On Tue, 28 Nov 2000 11:44:51 -0600, you wrote: >Mike, > >In regards to your statements about the Footlocker versus Junior Olympics: > >>My question is why bother having a JO cross country program when you have >>this program which is so much more successful? And appropriate. My son (age 14) competed in the SoCal Association JO meet 3 weeks ago. During the course walk-through, the meet director told the kids in the older divisions that most of the "fastest runners" in the area wouldn't be there because they would be competing in the California State CIF first-round meet the same day. At least that was his experience in the past. So he warned them that they're probably used to 'following the leaders' in high school meets and that wouldn't be the case, they would have to be up in the lead and close to it to keep the pace from dragging. He also said he may combine races in the top two divisions because of lack of entrants (again, from his prior experience). As it turned out, there were plenty of entrants to have separate races, combining wasn't required, and as for the quality of competition, my son ran a time that wasn't too far off his season best as a HS frosh (converting 3M down to 2.5M), but still got his clock cleaned. The competition was pretty darn good! He could have ran a PR and still might not have qualified to get to Regional JO. There's no way I'd say JO is unsuccessful- this year at least, the quality of competition and the depth of the fields were very good. The times in the upper two age groups correlated very closely to what we've seen this year in the best of California High School jayvee races, such as at the Mt. SAC Invitational. Once you move up to JO Regionals and Nationals, of course the quality is even better. Sure, Footlocker syphons off the best of the junior and senior elite runners, but the JO champions aren't exactly chopped liver. RT
