At the college level and higher, I'm curious as to how many of those with the "gift of speed" have been able to conquer the longer distance (and terrain) of cross country?
I remember (20 odd years ago) seeing a photo of even Seb Coe running a European XC race! He didn't win, but was around 20th. I know that Steve Scott ran well for UC Irvine in his day (and mine!), any others come to mind?
Falcon, 3:49 miler and 4 years of All American. I believe his last 3 years were 7th, 2nd, and first in NCAA.
Spiker, Webb, Sage, and others have handeled the transition to XC and the longer distance well recently.
All of Britain's top milers used to regularly race over X/C. Ovett was national junior champ in 75 and won the inter-counties event in 78 (ahead of Steve Jones) - though he mainly stuck to fairly low key events. I think he could have performed at international level had he really wanted to. Cram and Elliot were pretty useful over X/C, better than Coe - I don't think he competed at a particularly high level.
Wilfred Kirochi, 3:32/3:49 guy in the late 80s and early 90s, was runner-up to John Ngugi in world cross one year (maybe 1989?). That's not too shabby.....
THIS MAY BE OF INTEREST TOO.
This was an interview that took place after a USTAF level 3 coaching presentation that Peter Coe gave on July 9, 2001 in St Paul MN. Russ Ebberts, Editor of Track Coach, did the interview.
Here is the entire exchange...
Q Going back to Seb's Adolescence, how much racing was done in his early career?
Peter Coe: In his early career, of course he was running in school events in Sheffield where we lived at the time which was in the northern part of England. They had a very, very good Sheffield school sports league. And there were some very dedicated schoolmasters that gave a lot of time to it so there was for the most part of the winter season at least one interschool event. And when I say there would be at least one interschool event it would not becessarily be what you call a dual meet. It would be all the schools competing in the cross country program at various courses, all of them hills, by the way, around there.
He would probably have eight races in that league in consecutive weeks. One a week. On top of that there would be a club program to fulfill so that he could run, say, up to age 16 as much as 20 odd races in a particular period which I would call main winter buildup period. He'd have about 21 races or so and they would be cross country over a hard course. By the time he was 18, when we were really on the way, it would be reduced to about 12.
Q What was the distance they ran?
Peter Coe: Their cross country racs would be anything from three to four and half miles.
Q: That far? and then how many races in the track season?
Peter Coe: The track season, not so many because the opportunities were fewer as a youth. But I would think he would probably, get in, in those years of age 14-16, I'm estimating from memory, probably, eight, maybe 10 competitive races.
Looked it up. Kirochi was actually 3rd in 1989, not runner-up. But by the way, he was the junior world XC champ in 87 and 88.....
and another thing, Ovett's junior title was over 6 miles and the inter-counties title over 9 miles!
John Walker placed 4th (behind Bill Rodgers in 3rd) at the 1975 World Cross Champs. Four months later he became the first sub-3.50 miler. I don't believe that he specifically prepared for the meet, NZ had a good team that year which prompted his participation. Nevertheless, it shows that top milers could have the strength to be competitive at the world level in cross, if they so desire.
I assumed that the purpose of the 4km race was to attract more miler "types" to the world cross meet, not sure if this is really happening? Kevin Sullivan runs it most years, but it seems to be dominated by the 5km types at present.
Kevin Sullivan was good at both. And Bob Kennedy won NCAAs at XC and the mile.
Steve Scott was in the top ten at the National XC USATF, at least twice.
Rod Dixon
1500m Bronze in 76
Won the 1983 NYC Marathon
"It says much for Rod Dixon that despite being a contemporary of such outstanding runners as John Walker and Dick Quax, he was able to carve his own niche in athletics history. At the Olympics, he was a 1500m Bronze medalist in 1972, finished fourth in the 1976 5000m and was 10th in the 1984 marathon. On the road, he reigned supreme in the US during the early 1980s and won the prestigious 1983 New York City marathon. He was a brilliant cross-country runner, winning one British and two New Zealand titles and finishing third in the 1973 and 1982 world cross-country races. For 17 years he represented New Zealand at cross-country. But it was as a track runner that the colourful and charismatic Dixon won most renown. He was world-ranked over 1500m, 3000m and 5000m, and won British , US, French and New Zealand national 1500m titles, in addition to being a member of the crack New Zealand team that in 1974 set a world 4 x 1500m relay record."
Sorry...
1500m Bronze in 72