Mad Len moves to Oregon

G-Money

Looks like the bullet with the mullet is moving Northwest. This from his Twitter:

"To end the confusion and questions, I'm moving to Portland, OR next week to join the Nike Oregon Project."

"Couldn't be more excited to be working with some of the worlds best distance runners and without a doubt the best support staff.Roll on2012!"

"I want to thank my agent Chris Layne at @TOTAL_SPORTS, the great people at Nike and Alberto and the whole group for making this possible!"

ecoli

G-Money wrote: »

Looks like the bullet with the mullet is moving Northwest. This from his Twitter:

"To end the confusion and questions, I'm moving to Portland, OR next week to join the Nike Oregon Project."

"Couldn't be more excited to be working with some of the worlds best distance runners and without a doubt the best support staff.Roll on2012!"

"I want to thank my agent Chris Layne at @TOTAL_SPORTS, the great people at Nike and Alberto and the whole group for making this possible!"

Very excited to see what he can do here. Will be interesting to see what he can do for 5k/10k over the next few years given his 1500 speed. Alberto recently got Rupp to 26.48 with 3.39 1500 speed so hopefully we could see the 13 min barrier being a realistic target for the Corkman in the next few years

Wish him all the best

Chartsengrafs

Agreed, I've high hopes for him. Would you not see him concentrating on the 1500m ecoli, or would he have a better chance of contending at longer distances?

Pisco Sour

I'd like to see him focusing on 1500m. Far better chance at medalling at that distance (a distance where the Africans are dominant, but not AS dominant as the longer distances).

The likes of Rupp have done great, but what have they actually won? Not much. I'd stick with the 1500m if I was the Bullet.

SeanKenny

04072511 wrote: »

I'd like to see him focusing on 1500m. Far better chance at medalling at that distance (a distance where the Africans are dominant, but not AS dominant as the longer distances).

The likes of Rupp have done great, but what have they actually won? Not much. I'd stick with the 1500m if I was the Bullet.

I'd be in total agreement there. In the past few championships there has been a non african medal in the 1500m from guys like Nick Willis and Matt Centrowitz. Len looks like the kind of athlete who could run 3 mins 30 - 3 mins 31 in the next 2 years. If he does that he is a contender. To have the same impact on the 5k he may have to be capable of 12m 50.

Now as the hairy monster would say, if he took 3 mins 30 speed up to 5k, he could be a big player then a la Legat.

Rupp is still on the upward curve so don't write him off. However his lack of real speed over the final lap means he may always struggle to get championship medals on the track. Solinsky would be better equipped for that scenario if he rediscovered his best form. Rupp showed this year than you can be there with 2 laps to go whileSolinsky may be able to respond better in the burn up.

ecoli

My opinion is that if O Lionaird was to stick with 1500m he would not have moved up to join the Al Salazar's group. If you look at all the runners who have been part of that group the only one who would have been middle distance was Alan Webb and while he was with that group for only a short duration the initial look was that the long term plan was to move him up to 5k as the focus for championship racing.

You have to remember that Ciaran is known as a long distance runner with 5k/10k runner and this has been his speciality throughout his college career. Though his 3.34 is ranked the 4th fastest Irish time in terms of medal wise it is still not quite there.

People will argue that Matt Centrowitz jr. (the guy who got bronze in this years WC) has the exact Pb (to the thousand of a second) but IMO this is a fluke. This was in fact the slowest PB medal winner of all time in the 1500 in WC or OG as far as I am aware.

You have to also look at the possibility of it being harder to improve over the shorter distance. Look at Asbel Kiprop the reigning world and Olympic Champion. Many people saw him as a possible challenger of El G s record or atleast come close yet in the last two years the man has improved his PB by less than half a second despite showing 1.43 800m speed which is blistering.

Back to my initial point and with the rumours of Sam Chelanga joining the group also this summer it looks like their is a definite 5k/10k emphasis within the group. The fact that Alberto has been talking all year about how Mo has not been doing much work on his speed this year perhaps the addition of Ciaran is a tool to help develop this in the build up to London. Salazar is lucky enough to pick and choose the group he has around him so you can be assured that every addition is to the benefit of both the athlete themselves and also to the group as a who to develop the existing group so I couldnt see how adding a middle distance athlete to the group is condusive to the development of the project

I also agree with Sean about not writing Rupp off he has shown glimpses this year beating some notable kickers (Merga being the most noticeable) remember that Rupp has been slowly developed and continues to be a constistent and steadily improving year in year out since his Phenom HS days so I could see him being a major threat in few years (remember he is only 25 a few months)

Larry Brent

ecoli wrote: »

Back to my initial point and with the rumours of Sam Chelanga joining the group also this summer

Is Chelanga not joining the other group in Oregon? Schumachers group.

ecoli

Larry Brent wrote: »

Is Chelanga not joining the other group in Oregon? Schumachers group.

Rumours of him joining either at the moment AFAIK and given his College rivalry with Rupp could be a factor in him hitting to Jerry's group alright

Dan man

His new website is up and running:
http://www.mad-len.com/

Getonwithit

Very excited by this. Re arguments over where he should concentrate, I'm all for a sub 13 5k next year in the Europeans if he wants. Lets not get ahead of ourselves. Yes hes a world finalist but a European 5k winner(or 1500, which I think would be harder won, presuming Farah skips Euros as well) with the marketable qualities of Mad Len would be brilliant for the sport here. Would be better than a Olympic final or semi. IN redaing back over this I may have gotten ahead of myself! But theres not too many regular sub 13 Europeans outside of Mo Farah.