Lesson Learned? Wariner Believes His Has Been.

[EPelle]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090328/sp ... usawariner

From front-page article on Wariner today. He's tired of the talk about the split with Hart. He believes it was unfortunate things turned out the way they did last season, and he credits part of the setbacks to Merritt's improvement in the event.

Wariner is fighting hard to get back to where he was. Should he not fight hard to be better than he has ever been?


Where will this rock-and-roll show of a rivalry go in 2009? Ideas on times and world champs placings for these two guys?

[jeremyp]

Track fans are notorious for wanting one on ones between 2 great athletes.....and getting dissapointed. But we never give up, do we? I'll be cautously optimistic that these guys will go 5-5 and go under 43.5 at least twice.

[jazzcyclist]

Track fans are notorious for wanting one on ones between 2 great athletes.....and getting dissapointed. But we never give up, do we? I'll be cautously optimistic that these guys will go 5-5 and go under 43.5 at least twice.

Last year they were 4-3, what more can we ask for?

[TrackDaddy]

For Merritt it seems as though his confidence is soaring.

Have you seen his website?

It seems like he's sending messages to Wariner. Now that he's beaten him and got the edge last year he's trying to establish a psychological advantage.

www.LaShawnMerrittUSA.com

I believe JW should work to move past the Hart issue but it won't easy unless he wins WC. That may be what it will take for the talk to stop...win a major championship without him.

JW is certainly more than capable of doing that but as we know at this point it goes through Merritt.

The one psychological advantage that JW has in my opinion is that he's gone much faster than Merritt. That is, his pr is considerably lower. In fact, Merritt has only gone sub 44 twice I believe (43.9x/43.7x or so).

[eldrick]

lashawn's improvements were down to lashawn, not something jw coud control, so there is no point in him citing that as some sort of "problem" on his own part

if jw had just maintained his osaka form, he wouda won in peking, so it's pointless him placing much emphasise on lashawn's improvement - it was excellent but not to 43.2/43.3 level where he coud excuse any defeat

[TrackDaddy]

lashawn's improvements were down to lashawn, not something jw coud control, so there is no point in him citing that as some sort of "problem" on his own part

if jw had just maintained his osaka form, he wouda won in peking, so it's pointless him placing much emphasise on lashawn's improvement - it was excellent but not to 43.2/43.3 level where he coud excuse any defeat

I agree.

BTW...

JW ran 20.85 in 40 degree weather at the UTA Invitational yesterday.

I believe it was into a strong north wind but I'm not certain.

[Texas]

Always been amazed at how somebody that frail "looking" can do what he does. I remember Willie Deckard/Del Meriwether two other frail sprinters simply breaking down. Yes I know, the short sprints....

[croflash]

For Merritt it seems as though his confidence is soaring.

Have you seen his website?

It seems like he's sending messages to Wariner. Now that he's beaten him and got the edge last year he's trying to establish a psychological advantage.

www.LaShawnMerrittUSA.com

I believe JW should work to move past the Hart issue but it won't easy unless he wins WC. That may be what it will take for the talk to stop...win a major championship without him.

JW is certainly more than capable of doing that but as we know at this point it goes through Merritt.

The one psychological advantage that JW has in my opinion is that he's gone much faster than Merritt. That is, his pr is considerably lower. In fact, Merritt has only gone sub 44 twice I believe (43.9x/43.7x or so).

I think someone mentioned that last year, I believe his website has been different since beating Wariner for the first time last year, not after the Olympics. Just been adding more since.

[paulthefan]

qmilers he reminds me of : steve lewis, larry james perhaps danny everett or iwan thomas. actually he is more frail than all of those. Merritt is more of a classic beast in the mold of glenn davis and butch reynolds. Have to give Merritt the advantage going forward.

[EPelle]

If you look at some side shots of Merritt, he reminds me of Michael Johnson to a degree strong enough that they could be cousins if one didn't know any better.


I see Merritt in the (arbitrary time) 43,58-43,66 range this season, but not a threat to either the 2007 version of Jeremy Wariner. Wariner, on the same token, is also not (yet) the 2007 kid he was.

[Marlow]

Re: Lesson Learned? Wariner Believes His Has Been.

Wariner . . . credits part of the setbacks to Merritt's improvement in the event.

Error.

Yes, LM improved - his top 2 times for 2008 were

43.75
43.98

vs. JW's top 2 of 2008

43.82
43.86

but the pre-2008 Wariner could have have handled LM

JW's 2007 top 2

43.45
43.50

and his 2006 top 2

43.62
43.91

JW has nowhere to look but himself for his 2008 fortunes. At his age he should still be improving, all things the same, but . . . ahem . . . all things were NOT the same, and the Hart second-guessing will continue. If he improves his best times THIS year, regardless of what LM runs (or who wins), THEN the monkey will be off his back. The clock don't lie.

[eldrick]

lashawn is 2y younger than jw, so probably more in improvement curve to come from him than jw

i'd imagine he'd be disappointed if he doesn't get his pb <43.5 this year

[jeremyp]

Track fans are notorious for wanting one on ones between 2 great athletes.....and getting dissapointed. But we never give up, do we? I'll be cautously optimistic that these guys will go 5-5 and go under 43.5 at least twice.

Last year they were 4-3, what more can we ask for?

A ding dong WC's final, rather than a fading Wariner.

[paulthefan]

didnt it seem that adidas demanded more of their athletes in promoting their product than Nike did of theirs? I recall from 2008 a much more refined madison avenue approach from adidas where the athletes were used like runway models. There seemed to be more "events" for their athletes to attend and greater involvement and participation in their campaign for their product. All of their shoe-ins for beijing gold came up short; Wariner, Felix and Gay. Im convinced that adidas unwittingly handicapped their show horses. There were a number of factors that helped to diminish Wariner in 2008 they were: 1) loss of focus 2) loss of Hart and not to be discounted: 3) demands from adidas.. If MJ is behind these changes then he is putting short term cash before the more important issues on the track.

The life of the athlete must be extraordinarily simplified and uncluttered with little energy and time set aside for other things. True for all sports but much much more so for track.

[Brian]

Re: Lesson Learned? Wariner Believes His Has Been.

Don't read anything into this, but I got a mild chuckle of your assumedly unwitting use of the words "Has Been" in the title.

Or, if a planned play on words, congrats! Made me look...