What happened in the men’s 5K?

After his semifinal, I really thought Hocker was a shoe in for the 5k team. Happy for the 2 college boys in 3 and 4th. One of them will be an Olympian!

Regression to the mean. With Cole Hocker you always play the over when he's being counted out and play the under when he's suddenly touted as gold medal caliber

I think it was hot and humid. That weather robs the kick from athletes in the distance races. The top 4 are probably capable of 1250s or maybe faster.

Honestly. I think Wolfe and Blanks are just better. They're stronger, have better kicks, and are mentally tougher. If they don't up their game soon all the older guys are going to get completely replaced by this new crop by the next trials.

Woody Kincaid was mentoring young athletes by showing them what happens when you go out too fast.

Agreed.

Nur, Wolfe, Blanks, and Young have already given US distance fans a peek into the future.

Would also add rookie pro Jacobs to that list as he competed very well in Sunday's race and has been quite good this year.

Of course, Fisher is the Rock of Gibraltar of US distance running. He will lead these new guys through the 2028 LA Olympics.

The "older guys" are already moving on, including Paul Chelimo, Emmanuel Bor and Sam Chelanga, with Woody leaving the track for the roads starting next year or possibly as early as this fall. Pretty much expecting Woody's 10k in Paris to be his last track race.

3rd-year pros Hocker and Teare have some work to do if they want to become "JIngy 2.0" as 1500/5k doublers. Teare especially.

2nd-year pros Hacker, Muhamed and Beadlescomb were huge disappointments on Sunday. Full-time altitude residents on high-powered professional teams, have had breakthrough seasons -- yet were completely outclassed by a couple of college guys who live and train at sea level. If these three redeem themselves next year by competing well for spots on the Tokyo WC team, then great. But, in the meantime, look at them as Hollywood "B List" actors whose films go directly to streaming services.

However, biggest disappoint is McGorty -- who actually put up very respectable times on Thursday and Sunday given they were his first races of the year. And that's the problem: McGorty has regularly missed large training blocks due to injuries and other medical conditions over the past 10 years dating to his Stanford days. Still hasn't figured it out. And so frustrating, since he rounds into shape very quickly.

McGorty should be up there with Grant -- as he was in college -- but the guy apparently doesn't have the body awareness or constitution necessary to become and remain a top-level pro. McGorty is 29, made WC teams, but his own lack of understanding of how to stay healthy means Grant and the young guys slammed the door on him this year -- and likely have locked him out of future national teams.

Looking forward, so rewarding to see these collegians and newly minted professionals continue their ascent from high school superstardom to college phenoms to solid professionals on the verge of breaking through to becoming Olympians and WC competitors.

That was a ploy by Nur to throw everyone off the scent

Sure the college guys ran great. Happy for them. Of coudse some younger guys will replace the older guys. This happens in every sport. Can you name three guys who made 3 olympic teams in mid d or distance events? Point being it an nfl running back has a 5 year window. A workd class distance runner may squeeze out 8 years but they could miss the front end or back end of the 8 year window and only make one team.

The new guys might replace the older guys next time but that doesnt mean they are historically better. Just that no one beats father time.

that said we need to wait and see if the new guys can accomplish what fisher has done in his career. I am not betting on it.

A lot of good thoughts in this thread already, but I think the simplest answer is that Fisher showed us what it means to be so much fitter from the field that you can kick from 1400 out. In his post-race interview, he mentioned how runners who can do that have a strategy advantage because you can decide to control the race early, while kickers have to rely on that not happening in order to even be in contention.

I'll be very curious to see what strategy Grant goes with in Paris because kicking from 1400 almost guarantees he won't have the legs left to go for gold (which I don't think he has a realistic shot at anyway), but it might surprise/shake enough people to put him in contention for a bronze, which would certainly be a huge accomplishment. He will need to have something more left at the end though because it would be much higher caliber athletes than Nur still with him if he tries that.

Fisher can’t even think about trying that at the Olympics. There are too many guys that can hang. They would just suck the life out of him and still run 56 or faster in the last 400.

At the trials, Fisher was leading guys who view 27:00/13:00 as pretty fast. But that’s just another day in the office for the top guys at the Olympics.

I think Hocker will get to that level, he’s only 23 (one grade higher than Nico Young for example).

Odds are he hasn’t hit his peak yet in either events.

Even on elite levels, most runners get 1 move during a race. Woody usually uses his 1 move over last 400. Dude used his move a mile into the race and forgot that was all he gets.

So many of those other pros seemed to have zero moves though.

Thanks for the perspective here, Ollie.

In Paris he won't have to do that -- in either the 10k or 5k -- because the lead groups will be winding it down by that point.

What Grant needs to do in both races is not allow a gap form on the back stretch of the final lap -- as happened in his Eugene 2022 WC races and happened again in his LA Grand Prix 5k race.

Then, he can best use his 13.43/final 100 meter kick we saw on Sunday to finally give himself an equal chance as anyone else for a medal.

If you watch the last lap, Wolf was catching Fisher, and Fisher didn’t ease up at all. Wolf really impressed me with his running the past few weeks - ncaas and the trials.

That was a 55 close, closing down on a 57 close.

Hard to believe and fun to rewatch, several times.

Grant's got someone else besides Abdi coming up on him.

We're finally witnessing these recent incredible high school distance stars become incredible collegians who are beating several good pros while still in their very early 20s.

Even Grant wasn't doing that when he left Stanford a few years back.

Perspective:

Except for Grant, The guys that ran well in the 5k we’re fresh.

Had the guys who doubled been fresh, I believe the collegians would have had at least a few more guys in front of them if not more and the threads about the collegians would have been more like “good showing” or “in a few more years” etc.

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills when people post comments like this. His last lap was only better than Fisher's because he failed to cover Fisher's move from 1200 to 400. He still finished way back.

Were you also impressed with Shane Cohen's massive kick in the 800 to finish 6th?

Outside of Fisher and Nur, Wolfe was the only guy that had an acceptable race and he ran out of his gourd.

Graham Blanks is a sub 13 guy. Was he injured? Sure, a few months ago. He ran a stupid race at NCAAs and then couldn't hang with Wolfe in the last 500m. Hocker did not need to be a factor in this race and thus gets a pass. I thought Olin Hacker, given how great his season has been, would be more in the mix but rough days happen.

Look back at the tape. Wolfe is a better competitor than Blanks. Faster- probably not, but more competitive and grittier. It would be a shame if Blanks goes instead of Wolfe which is looking incredibly likely.