Run-Down Forums

[Justin]

Thanks Dan for posting this in the guest articles.

A few notes:

'A' as usual means altitude over 1000m; 'a' means altitude over 500m. Venue altitudes are included in brackets after the city name when over 200m up.

The number to the right of the date records how many performances the athlete has in the list to that point - MLF has 9 in total, for example (the most), 1 more than Stanley Floyd.

All corrections, no matter how trivial, gratefully recived.

Justin

[Dan]

Thanks again to Justin for the excellent set of statistics. I'll update the page to reflect the notations Justin made above.

Dan

[Conway]

Just had a chance to take a good look at the Juior list .. Very good list as always Justin .. What I noticed is that htere has been very little improvement from most of these individuals .. Does that mean that if you are a junior competitor that you do NOT want to be the best ???

I like Mark Lewis Francis, but has he already peaked ?? Based on this list we may have seen the best of him in Edmonton ...

and does anyone know what happened to Dwight Thomas last season ??? I saw him run in person a couple of times the previous season and he looked as good as anyone I have seen in years ... Anyone know his status ???

[Dan]

I was also noticing that the Brits seem to be well represented in the Junior lists, more so than their Senior performances would seem to be predicted by. Is this a sign of early peaking/burnout or the prevalence of the club system vs. the American school system developing people at a different rate?

Dan

[Conway]

You know one thing that I never hear anything about is "Other" school systems .. Britain, Cananda, none ... Are we the only ones that have athletic programs ?? If not, what type of performances/records do other "high schoolers" have .. And how do other systems tie into "out of school" competition ??

[Dan]

Canada has somewhat of a university athletics system, but it seems comparable to our NAIA system, and most of the development of Canadian athletes seems to come through US schools (Arkansas and Michigan) and the club system, which from what I've read in the past, seems somewhat similar to European countries. I'm not aware of anywhere else that bases athletics on the school system like we do.

Dan

[Conway]

But don't they have high schools or some type of equivalent ??? And don't those have any kind of athletics program ???

[Dan]

I think the answer to both questions is yes, but I'm not entirely sure... Canada obviously has a high school system, but I'm not sure about other countries. I know this has been discussed on the t-and-f list in the past. Justin?

Dan

[Conway]

Is there a list of Canadian High School Records ?? Or British HIgh School Records ??? OR any other country's ghigh school records ???

[runeer]

I just want to say this is a sweet discussion page

i see u were asking about the Canadain records, well i've from Canada and here they are: http://www.canoe.ca/AthcanRecordbook/home.html

As u can see we've never really had any good sprinters other then Donovan Bialey , Bruny Surin and Glenroy Gilbert, and they weren't even born in Canada, and never had much for junior sprinters either, right now we have some good sprinters coming up but who knows what will happen to them, the only good sprinter we've had for awhile has been shane Neimi in the 400, he won a bronze at the World Jrs a couple years back and broke 45 last year, we'll have to see what happens

[Dan]

[Conway]

Also Harry Jerome back in the 60's ... But you are right in that there hasn't been a pleathora of sprint talent coming out of Canada ... Judging from Canada's recent championsihps, however things are looking up for Canada !!!!!

[Dan]

Good call on Harry Jerome. I tend to forget about him for some reason, but he certainly was influential in Canadian sprinting.

I find it interesting that Canada has produced so little depth in the sprints, but those who have made it have rivaled the best of any other country. Could that pertain to our discussions of how to get the US distance hopes up?

Dan

[Conway]

Maybe ... What Canadian sprinters have had is desire and money .. Money controls what one can do in this sport ... And unfortunately for distance running it is easier to command dollars in sprinting than in distance running ... But when you have the dollars an individuals or a handful of individuals can train and focus and get the job done !!!!