Team Tactics To Decide Olympic Marathon Team?
Posted November 2nd, 2007 at 8:45 PM by Jimmie R. Markham
Section: News & Results, Marathons
Interesting article in The Detroit News today about the Hansons-Brooks Distance Project, whose team members will make up about 10% of the U.S. Olympic Trials Men’s Marathon field tomorrow. This elite running team from Michigan was created with some lofty goals in mind:
1. Create an opportunity for successful college athletes to continue training beyond their college years.
2. Provide an environment in which training can be the focus of those post-collegiate athletes (without the financial necessity of working full time or chasing after money in road races).
3. Develop a center for those athletes to train together as a team.
4. Incorporate the team members in local community activities to foster an excitement in the sport of distance running, and motivate future distance runners.
Now, they are on the brink of achieving their ultimate goal, which is to put somebody on the Olympic team. Will team tactics play a role? Says team member Clint Verran, who finished 5th in the 2004 trials and 11th in 2000:
“This is probably the first time in Olympic trials history that one team has 13 guys out there. I’m guessing we own 10 percent of the real estate on the starting line. I mean, if we decided we wanted to take Ryan Shay out, we could probably just circle him [and] punch him in the kidneys or something like that.”
Don’t worry. Verran was joking:
“Yeah, he’s from Michigan, we like him. But it’s an interesting question: In other sports, like cycling with the Tour de France, there’s big time team tactics and guys will make sacrifices for the top guys.”
With expected winds of up to 45 MPH tomorrow, they might have to circle their top 3 guys to shelter them from the elements.
To learn more about Hansons-Brooks Distance Project go to: [Hanson’s-Brooks Distance Project]
Source: [Detroit News]
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Tags: central park, Hansons Brooks Distance Project, marathon, marathon trials, mensmarathontrials2007, new york, New York City, olympic games, olympic marathon, olympic marathon trials, Olympic Trials, olympic trials marathon, olympics, trials, us olympic marathon trials
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The Final Sprint
[…] The Final Sprint (TFS) | The Internet’s Premier Running, Fitness, and Nutrition Publication put an intriguing blog post on Team Tactics To Decide Olympic Marathon Team?Here’s a quick excerptexpected winds of up to 45 MPH tomorrow, they might have to circle their top 3 guys to shelter them from the elements. To learn more about Hansons-Brooks Distance Project go to: [Hanson’s-Brooks Distance Project] Source: [Detroit News] Written by Jimmie R. Markham for The Final Sprint (TFS) | The Internet’s Premier Running, Fitness, and Nutrition Publication, 2007. | Permalink | Make a comment! Filed under News & Results, Marathons. ***Note: We encourage EVERYONE to see a doctor before […]
November 2nd, 2007 at 9:03 pm[…] The Final Sprint (TFS) | The Internet’s Premier Running, Fitness, and Nutrition Publication put an intriguing blog post on Team Tactics To Decide Olympic Marathon Team?Here’s a quick excerpt […]
November 2nd, 2007 at 9:04 pm