How come WR fast runners don't just go at their fastest possible paces in the olympics?

I saw a woman use that strategy in the 10000.

Maybe it's an ego thing. Like how when a fighter tries to strike with someone who has inferior grappling that he could more easily beat if instead of striking he tried to grapple his opponent who has inferior grappling.

Well ok, I do not really watch women's races as much but yeah. However, I don't see that in men's races.

Because someone else will draft off them and outkick them. Next question.

I don't think you got the point, if you watch athletes like Kiprop, Gerrouj, and Bekele while they're breaking records or coming close, there's almost never anyone even close to them. Even when the Gerrouj broke the mile record and the one dude sat behind him the whole way, he couldn't outkick Gerrouj like he did in 2000. In the 1500m race I mentioned, Kiprop was at least 10 meters ahead of anyone else. The point is, if no one comes close to their pace, then they should attempt to run that pace because no one would be able to stay with them.

Evdawg wrote:

I don't think you got the point, if you watch athletes like Kiprop, Gerrouj, and Bekele while they're breaking records or coming close, there's almost never anyone even close to them.

Yeah there are. You're flat-out wrong about that.

[quote]Evdawg wrote:

Even when the Gerrouj broke the mile record and the one dude sat behind him the whole way, he couldn't outkick Gerrouj like he did in 2000.[quote]

El Guerrouj didn't have to lead the whole way. If he did he would be outkicked.

Not your friend wrote:

Maybe it's an ego thing. Like how when a fighter tries to strike with someone who has inferior grappling that he could more easily beat if instead of striking he tried to grapple his opponent who has inferior grappling.

I haven't read a post this stupid in a while.

Evdawg wrote:

I don't think you got the point, if you watch athletes like Kiprop, Gerrouj, and Bekele while they're breaking records or coming close, there's almost never anyone even close to them. Even when the Gerrouj broke the mile record and the one dude sat behind him the whole way, he couldn't outkick Gerrouj like he did in 2000. In the 1500m race I mentioned, Kiprop was at least 10 meters ahead of anyone else. The point is, if no one comes close to their pace, then they should attempt to run that pace because no one would be able to stay with them.

Few more reasons:

-In many WR attempts the field isn't quite as competitive as the Olympics.

-In most WRs they often have pacers set the tempo and do some work in the wind for the first half of the race.

-Athletes aren't always at their peak shape in the Olympics. When El Guerrouj finally won gold in the 1500 he'd actually lost a few races that season. And not all of them were second places, there was one where he finished like second to last. Nobody knew if he'd be able to pull off a win at all. It was truly one of the most exciting races of all time.

Yes, I acknowledged the guy who was behind him during his mile WR, who also outkicked him in Sydney. However, Hicham beat him during that mile WR and I'm saying that if you're running at such a speed that you approach WR, there's a very low likelihood of being outkicked unless you have some sort of problem occur with lactic acid buildup or injury-related issue.

Easy answer wrote:

Not your friend wrote:

Maybe it's an ego thing. Like how when a fighter tries to strike with someone who has inferior grappling that he could more easily beat if instead of striking he tried to grapple his opponent who has inferior grappling.

I haven't read a post this stupid in a while.

Sorry but this post of yours that you're quoting mine in where I am saying what it is that you're quoting, are you calling stupid?

To your points:

- I get that, obviously when Bekele got his WR there was no one even close and other current fast 5k runners would be relatively close behind but I doubt Farah would be able to run a 12:37.

- Yes, they do have pacers to help with that but it's not like it's necessarily impossible to pace yourself, referencing my last example, Bekele still had to, if I remember correctly, pace himself for a good length of time because the pacers weren't with him for a super long time. Obviously I'm no gold medalist, but I can pace myself at what I assume is probably my fastest possible mile pace without the help of other runners to pace for me. Also on the wind part, I'm not really huge on physics and that kind of thing so I'm not sure about the effect of pacers on wind reduction and the role that plays. I just don't know.

- That makes sense, obviously Kiprop was injured during the 2012 olympics, but in cases where athletes are running within a year or two of their WR attempt, they should be in good shape. IMO, the olympics are the highest stage, so I would assume that most athletes would periodize their training for the olympics specifically. But you're definitely right about Gerrouj's 2004 race.

Evdawg wrote:

I don't think you got the point, if you watch athletes like Kiprop, Gerrouj, and Bekele while they're breaking records or coming close, there's almost never anyone even close to them. Even when the Gerrouj broke the mile record and the one dude sat behind him the whole way, he couldn't outkick Gerrouj like he did in 2000. In the 1500m race I mentioned, Kiprop was at least 10 meters ahead of anyone else. The point is, if no one comes close to their pace, then they should attempt to run that pace because no one would be able to stay with them.

Interesting topic:

For years I wondered the same, were much of the improvements due to pace making? Why don't the best just run near their best? In the case of Kiprop and Guerrouj they do need pacing, if they are 1-2% off they will be hammered, heck they all need pacing. Bekele blew my mind at the 2003 WCs, he started running 60s laps by himself. Guerrouj was totally on the ropes yet in the 4th km he eased off the pace and let Guerrouj and Kipchoge back into the race. To me it was an interesting real world experiment. The middle aged French woman sitting next to me in the Stade de France must have thought that the 'Anglo' sitting next to her was high on drugs.

Lots of reasons!

#1) the olympics sucks and has been the ruin of track from the start. It was a wildly popular professional sport before, with tens of thousands in standing room only to see match races, with gambling and dancing girls and sideshows and everything.

#2) what passes for "professional" track now is corporate advertising departments who tell their athletes to get that olympic medal or else. Occasionally they bribe the opponents to make sure.

#3) when they set the records they have a pacer which they don't have in the olympics, so they are chicken to try to go fast.

#4) the olympics schedules heats, and the final at the wrong time of day. Heats is the single most idiotic thing about olympic competition. There may be some debate about who is the in the top 8 or top 12 of an event, but anyone the subject of such debate is not likely going to place in the top 3.

#5) the olympics is for idiot viewers who have no idea how fast fast is. Setting a WR for them is casting pearls before swine! WR's should be set at places like Zurich, Brussels and Berlin. Never at Historic Hayward Field, though it is ok to set "fastest on American soil" records by Africans.

For a start, rounds make athletes tired. Diamond Leagues don't have rounds.

However, this has been done on a number of occasions that I can personally think of: Rudisha, WVN, Bolt, Ayana, Gulnara Galkina-Samitova, Kevin Young

As opposed to being drafted off a slower pace but still getting outkicked! Bekele should definitely never have let the pace go so far outside 13 mins. I think in this race he did think he would outkick El G

The Kenyans definitely used the wrong tactics against Mo in recent years Bekele showed in the GNR that he can be dropped

Obviously, OP has never lead a race.

We disagree.

Because let's say Bekele can run 12:37 with pacers for 6k. But without pacers, he can only run 12:45.

Mo Farah in theory, can 12:45, or could have at peak.

So to him, Belele would be a rabbit and pacer the entire way.

Granted, this would assure most champions get top 2 or so at the worst, but they don't run for second.

Lastly, it's my belief that the results wouldn't change that much. I think Centro was in amazing shape the Olympics. He likely would have been near the front in any style of race.

Because they can't run that fast without drafting and front running is always harder, the others just sit in second or third place and wait until the end to finish you. But sometimes it does happen that someone goes out fast and runs near his maximum. Like Jager did for example 'cause he knew he couldn't survive a kick from one of the kenyans. So he just went out fast and dictated a fast pace from the front. But than you see, what happened? Kipruto just waited and outkicked him because he was less tired, running almost the whole races in Jager's slipstream. It was still the best thing Jager could have done though cause in a slower race Kemboi would've not been so tired and would've outkicked him too.