News/Elites

This article was originally posted by Ryan at the original HillRunner.com Blogs.

This article was originally posted by Ryan at the original HillRunner.com Blogs.

Parker Morse offers some interesting thoughts on the topic.

I like his ideas. The sport is far more exciting when you have head to head competition rather than essentially solo time trials or even mass time trials. Sure, the times might not be quite as fast. You might even get the occasional race that plays out like this year’s US Championships men’s 5000. That said, even that race was more exciting than watching a time trial with no real competition. Why do Boston and New York get more attention in the US marathoning world than Chicago, even though the times at Chicago are typically a fair bit faster? Yes, history has something to do with it, especially for Boston. However, I think the head to head competition plays a role. Chicago is typically a time trial with very little head to head competition and strategy. Without rabbits, Boston and New York have a lot more head to head competition and it’s exciting to see the different strategies employed by different runners play out.

The idea of incentivising head to head competition instead of time trialing by focusing more on qualifying races instead of qualifying times seems like a great idea. I doubt it will happen but, if I’m surprised, it will be a pleasant surprise.

I’m sorry about the lack of full-length posts this week. I have one nearly ready and intended to finalize it this week but things just got too hectic. I promise it will be coming next week.

This article was originally posted by Ryan at the original HillRunner.com Blogs.

Not cool…but common?

I’m not sure what’s more disturbing here.

I have two big problems here.

First, 29% of athletes at the 2011 World Championships admitted in an anonymous survey that they doped in the prior year. Only a fool wouldn’t assume the number of athletes who actually did dope isn’t higher. Not everyone who did is going to admit it, even if they are sure their responses are completely anonymous. That means likely at least 1 out of every 3 athletes who was surveyed actually did dope. Seeing as they could also choose to not answer the question, how many did make that choice not wanting to answer yes?

Second, this does not paint a good picture for either the IAAF or WADA. Why are they so intent on hiding this problem? The problem here is conflict of interest.

The IAAF is essentially in the business of promoting these athletes. If it becomes common knowledge that at least 1/3 of the athletes they are promoting is doping, what do you think that does to their business?

The WADA, on the other hand, is in the business of catching drug cheats. Seems like they should welcome any spotlight on the problem, right? Well, consider this. If less than 2% of drug tests performed at WADA labs are positive while somewhere beyond 30% of athletes are doping in any given year, what does that say about the efficacy of WADA?

I’d say this sport has a problem but let’s be honest. All sports have a problem. Most either don’t even pretend to try to deal with the problem or have just recently begun pretending. Even at the failure rate we see via this study, T&F is still worlds ahead of most other sports. That said, to say this sport is clean just because we’re worlds ahead doesn’t paint an accurate picture.

In my opinion, we shouldn’t be burying our heads in the sand. We should accept reality and push to find a better future. Sadly, there is a lot of room for improvement but the two organizations in charge of pushing toward a better future seem more interested in not letting the full scope of the problem become publicly known than in accepting the current state of things and finding a better way to tackle this problem.

This article was originally posted by Ryan at the original HillRunner.com Blogs.

Two years after Henry Dennis was killed by a drunk driver while riding bike on a country road, the man who killed him got 90 days in jail. This follows several recent stories in Wisconsin about light penalties, usually just fines, for drivers who have killed bicyclists.

Dennis was riding his bike, on the paved shoulder of a county highway off the traffic lane, with a flashing headlight and a flashing taillight. The driver admitted that he saw the flashing red taillight. The driver, tested 2 hours after the incident, was above the legal limit.

This one hits me a little closer than usual because I had met Dennis on a couple of occasions. In my first ever Milwaukee area road race, back in 1998, I finished a distant second to him at the Samson Stomp 10K. I talked with him after the race and he just seemed like a great guy to me. In 2005, he volunteered to join Team HillRunner.com for the Madison Jingle Bell Run where he and friend Nick Winkel performed a front running masterpiece to lead the team to victory. I didn’t get to talk with him or Nick for long that day but they both were very gracious in just being willing to join the team and were very humble and gracious in the short talk I did have with them. They didn’t need to be out there trying to run hard in the cold and on snow covered roads but they were because someone Dennis knew asked them to join the team representing a website they had probably never heard of run by a person Dennis probably never recalled meeting.

Something needs to be done. From what I hear, this isn’t just a Wisconsin thing. This is the standard practice in many states. While laws state that pedestrians (including runners) and bicyclists have as much right to the road as motor vehicles, in practice it seems to be accepted that pedestrians and bicyclists are second class citizens. If a motor vehicle kills a pedestrian or bicyclist, it was an accident and the death is just an unfortunate consequence of our modern world.

I know I’m preaching to the choir but this is the wrong way to look at things. We have every right to be out there. We have the responsibility act in a safe manner but drivers of motor vehicles also have the responsibility to share the road and act in a safe manner around us, such as not driving out of the driving lane when they see a flashing light they should know indicates someone is there. In Wisconsin, we have a law that drivers are required to give a 3 foot clearance between their vehicles and pedestrians or bicyclists. This law and others like it are routinely ignored by law enforcement. For public safety, we need these laws enforced and we need people who kill pedestrians and bicyclists to be punished to the fullest extent of the law. 90 days is a disgrace. Cases where the killer gets off with nothing more than a fine are beyond disgraceful.

This article was originally posted by Ryan at the original HillRunner.com Blogs.

It’s been a rough summer for T&F fans, especially sprint fans. First, the news in June that Veronica Campbell-Brown and Yohan Blake failed tests. Two of Jamaica’s three most popular athletes busted. What could be bigger than that? How about what we got about a month later? Tyson Gay, Asafa Powell, Nesta Carter, Sherone Simpson and a so far unnamed 4th Jamaican sprinter.

I’m a little behind the story because I was out camping and barely checking news when this weekend’s news broke. I’ve been trying to figure out what to write about this story or whether I should just let it go. Obviously, I decided not to let it go.

Instead, after all the discussion about how T&F is going to die because of this and counter arguments explaining why T&F is not going to die, largely based on the fact that the Tour de France didn’t die because of far more severe revelations of widespread drug use, I’d like to explain why I’m going to continue to be a T&F fan. I’m going to try to keep it short and to the point.

First, this doesn’t change the equation. Ben Johnson. Marion Jones. Justin Gatlin. Those are just three high profile names. The list is almost endless. Any T&F fan who has been paying attention to the sport should not have been surprised by the news of the past month. When I heard this past weekend’s news, I honestly didn’t flinch. Even though Tyson Gay was the type of guy who would not raise suspicion with his personality, the signs were there. A past training partner had been caught doping. His coach doesn’t have a squeaky clean record. He came back from very difficult injuries and, at an age where most sprinters are in decline, has been having a stellar year. None of these prove guilt but they create a situation where one shouldn’t be surprised if the worst is confirmed, as it now has been. As difficult as it can be to be this cynical and as much as I want to believe in everyone’s innocence, it’s just a fact of life now. Is there any professional athlete who, if you saw a headline saying that athlete has tested positive, you would be truly shocked? This leads to my second point…

The bottom line is all sports are dirty. If you don’t believe drugs are a problem in your favorite sport, you have your head in the sand. Drugs exist in every sport. In any pursuit, some people are going to try to cheat. In pursuits where cheaters don’t get caught, the cheaters will take over the pursuit and force honest competitors to the second tier. This happens in business, politics, every walk of life. In sports, the ones where you don’t hear about drugs are actually the most drug riddled. Drug testing is so lax or even nonexistant that anybody can cheat with impunity. T&F is not one of these sports. While exposing drug cheats may look bad, at least you’re doing something to make it harder to cheat. This is the angle T&F has taken, at least in some countries like, as we see this year, Jamaica and the United States. So this doesn’t change the equation for me. T&F is no more dirty than any other sport. As a fan of sports in general, why would this change my interest in T&F?