His Mutha’ was a Mudda’…
Ritz + cross country = sunshine and daisies. This past weekend, Dathan Ritzenhein’s strong victory over Ryan Hall et. al. at the USATF Cross Country Championships only fortified my belief that cross country is a distinctly different sport than track (obvious) and road racing (less obvious). While Ritz has turned in solid performances in those other arenas (8:11 2M, 2nd in Olympic Marathon Trials), his star has always shined brightest traversing hill and dale, where he was once 3rd in the World (for his age), and 24th among Senior Men as a 19 year old. I think it’s pretty clear that there are specific skills that lend themselves to cross country and specific people who perform best in that discipline.
I’m not advocating that Ritz abandon the asphalt and Mondo. But, with the Olympics being so regularly on my mind these past months, Dathan’s performance in San Diego prompts me to advocate the following…
Ritz and all the other mudders out there, deserve the opportunity to compete for an Olympic Medal in the sport at which they are most apt… cross country. Almost three-dozen nations sent teams to the World Cross Country Championships in Japan two years ago, with competitors from each of the six habitable continents (I expect they will downgrade Antarctica, like Pluto, to a “dwarf continent” classification, any day now, with Staten Island getting dropped to “dwarf borough” soon thereafter). Clearly there is interest in the sport on a worldwide level. Certainly more than BMX. What the shit is that? I mean, what’s next? Olympic parkour? Breakdancing? Trampoline?
Now here’s the wacky part of my advocacy: contest Cross Country Running as part of the Winter Olympics. For once there would be an event for me to care about, ever since my previously unshakable faith in pairs figure skating was so severely shook in 2002. Plus, sitting beside cross country skiing would make our sport appear clean as a whistle. Not least, it would help the Winter Games make inroads into nations they don’t traditionally reach. As we all know, that is a recipe for Disney Magic and big Olympic bucks. Imagine: after their runners come home with stories about all these sports played on ice and snow, Botswana sends a full complement of female ski-jumpers to the 2014 Games… by 2017 American theaters are graced with Cool Runnings 2: Girls Botswana Have Fun.
It’s a win-win-win…win situation.
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February 20th, 2008 at 2:04 pm |
brilliant, jeremy.
i started reading your post thinking “yea, yea, bla, bla … xc as an olympic sport, poo poo.” But the WINTER olympics, now there’s an idea!
February 20th, 2008 at 3:03 pm |
“cool runnings 3: kenya feel the love tonight”
“cool runnings 4: chad I told you lately that I love you” (the musical, featuring a love duet between guest stars Doug E Doug and John Candy made possible using CGI graphics and clips from ‘planes trains, and automobiles’)
…and the obligatory christmas version:
“cool runnings 5: rocking rwanda Christams Tree”
-ben
February 20th, 2008 at 4:01 pm |
Re: Cool Runnings 4… and I thought “Girls Botswana Have Fun” was a stretch.
@Katie: Thank you. That was the first time a female — other than my mother — has used the word “brilliant” with reference to me. And she had said “You’re a failure, Jeremy. A brilliant failure.” But in all honesty, I think cross country really WOULD work in the Winter Games because they occur during the sport’s natural season.
February 20th, 2008 at 4:43 pm |
I found your site through a blog reader on my Ryan Hall lens (www.squidoo.com/ryan_hall) so I figured this was about Hall. Yet lo and behold, it’s so much more.
They actually had cross country in the Olympics back in the day (like in the ’20s). Paavo Nurmi won a gold in it, I think. Or maybe it was Hannes Kohlemainen. Anyway, bringing it back would be cool, and putting it in the Winter Olympics is an inspired idea.
I’ve long believed that during the Winter Olympics, every sport should be contested, only on ice. Basketball, track, soccer, even tennis. How cool would that be?
One last thing. I think Ritz will prove he’s just as good on the track as he is in the mud. When he breaks 27 for 10k, people will see he’s the class of the US…yes, better than Webb or Hall.
February 20th, 2008 at 5:25 pm |
Bryan, I think it is your turn to be called brilliant. Tennis on ice is pretty much the greatest thing I can imagine, second only to the possibility of getting Dikembe Mutumbo to lace ‘em up and play ice-basketball for the Congo.
Stick around and I hope you’ll find that Runnerville continues to give so much more. Just last week the site donated a kidney to me.