Seriously -- these complaints are willfully ignorant of where most of these athletes are in their training schedules.
The Cook crew -- Manzano included -- just spent almost 4 weeks doing some pretty serious altitude training. So how about we throw the 3:50 miler a bone and chalk up his so-so performance to an exceptionally grueling few weeks of training?
If you take the time to watch the Lomong interview on flotrack, you'll see he isn't exactly in prime shape yet, either. The guy doesn't seem to have done much in the way of true speedwork yet.
As for Wheating -- I struggle to see how anyone can complain about his race. This was his first "true" competition after last season (I'm not counting the Oregon/OTC DMR because Wheating was by himself the whole way through). On top of that, he's been hurt, and so he is clearly proceeding cautiously with his racing schedule. And all that aside, this race still managed to affirm Wheating's talents: he managed to hold onto a 2:54 1200 like it was nothing, and has a good enough kick that he can wait until 80 meters to go to still win the race in 3:36.
So why is anyone complaining?