Category: Training

In the past (insert stupid number) of parts of this series I’ve looked at a ton of different sports systems to see if there are commonalities, finishing with the bizarre situation in US Speedskating last time.  And certainly there often are.  Kenyan running, UK track cycling, the former Soviet Union, the GDR, Bulgaria, Australian swimming, the Chinese sports machine.  All had their own approach to the ‘problem’ but approached it or got there in roughly similar ways.In the majority of cases, a combination of large numbers of athletes, access to the sport, incentives of some sort, support, coaching (and often drugs) were part and parcel of consistent sporting success.

This was even true for America which despite its completely decentralized (and often screwed up) approach to sport is often successful or outright dominant, at least in certain types of sports.  There I looked at too much background in terms of geography, culture, economics, etc.… Keep Reading

Having looked at the sport in general, US dominance (more or less) and a host of other stuff yesterday in Why the US Sucks at Olympic Lifting: Part 21, let’s look at the sport in this country to see why we have produced so consistently.   This is actually where the true mindfreak is going to come in because the entire setup of the sport would seem to be all wrong.  And yet we somehow produce.  I also want to look at how the US appears to slipping and their current desperation move to try to fix it as this will also be illustrative for when I turn my eye to OL’ing on Monday.

So after you read this, on with the show.

US Speedskating (USS): Part 1

Unlike the other US sports I’ve discussed so far where there are usually pretty large numbers of folks involved, long-track speed skating is a stunningly niche sport. … Keep Reading

Yesterday, in Why the US Sucks at Olympic Lifting Part 20, I looked at US cycling, a sport that was always fairly small yet managed to produce at least at the Olympic level.  And which has simply blown up in the last 10 years due to the accomplishments of Lance Armstrong.  This is the home stretch, OL’ing on Monday.  Promise.

Continuing on with that, I want to look at another exception to everything that’s gone before, the sole winter sport I’m going to examine.  A sport which seems to have absolutely everything going against it: it’s niche, inaccessible, has few members, no incentives.  Basically it lacks everything that is usually required for success.  Yet has managed to thrive consistently.   And, of course, to adequately discuss this it will take today and tomorrow.  Then, Monday, OL’ing.  Finally.

Like cycling it is another sport pursued primarily by middle and upper class whites tying in both with swimming from Monday and cycling from the last two days.… Keep Reading

In Why the US Sucks at Olympic Lifting: Part 19, I looked at a bunch of different factors related to cycling including how racing developed in the US (mainly crits and time trials) versus in Europe.  I finished by look at single day races called the classics and want to continue from there.  Because while the single day races were hard enough, grinds of 70-200km over horse-tracks, that wasn’t enough.  Someone decided to intensify the stupid and that led to the development of the tours.

The Minor Tours

Because after guys got bored trying to murder one another in a single day race over horse-tracks in the classics, some guy got the idea of holding multi-day events and the mini-tours were born.  Usually 3-7 days of racing including multiple road races and usually including a time trial as I described yesterday.

At this point, the racing had moved to something Americans didn’t get and couldn’t follow; at least in the classics it was fairly simple racing even if it was still boring as hell because of the length. … Keep Reading

Having looked at US success in track and field and swimming in Why the US Sucks at Olympic Lifting: part 18, I’m going to change gears (ha ha) a bit and look at a couple of exceptions that exist in the US in terms of this whole issue of sports and what we’re good at or have been good at. Because while most seem to think that all I’m doing is repeating the same information (and to a degree I am) the exceptions to some of the ‘rules’ that appear to exist are often more interesting.

The first exception I want to look at is US cycling and there are a number of reasons to examine it.  An occasionally seen argument is “Everyone said the US couldn’t win the Tour De France and we did that and therefore anything is possible, including an American doing well in OL’ing” and it’s worth seeing if the situations between the sports are at all similar or comparable.… Keep Reading