800m elite men Australia and why they are struggling!

I hope that the other parts of the article are posted on this site!

Hasn't the men's 800 been generally pretty poor this year? The event in London recently was clearly the weakest in the middle/long distance events.

A coach I have chatted to recently was of the opinion that the 800 is the most complex middle distance event to get the training right for. not that the training is any more demanding for the athlete than other events but to get the various ingredients of a programme in exactly the right balance for each athlete is very difficult.

coahc wrote:

https://www.runnerstribe.com/features/our-place-in-the-world-of-the-mens-800m/

Will be interesting to see what the reasons are for a national record for 800m to be still standing from 1968! Yes that is right 50 years ago in 2018!

NZ is even longer.

There is no $ in 800m for Australian men. Mottram was fast but he was mile to 5k

Some years back I read an article about the state of the 800 in Oz where they asked Ralph Doubell what he thought was wrong. He said that he didn't think Aussie 800 runners were doing enough volume. He said that he did lots of ten mile runs in his prime and that isn't the case anymore.

Here is part 2 and interesting to see that volume is considered a reason for lack of Australian success.

Would agree that an Athletics season that goes from September to March is a very long time.

Juniors are pushed to young! Not unusual to see 13 year old boys run under 2 minutes for 800m. To do that there is a usual high amount of anaerobic work. There are pressures for coaches to produce early or the athletes move on to another squad.

https://www.runnerstribe.com/features/australia-and-the-mens-800m-part-2-why-have-we-underachieved/

HRE wrote:

Some years back I read an article about the state of the 800 in Oz where they asked Ralph Doubell what he thought was wrong. He said that he didn't think Aussie 800 runners were doing enough volume. He said that he did lots of ten mile runs in his prime and that isn't the case anymore.

The interesting thing, and an issue that used to infuriate old Arthur, was he would be invited to various (smaller western) countries National Championships (like Denmark, Sweden, Australia, Venezuela etc) to give a lecture about middle/long distance training, which was usually in conjunction with all the athletes assembled for champs (thee old "what's wrong with our distance running" concerns). And he would stand there and watch the 400m and there would be an abundance of guys running 46/47s and he would then moan in his lecture about the waste of talent. These guys were never going to be 44s material but they were already fast enough to be world class 800m runners and later on, milers, but they weren't interested in endurance training. Heck he didn't even believe they were training properly for 400m.

It is interesting how the national 800m records of Australia, Belgium, Italy and NZ are all at least 40 years old and most likely not done by athletes on roids or blood doping. So the only conclusion is the training intensities given the technological improvements.

Part 3

https://www.runnerstribe.com/features/australia-and-the-mens-800m-part-3-how-we-can-become-better/

Very interesting stuff!

But the emphasis on Coe slants the articles somewhat. Coe's breakthrough at 800 was something of an accident; when he was a teenage athlete the long term aim was to be world class at 1500 and longer. It was when he ran something like 1:47 in a relatively minor race in 1976 (?) that he and Peter realised that there was real potential at 800.

I am athletically one year younger than Coe and I don't recall him running the major X Country races - the English Schools or the National youth or Junior races after 1973 - unlike Ovett who won the national Junior title (6 miles) in 1975 and competed well in the senior race (9 miles) in 1977, '78, &'79.

The last time Arthur and I talked he got into discussing the 800 and he made the point you mention about all the 46/47 guys who could move up and be very good at the 800. He also thought, naturally, that almost no one in the 800 was doing enough volume to be able to carry that 46/47 speed for an entire 800 and that the common approach of running the first 400 very fast was holding back results. He thought the WR should have been under 1:40 many years ago.

All the 800m talent in Aust go into Aussie Rules Football. The game is non stop sprint interval running. Hell, even the top middle distance masters runner is an Aussie Rules ref who has to do a similar amount of running to ref the game.

The game is filled with tall, lean, fast guys with endurance to keep up the fast pace for the entire game.

Aussie Rules players training

Except for the fact that Seb Coe was about 5'9 and 57- 60 Kilo's during his prime. Don't think he would have been much help in the ruck.

Unfortunately someone used this same argument about 10 years ago and i still would give my same response after reading the article. I believe that it comes down to coaching.

coahc wrote:

Part 3

https://www.runnerstribe.com/features/australia-and-the-mens-800m-part-3-how-we-can-become-better/

Part 4?

Subway Surfers Addiction wrote:

coahc wrote:

Part 3

https://www.runnerstribe.com/features/australia-and-the-mens-800m-part-3-how-we-can-become-better/

Part 4?

Part 4 :They need a new training system! New ideas.

HRE wrote:

The last time Arthur and I talked he got into discussing the 800 and he made the point you mention about all the 46/47 guys who could move up and be very good at the 800. He also thought, naturally, that almost no one in the 800 was doing enough volume to be able to carry that 46/47 speed for an entire 800 and that the common approach of running the first 400 very fast was holding back results. He thought the WR should have been under 1:40 many years ago.

Yes, this is largely what I had heard in media comments, Lydiard couldn't fathom that guys running 45s for 400m couldn't run faster than 1:43 for 800m.

Interestingly, I read an article by Clyde Hart about 2 years ago about how his sprinters did aerobic work in the off season and vo2max type reps as well. A real eye opener.

I didn't really know much about Doubell's training but it sounds like he did plenty training. I wonder whether young runners have too many societal confusions in there heads, Snell, Elliot, Ryun and Doubell lived in a simpler time. Iten is a simpler setting too.

Those articles above ⤴ do shoot down that 400m-type speed trained 800m concept. It was a nonsense that was perpetuated throughout the late 1980s and all through the 1990s. I interestingly had a discussion with Cruz once and he started out saying he was a 400m-speed type, saying like Coe, he benefited from his circuit training but he then went on journey in his conversation saying as soon as the 800m runner wanted to also do the odd 1500m/mile you have to do Lydiard type training and then he said something like "you can't be a very good 800m runner without being good at 1500m." Which basically means you have do the miles.

Clearly the Aussies who harbor Pure Hate gravitate to Rules Football.

Aussie Rules football wrote:

http://www.gettyimages.ca/event/richmond-tigers-training-session-660192269?#brandon-ellis-sprints-during-a-richmond-tigers-afl-training-session-picture-id588325284

Aussie Rules players training

mark b wrote:

I hope that the other parts of the article are posted on this site!

Hasn't the men's 800 been generally pretty poor this year? The event in London recently was clearly the weakest in the middle/long distance events.

A coach I have chatted to recently was of the opinion that the 800 is the most complex middle distance event to get the training right for. not that the training is any more demanding for the athlete than other events but to get the various ingredients of a programme in exactly the right balance for each athlete is very difficult.

I would say that the 5,000 and 10,000 are weaker than the 800 now. The 1500 is just barely better than the 800.

Please take a better look. The 800 was similar in 2000, 2004, 2006, and 2008, and it is better this year than it was in 2005 and 2007. I don't remember anybody crying about the "weakness" in the 800 in those years. Or is it just because some white guys dominated the world champs this year that we are going to call it "weak"?

Australia will always be handicapped in athletics because almost all of their athletes are killed by giant spiders or poisonous plants before achieving success. Very hard to develop a career there.

The vein in JR's temple is going to rupture in 3, 2, 1 .......

To be fair, the Aussie record for 800m from 1968 has been equaled, but never bettered.

US record ain't too fresh either. 32 years old. (1:42.60 Johnny Gray, 1985).