Run-Down Forums

[Conway]

Wow ... I ask the question and miss the discussion ... ...

You both make good points ... As always ... But one comment you made Justin sticks with me and is actually at the heart of my question ...

"The defining events are championship events because the whole point of the sport is and always has been to defeat your peers. That principle goes all the way back to the Romans and probably beyond."

To me that means both beating them AND making your self avaiable to be tested ... The Olympic gold medallist is the one who perservered and won THAT competition ... A competition that many consider the ultimate one ... But while it is arguably the most important battle there are many others ... The sum of a season made of many battles ... So when I look back on a season (or a career) I look at how many times the warrior went in to battle and what his outcomes were ...

When the whole world is on stage that is the ultimate !!! And it takes a champion to come out on top in those situations ... But Atilla, Napoleon, Ghengis Khan, Teddy Roosevelt and others leave a lsting buring impression not from one battle but the many battles that they confronted and won !!! Not just showing up for the finale, but being there for the entire show !!!!

So while I marvel at the Olympic and World Champions, I have more respect for he (or she) that is able to put it on the line repeatedly and still come out on top !!!!!

The other is respect of peers .. The record books show the medallists ... But the respect of peers - and those closest to sport - is much harder to win ...

Having said all that, I feel similar to Justin in terms of level of Champions ... With the one race a year Champion being at the base of the totem pole and the do it all Champion being at the top ...

Conway

[Distance_Guru]

I also like the stratifications of champions. Although I think what fosters this is simply the nature of the sport. Have you ever wondered if Auto Boldin had done like Kenteris and focused on just winning the major championships? I think there is a pretty good chance that he would have walked away with a couple of gold medals if he'd focused purely on winning the major meets. I also think what Kenteris is doing is the best thing for him if not for the sport of track and field. If he tries to run a ton of races (if there were a ton of 200's out there to run in) who knows if he'd be as good in the big meets. But now he runs sparingly and wins when the stakes are highest. I can't say I fault him one bit, of coarse I look at WC's and the Olympics as the meets that count and the rest just allow athletes too pay their bills
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Time is the fire in which we burn

[Dan]

Can anyone explain to me how avoiding competition makes a sprinter race sharp? I'm still having a hard time understanding how Kenteris is helping himself by racing so selectively, both in terms of perception and maximum performance.

Dan

[Justin]

Well, since he's won successive championships, all in personal bests, in 3 years, I'd say it was working for him!

He doesn't avoid competition - that's a cheap shot - he runs sparingly, focused on just being ready on one day. This year his season comprised three races - the European Cup (won in 20.25), his National Champs (won in 20.18) and the EC (won in 19.85). Nothing else matters, nothing else will be remembered.

I am surprised at the extent to which you are prepared to dismiss Kederis, despite his dominance of the events which ALL athletes want to win, because he doesn't run a few meaningless GP races. As I keep saying, ask any 200m runner if they'd change their collection of times and wins for Kederis's medal collection. Ask Mo Greene whether GP races matter or if the champs do.

I sense a transatlantic divided here - I can tell you that in Europe, no-one cares who wins the GP races except that it's good entertainment. If Chambers wins the WC next year but finishes 5th in all his GP races, or only races 3 times before and 3 after, he'll be a hero and a champion. Despite Colin Jackson's career, the sad thing is that he will not be remembered as much as Christie because he didn't win the Olympics.

I would venture to add that if a few talented US sprinters over the years had taken the same focused approach rather than glorying in meaningless GP wins (Capel, Crawford, JJ Johnson, Burrell, Harden, Coby Miller) the US would have A LOT more champs medals and the sport would benefit. After all, what's the only meet every 4 years which the broader public notices? It's not the Zurich GP, that's for sure.

Justin

[Dan]

De-emphasizing the smaller meets and skipping them altogher are slightly different things... I'll assume you know Kenteris' full competition schedule more accurately than I, so going by the meets you listed, he only competed in championship events. How did he get in top race form for them with no competition build up? As you said, the results speak for themselves, but the results beg more questions than they provide answers (whether or not that's fair, it's a logical fact)... It makes no sense that an athlete can be in top form with no tune-up, especially one from a country (that he apparently never trains outside of) with no domestic competition to push him, so do we know that Kenteris has run to his full potential in his wins? Is he winning because the competition has sucked the past 3 years in the 200m or because he is running his best? And how does running so sparingly make him more prepared, either physically or mentally?

All I can see is justifications for his racing schedule, but no explanations of how it has helped to produce the results...

Dan

[Conway]

I'm in agreement with Dan .... Who has ever got sharp without competition ??? And since when is avoiding competition a good thing ... And while the Olympics and the Worlds are the biggest meets in a given season, what the heck is the rest of the season for ??? Golden League giving away a million dollars a year for laughs ?!?!? Try telling any sprinter that has won at Zurich that he or she didn't do something special !!! OR tell Tim and Dwain that the Grand Prix final was a meet that doesn't count ...

For that matter what does winning a European Sprint Championship mean compared to say Zurich, when Zurich anually gets the worlds best sprinters to compete and Euros is missing the Carribean, US, Canada, and South American countries where the majority of the worlds best reside ???

I'm not trying to take away anything from anyone, but lets get real ONE race is not a career !!! You know I thought about this last night ... And we've discussed this before in a different forum ... Lasse Viren is one of the best Olympic competitors of all time ... Period ... He falls lshort in comparison to many others when looking at overall careers ... Simply becasue he rarely ran anywhere else ... Now to him it may not matter ... The Olympics were what he aimed for and what he won ... And that is fine ... But let's not confuse that with a sterling career ... That's a great Olympic career - only .. ElG has had a lousy set of Olympics yet will go down in history as the greatest miler to date ... So obviously just winning championships races is not all there is ... Steve Williams will be known as one of the greatest sprinters of the 70's yet never won an Olympics - all he did was substantially beat anyone who did !!!

Sorry but the more I tihnk about competition counts ... A champion WANTS to defend ... If there was anything positive from the 80 & 84 Olympics (boycotts both) it was the fact that champions and those not in attendence went LOOKING for each other to prove who was the best !!! Borzov was one of the great champions of all time in my book becasue he met all challengers .. Yes he was selective ... He didn't run evey where ... But he did run where the big boys were, when he knew they would be there ...

One final note ... I went back and looked at Bailey's career last ight ... And the following are a string of his seasonal bests:

95 - 9.91
96 - 9.84
97 - 9.91
98 - 9.93

So I have to say that during this stretch he was as good as they come ... Didn't compete as much as I would have liked, but he did compete and did so at a high level at least once a year .. So I have to give him his props !!!!

Conway

[Justin]

Conway, I disagree with every syllable of your first three paragraphs.

Steve Williams is remembered by NO ONE except a handful of ageing track fans and one or two stats experts.

El G will NOT be remembered as a great miler unless he wins the OG. He'll be remembered as a great time-trialler who failed when the going got tough. Same goes for Steve Cram, who will forever sit below Coe and Ovett because he never won the Olympics.

Every single athlete in Europe would rather win one EC than ten Zurichs. Sure, Zurich is important and Chambers et al would like to win it. But offer him a Zurich win and a EC silver or the reverse, and he'd take the EC win. Offer him an embarassing 8th in Zurich and a WC win and he'd take that.

To answer your question - the rest of the season is for entertainment, build-up, for fun. It's a travelling circus, designed to provide high quality competition for fans to watch, TV to show and athletes to profit from. It's a sideshow, a warm-up. Name the Golden league winners for the past few years off the top of your head. You can't. Now name the last 10 100m and 200m Olympic champs. You can, easily.

As I said, if more US athletes over the years had prioritised the champs over the Zurichs, the US would have a lot more medals. Perhaps this and our debate shows the transatlantic divide I mentioned. Over here, champs mean EVERYTHING and GP races, even the best, are just a pleasant diversion.

Justin

[Justin]

PS Who ever got sharp without competiton? KENTERIS! It's staring you in the face! He ran 19.85 in the ONLY race of the year that counted, the ONLY race that mattered to him. He eschews money-chasing on the circuit because he wants to win gold medals for his country. That is ADMIRABLE and the constant sniping at him leaves a really sour taste in my mouth. If he wins in Athens in 2004 he will be remembered as the greatest athlete Greece has ever produced, a national hero and star to eclispe even Cathy Freeman in Sydney. Do you really think he should be deflected from this path in order to run a few pointless races for money? You've all gone mad!
Justin

[Dan]

Justin, how dare you disagree with Conway's statements when one of them was that he agreed with me?

[Conway]

So much to say ... Im sorry that we disagree on a few things Justin but that is the nature of humanity ... Would be a very boring world if we all thought the same ...

Having said that, I am going to look at things in reverse for a moment .. and by that I mean that I am first going to start off by naming top flight, champinoship running Europeans ... A top list would include:

Valery Borzov
Pietro Mennea
Marion Woronin
Alan Wells
Linford Christie
John Regis
Roger Black
Thomas Schoenlebe
Dwain Chambers
Konstantinos Kenteris
Marlies Gohr
Luydmila Kondrateyva
Barbeel Wockel
Kathy Smallwood
Silke Gladisch
Marita Koch
Jarmila Kratochvilova
Katrin Krabbe
Heike Drechsler
Irina Privalova
Zhanna Pintusevich (Tarnopolskaya or something)
Christine ARron
Katerina Thanou

Now that is a pretty inclusive list of European sprint champions of the modern (auto timed) era ... I may have missed one or two but going off top of my head here ... Now this is a Euro only list ... No Americans, Carribeans, Africans or others to skew it ... And of the 23 sprinters listed here only 2 are/were not regulars on the European circuit ... Only two ... Kenteris and Thanou ... All of the others are circuit regulars ... All won championships of varying kinds ... All have won on the circuit ... So evidently running for money did not hurt them .... And since when is earning a living NOT admirable ????

Viewing this list, I do NOT see the prinicipal that the only thing that matters is Championship meets ... I see a group of individuals that was extremely successful in championship meets, but save for two of them, the champinoships were NOT all that existed !!! And for bonus points one of those individuals competed in all three sprints in the same championship meet and medalled three times !!!

If the rest of the season is for entertainment only, then 21 of those individuals must have fancied themselves entertainers ... And note that several Brits are on that list !!! So it doesn't appear that they share the same philosophy on competition ... YOu also mentioned Ovett, Coe, and Cram who themselves were circuit regulars ... Coe and Cram went through two memorable seasons when they traded records on the cicuit !!!! I dare say that they didn't consider those competitions important !!

And with 5 times under 3:27; and I have no idea off the top of my head how many under 3:30 how can ElG NOT be considered among the best ever ??? Cooe never won Olympic gold at 800 yet you can bet when talking bout the 800 his name is going to be mentioned as one of the best ever !!!!!

Saying that Kenteris has won 3 big ones (I cut that to 2 as the majority of top sprinters are not at the Euros) so haos nothing left to prove is a justification for his not running anywhere else ... Competitors compete ... They will race you on the street ... Mo Greene sat in the stands at the Grand PRix final wishing he were fit enough to be on the track .. He ran many times losing until the realization hit him that he just wasn't ready !!!

Any time you compete it means something ... Becasue every time you step out there your reputation is on the line ... Your honor is on the line ... And for the record running fewer meets is not what it will take to make JJ, Coby, Shawn, Ato, or any of the others a champion ... As Dwain is starting to find out the key is within ... Finding yourself and developing an undying belief in who you are and what you can do !!!! And to do that you must compete !!!! THAT is what the majority of the season is about ....

Conway

[Distance_Guru]

Wow this is one hot debate! Lets see if I can put in my two cents without being burned. Also beforehand I'll say I've only scimmed the last few posts, I don't have a ton of time, so if I repeat something sorry.

[Paul]

I can't diagree with anything that Justin has said. But I also see Conway's points and Dan's point about competition sharping your racing skills. I do think EL G will be remembered as a great runner.

But what really fascinates me is Kenteris himself. I would love to have access to his workouts. His psychological structure must be phenomenal. He comes to the table prepared to do what needs to be done. And he has done this 3 years running. Do you see him running sub 19.70 by the Olympics??

Paul

[Dan]

DG, what do you mean by ora? Is that aura?

[Conway]

A few things ... First off about training through competitions ... One of the things that most sprinters love about competing is that it reduces the training load ... And competing is a lot more fun than training ... And for all reasons that Dan mentioned ...

ElG was among the top 10 for the decade of the 90's .. He is pereniallly talked about each season for AOY honors .... The same people who are discussing his greatness in this thread could find no reason to put anyone ahead of him for AOY this year !!! His greatness has already been assured !!! A couple more seasons like this one and he will be in contention for Athlete of the decade for the second straight decade !!! Few ever have been in THAT position .. And for the record while he has not won the Olympics he has several World golds to his credit !!! (and if that is worth nothing then so far Kenteris has only won one race of note!!) ... And the isssue isn't whether his records will be broken, but how his marks stand up over time ... Coe ran 1:41.73 in 1981 ... Two decades later he is still #2 all time ... Same for Moses ... Still #2 after all these years ...

And the 400H is a good place to look to talk about champions ... Which name comes to your lips first Moses or Young ??? Moses will always be associated as the master of the event ... Why ??? Wins .. Over a 100 in a row ... Most on the circuit !!! Beating all comers for over 100 straight races !!! HE lost the record but NEVER the respect !!! Becasue he was a true champion ...

Greene's season was horrible by his standards ... But not simply because he ran on the circuit ... But becasue he ran on the circuit while not fully prepared !!! And not being fully prepared hurts you no matter when or where you run ...

I listed 21 Euro sprinters past and present ... All championship medallists, and all at least one gold in their career ... And all fought outside of the Olympic theater for the respect !!!! It DID matter to them ...

/conway

[Justin]

This debate originated in discussing whether or not Kenteris could be considered a worthy "champion" given his complete focus on championship events.

I argued first that he was a champion, but may not be considred a 'star' of ths sport. This because all athletes focus on themselves alone in an individual sport but as a whole the sport needs athletes who transcend that and stand for the whole sport - Mo Greene, Colin Jackson, but not Kenteris or Bailey.

However, we can not ever EXPECT any athlete to do any more than run for themselves. Thus, while we can praise the likes of Greene for doing so much more than just run, we should not then turn around and criticise Kenteris for not doing so.

Clearly, the sport exists beyond championships. It is big business and the races are keenly fought. Of course Zurich is important . All the GPs are are because athletes are competitive. However, they are trivial compared to championships in the eyes of the athletes. By that I mean that any athlete would agree to never winning a single race all year on the circuit if instead they could take champs gold.

Looking at the season ahead there are only ever a handful of races which really matter - qualifying for the champs and running at the champs. For an athlete like Dwain Chambers with eyes on the world prize, the EC nonetheless remained his main goal of the year. Of course he desparately wants to win everywhere, all the time. But he wants to look back on the season and see that he won when it mattered most.

Another example - Sergey Makarov only lost a single javelin competition all year. He completely dominated Steve Backley except once - at the EC. Which of them is happier with their season? I know because I've seen them interviewed - Makarov considers his season a failure. He's delighted of course, to throw so well, but the GP is a platform for the title winning stuff. A high, large, important platform, but still a lower level. And I say again for emphasis, my main point - every single athlete would choose champs gold over any number of GP wins.

Justin