Quit with all the "leaving his team" crap. It's college sports, people leave early all the time...he's young and has a few chances to change his mind. Whoever said it was a "dream" to make the olympics is an idiot, he's a major threat to make the team.

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He also won Footlocker and every HS XC meet and was "only" a mid-pack runner in DI. The jump from junior/HS to the next level isn't trivial

My first impression when looking at a few of his "tweets" was that the total volume of the running program overwhelmed him. I have been told on pretty good authority that he had usually done around 50 miles/week during tri training. I see it in the vast majority of high school athletes who go into a big time college program and flounder. The jump from 50 to 120/week that most coaches ascribe to is simply too drastic a change for many. Only the strongest survive with their desire intact. I'd be hard pressed to feel that that wasn't a very major factor, in addition to him missing the family and circle of friends that was so strong, as many freshmen do. Triathlon's gain for sure and with the likes of Lukas, Ben Kanute, Tony S, Kevin McDowell and others, the US future looks pretty damn bright.

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Gary Geiger
http://www.geigerphoto.com Professional photographer

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how do you distinguish between quitting when you are down and making a rational decision about your relative talent level and future career?

it seems like someone who likes to think negative things about people would see it one way, and those who like to see the positive things would see the other.

and that really we don't KNOW what he is thinking.

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
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Timing. I dont think anyone is faulting him for doing what he thinks is best for him, I think if he sees the XC season through and quits on Dec.1st, I dont think there is 1 "quitting" label put on him.

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@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
http://www.aomultisport.com

Its not the athletes that make a mockery of college sports, its the NCAA. It's the people who accept the million dollar corporate sponsorships for things like march madness or the bcs, then turn around and suspend their athletes for accepting a few bucks here and there.

Why should any talented athlete play in this corrupt system? It's absolutely disgusting.

Good for LV for getting out now.

"He also won Footlocker and every HS XC meet and was "only" a mid-pack runner in DI. The jump from junior/HS to the next level isn't trivial"

if you look at the way he ran his two races at oregon, he ran them to win. he didn't run them to be the 4th or 5th man. when you run toe to toe with lawi lalang as far as you can hang, that tells me you've got something bigger in your sights. it's just like the 2mi he lost his junior year, post-season, when the rosas beat him and he ran 8:50-something. when you look under the hood of that race, he ran natl record splits for 6 laps before he folded.

had he stayed in collegiate running, i have no doubt he'd have had a centrowitz-like progression. the choice was not mediocre runner or great triathlete. in point of fact, he's a better runner than he is a triathlete, just as lance was a better cyclist than he was a triathlete, as benjamin paredes was a better runner than he was a duathlete, as emma pooley was a better cyclist than a triathlete, same with kristin armstrong, and so on. by choosing tri, he's not taking the easy road, or the quick road. if he was, he would just be running.

he apparently just likes triathlon better.

my only regret is that he's going to lose out on 4 years of paid college education. had he enrolled at adams state or nau or slo, maybe they'd have let him continue his method of training and still be on the team, and still get his scholarship. i don't know why you want to take one of the best three HS runners of all time and tell him he has to change his training methods. i think there was a good solution for him, but, it's very flattering when top D-I programs offer you a ride, and it's obviously hard to say no. so we have these kids choose stanford or oregon or arkansas and then, poof, gone.

there are 26 men on the active oregon XC roster. you ought to look at their HS palmares. why they cannot field 5 good guys is partly because they're all underclassmen, but it's also partly because of the cauldron. LV clearly was not at all made for that type of program. yes, it's his bad that he made an unwise decision, but he was 17 when he committed. i think the real blame lies with a system that ought to know who's a good fit and who's not.

and to that end, i note that the mercado twins and aj acosta are not on the roster. nor centrowitz. it's amazing to me how many of this country's top running talent oregon has to suck up just to make a XC team that's barely ranked inside the top-25. maybe that's a clue to why LV is leaving. maybe he got out while the getting was good. i don't know.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Good point--has he even done an Olympic distance tri? Nobody needs to go sub 17 to compete in ITU, even at the WCS level--1st pack comes out of the water in 18-low to 18 mid, second pack in 18 high. The swim times seldom come out under 18 on a course measuring the correct distance... //

When I talk about times, I never am referring to OW split times. It is useless to compare what guys do in a race unless you are comparing places. The time I referred to is in a pool where conditions are fully controlled, and comparisons actually have some validity. Those guys in the top 15 of ITU swim packs are certainly close to 16 flat or under, and the rest of the field trying to latch onto the single file paceline from there are in that 17 flat range. At least the ones that have any hope of making either of the first two bike packs. There are others that are not quite there yet, and they often form a 3rd and 4th pack out of the water..

According to the Chicago Tribune article:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/...1110,0,3058211.story

Verzbicas intends to enroll as at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs, which is giving free tuition to the members of the elite triathlon academy.

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Brian Shea
http://www.PersonalBestNutrition.com
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He also won Footlocker and every HS XC meet and was "only" a mid-pack runner in DI. The jump from junior/HS to the next level isn't trivial

As Dan pointed out the two races that he did run for the Ducks were not optimal for him - far from it - so to make the comparison that you make, with all due respect, is not that fair.

Dan used a great word in his last post, "Cauldron" and that aptly describes the situation that LV most likely found him in at Oregon. If you ran Varsity cross-country, you'll know that every work-out often turns into a race. It's both the best and the worst group training environment around. The current active Oregon team is all young guys - a big group of freshman and Juniors, in other words young, perhaps a bit hot-headed, gung-ho and wanting to make sure that they get noticed and get their spot on the traveling team - hence every, run is a race. Now some thrive in this sort of environment, but as I noted and also Dan alluded to, this can and does eat up a lot of talent.

I came of age as a runner during a time of particularly deep junior running talent in Canada and the U.S.(late 70's early 80's). I knew all kinds of really great runners who got scholarships for college. They ran for a couple of years or 4 years and then that was it. They were done, - injured, burn-out, finished! Never ran again!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

How do we know it didn't go down like this? LV goes to coaches last week, tells them he is leaving school after the season to pursue triathlon. In fear of him becoming a distraction to his teammates or that his heart won't be into the last two races, the coaches tell him he won't be on the travel squad and he can leave immediately. Knowing some of the parties involved in this, I wouldn't be surprised if this is what played out in the track office last week.

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Shawn
TORRE Consulting Services, LLC
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"Verzbicas intends to enroll as at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs, which is giving free tuition to the members of the elite triathlon academy."

well, that's helpful. that's not a bad D2 XC team they have... which just got better, if he runs on it ;-)

i know usat had been working on that for years, even back in the steve locke days. i'm glad that's worked out. i think it would be GREAT if some of these triathletes did pitch in and run XC, esp since it's really not much of a conflict with triathlon. can you imagine if guys like LV and smoragiewicz showed up for XC there? i just wonder of pursuing a triathlon career in some way impacts their ncaa eligibility.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

It shouldnt, the only thing that it affects is his ncaa collegiate status. The moment he stepped on OU's campus, his eligiblity clock started, and he has 5 years to complete 4 years of eligiblity (assuming no major injury and using a medical redshirt).

There are athletes that do D3 swimming/xc and compete on the usa development national teams all the time in ITU races. That seems like a very good option, because it allows more freedom than a Div1 scholarship and the demands of the single sport from that university (of course that's a good option if paying for college isnt a worry).

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@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
http://www.aomultisport.com

I know USAT has a specific classification of elite license for collegiates who are concerned about NCAA eligibility. I believe it allows you to race as an elite, but not accept prize money or something along those lines.

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IG: idking90

Not exactly true
That is/was a rumor regarding the Academy but that is not the case for all.

I'm SURE Lukas will have that extended to him.

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Gary Geiger
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Just wish my membership money was going towards those kids having a good education. But CU-CS...

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Agreed. I don't think most people can appreciate how fast an 8:29 2 mile is. To state the obvious, it's 5 seconds faster than anyone had run before, ever. And that includes guys who went on to win NCAA championships and mix it up at world championships and olympics (Teg, Solinsky, Rupp, Ritz, etc).

Partly I think folks simply don't know two mile times - but according to the iaaf, it's the 'equivalent' of a 7:52 3k, a 13:30 5k, and 28:20 10k. Those are incredibly fast times - especially when we're talking about him racing triathletes. Given that he's not a high volume guy, I think breaking 29 might be a stretch for now, but not out of the question. To run a sub 24 8k in xc is no joke. I think if he can get his swim down to make a pack, ride w/o killing himself (I can't imagine he's as strong a cyclist as the Brownlees- but he doesn't need to be) - he should be able to run with anyone in the world. Of course that hinges on the swim. There's no shortage of fast runners getting into triathlon after impressive college running careers (Vanort, Jefferson, Jorgenson, Shiver come to mind), the issue is whether they can swim or not. We'll have to wait and see what happens with LV.

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I really think his swimming ability is underestimated. Its certainly not as strong as his running ability, but he has grown up swimming with guys like Ben Kanute, who is one of the strongest junior swimmers in the field, and he is far from getting blown out of the water. Ive swam with him and seen the sets he can do and he can certainly swim at an elite level. I think if he puts some more work into it, he will have no problem swimming at an ITU WCS level.

"all the time?" and this is based on what? it's extraordinary for a key D1 athlete to leave his team 2/3 of the way through a season in the absence of some type of family emergency or illness. larry drew ii did it last year to unc in basketball. it was a BIG deal and he was blasted across the board for being a selfish whiny jerk for doing that.

also, it's ridiculous that you think he is a "major threat" to make the US OT when he isn't even a US citizen and never has even run a 10k. get real.

ggeiger wrote:

The jump from 50 to 120/week that most coaches ascribe to is simply too drastic a change for many.

No way any successful collegiate coach is making him jump his mileage 140%! I don't know of too many D1 programs that run 120. And Oregon has had plenty of miler types that were not running 100+ mpw.

Slowman[/size wrote:

]i don't know why you want to take one of the best three HS runners of all time and tell him he has to change his training methods.

If you are Vin (or more likely Andy Powell...), and you got this great talent coming in that has spent all this time on the bike and the pool, you're telling me you aren't even going to try and see if he will improve on running 10x/week instead of 6? Maybe give it a shot for a season or two. If it doesn't work after one season, surely he can go back to his old training, right?

Slowman wrote:

and to that end, i note that the mercado twins and aj acosta are not on the roster. nor centrowitz.

Dan, I thought you were a big prep running buff! Mercados and AJ all graduated HS in 2006. They are well passed their eligibility (actually Danny Mercado is now running up here in Flagstaff as part of the McMillan Elite team and just qualified for the US marathon trials). I believe Centro went 4 and out in xc, so he has no more eligibility either.

ian10 wrote:

I know USAT has a specific classification of elite license for collegiates who are concerned about NCAA eligibility. I believe it allows you to race as an elite, but not accept prize money or something along those lines.

As I understand the rules, accepting prize money is not an issue because triathlon is a different sport than track & field. As others have said, there have been some cases of an athlete competing in a minor league baseball team, let's say, and going back to college to compete in D1 football. However, sponsorships will be an issue. If Lukas wants to return to NCAA competition, he better not accept any sponsorship money. Although, if he returns to Oregon to run, I'm sure he can just payback a few grand and call it even. (See Galen Rupp: http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-131980104.html)

Quote:

Rush said under NCAA rules, student-athletes have the right to be a professional in one sport, earning income that can include prize money, and play as an amateur in a different sport. Endorsements make up the largest part of an athlete's income in professional skiing, he said.
"The situation is that the NCAA has denied Jeremy what everyone agrees is customary income for being a professional in the sport," Rush said. "That to me is the beginning of the case and the end of the case and you need go no farther."

Read more on Jeremy Bloom if you are interested. He was not able to return to NCAA competition after competing in the 2006 Winter Olympics. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Bloom

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Jason Pedersen
RunPd.com - Running as fast I can since '93
@jasonpedersen

His dad IS running the program there. I think you're right that they've found a way to make it work for him financially...

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centro used up his xc eligibility but still has 1 season left in winter and spring track. my guess is that he has bigger fish to try in 2012 than measly collegiate runners.

AJ graduated this year and was sponsorless as of september. he was talking about moving out east to train with gags after the 5th ave mile but i don't think that he had made a move yet. besides being a 3:53 miler, he also is the former world record holder in the beer mile.

He is probably just like so many other kids that are extremely talented HS athletes when they go to a big time program like Oregon track and field and find that there are other kids as talented. It was probably a bit of a blow to the ego (by the way nothing wrong with that, especially as a freshman) but it can be extremely demoralizing. Probably was for him when he was so far above everyone else in triathlon and now just as good as everyone else just on his own team, never mind across the PAC10 or across NCAA D1 xc.

Hopefully the experience will serve as a motiviating factor for him and realize that when he steps up to the big time in tri there are many others as talended as he is.

For example NCAA d3 automatic qualifying time for outdoor national championship for the mile is 4:07
d2 4:05

and everyone in D1 that even makes All American is under 4 minutes usually at least 3:55 for the 1500 meter race.

I will say quitting mid-season is a pretty douche move - especially as he was a scoring runner for them.

Thank you, Jason, for bringing some real perspective to this. Being as close to U of O as we are up here in Portland/Nike, I can promise you he didn't jump mileage 140%. Vin/Andy are smart coaches. Of course, bringing Lukas in may have been a mistake, but a risk I think any coach would have taken.

FYI - Centro does have one year of track eligibility left, but I can just about promise he won't use it - and my opinion is that he shouldn't. His stock will likely never be higher than it is now if he wants to run professionally. Repeating as medalist at a WC is much harder than people realize.

My personal opinion on Lukas is that I would have liked to see him finish out this year, and even his time at U of O. I respect his decision to go after the sport he loves, and only hope that it's because he truly has more passion for triathlons, not because he ran "poorly" in his first two meets. We all know his swim needs to improve, but I'm even more interested to see if he can step up and run a fast 10k off the bike. Were his performances at 8K an indicator that he has a lot of development to do at the longer distances? I haven't done any research, has he raced any Olympic distance events for reference?

All speculation, but that's what ST is here for, right?! Of course, I wish him the best of luck in whatever he does.

Drew