What Happened to Kaki at the Olympics?

Poster Formerly Known asGoober wrote:

It was in the T&F News world rankings issue... he drank the tap water after the first round and got really sick. Its in the little description in the 800m section.

So you're saying Kaki went kaka too much? I think it's a made up story. He got whipped.

Kaki is Kaka wrote:

Poster Formerly Known asGoober wrote:

It was in the T&F News world rankings issue... he drank the tap water after the first round and got really sick. Its in the little description in the 800m section.

So you're saying Kaki went kaka too much? I think it's a made up story. He got whipped.

i agree

prediction: kaki becomes the asafa powell of the 800

the guy had a bad man, simple is that. kaki becomes the asafa of the 800m? kaki is a world champion, Asafa never won a world title, so check your facts. kaki will dominate the 800m for the next 4-5 years.

go kaki

speed endurance, the core attribute required for success in the middle distance events, is built over years of steady progression and consistent effort. it would not be a stretch to assert that kaki has not yet developed the capacity to endure an ambitiously lengthy season and the olympic heats.

some of the above posters question whether kaki is, in fact, 18 years old. let me remind you that he is a sudanese runner, not a chinese gymnast.

regarding hallster, troll much? is it that wejo provides excuses for runners' poor performances, or is it possible food poisoning, jet lag, training, weight, and injuries yield slight variances in performance potential in a sport where a 1% variance is the difference between the podium and also-ran?

He's actually been 19 since last summer.

balling wrote:

Kaki is Kaka wrote:

So you're saying Kaki went kaka too much? I think it's a made up story. He got whipped.

i agree

prediction: kaki becomes the asafa powell of the 800

Well if you'd look at the 800m world rankings for the February Track and Field News then you could see for yourself that it was in fact the case. Since you wont take my word for it, read it for yourself...

The stories eminating from his camp after the Games were that he drank the water out of the taps in beijing at one point. It was claimed he was spent after this.

Whether this is true of not, this is the story that was put out there. Personally, considering how much bottled water and other drinks are available at major championships, if he did drink the tap water and got sick, he gets very little sympathy from me.

Personally, i didn't think he would win gold anyway. A friend of mine who knows about these things told me in about March 2008 of Kaki's race plan for the season. It already included just about every Grand Prix around Europe that was logistically possible as well as the World Juniors, followed by the Olympics.

The opinion amongst his camp was that the Juniors would be won with almost no real effort and as such wasn't a risk. This proved to be poor judgement even before the Olympics as he didn't win the gold that easily in Poland. It had to have taken a lot more out of him than they expected it to. Anybody who has competed in Poland (or around that area) in mid summer know how oppressively hot it is. I know the guy is from the Sudan but running numerous rounds in those conditions is taxing on any body.

At the end of the day, Kaki failing to make the final in Beijing was a monumental failure for a guy that talented. The people who look after him (coach, agent etc) need to ask very hard questions of themselved. Namely, how do they take a talent that big and manage his season so poorly that he comes last in an Olympic semi?

Maybe they just wanted to chase the dollar sign all year. This is reasoning is even more flawed as the guy would have been worth multiples post Olympics (as champion) than he was pre-Olympics.

Maybe they felt he could handle it? Fine if that was their opinion but it was a major risk to take in his first year competing at senior track championships. Ultimately it was a major mistake.

Finally:

Maybe he did drink the water in Beijing? If this is the case the the IQ of everybody close to Kaki needs checking. The guy is from the Sudan - a don't know a lot about the Sudan but i doubt the tap water is drinkable there. He would be pretty used to a 'don't drink tap water' policy and even if the athlete is that naive (stupid) then somebody else should have hammered the fact into him.

Quite simply, i believe that his failure in Beijing was simpy a massive failure in specific planning and preparation. It reminds me somewhat of Sonia O'Sullivans breakdown at the Atlanta Games. She spent all of her time training flat out to be the best possible athlete at any given moment. There was never any Olympic plan as such. It resulted in the worlds best female distance runner since 1993 failing to complete a final in Atlanta.

wow, let me ask you a question, how many races has kaki ran durning the summer? since you are saying kaki was chasing dollars and he had poor a management.he only ran 7 races the whole summer, 4 800s, 1 1000 and 2 small 1500s.in my opinion i don't think he has run enough races but regardless of too many races or not too many races, he a bad race just like so many others. The Russian guy didn't make it and he ran 1:42 before the games, the south African didn't make it either.Kaki is young and he has a good future head of him. Also you keep saying that he is from Sudan, what the heck is that suppose mean?

There is also the fact that the 800m is the most unpredictable event on the track.

It is the shortest event not run in lanes. Positioning is crucial. How you run your first lap depends on how others run their first lap. After that there is only one lap and everyone is still in it with no clear path to the finish.

Note that Coe and Kipketer do not have Olympic Gold medals at 800m. No one doubted their abilty to peak. Kipketer was not allowed to run in '96 but four men ran 1:42 in the final so he may not have found himself tactically in a position to win (who knows).

800m semis are nerve-racking with people trying to conserve energy and make that move in the end for 2 automatic spots.

I do believe it is fair to look for a "reason" for Kaki not running well vs. an "excuse." I can see it being his body more than his head. He may have finsihed too far back for it to be tactics.

But add those races to four rounds at World Jr's, and three rounds at the Olympics. And he'd been racing since the winter. Makes for a long season.

Also, someone who runs fast 800's during the season isn't necessarily showing he can run fast after three rounds.

Peter Coe wrote:

regarding hallster, troll much? is it that wejo provides excuses for runners' poor performances, or is it possible food poisoning, jet lag, training, weight, and injuries yield slight variances in performance potential in a sport where a 1% variance is the difference between the podium and also-ran?

Not to speak for "hallster" but I don't think it is trolling to simply say that maybe the pressure got to him. Try to remember people, this is basically a kid. He's done some big races before but this is the Olympics, the race that has a way of making even long-time, battle-hardened veterans crumble under the pressure. Perhaps he just started to realize where he was and got a little too nervous.

Considering how close in talent that field is (as you just said), all it would take is a little loss in nerve to make all the difference in the world.

I think it's fair to say that Occam's razor points to something like that, rather than mysterious "bad water" or jet lag that only hits him after the heats.

Captain Spalding wrote:

But add those races to four rounds at World Jr's, and three rounds at the Olympics. And he'd been racing since the winter. Makes for a long season.

Also, someone who runs fast 800's during the season isn't necessarily showing he can run fast after three rounds.

Four rounds?

Here's every damn race he ran in 2008:

Feb 17 Leipzig 1:46.06

Feb 21 GE Galan 2:15.77 WJR

Feb 24 KBC 2:16.15

Mar 7 WIC Heats 1:47.80

Mar 8 WIC Semis 1:47.47

Mar 9 WIC Final 1:44.81 AJR

May 3 African Champ 4x400m

Jun 3 Mamlö 3:39.71

Jun 6 Bislett 1:42.69 WJR

Jun 12 Ostrava 1:43.80

Jun 16 Telenor 3:40.24

Jul 8 WJrs Heats 1:50.92

Jul 9 WJrs Semis 1:46.71

Jul 11 WJrs Final 1:45.60

Jul 19 Barcelona 1:44.93

Jul 22 DN Galan 2:13.93 WJR

Aug 20 Olympics Heats 1:46.98

Aug 21 Olympics Semis 1:49.19

24.3...from the Beijing splits page. He was no more than .1 off anyone.

sillyperson wrote:

I'm pretty sure the main reason for the bad race was that he and another runner went out in 23 seconds for the first 200 or something crazy like that .

Firstly, I never said he was chasing dollars. I put it forward as a potential theory as to why he had the racing schedule he did. I doubt he was running purely for financial gain.When is say that he is from Sudan, I mean just that - he was born in and competes for the nation of Sudan.I mentioned his Sudan nationality in relation to 2 points:That despite being from Sudan (which also has a very hot climate), i believed WJC would have taken more out of him than was predicted partly due to the stifling heat in Poland at that time of year.Secondly i mention it in relation to the drinking tap water story (not really an important point):Sudan is a 3rd World country. It's supply of tap water would not be drinkable. Kaki would have been used to the situation in Beijing (despite claims otherwise, the tap water is to be avoided). If the story is true then it's monumentally stupid behaviour.http://www.danwei.org/beijing/clean_water_straight_from_the.php

coachjjj wrote:

wow, let me ask you a question, how many races has kaki ran durning the summer? since you are saying kaki was chasing dollars and he had poor a management.he only ran 7 races the whole summer, 4 800s, 1 1000 and 2 small 1500s.in my opinion i don't think he has run enough races but regardless of too many races or not too many races, he a bad race just like so many others. The Russian guy didn't make it and he ran 1:42 before the games, the south African didn't make it either.Kaki is young and he has a good future head of him. Also you keep saying that he is from Sudan, what the heck is that suppose mean?

This is a fair point but i kind of disagree. He has struck me as a guy who runs with the lack of fear you often get with youth like this.He didn't get boxed in Beijing, nor did he fail to time his race correctly. He simply trailed home looking like he had nothing left. This doesn't indicate to me a guy who let the occasion get to him but somebody who wasn't at is physical peak for some reason.Maybe I'm wrong about the amount of races he ran being too many but i strongly believe that his season was managed badly. Can anybody tell me this info - how many races did Webb run in 2007 leading into the World Champs in Osaka? (I'm genuinely asking for the info, not leading into some smart a*s point).

Peter Coe wrote:

. Try to remember people, this is basically a kid. He's done some big races before but this is the Olympics, the race that has a way of making even long-time, battle-hardened veterans crumble under the pressure. Perhaps he just started to realize where he was and got a little too nervous.

Considering how close in talent that field is (as you just said), all it would take is a little loss in nerve to make all the difference in the world

wejo wrote:

Kaki going from winning his heat to not even being in contention seems to be much more than peaking at the wrong time.

The food poisoning seems like a better explanation to me.

Which reminds me, whatever happened to the Shalane's Imodium sponsorship deal?

Webb just doesn't perform when it comes to major races. kaki is alot better athlete than webb and he wins most of his races or all accept the olympics.

question for you, how come Nick Simmons didn't make the final? he was in great shape and he didn't race much, if kaki is poor performance has to something to do with him running many races.

I can't exactly remember where i ranked him but Nick Symonds was well outside the top 10 in terms of quality on paper going into those games. He came 5th in the semi where Borza came third and failed to qualify. Symonds performed to about his expected standard in the Games.The issue with Kaki's performance isn't that he didn't make the final or that he didn't win gold. It's the fact that he totally failed to perform. His semi was won in 1.45.5ish. He finished last in 1.49.

runner80 wrote:

how come Nick Simmons didn't make the final?

By the way, I'm not trying to doubt this guys talent. I think he could be really phenomenal, starting this summer.

coachjjj wrote:

he is still very young and has many years to come,and im actually wondering how fast will this guy run in the future, his times are already scare.

1:44 indoors

2:15 indoors

1:42 outdoors

2:13 outdoors

he just had a bad race at the games, Webb will never ever be as good as Kaki.