ISTAF Berlin - Mills, Mechaal, Kessler, Parsons, Bartelsmeyer

Man I just skimmed the results - outside of Gidey clearly going after the WR and getting pretty close (couple of seconds) the overall level at the meeting now is pretty average. Really sad - seems like yesterday ISTAF was entrenched as a major meet on the circuit, I can still see El G running his 2000m WR there, Rudisha an 800 record there, and now it's really become a second tier meet at best.

"real racers" I meant..not races

Can't trust a site that says you can register for free but asks for credit card

I guess it will be online on ZDF.de later (maybe with VPN)

Results

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Just watched. Nobody wanted to go with the pace. Turned out to be tactical but only Mills took the initiative early enough. Poor tactics from Mechaal in particular.

How about you give Mills some kudos? Three days after running 3:30 in a race he was entered in at the last moment, he coasts to an easy win over a solid field in 3:34.

$2,000 prize is ridiculous. I make that sitting on my butt all day. Just one night in a decent hotel in Berlin would be $300.

Your assessment is the way i saw it too

again

Two guys were already faster coming in.

and second and 5th were within .7 of his PR i believe. Its hard to say that not finishing first in a race with a 3:30.95 guy is such a trainwreck. The other three guys are almost right at his level as well.

He was very fit for this and may

have faired better had this gone 56/1:53 for the pacers , not the 1:57.x in back of the pacers at 1:56.x. I happen to think that being first after pacers or right behind him at 1:56.5 might have hung him out to dry anyway as no one is getting dropped off that. And not sure he is carrying that all the way in vs a sub 3:31 guy.

Tbh, this is better for Kessler than a time trial. This is what the US trials are going to be next year with Nuguse leading the field anywhere from 1:56-1:59 and squeezing it from there. He needs more practice in these type of races than the typical Diamond league time trial going through 1:51-1:54 racing. Of course the later is important too but rn his focus is trying to make teams/surviving rounds.

Give them a break. Whenever there's a World or Olympics the subsequent DL's are going to be less than great. Warholm was beaten. The top athletes need a break after peaking.

So sensitive. I said he was the only guy who took the initiative early enough, which is a compliment to him. Good run here with a 53 last lap.

She won a championship race last year though...

Well Zurich was a great meet (an example of an athlete being tired doesn't mean the meet isn't good - he was there?), and even Xiamen actually produced many world leading times - even with the absolute ball-ache of having to travel there so I'm not sure what basis you have at all for that claim.

ISTAF was one of the premier meets on the circuit and the reality is it simply isn't anymore. That's not a criticism of the meet directors and has nothing to do with the athletes - it sucks that it went this way and we have sadly seen it with big meets in the past that met their demise.

I think you have your wires crossed big boy - just relax.

Always tons of excuses after Kessler ran a okay/terrible race.

You've given no reason that refutes my post. You don't blame the meet directors or the athletes then what's the reason?

Maybe it's just that the Chinese DL was only 2 days earlier and they paid more money so everyone went there. And wasn't this the inaugural meet?

I rewatched the race and noticed something I missed the first time. Super easy to miss because of the camera angle and the other runners in the way. At 2:39.8 Kessler almost goes down. It's right as they are coming up on the bell. A few yards back he put on the brakes to swing out and come around. He's right on Mechaal's heels. His head height is very even behind Mechaal, and then, boom, his head just disappears. Watching it at quarter speed I'm guessing he clipped Mechaal from behind. Mechaal's movement and facial expression suggests something happened to him. Kessler looks like he almost went all the way down. Probably a shot of adrenalin as he recovers, then he takes the first 100m of the final lap in around 13.1 from lane two, which is roughly 12.6 100m speed (accounting for the extra 3.8 meters running in lane two. So he brakes hard with 450 meters to go, maybe needlessly hard due to getting antsy about positioning; he nearly goes down with 405 meters to go; he overreacts by hammering the next 100 meters, and still closes his final 400m in about 53.4. Excuses? No, since these were all his mistakes; but the silver lining is that these are correctable tactical errors. If he can maintain this conditioning for another couple of weeks and manage a cleaner final 450 meters ...

Why did you need to add this? It’s possible to disagree with someone without being a prick about it.