Fisher/Young did NOT run poor races

0% agree. GST was about as serious as an easy workout.

I agree. Fisher and Nico were both in great position for the final kick, but they had nothing. This race was about heat acclimatization. When you see Graham Blanks collapsing on the ground at the end of a 29 minute 10k, you know the weather was miserable.

I 100% agree with you. Anyone trying to claim GST ruined Fisher's season should rephrase their position to: "Grant Fisher was worn out from running a 14:39 5k, 8:03 3k, 8:17 3k, and 13:40 5k." Just to see how that looks on a screen.

Great point George, well thought out.

Definitely no impact from having to travel to and from venues which amounted to at least 5-6 days on the road, away from home. "Easy workouts" are like that aren't they. Jump on a plane, fly somewhere, spend basically a week away from home and your training venues and then do a bunch of running in spikes on the track.

Because in April/May in particular that's what a 5/10km runner wants to be doing, in his spikes on the track running 3 and 5000m of volume. All of this after getting into career form in February.

Again great points, thanks for you poignant insights as a former elite runner.

I'm going to wait until after the 5K to make any comments about his overall season, but his tactics were so timid.

but didn't Hocker and Kerr also run GST? And they seemed to be fine. On the flip side, Young also didn't perform well despite not running GST. I do agree Fisher might not have timed his peak well, I'm just not sure GST was the reason.

Grant is a 3'48" miler, Gressier 3'32" for 1500m. Looks pretty close to me. Could go either way.

Here’s Grant’s issue: for most of his career he’s had a better kick than his competition. (And I see this as someone whose been a fan most of his career)

His junior and senior year of high school he won Footlocker twice, the dream mile twice, and the Brooks PR two mile once by sitting and kicking. He was compared to Centro a lot on these boards and people thought he would be the next American mile star. The first time his kick really failed him after he rose to prominence was Drew Hunter out kicking him in the Brooks PR 2-mile his senior year.

Then in the NCAA he won a 5k outdoor title out kicking Justyn Knight his sophomore year and the PAC-12 1500 title closing in 51. I think because of his success up to this point, he likely saw himself as a 5k guy with the best finishing kick. The problem is this didn’t pan out for him the rest of his time in the NCAA, he got out kicked by McGorty, Trouard, and McDonald x4 at different NCAA championships his junior and senior year.

Then as a pro he had meteoric improvement to 7:22/12:44/26:33, but he’s never been able to consistently out kick even domestic competition like Klecker, Kincaid, or Young.

None of that is to disparage Grant, I believe he’s the most talented 10k runner in the world and could maybe challenge 26:11 with a perfect buildup in 2026. But he needs to do a 1k windup in championship races like Jakob did in the 2022 worlds 5k as his last 100 acceleration is his weakness.

Unfortunately because so much of his career he was racing guys in high school or the NCAA (at least at conference meets) who were dramatically less talented to him, he has a bad tactical habit of expecting his last 100 acceleration to work better than it does against guys who are on the world level.

Not poor just dumb

Nico lost his positioning going into the bell lap, so he had to surge a few times to reposition himself before the final turn. He still had a decent kick but it wasn’t enough. The fitness is obviously there, but tactics weren’t perfect.

Grant on the other hand- I’m not really sure what to say. In his interview he said he didn’t want to lead and push the pace because he thought everyone would still be right there and he would have sacrificed himself. So he clearly thought good positioning + kicking would be enough, but he said he just didn’t have that final gear today. Sometimes it happens, people have off days. But he has lost all of his recent sit and kicks, so I think it’s worth considering changing tactics. Or improve your kick.

Grant should have studied Yobes Ondieki's 5000m win in Tokyo WC in 1991. This is how you deal with these conditions if you're strong enough to be the favorite but are not a kicker. If I recall correctly, Ondieki had the flu when he did this. Just ran the legs off everyone from the beginning.

Nico has a habit of staying on Grants shoulder. he did this at The Ten and both Olympic trials and Olympics. it's served him well. he was right on Grants shoulder on the final lap, he must have thought it was a perfect position and Grant would lead him to the front, but with about 200 left is when Grant blew up and once Nico realized this and went around there was too much of a gap between him and the leaders.

watch the race again, during the turn for home Nico (who clearly has gas in the tank) stays on Grants shoulder while 5 runners on the inside fly past them. I think he's so focused on Grant he doesn't see the others until it's too late.

Classic.

A bunch of nobodies (relatively speaking) get clowned in the 10k final and there's a two page thread already defending them and how they do it the right way.

Meanwhile, Lyles, who medaled and oh by the way has 11 OG/WC medals, gets thread after thread of idiots hating on him.

Never change, LR, you bunch of skinny, chickenleg-ass distance losers.

It's no longer informative to compare races from this long ago to the races of today, because the depth is so much greater. Last year there were a dozen men in the front pack going into the bell lap in a 26:40 race. In the past, if a race went sub 27, there were 3-4 guys in contention at max. (think 2003, 2009, 2019). It's totally unrealistic to try to win 5000m+ races leading from the front in today's competition.

Nico missed out on a medal by only 0.6. I think there were some tactical adjustments he could have made over the last 2 laps that might have gotten him a medal. Fisher just didn't have it.

I think going forward Nico is probably now the best hope for a US distance medal.

Agree. Though it is kind of ridiculous to engineer a set of circumstances where you can't effectively cope with a little heat.

They had tactical errors, they can’t handle heat and humidity while others do it every day, and they have no excuse for why they didn’t medal. I love our runners but to say it wasn’t a tactical mistake is craaaazzzyyy. Props to Gressier, he was the least wimpy of them all. They ran like wimps man, love em but gressier would not have won had it been an honest pace for the top dogs (fact) so even though he has slower PBs he has more of that DAWG in him. Fisher does this time and time again, bro needs to toughen up

Fisher just looked cooked. He hasn’t looked the same since his hamstring injury. Nico spent too much energy coming from the back of the pack and had positioning issues in the last lap. Maybe the 5000 will be better, maybe not.

Fisher has way too much confidence in his kick. His close is good, but not elite. Even Chep used to take it from 500 out. He needs to move earlier, and do it with authority.