We need to rethink how to develop distance running talent in the US. I am depressed watching US stink up the Olympics

Not a single mention of mechanics? Most American runners who take up distance running never learn how to run properly and is the main reason they can't finish big races fast enough. I would be willing to bet KS could start fresh with 400m to go in that 5000 final and couldn't outrun Hassan. You think she will ever be able to close in 57? not gonna happen with those mechanics. My theory for success is we need to identify those with good mechanics by age 10, then develop the heck out of them. Mostly average 400 and 800 runners who have good mechanics can be developed into really good milers. The young lady from Virginia who was 4th at the trials in the 800 has good mechanics. If she gets in the right program and wants to succeed, she can make it on the world level. That's what I'm talking about. Good basic foot speed and good mechanics. heck, I would say if you can't run 2 flat for women and 1:48 for men in college, your chances of being truly competitive on the global level are slim. Just look at how fast races finish now. You gotta have that speed!

SDSU Aztec wrote:

twiddle wrote:

i’d also consider the level of athlete that goes into the “farm system” of high schools.

it’s the kids that can’t do anything else. XC and track in general (especially outside of the 100) is decidedly uncool. The nerds. The outcasts.

Track consists of our F and G level athletes. Soccer gets D and E level, and we suck at that too.

Take what we can get and don’t dwell on it. It’s been waaaaaay better the past decade than from say ‘92-2004

That's absolute crap. Were you home schooled and had no contact with HS sports?

coached a very successful hs program for 10 years. 8 state championships, 22 all-americans, 4 national champions (it was a relay, i won’t puff) etc…

if you think that’s crap, you’re lying to yourself.

RomexKipruto wrote:

here we go again...

if it were strictly a numbers and resources game then china would be mixing it up in every track event.

yes, some east africans have doped. guess what? so have a lot of white people. if i were putting together a cross country team and i could pluck fresh, undeveloped talent from anywhere in the world you best believe i would be going straight to the rift valley.

galen rupp shows that the only way you're gonna get a white person to mix it up with the EA runners is to literally treat them like a science experiment from age 16 onward.

+1. Add Jakob I to that list.

hr stuff wrote:

We need a sports dictatorship agency to evaluate youth talent and tell them and their parents what sports the youth need to focus on.

Most of the great distance talent plays soccer but not well enough to make a living at it. Some try at FB or BB, but let’s be honest potential distance runners aren’t thriving there.

Meanwhile, most of the great soccer talent is playing football or basketball, but also not well enough to make a living.

Find the almost great kids in sports and send them in the right direction.

LOL "we need a sports dictatorship agency"... It is absolutely hilarious to hear people write about what "WE" (the US) need to do in order to satisfy the Olympic distance medal desires of the 0.000001% of the country that go on LRC.

That said, I don't disagree with your assessment that the talent is displaced across other sports. We had a soccer player join our track team in HS who had never ran before. He very quickly became a decent 400m/800m runner (49 / 1:57) during his first and only season, while simultaneously playing club soccer (would often play 90 mins of soccer before coming to run the 4x4 and 4x8). He could have done a lot better with dedicated training, perhaps a move up to 1500m as someone else suggested, but did not enjoy the sport and never came back.

There is certainly a huge lack of financial and cultural incentives to push athletes towards running sports over more popular team sports in the US. In addition to those barriers, I think the biggest thing preventing most athletes from trying distance running is that 1) it is not fun for them and 2) the training is painful. This seems to be a point of pride for some runners (e.g., "My sport is your sport's punishment"), but it doesn't make people outside the sport want to get in it. Most HS athletes cannot be convinced to run vomit-inducing interval workouts after school when they could be having fun playing team sports like football, basketball, baseball, soccer, etc...

Considering that quite a few African countries have a better environment for running, a culture more focused on running, and a cultural diet better suited for running, why does it surprise you that America is not as good at distance running?

Plus, think about the logic behind your numbers. Yes the US is a much bigger country, but only a small minority of Americans focus on distance running. A massive proportion of people in Kenya and Ethiopia grow up running. So there are probably more people in Africa who focus on running than America by quite a bit. So again, why are you surprised America isn't as good?

What other fake - wealthy - like - us country dominates the US? We have significant obesity (already discussed), removing nearly half our country from consideration. Then, we are split between a myriad of other sports. At the 1st sign of struggle in one sport you can join swim club, archery, polo, water polo, lacrosse, soccer, etc….

Last time I checked the Kenyan, Ethiopian, and Ugandan equestrian teams, cycling, kayak, and gymnastics are lagging.

SDSU Aztec wrote:

decaman track club wrote:

We had a guy that could actually produce winners and look how we treated him.

Shameful.

Salazar's 4 year ban had nothing to do with being mean to people and the ban effectively ended his coaching career. If he was now available to coach, only an idiot would want to have a cloud put over any success by being involved with him. Mo Farah has said he regrets having been coached by Salazar.

Mo Farah was lying thru his teeth when he said that and you know it.

Nothing is going to change because our best athletes aren’t running track like in some other countries. The better athletes have so many other sports to play lol. If you haven’t noticed most distance runners are the most unathletic kids and it’s usually all they can do because they CAN’T play anything else lol. It is what it is.

lots of people run in the world. The US only dominates the sports where they have a huge participation pool advantage. Even the domination in them sports is starting to dissipate.

fsrd wrote:

SDSU Aztec wrote:

American Black's ancestry is from the west coast of Africa and they do not have the distance running ability of the Ethiopians and Kenyans. There is no reason to think black Americans would have more talent for running than white ones.

So what do west Africans succeed in with regards to track and field? Sprints jumps and throws??

West africa fails like the vast majority of africa because of the lack of investment in sports and facilities and infrastructure

Four different ways most U.S. collegiate middle and distance runners become runners: 1) Parents & siblings take one to road races to participate, sometimes before 10th birthday; 2) Youth T&F club from around age (9 to 12), most likely will participate in some long sprints; 3) Middle school XC or 4) show up at T&F to do whatever the team needs and start off as a long sprinter.

I was #4. #4 is how swimmers start off. Swimmers start off at a very young age. Depending on the pool measurements and type of swim meets, no five year old swimmer starts off swimming 1650 yards freestyle in 25 yard pool or 1500m freestyle in 25m or 50m pool. ALL YOUTH SWIMMERS START OFF SWIMMING 50YARD FREESTYLE or 50METRES FREESTYLE. I would like all U.S. runners to learn how to sprint 200m. Learn proper form for 200m and just do less of that as distance increases. Human energy system for 50 metres freestyle is very similar to human energy system for 200m dash, T&F.

XC will continue to be a fall sport in U.S. I cannot see XC coaches having film sessions teaching middle schoolers how to sprint 200m. In U.S., we need to encourage youth club T&F from elementary school age. All youth T&F club kids while in their youth need to race a 200m leg on a relay, at least.

twiddle wrote:

SDSU Aztec wrote:

That's absolute crap. Were you home schooled and had no contact with HS sports?

coached a very successful hs program for 10 years. 8 state championships, 22 all-americans, 4 national champions (it was a relay, i won’t puff) etc…

if you think that’s crap, you’re lying to yourself.

No, it is crap. Athletes have different skills and kids with talent for distance running are not going to play popular HS sports like football and basketball and kids talented enough for those sports aren't good at distance running.

When a talented 5/10 guy runs 5:00 in middle school is he a G level athlete? What does that even mean?

What grade levels did you assign to your 22 all-americans? Had they been rejected by all other sports before they grudgingly came to your school to run?

SDSU Aztec wrote:

decaman track club wrote:

We had a guy that could actually produce winners and look how we treated him.

Shameful.

Salazar's 4 year ban had nothing to do with being mean to people and the ban effectively ended his coaching career. If he was now available to coach, only an idiot would want to have a cloud put over any success by being involved with him. Mo Farah has said he regrets having been coached by Salazar.

I am a Farah fan, but he is very fake.

Simple ting is you are all too precious.

You hate to race, unless all the stars are aligned.

You struggle to lose. Its all too comfortable for you.

high school xc coach wrote:

SDSU Aztec wrote:

Salazar's 4 year ban had nothing to do with being mean to people and the ban effectively ended his coaching career. If he was now available to coach, only an idiot would want to have a cloud put over any success by being involved with him. Mo Farah has said he regrets having been coached by Salazar.

I am a Farah fan, but he is very fake.

OK. But if you were an up runner would you want to be coached by Salazar? Any thing you accomplished would be considered suspicious.

SDSU Aztec wrote:

high school xc coach wrote:

track and field is not a priority in our country. The majority of our best athletes are swallowed up by basketball and football for the men. Soccer, basketball and instaTHOTing for the ladies.

If you're referring to distance running, talented athletes are not playing football or basketball instead.

false. even the best distance runners I've had wanted to play football. They come from families who wouldn't let them play. Most kids would rather be mediocre football players than star cross runners. I should have mentioned soccer as well. It is extremely popular with our youth, even if our country has no idea what to do with the talent.

It's not about money or the talent pool.

First, stop funneling the best runners to college. Ingebrigtsen the Norwegian did not go to college. He's trained like a professional since puberty. There's a lot of family pressure on him but that's their business. His family is copying the Africans.

Second, US elite running is insular. It's a mystery how promising college runners are recruited into these clubs. The best aren't necessarily chosen. Mediocre coaches are also kept on too long

Third, clubs keep underperforming and older runners for too long. This is funny because these clubs don't care about their athletes.

Fourth, clubs don't race enough against elite competition and don't know how to peak.

Fifth, Americans treat running and runners like children. This includes the insistence upon talented runners endurng four years of college because it's fun, character building, just because, and as insurance for after running. African runners don't have to weigh competing against these luxuries.

It's not worth it. Let the hungry runners and coaches from other countries do it the hard way.

high school xc coach wrote:

SDSU Aztec wrote:

If you're referring to distance running, talented athletes are not playing football or basketball instead.

false. even the best distance runners I've had wanted to play football. They come from families who wouldn't let them play. Most kids would rather be mediocre football players than star cross runners. I should have mentioned soccer as well. It is extremely popular with our youth, even if our country has no idea what to do with the talent.

Come on. What NFL player do you believe could have been a great distance runner? Tom Brady?

Could Rupp have played on his HS football team's OL if only his parents had allowed him to? Maybe a talented 800/1500 guy could play football but an 5/10 kid would be useless and would have bones broken the first time he tried to tackle someone.

Do you have evidence that supports your belief that kids with talent for distance running or less likely to pursue their best sport than your A level athlete?

How do you know all that? Talented distance runners have good for from the beginning and it's just about impossible to change anyone's running style. Doing 200s sprints when he was a kid wouldn't have improved Salazar's form in anyway.