News/Elites

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

Now I am far from an isolationist, competitively speaking. I am all for scholarship runners from outside the U.S. competing in the NCAA/NAIA and certainly welcome top competition from across the globe coming to top U.S. races to compete. I see those aspects as enhancing domestic talent development, at the top of the sport it gives U.S. runners a higher bar to aspire towards. However, a report was recently shared with me that left me rather puzzled. While I can recognize that the supporters behind the efforts to give some Kenyan athletes a leg-up have their hearts in the right place — and, after all, it is their money to spend as they see fit — I have to wonder why there is this type of push to support good-yet-not-great elite runners in the world of elite marathoning (perhaps a generous assessment) from Kenya instead of a crowdfunding effort for U.S. runners at that level. The two runners in question have run 2:21 and 2:30+ which, even at altitude in the U.S., would not be considered on the cusp of world class performances for men. It is not as if there are not agents and coaches combing the Kenyan countryside for talent to develop and bring to marathons in Europe, Asia, and the U.S. already, there is a scouting and development system that has been in place for many, many years, as attested to by the world class results from Kenyan runners for the past four decades or so. If there are African runners who are not getting the opportunity to compete abroad, it is far more likely that they are simply not (yet) good enough to warrant that investment rather than having slipped through the cracks in the system.

Comparatively, there is little in the way of a system of talent identification and development in the U.S. for the marathon. There are sponsored training groups here, certainly, yet they are small in number and have limited funding and space. On top of that, this effort will bring these Kenyan runners to a race to compete with national-class and regional-class U.S. runners — many of whom hold down jobs to make ends meet — for a rare substantial marathon payday for runners at that level. This effort is subsidizing talent not good enough for any number of agents to take to any level of prize-money road race in Europe or Asia to come to a race in the U.S. and compete with U.S. runners in one of the few races that stands in support of grassroots development here. Now I honestly hope that the two Kenyans come in and run sub-2:15 and contend for the win, as long as they will be coming I genuinely wish them success. I am just grasping for the logic why this endeavor would be a more worthy expenditure by the U.S. running community over doing the same for our own runners. Is this outlook a short, slippery-slope away from viewpoints that desire U.S.-only prize purses at all domestic races or want to see scholarships at U.S. colleges and universities reserved exclusively for U.S. athletes?

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.