Message:
long distance races make our level of tolerance (from a media and
medal count perspective) too small.
What the media considers a "good" Olympic year is at least a 1st or
2nd place finish in the 100m and 200m open event on the men's and
women's side along with a gold in both relays. The media and
public "need" to see that world's fastest man/world's fastest woman
with USA next to it in similar fashion to how much pressure there is for
a figure skater to be a serious threat in the Winter Olympics.
There is no great American-born and developed metric miler, 3k,
steeplechase, 5k, 10k and marathon running stable on either side
(men's/women's less the steeple for women's---do they even run that
one?) So basically, we give up 39 medals in the count right there.
Factor in that at 100m, 200m, 400m, 110m/100m hurdles, 400m
hurdles, 800m and the 400m and mile relays, that's 48 medals (off the
top of my head) to go with the other 39. 87 medals at stake; therefore,
the pressure in events on the oval is to win a higher percentage of them
in a smaller pool of events. (I'm using rough numbers and I did not
google to verify them.)
The good news is that, historically, Jamaica doesn't put out the big-
timers in the other events and neither do the Chinese, just to pull a
name out of there as an emerging powerhouse.
My point is if they ran the Olympic track meet from beginning to end by
distance, you would cease to hear the national anthem or see the U.S.
flag even raised at a medal ceremony after the 4x400m relay was run.
We're VERY lucky that, by protocal, the mile relay is towards the end
of the meet and we're so dominant at it, that we can close it out on a
good note.
The fact that we've been so blessed with 400m runners over the
decades is a blessing because, normally, at the HS level in the US,
quarter milers are made, not born. You've got to WANT to feel that
piano on your back at 300m, embrace it, battle with and run through it.
Since the IOC, in its infinite wisdom has gotten rid of softball and
baseball as medal sports, why doesn't the USOC play to its strength:
lobby the IOC to add the 4x200 relay as a medal event. We'll get
support from every Carribean and Latin American nation. Canada will
want in, as will Great Britain, France, and Russia. Can we beat
Jamaica in that event? Yes, even with Usain Bolt and Veronica
Campbell because we've got a larger stable of runners at the distance
and we've got more of them. The only way Jamaica could beat us is to
go with blind passes all the way through that relay, and even then, I
think we've got enough guys/gals that double in the 400m to make it
harder for the Jamaicans to flat-out pull away from us. It's just six more
total medals and won't help the full count that much (can only place one
relay, men's and women's), but maybe it will take a teensy bit of
pressure off of our 4x100m teams to bring home gold.
For our meets to be considered national successes, and this is
IMPOSSIBLE, we'd need to win the 4x100m and 4x400m every single
solitary year. These guys/gals aren't robots. Eventually, Jamaica,
Great Britian, Canada, etc. will have a transcendant sprinter in an
Olympic year that we don't.
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