I’m talking both short and long (even though he is an IM guy).
The US is full of great athletes in almost every sport, but not in triathlon. Sure there are a few developing guys, but their results just aren’t consistent. Hunter Kemper is also pretty good, but he’s been in the sport since he was a little kid, I’d expect he’d be more of a dominant force in the ITU World Cups. He’s a great runner, but most of the time he can’t bring it together on the bike and/or swim for it to show (he did bring it together nicely in Spain though). Maybe a year or two more, maybe never. Why wasn’t he at the Worlds?
Tim DeBoom on the other hand is pure speed. He had a marvelous season (with a 1:10 half in Wildflower!), but he got screwed in Hawaii because of a kidney stone. From everything I saw on tv/read about him, he’s also a really nice guy.
‘The US is full of great athletes in almost every sport, but not in triathlon’
I can’t think of any great male endurance athletes(eg any Olympic event beyond 400m), and we’re not very good at many of the global team sports. We get very poor return on the limitless facilities we provide.
I’ll bite though; you’re right about everything except Hunter Kemper. On his best day, he was so-so and that day was a long time ago. His success in Spain says more bad things about the competition than good things about Kemper. Did you see his performance in that “Triathlon: through the eyes of the elite” video that came out a few years ago? Great (unintentional) comedy. He went off on draft legal racing saying there were no “men of honor” in the bunch who would attack or take pulls at the front, basically calling his competition pussies and weak cyclists. Then in the race he promptly got dropped by the pack.
DeBoom is the real deal though. Keeps to himself all year, shows up for the big race and then delivers (I can forgive an DNF by someone who has a kidney stone). I don’t think we’ve seen him win Hawaii for the last time either.
Not a troll, only an injured triathlete with WAY too much time on his hands
Now your post certainly seems a troll, I mean, you have to be kidding about Hunter. He’s the best short-course US triathlete and if in a good shape a contender for a medal in Athens. In fact he had the best run split in the rehearsal event in Athens last October. And his victory in Madrid was no fluke, he beat some of the best, including Ivan Raña at home.
“I can’t think of any great male endurance athletes(eg any Olympic event beyond 400m), and we’re not very good at many of the global team sports. We get very poor return on the limitless facilities we provide.”
And here I thought the U.S. of A. had produced a couple of bikers who do o.k. in endurance events.
And you people should start browsing other forums (none-triathlon related). This forum is a saint compared to other ones. I rarely see anyone curse, but that’s probably because most of the people here are oldies =P
Anyway I’m trying to decide who’s my fav triathlete. Long Course it’s definitely DeBoom, but short I’m not sure. I always liked Whitfield, Rana and Craig Walton, but Peter Robertson seemed really cool during the interview in the ITU event. Didn’t diss his old coach, didn’t brag, and just seemed really down to earth. Courtney Atkinson is up there too (although I don’t know much about him).
THe only thing the makes me angry is that Craig Walton never updates his site. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Ok, kind of a troll… but only kind of. Saying “He’s the best short-course US triathlete” is kind of the point of the first poist: being the best american short courser isn’t saying much. He managed to do that at Cancun in '02 and at Sydney in 2000, each without cracking the top 10. The fact that you bring up Athens is interesting. I hope he isn’t planning on letting a group put three minutes into him on the bike the next time he goes there like he did in October.
Part of the problem is that I can’t get excited about ITU racing but if he puts on a show at Athens, I guess I’ll shut up.
I’m putting in a vote for Michael Lovato. He’s definitely on the way up. 1st by 20 minutes on a hot day at IM Coeur D’Alene, 9th overall at Kona, lost by 17 seconds to Cam Brown @ Half IM Utah.
I know it’s not a good reason, but I just can’t bring myself to root for Hunter Kemper. I love the sports bra and low-cut bikini bottom look, but I generally prefer it in a member of the opposite sex. Most of the short-course guys have come around and are wearing better looking digs, but Hunter…
First of all Lieto has yet to run a good marathon. In NZ he got blisters. In LP he got blisters. I don’t even know what happened to him in Kona. He’s a great swimmer and cyclist, but he can’t bring it together on the run.
Second, I don’t know why Americans are so obsessed with ‘the top American for the day’. What if Lieto hadn’t come in 2nd (in Lake Placid), what if he came in 20th (and no other American had passed him). It’d be stupid to call him the US Champion if he finished that badly, but they would. Sometimes in ITU WC’s they have a the top finisher in say 8th, but the 2nd American is all the way down in 34th.
If an American came in 2nd place, you wouldn’t say he was 1st American overall, you’d say he’s 2nd overall (without mentioning the first American). I think it’s just a way to try to make up for a bad placing by making it seem better than it actually is.
Yeah. I was surprised to see Simon Lessing wear a speedo too. We’re in the age of one-piece suits (although some two parters are nice too, but not when they’re bikini style as you said). I say men who still wear speedos and high-cut tops should get a 20 seconds penalty for fashion violation. =p
I think that you have a valid point. We certainly don’t encourage our young people to participate in sports that either take too long or won’t result in them becoming deliriously wealthy if they are good enough to go pro.
We do have some excellent female triathletes, and some excellent female runners as well, but the men, overall, are second tier. A couple of thoughts on the subject:
When I got the Kona results issue of Triathlete, I noticed something strange. The majority of the top finishers for both pro and AG, men and women, were foreigners. If you analyze the results, only 1/3 of the top pros were Americans, and less than 1/2 of the top AG’s were American. This could mean that the few top-level foreigners who go to Kona are, for various economic and other reasons, better able to get to Kona and then perform well there, but this trend is also seen on the results sheets of many other long course races.
American Biathlon is dying. Why? Because any kid good enough to cross country ski and shoot at the Olympic level has much better opportunities to make money in soccer, running, and other sports. You can’t make money at biathlon, so you go where you can make money. I think that this may be largely true of triathlon as well.
I have gone on record as saying that I would not go pro if I could because I don’t want to live at or near the poverty level. I stand by that statement. There are probably many better athletes than myself with with the same sensibilities.
