Sir Lance-alot wrote:
That's silly and you know it. One can be in "world champion condition" without being a world champion. Mottram certainly was in "world champion condition" a few times that last few years, and didn't come close to winning a world or olympic championship the last 2 years. What does that tell you about Rupp's chances?
It doesn't tell you anything about Rupp's chances except that, as we already know, to have any shot at a WC medal you have to be able to:
A) run at a very fast pace, like AR range, to be near the front with a lap or two to go
B) be capable of closing the last lap in 51-54 seconds so you don't get smoked by 6-10 other guys
C) hope that some of the other contenders underperform, meaning a relatively "easy" WC race relative to some of the harder, faster ones we've seen
D) manage to put together A and B and C in the same championship race
This never happened for Mottram, at least not yet, but that doesn't prove it's not possible for Rupp. Especially since at his age he'll have room to improve before he's done qualifying for and running WC 10k races.