Nike Oregon Project moving away from track - a resurgence in track distance running?

Myles Splitz

With Galen Rupp moving to the marathon, Mo Farah retiring from the track this year and the likes of Jordon Hasay and Surguru Osako debuting in Boston is the Nike Oregon project slowly moving away from track focus?

Could this be a good thing and open racing up from the now expected sit and kick tactics that have become the norm in 5k/10k distance running over the past 10 years.

tang1

Still have Centrowitz & Rowbury to keep the American interest in the track, both fairly successful in recent championships. What is the criteria for the Nike Oregon Project? Is it hand picked or do you have to qualify?

tang1

See also Sifan Hassan has been a recent addition to the Project, good training partner for Rowbury.

Myles Splitz

tang1 wrote: »

Still have Centrowitz & Rowbury to keep the American interest in the track, both fairly successful in recent championships. What is the criteria for the Nike Oregon Project? Is it hand picked or do you have to qualify?

Rowbury is not coached by Salazar (Assistant coach Pete Julian handling her training)

Current Roster is as follows - all members are hand picked

Galen Rupp - Running Boston Marathon (Current Olympic Marathon Bronze medalist)
Mo Farah - Retiring from track this year (current 5000/10000 World/Olympic Champ)
Matt Centrowitz - Current Olympic 1500m Champion
Cam Levins - 5000/10000m Canadian record holder (not traditionally a sit a kick guy like the rest of the team)
Eric Jenkins - seen as Rupps replacement
Surguru Osako - Making marathon Debut in Boston (Japaneese 5000 record holder)
Jordan Hasay - Making marathon Debut in Boston
Shannon Rowbury - Current 1500/5000m American record holder
Sifan Hassan - new to program current World Indoor 1500m Champion
Treniere Moser - 1500m/5000m runner

I can see retirement soon for Moser as well as Levin's making a move to Marathon next year which would leave the group fairly light in terms of track runners (especially on mens side) but I feel like this could do wonders for the sport and allow a few hard from the start style races to become the norm.

tang1

Are the Nike Oregon Track Club a completely different program to the Nike Oregon Project? Didn't Salazar coach for a time with the Track Club?

Myles Splitz

tang1 wrote: »

Are the Nike Oregon Track Club a completely different program to the Nike Oregon Project? Didn't Salazar coach for a time with the Track Club?

They are now, at one stage there were three groups under the same name of OTC Elite;

Nike Oregon Project (under Salazar)
Oregon Track Club Elite (under Mark Rowland - The team COL was on for the last few years)
Bowerman Track Club (under Jerry Schumacher)

BTC team include notable runners such as Chris Solinsky (first white man under 27 minutes for 10,000m, Evan Jager - Olympic Silver medalist, Shalane Flanagan 6th in Rio Marathon and Amy Cragg (Irish Record holder Alastair Cragg's wife who was 9th in Rio)

El Caballo

I don't see the 5/10k changing the sit and kick style of racing much because with NOP missing, the Ethiopians will be back to their old ways and funnily enough, the Championship races of the last few years have been some of the fastest ever behind Bekele in the Paris/Berlin 10000m and Beijing 5000m, they just have not been fast enough to crack Farah and that annoys people:pac:

If we look at the 10000m this decade, the fastest times:

1. Rotich 26:43
2. Rupp 26:44
3. Farah 26:46

NOP athletes have broke 26:50 4 times this decade when in total, 26:50 has only being broken 7 times which I find incredible tbh when the World A standard is 27:30 now. It's not necessarily NOP that are to blame for sit and kicks, there is just no one who can blitz a field around anymore like Bekele who can push from the front and blow everyone out of the water and even then, Bekele was a kicker 90% of the time in Championship races.

Even in Berlin, he sat on Tadesse and Geb in Paris as well. I have to admit, the last two major championship 10000m were top notch old classics much like Tadesse vs Bekele and I don't see a problem with sit and kicking, styles make races much like fights and you had to Kamworors strength vs Mo's Speed. I was hyped to see those battles as much as I was for any other distance.

I never got the hate for Farah's style, why would you risk Olympic and World medals by trying to run the legs out of everyone else instead of using your biggest strength. Let's face it, Mo would never be able to run away from the likes of Tanui, he's only slightly faster. That tactic might be fine for the likes of Bekele who was dominant in both finishing and endurance. Look at Geb, I don't think he ever lead a Championship race before the bell in his life before Paris 2003 and was because he had to as he was facing off against a young Bekele.

After Farah retires from the track, we will have to strong Kenyans against the kicking Ethiopians again. Something like Komon vs Geb type battle is what is needed to get the 10000m going again. A really fast strong man against a really strong blazing kicker.

I realize that most of this was directed at the 10000m in part because of Farah and Rupp but mostly because I don't think the other events suffer nearly as much scrutiny. People love to see fast times and such but a world record or near world record holder potential athlete is a rare phenomenon and will only get rarer as time goes on. Now is just a dry patch for the 5000m and 10000m after 20 years of huge progress.

Myles Splitz

El Caballo wrote: »

I don't see the 5/10k changing the sit and kick style of racing much because with NOP missing, the Ethiopians will be back to their old ways and funnily enough, the Championship races of the last few years have been some of the fastest ever behind Bekele in the Paris/Berlin 10000m and Beijing 5000m, they just have not been fast enough to crack Farah and that annoys people:pac:

If we look at the 10000m this decade, the fastest times:

1. Rotich 26:43
2. Rupp 26:44
3. Farah 26:46

NOP athletes have broke 26:50 4 times this decade when in total, 26:50 has only being broken 7 times which I find incredible tbh when the World A standard is 27:30 now. It's not necessarily NOP that are to blame for sit and kicks, there is just no one who can blitz a field around anymore like Bekele who can push from the front and blow everyone out of the water and even then, Bekele was a kicker 90% of the time in Championship races.

Even in Berlin, he sat on Tadesse and Geb in Paris as well. I have to admit, the last two major championship 10000m were top notch old classics much like Tadesse vs Bekele and I don't see a problem with sit and kicking, styles make races much like fights and you had to Kamworors strength vs Mo's Speed. I was hyped to see those battles as much as I was for any other distance.

I never got the hate for Farah's style, why would you risk Olympic and World medals by trying to run the legs out of everyone else instead of using your biggest strength. Let's face it, Mo would never be able to run away from the likes of Tanui, he's only slightly faster. That tactic might be fine for the likes of Bekele who was dominant in both finishing and endurance. Look at Geb, I don't think he ever lead a Championship race before the bell in his life before Paris 2003 and was because he had to as he was facing off against a young Bekele.

After Farah retires from the track, we will have to strong Kenyans against the kicking Ethiopians again. Something like Komon vs Geb type battle is what is needed to get the 10000m going again. A really fast strong man against a really strong blazing kicker.

I realize that most of this was directed at the 10000m in part because of Farah and Rupp but mostly because I don't think the other events suffer nearly as much scrutiny. People love to see fast times and such but a world record or near world record holder potential athlete is a rare phenomenon and will only get rarer as time goes on. Now is just a dry patch for the 5000m and 10000m after 20 years of huge progress.

I will conceed the fact that the Kamworir/Karoki strength vs Farah was appealing in particular in Beijing in 2016 but I think it was the difference in styles which made this. Before that you had everyone waiting for the burn up (even more so in the 5000m)

Perhaps it is more the lucarative nature of the marathon which has drawn the younger strength based runners off the track moreso than tactics employed leaving only the sit and kickers.

(Must look at the 5k splits for championship 10 ks pre and post 2009 to see whether it was just the slower first half that made things crawl so much in the absence of a Tadese type character to drive the pace early on)

El Caballo

Myles Splitz wrote: »

I will conceed the fact that the Kamworir/Karoki strength vs Farah was appealing in particular in Beijing in 2016 but I think it was the difference in styles which made this. Before that you had everyone waiting for the burn up (even more so in the 5000m)

Perhaps it is more the lucarative nature of the marathon which has drawn the younger strength based runners off the track moreso than tactics employed leaving only the sit and kickers.

(Must look at the 5k splits for championship 10 ks pre and post 2009 to see whether it was just the slower first half that made things crawl so much in the absence of a Tadese type character to drive the pace early on)

I'd agree completely on the marathon taking away from the strength of the 10k which was the point I was trying to make miserably enough above. The sport needs both strong and fast runners and typically in the past, the Kenyans offered the strength to the 10000 while the Ethiopians had the speed. The absence of those young athletes on the track has a huge impact imo. Imagine if Wanjiru stayed on the track for instance, that would've been special. It's no coincidence that the decline of the 10000m coincided with the rise of the marathon. Money has a huge impact but so does winning imo, The Kenyans always struggled to get the better of the Ethiopians on the track and that could also be a factor as winning goes with money too, not just being an old romantic:).

robinph

What is so wrong with sitting and kicking? Does that not actually make for a far more interesting race than one where they just hammer it from the gun?

Different distance, but the 800m in 2012 was only interesting because everyone was watching the clock. Otherwise it was an incredibly dull race, or would have been if it went on for another 10 or 20+ laps as the finishing order was determined in the first 10m and it was then just a case of each person trying to hang onto the guy in front. That is very dull, despite the times being interesting.

The result of the 5k and 10k in Rio may not have been what people who dislike Farah wanted, but I can't see how they could be considered dull with people getting tripped and falling in both races and then fighting their way back through for starters. Racing is more interesting if there is a race happening and you don't know who is actually going to win until the end. If you just want time trials and fast times/ world records then that is hardly going to excite the audience to want to watch distance running in athletics. For sprints yes, but for the longer stuff and marathons you need more than just one guy running off into the distance behind a couple of skinny Kenyans in Shaftesbury Harriers vests.

Myles Splitz

robinph wrote: »

What is so wrong with sitting and kicking? Does that not actually make for a far more interesting race than one where they just hammer it from the gun?

Different distance, but the 800m in 2012 was only interesting because everyone was watching the clock. Otherwise it was an incredibly dull race, or would have been if it went on for another 10 or 20+ laps as the finishing order was determined in the first 10m and it was then just a case of each person trying to hang onto the guy in front. That is very dull, despite the times being interesting.

The result of the 5k and 10k in Rio may not have been what people who dislike Farah wanted, but I can't see how they could be considered dull with people getting tripped and falling in both races and then fighting their way back through for starters. Racing is more interesting if there is a race happening and you don't know who is actually going to win until the end. If you just want time trials and fast times/ world records then that is hardly going to excite the audience to want to watch distance running in athletics. For sprints yes, but for the longer stuff and marathons you need more than just one guy running off into the distance behind a couple of skinny Kenyans in Shaftesbury Harriers vests.

I would say sit and kicking can be an interesting tactic if it contrasts with others in the field. If everyone sits and kicks for the likes of a 10k it effectively nullifies the event in the eyes of the audience

Personally I thought the 2012 800m actually provided decent entertainment 1 because the duration of the race it was a case of waiting to see did Rudisha run out of legs and could someone catch him.

For me much more engaging than the 2016 1500m

Perhaps the unpredictability element is more crucial than the actual tactics employed

Interestingly there was a Canadian 1200m race last weekend which had an interesting structure whereby giving prize money to leader of each lap but weighted it towards overall winner;

The payout was as follows.
Lap 1 leader – Can$50
Lap 2 leader – C$100
Lap 3 leader – C$150
Lap 4 leader – C$350
Lap 5 leader – C$600
Lap 6 leader (winner) – C$1,000

I think something like this could create more excitement to the DL distance races or like the Nitro Elimination Mile. Both still based on the athletic ability without compromising the sport through gimmickry but still create some more suspense.

Sacksian

I'd be with Myles on this one about fairly much everything. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with sitting-and-kicking (I love it personally!). When executed well, it’s a thing of beauty. But if you're watching the same race over and over, it gets dull without an element of unpredictability.

And I wouldn't count front-running the 800m in an Olympic final from gun to tape while breaking a world record as particularly predictable! That was an absolutely astonishing race (I would have thought most people thought so). Front-running an 800m is very, very difficult to do - no matter how good you are, there's a very thin line between running the finish out of your competitors and pacing your own defeat by running it out of yourself.

robinph

Sacksian wrote: »

And I wouldn't count front-running the 800m in an Olympic final from gun to tape while breaking a world record as particularly predictable! That was an absolutely astonishing race (I would have thought most people thought so). Front-running an 800m is very, very difficult to do - no matter how good you are, there's a very thin line between running the finish out of your competitors and pacing your own defeat by running it out of yourself.

Absolutely, the 800m was a great race and I'm not criticising that one. Just using it as an example of if that were scaled up to a 5k/ 10k or marathon then it would be duller than the dullest of dull dish water.

Sacksian

robinph wrote: »

...if that were scaled up to a 5k/ 10k or marathon then it would be duller than the dullest of dull dish water.

I'm not so sure about that! Imagine a championship 5k or 10k race where Mo Farah takes it out from the gun, leads the entire race fending off a world-class field for the win and breaks the world record while doing so!!