>This message shows how out of touch you are. Weldon Johnson won the 10 over
>Keith Kelly. Kelly won the NCAA XC Champs. Would you say Keith is an
>"elite" runner?
I would say exactly that, no offense to Kelly. And it's not to say
that Keith has no potential to improve into elite status. Keith is "national
class", or "collegiate All-American" or whatever you want to call it, but
not yet world class or elite class. If I'm "out of touch" to American collegiate
fans, then at least I'm "in touch" with the standards of most of the rest of the
track & field world. I'll take the latter.
>The USATF announcement spouted a bunch of names that were
>DECIDEDLY NOT WORLD-CLASS, especially in the 400, 800 and field events. Yet
>left out mention of Olympic Finalists in the Distance races. In fact it
>left out mention of the distance races ALTOGETHER.
>I checked results yesterday, and I think I remember Abdi Abdirahman in the
>5k. He is American, and he was an Olympian.
>Is the "elite" moniker only reserved for potential Olympic medalists?
Exactly. Or ranked in the top ten in the world. That kind of stuff.
The kind of "power" that we've seen in the past in the Mt. SAC sprints,
and in the men's shot put. And the shot was missing people like Adam Nelson
this year, but results yesterday were certainly elite-level.
>That
>leaves out A LOT of people.
Sorry. If everybody was "elite" it would lose all relevance.
>There was no excuse (that I could see) for the blatant bias in that event
>promotion. Your excuse does hold water either.
I didn't write the promotion, but I understood it with no problem.
Mt. SAC has a reputation for a different presentation package than Penn,
Florida Relays, Texas Relays and so forth.
Santa Monica TC battling Brazil to try for a 4x800 world record for instance
(is that the right race a few years ago?), when Brazil had Barbosa and Cruz
and SMTC was anchored by Johnny Gray. If I recall right, at the time Cruz,
Gray and Barbosa were ranked in the top four in the world (along with Coe).
Santa Monica TC (in the past) or HSI (currently) blazing world class individual
sprint and sprint relay times.
World class men's (and often women's) throws. Visiting throwers like Ubartas
cranking out world leaders. NCAA qualifier times and distances won't get
you any newsprint in this crowd. They're a dime a dozen.
Oh yes, at one time the Mt. SAC hammer throw cage had a sign hanging on it
that claimed that national records for something like 10, repeat that TEN
different countries had been set there.
Note that there is no room left on the sign for American collegiate records,
though those have certainly been set there too.
That's elite.
RT
