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Messages - A.B.

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1
What about Track & Field / Re: CARIFTA Games 2023
« on: April 19, 2023, 12:01:38 PM »
Alarm was "sounding" since 2016.

Said it on radio, TV, and in here.

That was during the "iceberg dead ahead" stage. That is long gone.

With no medals whatsoever at 2 consecutive worlds and (maybe) 2 consecutive Olympics, maybe someone can tell me what to do now, because I don't know how to stop a ship from sinking once it has already started. It started in 2019.

We let the usual bullshit, old talk and no planning get us here.

This is not going away quickly - or easily. The little "bump" we had at Carifta this year is mostly because it was so bad before it must improve at some point.

Let's cheer on Jereem, who will be a finalist in everything he does at the highest level for some more years.

Apart from that, it's going to be a SERIOUS drought.

I've been here long enough that all know I am a realist and not a pessimist. That is just how it is for us now.


3
What about Track & Field / Re: CARIFTA Games 2023
« on: April 10, 2023, 11:20:12 PM »
The usual. Two three bright spots, and we lose to Bahamas for about the 20th time in a row in the team standings.

4
No quick fixes for something that started a long time ago - we got distracted by some relay success and ignored the OBVIOUS - declining Carifta results and officials saying oh nothing to see here - nothing on the track for at the last 4 world juniors now - etc etc etc



NO person can fix this immediately - and quite frankly who can we point to and say ah - that's the junior athlete that looks like contending/dominant PRO is in their future? Because I haven't seen him/her of late

5
What about Track & Field / Re: Babes of T& F
« on: August 08, 2022, 11:42:02 AM »
Heard that a lot - people think maybe it's an outside child. LOL.

She's not.

6
What about Track & Field / Re: Commonwealth Games 2022
« on: August 07, 2022, 09:28:09 AM »
IF he'd had that lane at Worlds in the final it would have been a different race - behind Lyles.

7
What about Track & Field / Re: Briana Williams
« on: August 07, 2022, 09:25:46 AM »
The mob wants what it wants. You'd swear Briana fell off - fact is she's improved every year at 100m - just not as MUCH as they'd like.

8
I don't know that there is a fix at this point. The well dried up - this is just the result. our HJ would have medaled or won but that is a different story.

The drought has begun and it's not going to be pretty - it has to run its course before some new things get discovered.

9
Sure. That's an event where anything can happen, and he's come good twice, both in Olympics. Never worlds. Didn't make the final in Olympics last year - but that's why I said zero chance TRACK, and not FIELD - our outside chance for track is Jereem, but that M200m event is basically for one medal - Lyles and Knighton not beatable except by each other, this year.

10
As everyone in here knows, we can be very funny when it comes to public criticism and I tried in vain since 2016 to alert and warn and explain that the "do it as we always have, and hope for the best" path was going to eventually leave us in tatters - so where are we now as "worlds" starts next week?

ZERO 4x100m relays qualified, male or female.
ZERO realistic medal chances on the track, in any event (and TBH it's not really close)
ZERO world championship medals since 2017
ZERO Olympic medals since our 1 in Rio

and the worst part

ZERO juniors looking like they are ready to step up and be pros. Our college athletes have disappeared, for the most part.

So after all the warnings, back and forth talk, then the customary "fight-down" of the messenger, they still ran the ship into the iceberg, especially with the sprint relays which went from gold in 08 and bronze in 2015 (women) to lane fillers in 2021

Now, we pay the price, while they (admins) are long gone.

If someone asked me, I'd say the drought between '76-95 of no track and field medals at worlds or Olympics looks likely to repeat itself now. If TTO track and field was a stock, you'd be offloading it.

Meanwhile, Grenada will likely get TWO medals in Oregon (400m, JT)

We shall see.


I welcome any counter to this opinion. I'd gladly be swayed.

11
What about Track & Field / Re: Sydney MacClaughlin
« on: June 07, 2022, 01:25:23 PM »
Hurdles were set at the wrong place (high school 300h mark vs 400h for I believe 7th/8th hurdle) so won't count but consider that that mistake made her slower for a lap - and not faster. Her coach has said that after she sets this WR in the stratosphere she's going to go after the 400m WR.

12
What about Track & Field / Re: Carifta Games 2022
« on: April 25, 2022, 01:38:50 PM »
None of our juniors are showing "go pro" caliber yet. 11.5 and 23.3 (dating back to 2019) so far in the year she turns 19 means she hasn't shown PRO ability yet. It might be there, but that is way overreaching.
Any high school female sprinter thinking pros has to be 11 low and 22 mid to high I'd say at least to even get looked at twice and that was before the industry changed post-covid. The last 2 female high school sprinters to go pro had PRs of 11.13/10.94/22.48/22.50 credentials

13
What about Track & Field / Re: Carifta Games 2022
« on: April 23, 2022, 12:51:40 PM »
3 Inconvenient truths -

1. "Gave it their all" is what ALL athletes from EVERY country did, so how on earth does that make ours "different"?

2. 12 golds to 2 would sound EVERY alarm in countries like Bahamas and Jamaica - BIG CHANGES ARE needed. In TNT - meh - we had covid (everyone did). The new NAAA has been handed an almost completely bare cupboard.

3. Winter is coming. Tokyo was just the start.

14
What about Track & Field / Re: Jereem “The Dream” Richards Thread
« on: April 12, 2022, 06:34:39 PM »
Nobody losing any sleep over him. Maybe he will be in some races but he's not a real 100m threat

15
What about Track & Field / Re: Tyra Gittens Thread
« on: March 29, 2022, 12:49:54 PM »
Tyra competes now for the University of Texas now.
Almost NO university is letting their scholarship athletes go to Belgrade Serbia in mid March.

World Indoor is one championship you never see college stars.

16
What about Track & Field / Re: Jereem “The Dream” Richards Thread
« on: March 25, 2022, 02:36:27 PM »
I'd have to say 400m yes.

17
What about Track & Field / Re: Jereem “The Dream” Richards Thread
« on: March 22, 2022, 10:15:52 AM »
I asked him yesterday if he's a 400m runner now - he said "no, but I'll still dabble in it."

18
What about Track & Field / Re: The Deon Lendore Thread
« on: January 12, 2022, 07:39:49 PM »
I wanted to just stop by and say I understand now when people say journalism is dead (esp in TNT). The article which was written by the Guardian contains info I erroneously tweeted as the accident which took Deon. Bad info was given to me but I corrected it. Deon's car was a VW Jetta. The other article happened but was not related to Deon's accident since it was in Houston, TX. Deon lived in College Station, TX

The Guardian saw what I tweeted, inserted Deon as the "driver of the Kia" and ran it as a STORY!

GOD HELP US.

19
Maybe someone can help, because that one confused me.

20
What about Track & Field / Re: Junior PanAm 2021
« on: December 12, 2021, 03:09:19 PM »
Good info but it further underscores that we are currently probably in our worst track and field era ever, and this new administration better have some serious plans.

21
What about Track & Field / Re: Junior PanAm 2021
« on: November 30, 2021, 06:39:31 PM »
Bronze in the javelin yesterday

22
You guys are watching the Titanic sink and thinking WOW - not realizing the iceberg hit years ago.

2016 World under-20s - 1 bronze medal
2016 Rio Olympics - 2 of 3 relays DQ'ed in the Olympics (including the 4x400), one medal on the last day
2017 World championships - Winning the 4x400 masks what is just an OK worlds for us (Jereem 3rd 200m as well)
2018 World under-20s - No medals, no individual finals
2019 World Championships - No medals
2021 Tokyo Olympics - no medals (first time since 1992)
2021 World under-20s - No medals, no individual finals

This is what happens when you are happy with "just ok" results - it's the sports equivalent to ignoring a slow leak on a car tire.

Flat now.

23
This one seems to have hit a different nerve based on who is calling me now, but there are some good points being made here, chief of which is this -

OUR MEMORIES ARE SHORT NO ARSE!

In 2016, I saw the jokes, the memes, the cartoons, the ridicule directed at the team, (one in particular with a skeleton and the caption "waiting for Team TTO to win a medal") and on the LAST day Keshorn pulls out a medal and we give a sigh of relief. Ah we got one.

So forgive my incredulousness when now suddenly the NAAA says "There needs to be a national conversation on sport"

REALLY? So the one medal in Rio wasn't our red flag? What about our one medal in 2004? Wasn't then either?

The ship has been taking on water for decades while we act like somehow we would never sink. Now we are halfway to the bottom with another Olympics 36 months away. THE TRUTH is that NOTHING really happens in 36 months, and - early prediction - ZERO medals (1 at most) in Paris, too.

They are hoping all of this goes away, so they can go back to business as usual.

TRUST THAT.


24
Yeah? I hope so - where are all our talented sprinting youngsters, especially the females?

The system is so shitty now that they are never heard from again. It's bad enough that we are still asking our aging veterans to go one more rounds, but there is NOTHING in the pipeline! People ask me why I don't get involved and I say ok - to coach who?

25
Never ran Carifta.

Truth is that most countries' junior medalists don't really transition well (nature of the sport) but we in TTO also have this thing where even our seniors get 1 individual medal...and then never medal individually again.That is a lot harder to explain. Go back to our earliest days and with one or two exceptions, EVERYONE has one global individual medal.

Keshorn has bucked that trend getting 2 Olympic medals in successive games.

Some have said it's complacency, but I could argue it's not easy at all to be on world or Olympic podiums.

Most distressing to me is that we STILL have never won an Olympic medal on the women's side. I'd say Tyra Gittens looks like she will be the first - in the heptathlon.

26
Someone who not in fantasy land is back to have a real discussion. That women's relay stopped being a threat in 2016. 5 years ago. And yes, the parts are not anywhere close to what they were so there isn't enough weed in America to help that.

27
In a normal year TX A&M would have sent her coach with Tyra to coach her, but I don't know how that will work this year...


The bigger issue is that Tyra will not get to compete in Tokyo in the hep, because she doesn't have the hep olympic standard and lesser athletes who are ranked higher because they weren't in college for years and have higher rankings in the World Athletics list will go ahead of her.

She has the LJ standard I believe, so she's definitely in that in Tokyo.

They have a campaign going now online to get her into the games in the hep but I can't touch that - the rules are the rules. People telling me to "do it for my country-woman" as if a. I have that power or b. that wouldn't be biased and shady, since she is from TTO.

28
I not changing what I said.

Keshorn still remains the only hope, but it's very slim.

Tyra had a whole college season but now she going to win medals against pros? Come on, men.

29
What about Track & Field / Re: Erriyon Knighton
« on: June 30, 2021, 06:08:02 PM »
Maybe. He can win the Olympics if he runs the way he ran in the trials semi-finals


30
#3 in the world last time I looked. Literally the ONLY hope for a TTO track and field olympic medal.

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