Parkland wrote:
oprfcc wrote:
JackStraw13 wrote:
Chemist wrote:
Ryan Hall was self-coached for large chunks of his career
I thought God was his coach.
I'm not sure who was in charge with Ryan, but Joe is way better at triathlon than Ryan was at running.
The world is bigger than the USA.
The world is quite big and Ryan Hall placed tenth in 2008 Olympic Games agains the best runners in the world. Not too shabby.
Certainly seems that Skipper is having more success in triathlon than Hall had in running, though the comparison isn’t exactly fair. The depth of competition in running is so much deeper in the marathon than long course triathlon. That’s not a knock against Skipper as you can only race who shows up and the sport is relatively young, especially compared to running. It also seems that the talent pool is getting deeper in long course triathlon, which is exciting.
You are 100% correct. The depth of running is far greater than any sport, except soccer, in the world.
All that said, Kenya and Ethiopia had 50+ guys a piece that don't get to the start line of the Olympics.
And Ryan was the 2nd American in that race (out of 3)
So I'm sticking to it. Joe is better at triathlon than Ryan is at Triathlon.
And Joe is certainly closer to the top of the Sport (% wise) than Ryan ever was.