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A friend of mine recently went to a National Track and Field coaches conference in Vegas. Among some of the interesting topics that came up were the timing of the Olympic trials on Olympic games performance. Anyone who watched the games this year knows what a miserable track showing the US had. They specifically brought up Bernard Lagat, as one of his coaches was there.
His feeling was there were two main reasons why Bernard ran so poorly this year.
One reason was the effect of the Kenyans and Ethiopians on the race dynamics. Lots of pushing, elbows, and blocking in. It was basically 6 Africans teaming up against the one American traitor. I had this feeling watching him race. I doubt he would have won if the field were equal, but it was a factor.
The other thing they discussed was the timing of the trials. Some felt that there was not enough time to go through a complete training cycle between the World Championships and the trials, and then again between the trials and the Olympics. Especially for the distance runners, they were never able to fully recover for their big races and several of them, including Bernard, were spent before the Olympics even began.
One possible solution proposed to this second problem was to allow two spots on the Olympic roster be based on the athlete's 1 or 2 year overall performance in certain sanctioned races, instead of the trials results. Basically picked by the coaches. Then, allow the third spot to be determined by the winner of the event at the trials. That way you elimate some freak thing (false start, illness) from keeping our best athletes out of the games. You also allow those top guys to train and taper specifially for the Olympics.
I like the idea. It takes some of the drama out of the trials, but at least it reduces the chances that we get our butts kicked again in 4 years.
His feeling was there were two main reasons why Bernard ran so poorly this year.
One reason was the effect of the Kenyans and Ethiopians on the race dynamics. Lots of pushing, elbows, and blocking in. It was basically 6 Africans teaming up against the one American traitor. I had this feeling watching him race. I doubt he would have won if the field were equal, but it was a factor.
The other thing they discussed was the timing of the trials. Some felt that there was not enough time to go through a complete training cycle between the World Championships and the trials, and then again between the trials and the Olympics. Especially for the distance runners, they were never able to fully recover for their big races and several of them, including Bernard, were spent before the Olympics even began.
One possible solution proposed to this second problem was to allow two spots on the Olympic roster be based on the athlete's 1 or 2 year overall performance in certain sanctioned races, instead of the trials results. Basically picked by the coaches. Then, allow the third spot to be determined by the winner of the event at the trials. That way you elimate some freak thing (false start, illness) from keeping our best athletes out of the games. You also allow those top guys to train and taper specifially for the Olympics.
I like the idea. It takes some of the drama out of the trials, but at least it reduces the chances that we get our butts kicked again in 4 years.
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