Flashes of Panic

From Sunday’s Washington Times, we get this column about Alan Webb:

What is particularly mind-boggling is how America’s Great Mile Hope ran such a genius of a race at the U.S. Olympic trials 33 days ago and then ran what he called “a stupid race” in the Olympic 1,500 heats Friday and failed to qualify.

…What he should have been doing all summer was getting in more tight races in Europe instead of basking in the glory of races like Home Depot and Prefontaine, where his biggest challenge was making sure the rabbit didn’t trip him.

Steve, where were you for these results?

3:50.73   mile    7/30   London    (4th)    
3:32.73   1500m   6/8    Ostrava   (4th)    
3:33.70   1500m   5/31   Hengelo   (1st)    
1:46.09   800m    8/2    Malmo     (3rd)    

Notice that only one of those was a win. Yet the mile and 1500m times are the fastest and two fastest, respectively, run by an American this year, and the 800m is twelfth-fastest (and ranks Webb 5th among Americans so far this year.) So I’d say those were fast races.

Should he be wasting all his energy trying to argue his way into the Golden League meets in Rome and Lausanne, where he can get immediately smoked by twelve Kenyans and run the rest of the race by himself—in the back? No. The only environment I can think of as rough as the Olympic heats is the World Championships heats—or perhaps something like the European championships, which he can’t run anyway.

Webb ran as best he could. Bernard Lagat, the defending bronze medalist, is giving him credit for that. Why can’t Nearman?

(Never mind, I know the answer: because sportswriters are as good at tearing down those short of godlike as political reporters are at tearing down those short of sainthood.)

Now playing: Everybody Knows from Laid by James