One tidbit about Knight. From the best I can tell, he'd never ever run a mile in his life over 4:00.
He ran one in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 - 3:59.51, 3:56.87, 3:59.85, 3:55.82.
So 4:03 clearly isn't a good result.
One thing that's hard about being a pro, particularly from one from Canada is there is no deadline to force you to get in shape. MY brother used to talk about how in college you had to train as you had to get in shape for conference. As a pro, if you aren't feeling good, you can always just push things back and find another race particularly if nationals aren't that important (which is true for Canadians).
That's why my brother kind of liked marathons. You signed up for one and had to get in shape for it.
But in this case, he actually showed up instead of pushing it back.. SO maybe he thought he was in shape or maybe he was just sick - you know people do occasionally just have bad days - or a coach or agent wanted him to get a wakeup call.