steve Duplinsky. I don't know the details, but I do know the end result was a disaster with Duplinsky either quitting or being told to leave the team. It was an accrimoniuus departure and we haven't heard from him since.

If LV does decide to go accept a track scholarship next year (presuming he graduates next spring), his family better hire a lawyer to write up a very detailed scholarship, i.e. contract, specifying exactly when he is committed to the team vs. when he can goe off on his own for tri training/racing.

Stan Ford Jr.

Stan Ford Jr. wrote:

I believe he has to be considering skipping college until the fall of 2012.

He may be good enough to receive funding from USA Triathlon to live at their training center (Colorado Springs?) to prepare for the Oly Trials.

Stan Ford Jr.

can foreigners (he is a lithuanian citizen) recieve USA funding?

He can't compete at tri because he is mediocre in 2/3 events. If he improved those events he would impair his running.

mediocre at like 18 years of age getting 4th overall? come on sancha...

for someone of his skill level on the run if you can be in contact after the swim... and not lose line of site on the bike... then he's gonna run down 99% of the competition out there... you wouldn't believe how many great bikers can't run worth a damn

Something else to consider is that the run is actually LESS than 1/3 of a triathlon. For example, in the results posted earlier LV's run was only 15:20 out of the 52+ minutes he spent racing. At the Olympic distance his run will only be about 30 minutes out of 105 total. Granted, his overall cardiovascular strength may make him better at the longer Olympic distance. Also, the guys who finish at the top of the big triathlon's are often the best runners, and only among the best bikers.

At the Olympics in 2012 they'll probably be a group who run the 10k leg in close to 30 flat. The question is can LV be within a minute of those guys at the end of the bike? Even with his running talent it would be asking a lot for him to run under 29 after about an hour and fifteen minutes of intense racing.

Stan Ford Jr. wrote:

LV has stated his intentions of trying out for the 2012 USA Oly Tri team. (By the way, Oly distances are double Jr. distances, so it ends with a 10k which LV has never run and would be rather daunting on only 40-50 miles/week.

Two things...

1) He may only run 40-50 miles/week, but he trains for the tri (obviously). He has plenty of additional cross training he gets from biking and swimming which gives him strength in some areas of someone who runs well more than 40/50 miles/week. So it's ridiculous to make it out like he's just some guy running 40/50 miles/week and will struggle with a 10k because of that. You can't even begin to compare him to a regular 40/50 mpw guy.

2) Who says he'll be running 40-50 mpw by the time the olympics come around?

In Olympic triathlon, drafting is legal on the bike, which means it is nearly impossible to get any separation from the pack on the biking leg - if you can be near the front coming out of the swim, you are going to be near the front after the bike. If Lukas improves his swim, he'll likely have an Olympic gold medal sooner or later - he's that good of a runner.

a miler wrote:

In Olympic triathlon, drafting is legal on the bike, which means it is nearly impossible to get any separation from the pack on the biking leg - if you can be near the front coming out of the swim, you are going to be near the front after the bike. If Lukas improves his swim, he'll likely have an Olympic gold medal sooner or later - he's that good of a runner.

True but, swinning takes the longest and is most time consuming to perfect. If your not a pro swimmer forget about winning ITU races, you'll be way to far back to catch up

There was an article about LV in one of the running mags last year, can't remember if it was Running Times or Harrier. Anyway, he trains a huge amount for a high school kid. 6 hours a day, 3 sessions per day. He was quoted as saying he has to eat some ridiculous number of calories to keep up with it. So he is not just some Joe running 40 mile weeks. I get the impression that all he does is train and go to school. Makes for a great athlete but I'm not sure most high school kids would trade him for his lifestyle. I get the strong impression the kid is under his ex-Olympian mom's thumb 100% of the time and has been from an early age. I believe they have a younger kid they are doing the same thing with. It's his life, at least I hope it is, so to each his own. I certainly hope he has the success he is striving for.

Because Kenyans don't do triathlon.

LV has represented the USA in ITA races, Jr Pan Am events so if he is going to claim Lithuania for the Olympics he better declare now.

It may even be too late. I do not know the OG nationality change rules but I`m sure you have to sit out at least a year after a national change.

Didn`t Lagat get caught up in the rules about time between competitions after you change nationalities?

This thread is almost painful. Ok here are some things you need to know about olympic/itu triathlon.

1. The swim is essentially pass/fail. You either make the bike pack or your race is over. Lukas had one of the slowest swim splits in the Jr race. Over twice the distance, at the professional level, there's no way he'll be fast enough to make the bike pack for a few years. In the draft legal races I've done, fellow Americans who have gone to the Olympic trials for swimming come out in the middle of the pack. It's that fast.

2. I can't comment on the 13:50, only that there are guys that have run that fast or close to it that now race tris - Jefferson, Vanort, Shoemaker. And those guys aren't the ones winning the WCS series races either. Earlier in the year Tim Don from Britain ran 28:50 on the road in the off season, finishing 50 seconds behind GEB. He's won one race all year, but has made every bike pack (meaning he's been outrun).

3. It's impossible for Lukas to make the olympics in 2012. It's not like swimming or track, for better or worse, there's not one "Trials" race. It's an accumulation of 'points' scored at races over a two year period. That 2 year period started last June. He hasn't scored any points yet, and it will be impossible for him to do so in time to race the World Cup events being used to select the Olympic Spots. Realistically there's 6-8 guys that could make the team, again, for better or worse.

Triathlon is the fastest growest sport, in terms of money and participation, so it makes sense for even very good runners to take it up - as sponsorship opportunities are there. This is the case in countries where tri is as big or bigger than distance running - europe and oceania. It's awesome that Lukas wants to race triathlon, but it's silly for him to think making the Olympic Team will be easy, and it's alarming that he and his coach keep bringing up 2012 as a possibility, as it highlights a severe lack of knowledge or respect for the qualification process.

Sidenote, it's possible he may actually be a better runner than triathlete.

By the numbers, he lost thirty seconds in the swim to the AVERAGE swimmer(8:30 to 9 minutes) and only gained back 27 seconds over twice the amount of time(15:47 to 15:20) - where the leaders were running a tactical race in a pack.

In a more competetive race, it's going to be harder to make the bike pack if you have a slow swim. Obviously US nationals has less fast guys than worlds, so Lukas was able to make a pack of cyclists, draft off them, and run to victory. Running people down is a lot harder as the quality of swimmers goes up, as the front bike pack is faster and gains more time.

Look at the successful athletes who come to triathlons with a specific background in one of the events - it is almost always swimming (e.g., Andy Potts). You have to be an excellent swimmer, okay biker and good runner to win.

Given a great swimmer/good biker/good runner and a good swimmer/good biker/great runner, the prior wins every time.

Duplinsky got injured pretty badly and never bounced back. There wasn't a "scandel" as you seem to be implying. He had a history of injuries and illness though, so Stanford knew what they were getting.

LV won't get any funding till he posts results at an olympic distance race. He hasn't done one yet, let alone a world or continental cup where several top placings are required for funding. The funding doesn't just come over night, it's a pretty structured and lengthy process.

It'll be interesting to see what he decides, but to me running in college (with a ton of supplmental swim training) is a reasonable route to making the 2016 team. As I mentioned above, 2012 is impossible.

"Things to know about Triathlon" pretty much nailed it, with one big exception, USAT does hold a Trials race where the winner goes no matter what. AND for Bejing in 08, they held a special qualifier race within the race at the ITU world cup race on the Olympic course in 07. That was what allowed Jarrod Shoemaker to make the Oly squad. He is a legit athlete and one of the US's future stars, but at the time he was not a real Oly-squad contender. It was the Matty Reed, Hunter Kemper, Andy Potts show, and Jarrod threw that group into a tail spin. Eventually, Andy Potts was left off the team. Then at Tuscaloosa at Nationals, Matty Reed won his slot on the team, as well as Laura Bennett.

Moral of the story is, IF Lukas is a card-carrying pro and on the start line at one of these races, he has a shot at making the team with very little points.

My own thoughts:

No way in God's green earth he makes the US team. The following people are too good, although aging:

Matty Reed

Jarrod Shoemaker

Hunter Kemper may have one more

Andy Potts may come back down from Iron racing

Greg Goddamn Bennett is a citizen of the US now, but will be 38 or 39

Then up and comers like Matt Charbot, Cameron Dye and Sean Jefferson will all be extremely difficult for Lukas to beat. He's still improving, but they are still on a very steep section of the learning curve as well. In any event, he's bringing some cross-sport interest into Tri, which will only help the future.

a miler wrote:

In Olympic triathlon, drafting is legal on the bike, which means it is nearly impossible to get any separation from the pack on the biking leg - if you can be near the front coming out of the swim, you are going to be near the front after the bike. If Lukas improves his swim, he'll likely have an Olympic gold medal sooner or later - he's that good of a runner.

true but wrote:

True but, swinning takes the longest and is most time consuming to perfect. If your not a pro swimmer forget about winning ITU races, you'll be way to far back to catch up

The guy with the fastest swim split wound up 51 overall . . .

In ITU triathlon you have to be good enough in the swim to make the first group on the cycling leg. If you kill the swim you're going to get caught by the pack on the cycling leg anyway in a draft legal race. Totaling up the Swim+T1+Bike times from this race it looks like there was a front pack of about 30. Lukas was in the first chase pack with only about 12 guys hitting the run about 40 seconds back. Only he and the Danish guy from the second pack finished top 10 overall.

The top 10 finishers ranked in the top 15 run times, top 45 swim times, and top 45 bike times. This shows that the guys who win ITU races are the best runners who are able to make the first cycling pack off the swim. Lukas is very close to being that guy.

just-the-facts wrote:

i would bet my life savings that the top triathletes in the world are never in 1350 shape.

There go your savings...

13:50 is fast but still one minute off WR. Whitto, Brownlee, Docherty, Don (28:56 at Manchester 10k), Gomez...