Turning our attention back to the United States, many of the country's athletes have been preparing for months to make the Olympic team and many of the sports seasons are in full swing right now. One such sport that athletes are vying for spots in is track and field. The indoor track and field season has been underway for some time now, culminating this weekend with the United States of America Track and Field (USATF) Indoor Championships this weekend in Boston. The top two finishers in each event will then proceed onto the World Indoor Championships in Valencia, Spain next weekend.Many of the United State's top athletes were missing from the USATF Championships. This is mainly due to the fact that this is an Olympic year. Many of the athletes are either getting a later start on the season in hopes of peaking in the summer, or participating against tougher competition around the world to prepare for the summer Games. One such example is middle distance runner and American record holder in the mile, Alan Webb. Webb has been taking time off following a sub-par performance at the World Outdoor Championships in Osaka and will make his 2008 debut at the US 8k Championships in March. Another runner absent from the USATF Indoor Championships was defending Olympic gold medalist, Jeremy Wariner, who has raced in a few races over seas but seems to be taking it slow knowing that he has a long season ahead of him.
Another runner absent from the USATF Indoor Championship was Dathan Ritzenhein. Ritzenhein, known to the running world as merely 'Ritz', is preparing to represent the United States this coming weekend at the World Cross Country Championships in Edinburgh, Scotland. Being a long distance runner, indoor track doesn't really play to Ritz's strengths so it wasn't that shocking that he wasn't participating. In fact, Ritzenhein has already earned a spot on the U.S. Olympic team by placing second at the U.S. Marathon Trials last November in New York City.
There are so many races and so many things going on right now, not just in track and field, but also in the other olympic sports. I'll hopefully keep this blog multi-dimensional but again, forgive me for my bias towards track and field.
4 comments:
Found your site through a lens on Dathan Ritzenhein:
http://www.squidoo.com/dathan_ritzenhein
I think Olympic year track and field is always weird, because so many people have so many different approaches to peaking at the right time. That's why we didn't see anyone at USATF, too. No Meb, Culpepper, Goucher, Tegenkamp, Solinsky, Dobson...
There are a lot of great runners in the US right now, though. It'll be fun to see them progress this year!
A 3:46 mile by Alan Web is unreal. He would lap me once on the mile. Maybe its time to get into the gym.
I didn't realize they took certain events off so they could be more prepared for others. I guess I didn't know there was more to running than just running.
Joe, it's stratagy and yes there is more to running than just running.
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