coach d wrote:
The IAAF lists Rupp at 7:34 and Lagat at 7:38...and you don't know how hard Lagat pushed to finish 4th. Lagat's first race made me wonder if age was finally catching up, but now it's getting interesting (again).
You don't win championships by beating up on low level college athletes. And to the extent that Rupp's times are due to the claimed superfast track at BU (there certainly are no sprint times to compare with UW, NAU, or Air Force), he won't have that in Albuquerque.
As far as the bolded, that's gotta be 3k split of his 2M; which is worth better.
I do agree that it is getting interesting again, and was certainly a little apprehensive when I first heard the result, though admitedly I didn't watch or hear much about the race to know if Lagat was against an easier field and just jogged with a kick.
Good point about the surfaces, Rupp has obviously been picking great tracks to chase the records on.
Definitely curious to see how Rupp runs in the Mile, and how Lagat looks in his next race or two. I still think I'll be favoring Rupp though. His record against Lagat is indeed abysmal, but he had that great last 400 win against him in the 2012 trials. I somewhat excuse the loss in the 5000 as Rupp was doubling back. Kinda do the same with 2013 (unless he lost indoors to Lagat) as Rupp was clearly not as good as 2012 or his 2013i portion and Salazar has said he let Rupp's mileage get far too low.
It's possible I'm being too much of a Rupp apologist, but I really saw that trials race as a changing of order and coronation of Rupp as a true world contender. He has that way in 2012 after that point, and appeared to be that way in 2013 through indoor, than Salazar made some mistakes. I think the Rupp now is a notch above the 2012 trial/olympic one.
In other words, I'm feeling edge on Rupp slightly, something like 55:45.