Post: "The 400m doesn't work that way. Just because you can break 15:00 min in a 5k doesn't mean you can run a 52 second 400m."

I personally would disagree. A 15 minute or less 5k is really fast. In high school I was only running low 16's for the 5k (cross-country) but run a sub-51 second 400m. Heck I would sometimes go out in a 54 during 800 meter races. Anyway I would be really surprised if some of these ITU guys who are running sub 5 minute miles for a 10K couldn't lay down a 52.


So your telling me that everyone who breaks 15min in the 5k can run a 52 second quarter? That is absolutely not true.

Yes there are plenty of people who can, but its not a direct correlation. Yes there are some ITU guys that can do it, but I am claiming that it is still rare because they are training for swimming, biking and running.

Just looking at your speed you were probably a better 400/800/miler in HS than a cross country runner, so of course you think 52 seconds is easy and should be easy for a 15min 5k guy, but true endurance athletes with little to no speed will have a very hard time running a 52.

In Reply To:

ahhh sorry...there is no DH or SG in NCAA ski racing...SL and GS only.

Just checked with the boss - the pic of her in her skin suit in a tuck is her at nationals in what she says was Super-G, I had mistaken it for DH, but she is sticking with that. Have they changed it since 1989? Or, can I actually tell her she's wrong? (please say yes since I never seem to get to do that). We still have her Dynamic VR27s in the basement.

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Eat right. Get lots of sleep. Drink plenty of fluids. Go like Hell.

I would be willing to bet that she would be an incredible 50-100m sprinter but 400m is a totally different event

Why on earth would she be better at a sub 15 seconds effort when all of her training is geared toward a 1 to 2 minutes all-out effort ????? As has been stated by a few others, a skiing maximal effort is actually not that dissimilar to a 400 m run. What is clear from this thread is that downhill skiing seems like an extra-terrestrial sports to many.

Find yourself a small hill, and go do 10 one-minute uphill repeats running/walking in the squat position. This will give you a better idea at some of the training downhill skiers do. That's not exactly the same as running 400 m repeats on the track, but it's not that far either.

Francois in Montreal

Right so she's great in a sport where what... 12 countries compete (like hockey or... dare I say it triathlon). To be great in the 400m you have to line up against 200+ other nations best; almost everyone has had an opportunity to run a lap of the track or the schoolyard and can compete in a footrace. To be a great skiier, you have to be from a country with snow and parents with plenty of disposable income. Her ability to transfer her skiing to running a 400m is purely hypothetical, but it's as big a leap (or bigger) to say she'd be world class in the 400m that it would be to make the suggestion in the other direction. As a keep follower of winter sports I certianly appreciate her greatness AS A WINTER SPORTS ATHLETE in a niche sport, not running, not swimming, not soccer.

A 52 second 400m did not happen. No chance. Zero.

In many ways, track running is equally a 'niche' sport as skiing when you compare it to soccer. Not many countries put the emphasis on running that say Ethiopia or Kenya do. Even in the USA the best athletes are by and large drawn towards other sports.

To say that the top runners are lining up against 200+ countries' best runners is a bit disingenuous, and to say that they're lining up against 200+ countries' best athletes is flat out false.

You're comparing a niche sport to 2 other niche sports (running and swimming) and then throwing the least 'niche' sport ever (soccer) in there as well. Not comparable at all.

Skiing is niche in comparison to Running.

In some countries yes, in some no.

In a global sense yes.

In a global sense there are only 196 counties in the world :) 195 states and slowtwitchia

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When someone pulls laws out of their @$$, all we end up with are laws that smell like sh!t. -Skippy

"she is already the best female skier of all time."

if you don't count annemarie moser-proll, hanni wenzel, petra kronberger and janica kostelic you might be right. then again, she might not even be the best american skier ever, depending on where you rate tamara mckinney. but i'll grant you she's very good, one of the best ever. still, the 52sec quarter thing is silly.

and i wouldn't mind these sorts of silly things that come up if it wasn't that they always seem to be silly too fast, rather than silly too slow.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Let me help this thread:

I think if you take into account the level of competition she gives moser-proll a serious run for her money. She's competing in a golden age for women's alpine skiing. The rest on your list don't come close IMO.

"I think if you take into account the level of competition she gives moser-proll a serious run for her money. She's competing in a golden age for women's alpine skiing. The rest on your list don't come close IMO."

moser-proll is probably not the best skier on my list. kostelic is. look at olympic medals won, the quality of the medals, the number of overall (annual) world cup wins. the one and only area where vonn might beat some of these gals is the number of race wins, and i think you have to look at the opportunities for world cup race wins in the old days versus now. it's like how many ironman wins do you have in a career. it's a bit easier to rack them up with 25 or 30 ironmans taking place in a year versus 6 or 7. i don't see that vonn comes close to kostelic, and i'm not sure her stats beat mckinney. rivals, yes, beats, i don't think so.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

and i wouldn't mind these sorts of silly things that come up if it wasn't that they always seem to be silly too fast, rather than silly too slow.
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Exactly. The number of people I meet who broke 4 min for the mile is astoundingly higher than the number I meet who actually have, and I've met a few. Some fast runners may say that those who do triathlon only do it because they weren't good enough at one of the other 3 sports, some swimmers or roadies may say the same thing. I would consider those comments disrespectful, just as I consider Vonn's comment disrespectful (or at the very least ignorant) to those women who can/do run 52 sec. for 400m. I have the utmost respect for the amount of training that goes into any of these sports and having trained for triathlon, I can say that I am in awe of what the top people in this sport are able to accomplish both in training and in competition. I am also in awe of what Vonn can do, and Gretzky and Ali. My comments regarding the niche nature of her sport were meant to demonstrate the point that if someone were to suggest Cathy Freeman could have recieved a top flight bib number in a World Cup Downhill we'd all be laughing, just as we should be laughing at the suggestion that Vonn could run anywhere close to 52 seconds without having specifically dedicated years of her life to doing so.

We are most likely talking real US nationals...not NCAA nationals...never been SG in NCAA racing...

You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.

Athletics (e.g., track and field) is probably the second most popular sport in the world after soccer. Track and field is the 2nd most popular US high school sport for both men and women http://www.nfhs.org/content.aspx?id=4208. Track and field athletes are at the leading edge of human capability, there are almost no barriers to entry to keep out talent like the huge amounts of money to do skiing, hockey, golf, triathlon etc.

You are a genius. Yes, in maybe 6 or 7 countries skiing may be marginally more popular than running, but in the other 200 plus countries running probably dominates skiing by a factor of five and in 75% of the countries in the world there are zero skiiers. So stop being stupid, skiing is a niche sport by any reasonable definition.

We need an ST online track meet. Just send in your 50, 100, 200, 400m results....feel free to use the Vonn inflation factor, otherwise known as the ST-FTP fudge factor. Now I need to go do some squats and plyometrics to get ready for the track meet. Even with 25% inflation, I won't be breaking 60 seconds for the 400m. I'll be working on my starts for the 50m. I have a chance at that with all the deadlifts and squats that don't help me in triathlon :-)

Will I be disqualified for being honest about my times?

Ok, here is the deal. THere is absolutly no way she runs 52, in a workout, or ever..The fact(if in case she did say this)is that in order for her to say this, one of two things are apparent. First off, she has no idea what running on the track means, never really done any real workouts on the track, and is just clueless. In that case, it makes sense that she spouts off something so fanciful, figures it sounds about right, and figures no one will call her on it anyway..This is what I think really happened, and I agree that she would be lucky after a lot of training, to come within 10 seconds of that time, a world away..

The other thing is that she just flat out lied, knows it is a lie, but figures all her little twits would just wash it down with her other twitters of the day..I do not know her, so I will assume she is just ignorant of what she said.

I guess she could have been on an indoor track, or her watch stopped early or broke, she just read it wrong,(maybe 72??), but she did not run a 52....

Ms. Freeman cruising the track in Sydney in the early rounds:



Ms. Vonn using quads to take the fastest route down :-)



Now let's get them to exchange suits!

Disqualified? No. Just slower than most :)

We could even mail out timing chips and mats to participants in the virtual track meet, but of course, guys would just place the matts 25% closer than they really should be and the end result would be compliance with the ST inflation requirements.

"I will assume she is just ignorant of what she said."

no doubt. but, as i said, it's uncanny how everybody's always ignorant faster. and i agree with the prior sentiment expressed that these sorts of statements disrespect the accomplishments of the athletes who really did do these times.

my over/under: 76sec. all out, shaved and tapered, juiced, lathered, focused, i'd wager my dollar against anybody's that this is the true quarter-mile ability. and this takes nothing away from her skiing ability, which is undeniable. but, monty, you and i could name names of folks we know who were caught out "misremembering." this is just the latest in a long, sad line of them.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

You're kidding me...I'd like to hope that she can run faster than 76 for 400m. I put her in the mid 60's. I know 15 year old high school girls who are nowhere close to the athlete that she is cranking out 62!