16-year old Kenyan goes out in 48.32 for 800, holds on and (barely) wins World Youth Gold

You can't "confirm" something that's not true. The youtube video is posted and the splits are not subject to dispute.

23.28 200m

48.63 400m

1:18.75 600m

Those are the splits, period.

There's no systematic program to verify ages in Kenya but many are deliberately cheating, as proven again and again.

Whether he age-cheated or not, he shows relative inexperience because no trained 800m runner thinks that running sub-800M world record 400m split is a great idea. The wonder of this race is that this dude was able to pull it off at the end. Look at his teammate, who also went out fast behind him, but finished dead last.

That Russian kid was really flying the last 200. Anyone know his split?

I wish I'd seen this.

zzzz wrote:

That Russian kid was really flying the last 200. Anyone know his split?

I timed it a couple of times and he did the last 200 in around 26.3. He came from way back

the Kenyan running 400m in 48.63. He didn’t fade either

No, not at all.

Canadian Coach wrote:

Before the gun - himself & his Kenyan teammate also in the final spent a good couple of minutes privately speaking to one another while the field was being introduced. I can only imagine how that conversation went.

That tends to be the way when people have conversations you can't hear.

gerbil wrote:

if someone asked you when you were born and you hadnt got a birth certificate, the birth hadnt been registered and no one kept count of the days that passed would you know? i dont think even haile geb knows when he was born. its a totally different way of life and system. thats not to excuse deliberate age cheating though.

It's not like that in many places now from what I can gather. Most have birth certificates. Most know when they were born.

I don't think there is any other registration though or it's not a very good system so when you're born you get a birth certificate but if it's "lost" you can then get a new one with a new date of birth.

I would say it's very rare that a middle distance athlete on the Kenyan team is actually underage. I would say the vast majority of the overage athletes know that they are overage.

People like Gebrselassie might not know their age but for these youth championships we're talking about people who were supposed to have been born in 1996-98

What a fun race to watch. I thought he was done with 200m to go. What a gutsy finish.

it is a way to cover the fact he is not 16...

But a young Coe certainly did go out in sub-50!

tshakur wrote:I read Peter Coe's training book and in it he talked about how Seb would constantly go out hard as a kid and many times he got caught. However, Peter told Seb to keep on doing it because eventually the endurance will come and he'd be able to finish well

ventolin^3 wrote:

coe never went out in 48.6 in his life !!!

Neither have a 16-year old Kenyan ever done.

The brilliant cross country skiier Bjørn Dæhli (most winning winter olympican) used to start his races way to hard and 'meet the wall' near the end of his races. People told him his start was too fast, his reply:

"My start isn't too fast, its my finish thats too slow!"

That British guy looked like a sure winner with about 80 meters to go, but Kipketer had something left. Wild!

He sure was http://youtu.be/EI0Rm1zf16U

Honestly these guys are jokes.

How about the legit 16-17 year olds that are out there busting their a$$es in training to make an event like a WYC and they go and watch a 22 year old clown from Kenya run a 48.6 first lap. I mean last champs it was bad enough when Leonard Koenschena ran 1.44.0X to win (faster than than 3 of the previous 4 Olympic 800m finals) - now this?

We wonder why there is such a low youth to junior to senior conversion rate amongst western athletes in events 800m upwards - here is your answer. Most of these kids wont even go on to ever run 48.6 in a flat 400m save a first lap of an 800m yet they turn up to events like these and see this sort of thing.

No effing way that guy is 16, he looks older than my 18 yr old. That being said he's got a huge lactic acid tolerance. And what if he just ran a 400m race, what could he do? Impressive pacing by the Ruskie, stole a page from Borza.

The Kenyans and Ethiopians are moving around too much at the start to see much about their ages, whereas the others are clearly young, all looking the same age. Kipketer went out in 23.3! Whatever his age, he's a neophyte and likely to run some impressive times in the next few years. 23.3>48.6>30/30 (1:48)=maybe 25/25/26/27=1:43.

Of course it is easier to fake age in countries such as Kenya and Ethiopia but don't you think if it was widespread, then the seniors could not reproduce the results of the junior level at world stage? That is certainly not the case for countries like Kenya and Ethiopia; seniors dominate the same race events as the juniors do!

I find it fascinating that the argument goes this way: "they defeat us at youth championships because they are over-age but they defeat us at other stages because they are doped."

On related note I am curious about the benefits of age-cheating for the individual because I don't believe there is much monetary incentive at this competition level, no? The fact that an athlete would do this means they are not that great and can't keep up with their peers in international stage, which means little chance for any senior career. For instance, Kipketer in this race is never going to make any Kenyan team for 800M if he is already over 20 and with a PB of 1:48 - several Kenyans can do this easily.