The Babyfaced Destroyer!!!

[Flumpy]

Has now become Tirunesh Dibaba's official nickname.

Throughout the Great North Run last week Brendan Foster and Steve Cram referred to her by that title and this weeks Athletics Weekly has it splashed across the front cover.........

http://www.athleticsweekly.com/admin/wp ... 76x250.jpg

But didn't it begin here??? If i remember correctly it was Eldrick who first coined the phrase and she's been known by the title ever since.

Don't they say that all the coolest things filter down to the masses in time

[Flumpy]

In fact the first instance of it's use is by SQUACKEE back in 2007!!!

8:23 is ripping...wow...

Makes the Baby Faced Destroyer's 8:46 at Millrose seem slow but i wouldnt bet against her.

[marknhj]

I'm pretty sure it was squackee but I thought he used, "Baby faced assassin"? As you probably know over there, his published running articles are very entertaining indeed and bloody funny!

[gh]

I have this vague recollection of hearing her agent, Mark Wetmore, use the term very early in her career.

[Daisy]

I have this vague recollection of hearing her agent, Mark Wetmore, use the term very early in her career.

Sounds like Brill and Fosbury all over again. Except now we have Squackee and Who?

[marknhj]

"I was watching the Boston meet with some track newbies and theyre faces lite up when they heard '"The Baby Faced Assassin".The more nick names the better for track!"

Squackee - January 27, 2007.

The "theyre" proves it is him and not an imposter

[kuha]

Squak may not have invented the internet, but I give him full credit for this one!

[Marlow]

"I was watching the Boston meet with some track newbies and theyre faces lite up when they heard '"The Baby Faced Assassin".The more nick names the better for track!"

Squackee - January 27, 2007.

Uh oh - controversy!

http://www.iaaf.org/history/WAF/season= ... 36152.html

Sunday, 10 September 2006
'The Duelling Ds' - Defar and Dibaba at the World Athletics Final
Stuttgart, Germany - Long after the opening day of the 4th IAAF World Athletics Final had finished, a legendary figure of the track was in the middle lane of the home straight preparing for a television interview.
Dibaba, just 20, is the double World champion at that distance and the 2005 gold medallist at 10,000m too - and she is known as the ‘baby-faced destroyer’; Defar, 22, is the 5000m Olympic champion and World record holder and just does not concede destruction.

[Ned Ryerson]

I have this vague recollection of hearing her agent, Mark Wetmore, use the term very early in her career.

I was pretty sure it appeared in print in TFN's end-of-year edition in 2003, under the W 5000m.

And, Squakee's post from 2007 support's gh's memory on the origin, as it would explain how it got to Scott Davis during his work as the in-stadium guy at Boston Indoors the year he said he first heard it.

[Daisy]

I think this is a headline in the Deccan Herald, from Wednesday, December 10, 2003

"Baby-faced destroyer is here to stay"

http://archive.deccanherald.com/Deccanh ... 10/ss5.asp

[marknhj]

So squack is a plagiarizing bastard? Since he apparently didn't give credit in his original post he should definitely get retroactively banned, imo. He's still operating within the statute of his own limitations!

[gh]

you misread the Squak post... he never said he said it. He said his friends got excited when they heard it. Undoubtedly over the PA. (I slipt it in during the women's 10K in London too)

[kuha]

you misread the Squak post... he never said he said it. He said his friends got excited when they heard it. Undoubtedly over the PA. (I slipt it in during the women's 10K in London too)

Ah, yes. So I'll give him credit for the internet instead.

[Daisy]

Squackee will have to assume the role of 'early adopter'

[Marlow]

Squackee will have to assume the role of 'early adopter'

That was the first I ever heard it and - perception being reality - he DID invent it!

[marknhj]

you misread the Squak post... he never said he said it. He said his friends got excited when they heard it. Undoubtedly over the PA. (I slipt it in during the women's 10K in London too)

So you're the plagiarizing bastard then? You need to do the decent thing and ban yourself for the rest of the week

[preston]

I think this is a headline in the Deccan Herald, from Wednesday, December 10, 2003

"Baby-faced destroyer is here to stay"

http://archive.deccanherald.com/Deccanh ... 10/ss5.asp

I first heard it at the Paris '03 World Championships, which was at least 3 months before the article above.

[nevetsllim]

Yeah, I think she was nicknamed the Baby Faced Destroyer after her win at the World Champs in Paris. It is one of my favourite nicknames!

[Alan Shank]

"Destroyer" or "Assassin"? We must decide! Craig Masback used "Assassin" on NBC this summer. I have always said "Destroyer".

Here's hoping she does not give up the track races for the roads. She needs revenge at 5000 now.
Cheers,
Alan Shank

[berkeley]

"Destroyer" or "Assassin"? We must decide! Craig Masback used "Assassin" on NBC this summer. I have always said "Destroyer".

Here's hoping she does not give up the track races for the roads. She needs revenge at 5000 now.
Cheers,
Alan Shank

And Masback said he didn't like the nickname. Too harsh. What a softie! Or was it that track and field guru, Paul Sunderland ?

This article corroborates the 2003 provenance of the "assassin" version, doesn't say who the author was: http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/olym ... 06046.html

[lonewolf]

Dunno who said which when but "Baby Face Assassin" just has a better ring to it.

[Daisy]

Dunno who said which when but "Baby Face Assassin" just has a better ring to it.

Especially given her sit and wait approach to racing.

[Flumpy]

She doesn't have a sit and wait approach anymore.

[aaronk]

She doesn't have a sit and wait approach anymore.

She doesn't??
Then what do you call someone running splits of 15:32 and 14:48??
If those splits had been reversed, with the 14:48 being the FIRST 5K, I'd say she was leaving it all on the track!!

That said, the women's 10K was one of the more LEGIT distance races at the Games, women or men!!

[26mi235]

She doesn't have a sit and wait approach anymore.

She doesn't??
Then what do you call someone running splits of 15:32 and 14:48??
If those splits had been reversed, with the 14:48 being the FIRST 5K, I'd say she was leaving it all on the track!!

That said, the women's 10K was one of the more LEGIT distance races at the Games, women or men!!

Running a 14:48 second half is not a 'kick', it is an extended increase in pace, something very different.

[nevetsllim]

She doesn't have a sit and wait approach anymore.

She doesn't??
Then what do you call someone running splits of 15:32 and 14:48??
If those splits had been reversed, with the 14:48 being the FIRST 5K, I'd say she was leaving it all on the track!!

Tiru likes to employ a longer run from home these days as she doesn't really have the same raw pace she had back in 2005-08 (as showed in the closing stages of the 5000m final in London). In New York, she wound the pace up with three laps to go (66-64-61), in the Olympic 10,000m final she went on the penultimate lap and she also went very early in the GNR this year.