B_Doughtie wrote:
The issue for American males is the requirements that are with said D1 single sport scholarship.
well, and the demands of college. if you go back a generation or two, we had some boy wonders go right to pro: lance, spencer smith, simon lessing, miles stewart. but that was rare. still, they could hit the ground running, financially, from high school, in triathlon.
not so the women.
and i don't think that has much changed. taking taylor knibb as an example, if she was a he, and he was a european, i think he'd be a full time pro earning a full time living. but taylor is, last i heard (and notwithstanding her race this past weekend in leeds) a student at cornell and racing xc and (i presume) track.
this will serve taylor well, as a woman, because if taylor was a european she'd probably not be earning as much as a male who'd won junior worlds as taylor did. so, taylor can rest in the luxury of knowing the european women who're 20 years old aren't going to get that far ahead of her during her 4 years of college, racing as a runner but moonlighting as an occasional triathlete.
but you take the american men who did well as juniors, stephen duplinsky, tony, lukas, kevin mcdowell, and every male before them including hunter kemper, they seem to have a harder time making up for those lost years.
we do pluck male runner/swimmers out of college, matt mcelroy, and i have hopes for andy truard when and if he decides to emerge as a pure triathlete (4-flat miler this year at NAU, high school swim state champion). but the men seem to lose a lot by not racing as full time pro triathletes from the age of 20.
Dan Empfield
aka Slowman