Wow: Alamirew 24.1 last 200 to win 2013 Lausanne!!

Watched the race and agree he looks really good very quick last 200 farah has to be worried it will not be plain sailing for him, alamirew has very good sprint technique and fast turnover. Noticed he also ran straight from the back for the first few laps. Noticed estrada as well not a bad run from him.

watching it ... it looked like he really went for it from 150 to 10 meters from the line..

i need to see a replay. dang.. the 5000 will be exciting. Wondering why gebremeskel was a know show. It maybe a good decision.. wait for one last 5000 to run a solo fast time.. get on the team without revealing his true form.

Alamirew was in 3rd with 200 to go. There's no way he's in front of Mo using this tactic. For one Mo winds the pace up with at least 400 to go and second he always makes the others have to pass him on the last 100 if they want to win. Alamirew is honing a losing strategy.

Is there a video please

Come on mayne wrote:

For one Mo winds the pace up with at least 400 to go and second he always makes the others have to pass him on the last 100 if they want to win.

He has to be with the pace before he can wind it up. 12:02 at the bell was slow for these guys, but Mo has never been faster than 11:59. Last time he was near it, he was beaten.

Obviously the EA's have to hit the bell right around 12 flat or faster.

Bad Wigins wrote:

He has to be with the pace before he can wind it up. 12:02 at the bell was slow for these guys, but Mo has never been faster than 11:59. Last time he was near it, he was beaten.

Obviously the EA's have to hit the bell right around 12 flat or faster.

You mean at Pre this year when he was recovering from being sick? Come on man. The East Africans have nothing on him this year. They're practicing tactics that fall right into Mo's hands.

drewters wrote:

Is there a video please

Yes, there is

I suspect the Ethiopians were under orders to leave it to a sprint, and see just who turns on the best, between Edris, Geb3 and Alamirew .. and that was Alamirew ... so we'll possibly see some team tactics from them in Moscow and expect Alamirew to be the one who does the least work, the other guys setting it up for him to beat Mo.

That's what I'd be aiming for if I were planning their strategy.

It'll be interesting to see what happens with Gebremeskel.

EB55 wrote:

Wondering why gebremeskel was a know show. It maybe a good decision.. wait for one last 5000 to run a solo fast time.. get on the team without revealing his true form.

He ran a 10k last Thursday. Brilliant move to skip this one.

I am not sure they were under orders. I think this may have been the last shot to make the Eth team. Those three ran with a focus to guarantee spots then they went for the win when they were clear.

It will be interesting to see what HG does. He may not be pushing too hard now in order to save some form for Worlds. He must know that he is likely to finish 5th or 6th in a big sprint (Farah, Lagat, Iguider, Alimerew, Soi, Koech)

I bet he goes for it mid race. It will string it out and disrupt Farah, Lagat, etc. who will have to chase him down before the bell.

If it is slow, Alimerew will have to use that kick while getting around a few good tacticians - always tricky.

Come on mayne wrote:

Alamirew was in 3rd with 200 to go. There's no way he's in front of Mo using this tactic. For one Mo winds the pace up with at least 400 to go and second he always makes the others have to pass him on the last 100 if they want to win. Alamirew is honing a losing strategy.

+1

If..Rather, WHEN MO goes with 500 to go, he'll be gone and Alamirew will be racing for second. A 54sec lap with the first 200 in 30 and the second in 24 is still a 54 second lap which won't be good enough to take down the King

The answer is wrote:

I am not sure they were under orders. I think this may have been the last shot to make the Eth team. Those three ran with a focus to guarantee spots then they went for the win when they were clear.

It will be interesting to see what HG does. He may not be pushing too hard now in order to save some form for Worlds. He must know that he is likely to finish 5th or 6th in a big sprint (Farah, Lagat, Iguider, Alimerew, Soi, Koech)

I bet he goes for it mid race. It will string it out and disrupt Farah, Lagat, etc. who will have to chase him down before the bell.

If it is slow, Alimerew will have to use that kick while getting around a few good tacticians - always tricky.

"orders" might well be the wrong word .. but if the Ethiopian team is aiming to develop a strategy, they'll want to know who has the best chance of out-sprinting Mo .. regardless what happens during the race, sans a fall, Mo will be in it at the end. I can't see any other reason everyone (esp. HG, given Alamirew has sprinted by him twice in their last 2 meetings) would've left any sprint until the final 200m in this race. I suspect they wanted to see who has a better kick out of Edris and Alamirew; so the plan was to leave it to 200m and see whose got it.

For now, that's clearly Alamirew. So their best bet (leaving Gebremeskel out of the equation for a bit) is to have HG take it out hard, relatively early, Alamirew tuck comfortably in, and hope he saves enough to win the sprint.

If they run it too slow, I think Bernie and Soi will be right in it; and possibly Gebremeskel, if he's anywhere near last year's form.

I really think Gebremeskel, of Paris form, can win any race. He has the ability to beat Farah in a slow race off a kick (faster last lap than Farah @ London), and has a pretty good finish to win the 12:45 race in Paris (iirc 55 something shutting it down just a bit at the end).

Of everyone, I could only understand Gebremeskel and maybe Alamirew, leaving it to a sprint finish.

homerTime wrote:

Come on mayne wrote:

Alamirew was in 3rd with 200 to go. There's no way he's in front of Mo using this tactic. For one Mo winds the pace up with at least 400 to go and second he always makes the others have to pass him on the last 100 if they want to win. Alamirew is honing a losing strategy.

+1

If..Rather, WHEN MO goes with 500 to go, he'll be gone and Alamirew will be racing for second. A 54sec lap with the first 200 in 30 and the second in 24 is still a 54 second lap which won't be good enough to take down the King

It's a 54 that could have been a 52 if he took off earlier which you suggest would happen with Farah. So it does matter and your point makes no sense.

That said its not that crazy. Lagat in the past ran 12:59 closing in 51.9

LM wrote:

I really think Gebremeskel, of Paris form, can win any race. He has the ability to beat Farah in a slow race off a kick (faster last lap than Farah @ London), and has a pretty good finish to win the 12:45 race in Paris (iirc 55 something shutting it down just a bit at the end).

Of everyone, I could only understand Gebremeskel and maybe Alamirew, leaving it to a sprint finish.

Agreed .. the key part is "off Paris form" .. which we don't really know if he's in or not. He was clearly disappointed in London, watch him coming in to the line with a look of almost disbelief on his face. Lagat, similarly, I think, should've been closer to Mo at the finish if he'd run a smarter race.

Just goes to show, though, how much more there is to running, particularly at that level, than what 'shape' someone is in. Something that's so rarely acknowledged on LRC message boards.

Bad Wigins wrote:

Come on mayne wrote:

For one Mo winds the pace up with at least 400 to go and second he always makes the others have to pass him on the last 100 if they want to win.

He has to be with the pace before he can wind it up. 12:02 at the bell was slow for these guys, but Mo has never been faster than 11:59. Last time he was near it, he was beaten.

Obviously the EA's have to hit the bell right around 12 flat or faster.

They were 12:12 at the bell today, not 12:02.

Yea definitely. Shape means something, but it isn't the end all be all and it's something I think this current "kicker era" is helping people realize.

Just look at the stuff being talked about now, things like when to go, how hard to work to maintain the pole, how exactly to run that last 400, hell there is even suggestions of letting Mo get to the back of the pack and then taking off aggressively (which imo, would be pretty damn awesome to see. I really think someone could win doing that.)

Agreed about Gebremeskel's form. 26:51 indicates decent form, but not necessarily his Paris shape.

Come on mayne wrote:

Bad Wigins wrote:

He has to be with the pace before he can wind it up. 12:02 at the bell was slow for these guys, but Mo has never been faster than 11:59. Last time he was near it, he was beaten.

Obviously the EA's have to hit the bell right around 12 flat or faster.

You mean at Pre this year when he was recovering from being sick? Come on man. The East Africans have nothing on him this year. They're practicing tactics that fall right into Mo's hands.

Wrong. They hit the bell at Pre in 12:11.5, but it was off a 60.8 that was pushed by Longosiwa challenging on Mo's right. Soi was a stride directly behind Farah at the bell, and then moved to the outside of lane 1 and ran right alongside Alamirew. Soi jetted at 200, ran 53.7 and Mo couldn't respond.

So the Kenyans showed team success in sacrificing Longsiwa to pushing Mo to sub 61 on the penultimate lap.

Come Moscow, they can take the kick out of Mo's legs if they wind it up earlier.

Pre 5000 --

Just saw highlights of the race on YouTube. I'm really not that impressed except for the basic fact that he was a winner of a Diamond League event. I can easily see Farah, even Rupp in peak condition running that same 200M if the kicking only seriously starts with 200M left. Or to put it another way. I see no evidence he could run the same fast final 200M in a race where Farah starts kicking upwards of 600M out.

Bad Wigins wrote:He has to be with the pace before he can wind it up. 12:02 at the bell was slow for these guys, but Mo has never been faster than 11:59. Last time he was near it, he was beaten.

Obviously the EA's have to hit the bell right around 12 flat or faster.

you keep harping on this nonsense theme

11'59.00 - 11'59.99 at the bell, assuming even-pace thruout is

13'01.52 - 13'02.59

for 5k at even-pace

you seriously believe mo cannot run 13'01/13'02 at even-pace ???

perhaps 11'50 at the bell at even pace & you may have a sliver of an argument that mo might struggle on last lap with the kick, but that sliver woud need an electron microscope to visualise...