{"id":369,"date":"2010-07-26T08:02:00","date_gmt":"2010-07-26T15:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/?p=369"},"modified":"2010-07-26T08:02:00","modified_gmt":"2010-07-26T15:02:00","slug":"world-jr-championships-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/?p=369","title":{"rendered":"World Jr. Championships Review"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"float:left;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/view.picapp.com\/pictures.photo\/entertainment\/canada-moncton-iaaf-world\/image\/9428261?term=moncton\" target=\"_blank\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/view.picapp.com\/pictures.photo\/image\/9428261\/canada-moncton-iaaf-world\/canada-moncton-iaaf-world.jpg?resize=380%2C242\" border=\"0\" width=\"380\" title=\"CANADA-MONCTON-IAAF WORLD JUNIOR CHAMPIONSHIPS-DAY 7\" height=\"242\" oncontextmenu=\"return false;\" ondrag=\"return false;\" onmousedown=\"return false;\" alt=\"Xinhua Photo: MONCTON: JULY 24, 2010: 13th IAAF World Junior Championships: Team USA men's and women's 4x400 teams pose for photos after the men's gold medal performance at the 13th International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) World Junior Championships at the Stade Moncton 2010 Stadium in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada, on July 24, during the final day of competition. USA's time for the relay event was 3:04.76. (Xinhua \/ S   ndor Fizli.\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"clear:left;height:0px;overflow: hidden;\"><\/div>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"http:\/\/view.picapp.com\/\/JavaScripts\/OTIjs.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Watching the World Jr Championships this weekend I had very mixed feelings. On the one hand, the next generation of World and Olympic champions seems to be developing quite nicely. So nice in fact, that it will not be easy for us (the US) to hit that magical 30 medal mark in major championship competition as the rest of the world continues to progress.<\/p>\n<p>With the exception of the US and Kenya with 15 medals each, the distribution of medals was pretty even globally. Kenya\u2019s juniors mirroring the efforts of their senior counterparts by dominating the distance events by scoring in every event 800 meters and up. Similarly, most other nations seemed to mirror their senior counterparts as well. Cuban\u2019s scoring well in the jumps, Ethiopians in the distances, Russian\u2019s the race walk and pole vault, etc. The big anomaly being the performance of the European juniors in the sprint and hurdle events where they had large numbers of athletes making the semi finals and finals. <\/p>\n<p>This may be in part because the entry limits are different \u2013 only two per country on the junior level as opposed to 3 per country on the senior level \u2013 but that doesn\u2019t account for the medals that were being won. A young Brit won the women\u2019s 100. A Hungarian was the silver medalist in the men\u2019s 400. And though Asian, not European, a Japanese sprinter won the men\u2019s 200 followed by a Belarusian. Great news for the sport in general as competition makes for a better sport. But with so many nations performing well in their \u201ctraditional\u201d events, if they are making inroads into what have been our \u201ctraditional\u201d medal events, where does that leave US hopes for the future? <\/p>\n<p>Well, taking a look at US results there is good news and bad news. The good news \u2013 we scored in the field events. We scored a gold medal in the Hammer, as Connor McCullough had the second longest throw in the world by a junior this year at 265\u2019 0\u201d. We picked up a silver in the women\u2019s discus with Erin Pendleton (180\u2019 4\u201d0 and a bronze in the triple jump with Omar Craddock (53\u2019 3\u201d). Huge for us to score in these events on a global stage. We also did what our seniors have failed to do in the last couple of majors \u2013 won all four relay events. As our junior squads easily handled their global counterparts in the baton events. Perhaps they should be brought in to give our senior relays some pointers, as their passing was crisp and their athlete placement was dead on.&nbsp; We also scored silver and bronze in the men\u2019s 800 (Casimir Loxsome and Robby Andrews). An event that we have had a serious drought in at the senior level. <\/p>\n<p>In spite of these positive\u2019s however, there were some negatives. In the events that we are traditionally strong in, we were quite weak. We only picked up one gold medal in the sprint and hurdle events \u2013 Stormy Kendrick\u2019s victory in the 200 at 22.99. We had no finalists in the men\u2019s 200 or the men\u2019s 400 hurdles. And we only placed 5th in the men\u2019s 110 hurdles and 6th in the women\u2019s 100 hurdles. <\/p>\n<p>More as I looked through the results, we had very few athletes that seemed to be performing at their best levels. There were few personal or seasons best being set by our young people. And many were well below their performances of earlier in the year. This eerily mirrors what we saw from their senior counterparts in Beijing and Berlin! In fairness to our junior athletes, however, I believe the reasons to be quite different. Historically we see this type of performance routinely from our junior teams. We our not always represented by our best athletes, as many are involved in other activities during the summer \u2013 specifically preparing for college and college related activities. And I\u2019m not sure that we have a real comprehensive junior program here in the US. <\/p>\n<p>Yes, we have club teams that take part in track and field activities during the summer. But I\u2019m talking about a comprehensive development program where we are bringing together our best young people into some sort of system to help them prepare for international competition. To my knowledge there is little contact with these young people once they earn their spots on the World team. It may not be a bad idea to bring them together for a \u201cSummer Camp\u201d if you will. Two to three weeks of work with a staff of perhaps collegiate coaches, to help enhance the talent that they are already exhibiting.&nbsp; Yes, I know that a handful are already in college and have had a season under the guidance of a college coach. But many of these young people are high schoolers getting their feet wet on the big stage for the first time. And I think that USATF should look upon this as an opportunity to lay the groundwork for our teams for the future. <\/p>\n<p>We also have to look at the fact that as high school athletes, many of these kids have been attempting to compete at a high level since May. Most have State Meets that fall somewhere between the May and June \u2013 including qualifying meets that lead up to them. There are also the various post season invitationals that most of these kids get invited to \u2013 Golden South, Golden West, Nike Nationals to name but a few. Then there is the USATF Championships meet where the team is selected at the end of June. All of which can explain why a youngster like Josh Mance could run 45.90 over 400 at the beginning of June yet is only able to muster a 46.84 at the finals of Worlds. Or even a college freshman like Robby Andrews who had to go through the NCAA championships system, then our USATF championships system, then Worlds. Andrews looked good running 1:45.54 at the NCAA Championships in the beginning of June but was having a hard time holding on in Moncton finishing in 1:47.00.<\/p>\n<p>Looking at it from this perspective, we ask a lot of these young people, many of whom are getting their very first taste of international competition. We\u2019ve seen how hard it is on the elite athletes to ask their bodies to perform at a high level over and over. It\u2019s got to be harder for young people who are still developing \u2013 not just physically but also emotionally. Because we don\u2019t just ask them to compete, but to leave home, go to a foreign place, and to pull it all together and give us their best performance. Still, at the end of the day, these kids were atop the medal count with Kenya and that says a lot about the youngsters that we sent to Canada. I applaud their efforts and look forward to seeing many of them repeat their performances in the future. And as much as we count medals at these events, here in the US our \u201cdevelopmental program\u201d continues to be the collegiate system. We see glimpses of our future stars at these events, but it is still the college system and college coaches that really prepare our athletes to move on to the next level. And events like World Juniors serve as a great springboard to their collegiate destinations and their future growth. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Watching the World Jr Championships this weekend I had very mixed feelings. On the one hand, the next generation of World and Olympic champions seems to be developing quite nicely. So nice in fact, that it will not be easy for us (the US) to hit that magical 30 medal mark in major championship competition [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa3DCY-5X","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}