Is he scared? Or just shrewd? Rai Benjamin announces he'll be duck Samba for the rest of the year, won't race another 400h

100% accurate - the college season is long and it is totally unrealistic to expect a college athlete to hold their form and run fast when it matters. Here is no way in hell any college athlete could be expected to win anything in July or August - especially medals.

inthepdx wrote:

D2sprinter wrote:

+100

According to IAAF he competes for Antigua

He was born and raised in New York and will compete for the USA eventually

The Fokus wrote:

Dem diamondz wrote:

It’s probably because he has a better chance at the DL final at 200 than 400h at this point. Only one 400h remaining and he has 0 points, so making the final would be tough or impossible.

If he makes the 200 final he will get some $ (and probably pick up a 2nd world ranking which will be more $).

Applause to the only fan of the sport of track and field posting in this thread.

This is the correct answer.

Lausanne will be his first scoring Diamond League 200m. The one in Paris didn’t count for any points.

Samba's progression, along with his adopted nationality, are highly, highly dubious. IAAF has times of 21.17 with 1.5 in 2016 and 46.04 in 2016 for 400m. He hadn't even improved that much in 400m by mid-April this year, 45.47, at altitude, 4400 ft.

Last year, he ran just 48.31 400mH. Now he's sub 47.

By comparison Rai Benjamin, who nearly broke 47 on a wet track in cool conditions just broke 20 and has split mid 43.

OUTDOOR

200 METRES VIEW GRAPH

PERFORMANCE WIND PLACE DATE

2016 21.17 +1.5 Barcelona (ESP) 08 JUN 2016

OUTDOOR

400 METRES VIEW GRAPH

PERFORMANCE PLACE DATE

2018 45.47 Potchefstroom (RSA) 12 APR 2018

2016 46.04 Monachil (ESP) 10 JUL 2016

OUTDOOR

400 METRES HURDLES VIEW GRAPH

PERFORMANCE PLACE DATE

2018 46.98 Paris (FRA) 30 JUN 2018

2017 48.31 Sasolburg (RSA) 28 MAR 2017

Samba's coached by a South African who coached a Kenyan to gold in the hurdles.

"But that disappointment helped fuel his fire for 2018, Samba improving rapidly under the continued guidance of Hennie Kotze, the South African who previously coached Kenya’s Nicholas Bett to the world 400m hurdles title in 2015."

"The 400m hurdles winner Nicholas Bett was not ranked in the world’s top 20 last year, but has dropped from 49.03sec to 47.49sec this year, setting the fastest time in the world. There is no evidence that Bett is doping but then again no one has been collecting evidence to prove anything either way.

He is not listed among more than 100 Kenyan athletes who are part of the current IAAF testing pool for out-of-competition testing. So if the IAAF isn’t testing him, and Kenya isn’t testing him, then no one is. Yet even with an inadequate anti-doping system in place, some 40 Kenyan athletes have tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in the past two years. The myth of Kenyans being born to run has been well and truly exploded with this wave of performance through unnatural means."

Hardloper wrote:

inthepdx wrote:

According to IAAF he competes for Antigua

He was born and raised in New York and will compete for the USA eventually

He is in the process of switching his allegiance, but the IAAF froze all country switches because of the Africans and Jamaicans (such as Samba) that are getting paid by Qatar and Bahrain to switch their citizenship, so it's taking awhile. He will hopefully be repping the stars and stripes by this time next year.