Comments on: History repeats itself……..Records are made to be broken just ask Craig Virgin. http://www.illpreptf.com/2010/03/history-repeats-itself-records-are-made-to-be-broken-just-ask-craig-virgin/ Fri, 16 Dec 2011 16:31:27 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Siu Sir » Blog Archive » “Records are made to be broken” http://www.illpreptf.com/2010/03/history-repeats-itself-records-are-made-to-be-broken-just-ask-craig-virgin/#comment-1455 Siu Sir » Blog Archive » “Records are made to be broken” Sun, 20 Feb 2011 07:22:51 +0000 http://www.illpreptf.com/?p=6884#comment-1455 [...] History repeats itself……..Records are made to be broken just ask Craig Virgin. March 9, 2010 By Roland [...] [...] History repeats itself……..Records are made to be broken just ask Craig Virgin. March 9, 2010 By Roland [...]

]]> By: McEwen http://www.illpreptf.com/2010/03/history-repeats-itself-records-are-made-to-be-broken-just-ask-craig-virgin/#comment-1160 McEwen Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:48:42 +0000 http://www.illpreptf.com/?p=6884#comment-1160 Great Article. Craig is definitely among the very best runners America has ever had (at the HS level, College and Pro). I was not aware of some of the amazing stats he had piled up like the 95 out of 100 XC wins and the 47 course records. When you "start out" at 8:57y as a soph it is really hard to improve nearly every time out. I also didn't know that he was top American in 8 NCAA Champs races. Runners of today don't necessarily realize that those who beat him in college were usually 28-year-old WR holders like Henry Rono, Samson Kimobwa and Suleiman Nyambui ... maybe Naymbui came later but you get the drift. In defense of Craig, I don't think you are correct that every WCCC winner up until 1980 was an Olympic medal winner. Leon Schots (winner in 1977) and Erik De Beck (winner in 1974) of Belgium and Pekka Paivarinta of Finland (winner in 1973) are notable exceptions and three winners in just 8 years (before 1980) who never won Olympic medals. There was a long history for this race (before it was established as the IAAF WCCC) where it was called the International Cross Country Championships. Many winners of this championship did not win Olympic medals either. Great Article. Craig is definitely among the very best runners America has ever had (at the HS level, College and Pro). I was not aware of some of the amazing stats he had piled up like the 95 out of 100 XC wins and the 47 course records. When you “start out” at 8:57y as a soph it is really hard to improve nearly every time out.

I also didn’t know that he was top American in 8 NCAA Champs races. Runners of today don’t necessarily realize that those who beat him in college were usually 28-year-old WR holders like Henry Rono, Samson Kimobwa and Suleiman Nyambui … maybe Naymbui came later but you get the drift.

In defense of Craig, I don’t think you are correct that every WCCC winner up until 1980 was an Olympic medal winner. Leon Schots (winner in 1977) and Erik De Beck (winner in 1974) of Belgium and Pekka Paivarinta of Finland (winner in 1973) are notable exceptions and three winners in just 8 years (before 1980) who never won Olympic medals.

There was a long history for this race (before it was established as the IAAF WCCC) where it was called the International Cross Country Championships. Many winners of this championship did not win Olympic medals either.

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