The 2020 pandemic Olympic Games came to a close on August 8, 2021. Now we can look forward to the 2024 games in just three years!
For many, the extra year of training and preparation for these games was a hindrance; for others, it was a blessing in disguise. There were certainly a lot of surprises along the way. It seems the rest of the world is catching up with the USA in many sports.
In particular, the men’s track and field team, with a few notable exceptions, did not have the broad success that most of us expected. The USA women’s T&F team performed better, relative to their competition.
Champion gymnast Simone Biles brought a stark new awareness of the mental aspect of this level of competition, dropping out of the gymnastics team competition and a few of her individual-specialty apparatus events due to her unreadiness mentally.
How difficult, both physically and mentally, it is just to get to the Olympic stage was highlighted in a pre-Olympics article in the New York Times, which focused on this subject and featured CRR Sam Parsons.
Parsons, who trains with Colo.-based Tinman Elite and was competing for a spot on the German national team in the 5,000m (his mother CRR Christina Parsons is German), had been battling a nagging injury leading up to the German trials. Unfortunately, with little more than a lap left in his quest to qualify, he had to pull out of the race—his Olympic dream deferred.
The good news, father CRR George Parsons tell us, is that his son is recovering well physically and is staying positive, despite the disappointment.
> See New York Times article
Another almost-made-it was Michaela Meyer, who won the NCAAs this year but finished fourth at the Olympic trials. Meyer was a former UD student of CRR Bill Rose.
Yes, the world does seem to be catching up to the USA in many respects. Could this be the natural evolution of globalism, or is there something behind this?
We’d like to think that the efforts of (self-proclaimed Creek Road Runners CEO) CRR Matt Robinson are making a difference for other nations that may not have the coaching expertise that we enjoy in this country. He literally coaches Olympic coaches.
This effort is funded by the International Olympic Committee’s Olympic Solidarity Fund, which designates money generated from Olympic broadcast rights to sport development and education programs around the world.
In the runup to the Olympic Games this summer, Robinson was interviewed by a University of Delaware UDaily reporter for the following article.
> Read “Going for Gold”
4:02:21 is now the official outdoor mile record in Delaware. This mark was set on the track at St. Mark’s High School this past Saturday by recent Harvard grad and Charter School of Wilmington alum Kieran Tuntivate in a special event meant to help eclipse four-minute mile barrier for the first time on Delaware soil. Unfortunately, Tuntivate fell just short of the intended goal.
Coming on the heels of a stellar college career and early professional racing success by Newark’s CRR Sam Parsons (read about 
Based on the aforementioned milestones, former Harvard runner and CRR Bruce Weber calls Tuntivate “the best Harvard distance runner ever.” He added, “I thought Kieran’s results eclipsed [those of] Adam Dixon (’82-83), who won multiple Heps championships in track and made the 1984 Olympic Trials final in the 1,500. [Tuntivate] set the American record in the 1,000 meters, and that time—2:19.8—may be the best record at the school.” Weber should know, as the 1984 grad once held both Harvard’s two-mile and 3,000m records.
The fastest mile time run in Delaware (4:01.1, by a West Virginia runner) occurred way back in 1971 at an indoor meet at the University of Delaware Fieldhouse. Notably, CRR Jim Bray, who ran for Newark High School, once held the Delaware scholastic mile record for an astonishing 28 years before it was broken in 1999.
I guess you know you’ve hit “the big time” when you’re quoted in the New York Times in an article related to running. Well, that just happened recently to one of our own in the NYT’s July 10 issue. Even though the article was about an elite runner named Kyle Merber, CRR Sam Parsons, a fellow running professional, weighed in on how Merber has helped many running communities, like the Boulder, Colo.–based Tinman Elite club for which Parsons runs.
Prof. and CRR George Parsons has been awarded a named professorship. He is now the Unidel E. I. duPont Professor of Marine Studies.