Why don't the pros want to run the flat 400?

Exactly. And as you get older , one way to remain fast without becoming a plodder , and without the risk of major injury.

Requires a working brain though. There are tactics, even though it is non contact. Relays excepted.

Teamathletics wrote:

400 no bueno wrote:

It's also interesting that we saw such incredible 400 hurdles times in the Olympics, which lots of people at least partially attributed to the supershoes and fast track, but we didn't really see that in the open 400...

Maybe on the men's side, but 48.36 is historic. None of the hurdlers or Mu were matching that in my opinion.

Totally agree that 48.36 is an amazing time, and I think 43.85 is still a solid winning time historically. I was talking about improvements from 2019/2020 to 2021. This year the 400 hurdles WRs were improved by 0.70 (womens) and 0.84 (mens), whereas SMU ran 48.37 in Doha and Gardner ran 43.48. I was just noting that we didn't see the huge improvements in the flat 400 during 2021 that we saw in the 400 hurdles.

I didn't mean to knock either of the winners of the flat 400. They both ran great and I don't know that anyone else necessarily could have beat them. By starting this thread I was just bemoaning the lack of depth in the open 400 right now plus what seems to be a major lack of enthusiasm for running it.

Thanks to everyone who contributed!

I would love to see a return to higher level competition in the 400. As other people have noted, it's an awesome event. I would also love to see one of the top hurdlers attempt an 400 open/400 hurdles double sometime if the schedule allows. Has that ever been done?

One small addition - McLaughlin led off the relay, seems a lot of posters here don’t understand that lead off will be the slowest leg. Her slower split does not indicate in any way that she is the slowest flat 400 runner of the bunch, only that she did not get the running start.

For what it’s worth, I don’t think Felix is faster than any of the three hurdles medalists.

zxcvxzcv wrote:

Considering that Muhammad surprisingly had the second best relay leg, I don't see her as being beaten by Felix currently. McLaughlin was well back.

+++

A previous poster says DM would be behind SM in the 400m; disagree. Sydney is a (slightly) better hurdler than Muhammad. But faster sprinter, esp figuring in the age difference; nah.

Bolt is the reason the 200m became so glamorous tbh

Have you ever run a 400M? Do you have any idea how difficult it is?

If you have decent foot speed and love lactic pain it's probably the easiest event to make on a typical high school team. I mean NOBODY wants to run it at the grade school through high school level.

The 800 at lower levels is easier than this event as athletes aren't capable of taking their bodies to the lactic acid danger zone like world class runners can, but in the 400 everybody ties up badly.

Because everyone is imitating Bolt?

The biggest problem is the structure of the Diamond League

Back in the day you used to see more runners - at all distances - doing events other than their main one. You also used to have more races at non-standard distances, which often made things more interesting.

Nowadays it only makes sense, financially, to compete in your main event. Which is a shame.

Why do they avoid the 400 ? Simple answer is it hurts like

hell and the 400 training regimen is akin to a suicide drill.

Renaldo Nehemiah ran the 400 once and threw up,

swore he'll never do it again.Was suggested to Bolt to

incorporate some 400 workouts if he wants to run 18.99

for the deuce and he wasn't having any of it.Running

the quarter is the hardest in t&f next to running the marathon

and it hurts more.400 meters is a very long way to sprint.

Long before Bolt,the deuce has always been my

favorite event and Tommie Smith my favorite

sprinter.Aside from a relay anchor,the second

half of the 200 is the fastest a human can run.

For me the 100 is too short and the 400 is too

long,the 200 is just the right distance to sprint.

Ain't 1857 wrote:

Long before Bolt,the deuce has always been my

favorite event and Tommie Smith my favorite

sprinter.Aside from a relay anchor,the second

half of the 200 is the fastest a human can run.

For me the 100 is too short and the 400 is too

long,the 200 is just the right distance to sprint.

So true.

Ain't 1857 wrote:

Why do they avoid the 400 ? Simple answer is it hurts like

hell and the 400 training regimen is akin to a suicide drill.

Renaldo Nehemiah ran the 400 once and threw up,

swore he'll never do it again.Was suggested to Bolt to

incorporate some 400 workouts if he wants to run 18.99

for the deuce and he wasn't having any of it.Running

the quarter is the hardest in t&f next to running the marathon

and it hurts more.400 meters is a very long way to sprint.

It also does not suit the modern athlete training on jog and kick 200m. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s dropped from events in the future, just leaving the 400m hurdles and 4x400m relay

I realize the 400 is a tough event, and maybe the difficulty is part of the reason Kerley and SMU would prefer not to run it.

But the 400 hurdles (which I've admittedly never run) seems to be an even tougher event and yet a lot of top talent is favoring that over the flat race right now so it doesn't seem to only be about difficulty. But a lot of people here have already offered good explanations for the recent improvements in the 400 hurdlers and why they don't want to run the flat 400.

It still seems like the prestige of the 400 has dropped a lot since the days of Michael Johnson and Obea Moore and that is a contributing factor to the decline of the event (at least in the US).

High hopes wrote:

It's weird how this has evolved. The 200 used to be the ugly step-sister of the sprints - not as glamorous as the 100, but not the test of speed endurance that the 400 is. On the men's side, it's a bit surprising that more don't go for it as the WR is probably more achievable than either the 100 or 200. It could just be that, as Michael Johnson says, the 400 is just really hard. It's not just smashing yourself like the 100, you need to judge your pace while still riding the limit of your anaerobic capacity. Whatever the reason, I hope we see the 400 reclaim its status, the 200 really is a meh event

The 400 record is not so easily achievable. van Niekerk's 43.03 was a stunner. Maybe their 100/200m PRs are soft but most of the top 400H guys don't have the sprint speed to challenge the record.

its only 5k wrote:

Ain't 1857 wrote:

Why do they avoid the 400 ? Simple answer is it hurts like

hell and the 400 training regimen is akin to a suicide drill.

Renaldo Nehemiah ran the 400 once and threw up,

swore he'll never do it again.Was suggested to Bolt to

incorporate some 400 workouts if he wants to run 18.99

for the deuce and he wasn't having any of it.Running

the quarter is the hardest in t&f next to running the marathon

and it hurts more.400 meters is a very long way to sprint.

It also does not suit the modern athlete training on jog and kick 200m. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s dropped from events in the future, just leaving the 400m hurdles and 4x400m relay

Besides Centro in 2016, can you name one of your jog and kick the last 200m athletes. Maybe a 200m sprinter that jogs to the starting blocks?

Usually the 400 is absolutely stacked. A few years ago it took sub 45.00 just to make the NCAA final in the 400... And at the US level there were a couple sub 44.00's and world level you had a ton of 44's and some sub 43's... So it was getting crowded. Same on the women's side, the 400 was crowded. So then you had some athletes move to 400 hurdles because they could more easily make an olympic team or even win a world medal. That happened, Sydney and Rai are the examples of that, now with olympic gold and silver. Athing Mu is a special example of someone who could possibly win the 400 and the 800, but her odds were more guaranteed in the 800 so she chose the 400... People are skipping out of the 400 because the competition is usually much tougher in the 400, but now it is temporarily 'weak'. Even Kerley was doing well to make a world final in the 400 a couple years ago, and now he has olympic medals in the 100 and 4x100. Except he missed out on gold in 4x400, I wonder if he regrets that, probably not since he got an individual silver medal in the 100.

Next cycle I'm sure there will be another big batch of mid 44 second Americans and a couple sub 44's... If Norman had run 43.3 this year this story wouldn't be the same, and if Mu had done the double this year this story wouldn't be the same.

From a viewing perspective it's not as easy to know how the race is going until the last 100. In the 800 spectators can be more engaged. Perhaps that has something to do with it.

Doesn't explain how the 400h are more interesting these days though.

Great post/summary, and here's hoping for a return to 400 greatness next cycle!

I hope Mu does attempt the toughest double of them all (400/800), and it would be fun as hell to see someone attempt the 400 flat/400 hurdles double (Warholm or Rai maybe?).