Natural talent...

[tafnut]

Re: Natural talent...

In masters meets I occasionally run across competitors who NEVER ran track until age 50, when they were fat and completely out of shape. They took it up, toned down and proved to be VERY good. Confirmed my suspicions that it's nature not nurture. All you have to do is knock off therust, lose some weight, learn the rudiments of the event (barring the highly technical ones - however I have seen this with pole vaulters too!), and off you go! Not that the bar is very high (metaphorically speaking) usually in masters meets, but they are beating the veterans.

[HurdlinDub]

Re: Natural talent...

>>the record books say mike marsh was a 19.73 & that's a FACT




They also
>say that Lalova is a 10.77 girl and that Flo Jo had zero wind on her
>10.49.

And that's FACT....?!?

Hang on what's the suspected issue with Marsh's 19.73? Never got that memo.

[HurdlinDub]

Re: Natural talent...

><<So he was a bit of a Jason Gardener, in a
>way...?>>

No, unlike Gardener
>he was actually a world-class 100 talent :-)


Damn world-class just keeps on getting tougher - 9.98 in the 100m doesn't make it?

[Wayne T. Armbrust]

Re: Natural talent...

>How old was Merriweather when he began running open meets? I'm thinking he was
>near 30 with very little experience. That has to be "natural talent"!

Merriweather started running earlier than popular myth acknowledges. He was some sort of a resident at Ohio State in the mid to late 60s and ran in some open meets there. I have an old program from the ‘66 All-Ohio Indoor Meet showing that he ran the 60 yd and 300 yd events. (I ran the 300 as well, but in a different heat.) This was over five years before his win at the ‘71 AAU 100.

[eldrick]

Re: Natural talent...

>>>the record books say mike marsh was a 19.73 & that's a FACT<


"And that's FACT....?!?

Hang on what's the suspected issue
with Marsh's 19.73? Never got that memo."

no problem at all

the record books just lists the FACT that he ran 19.73 & seeing as his career is long over & that was his PB, according to the books, that must obviously be his absolute limit

we know otherwise, so therefore sometimes we have to take record books ( & listed PB's) with a pinch of salt - in many cases they don't tell the whole story (similar to King's 19.75 or zebra's 19.79 ( dreadful start - almost last out of the blocks ))

[hjumper33]

Re: Natural talent...

I dont know if anyone remembers the name Nick Setta. He was a kicker/punter for Notre Dame a few years back. In high school he was the 5th place finisher in state for XC on a state championship team, and kicked I think a 57 or 58 yard field goal in the same season. He was all conference in basketball, ran 151.2 in the 800 and highjumped 6'10 all in the same year. A pretty impressive natural athlete across the board.

[jhc68]

Re: Natural talent...

Coley Candaele was 1990 California state mile champion having never run a step of x-country because he was quarterback of 3 successive CIF championship football teams. His uncle was a long-time MLB infielder and his grandma was the real-life inspiration for the movie "A League of Their Own". Two years ago Candaele coached the top ranked small schools football team in California. Coley is married to former NCAA 3k champion and Oly Trials 1500m finalist Karen Hecox. They have a couple of feisty little kids who, if genetics mean anything, ought to have some kind of natural talent!

[EPelle]

Re: Natural talent...

Candaele is high on my list, however he was an outstanding AAU age-grouper. Nothing can take away from his 47r-1.50-4.06 efforts in 1990, however -- with the only base built up that year (and the aforementioned years) having come from quarterbacking Carpinteria. Great individual fight with Louie Quintana in the second-half of the race. Candaele concluded his running career with a 3.45 PB at SLO (where he transferred after competing for U of Oregon).