Can anyone explain Obiri's fourth place?

All that crap talk from last week "all Obiri has to do is stick to Ayana even if she runs WR pace and then outkick her".. yesterday we saw Obiri running a slow 4th place 8:30 with no kick at all in the end.

As I said, Ayana is another league.

Obiri talked too much at that 14:34 WC

err...

you do realise coupla years ago, when nowhere as good as she was in london, she ran non-chinese wr of 8'20 ???

we have very little idea of her basic 400/800 speed but experience tells me a prelim line of fit for her london shape was

~ 56.00 / 1'58.75

->

3'54.13

5'19.18

8'13.58

14'13.73

she's likely nearly as quick as kipyegon/hassan in a flat-out 1500, hugely below 8'15 but somewhat shy of 5k wr

the assertion often made on these boards that 3k is her hitting-zone looks pretty correct...

Obiri has completely owned Ayana in two consecutive championships with no excuse this time of Ayana expending extra energy in heats this time. Yet people are already dismissing her off her first bad race of the year? You all said she had no chance of beating Ayana and she crushed her by over thirty metres.

Kid running after kipchoge wrote:

All that crap talk from last week "all Obiri has to do is stick to Ayana even if she runs WR pace and then outkick her".. yesterday we saw Obiri running a slow 4th place 8:30 with no kick at all in the end.

As I said, Ayana is another league.

Obiri talked too much at that 14:34 WC

I'm convinced that you don't know anything about track and field. You are in here talking about a diamond league race, especially one after WC? A lot of runners use the Diamond League as tune ups and to collect some money.

Ayana lost 2 medal races at 5000m, back to back. And now that Hassan is at 5000m, her chances of ever winning a championship or olympics at 5000m is almost dead. And if Faith moves up, forget about it.

I will see you in 2019( WC), because that is that matters...and I wouldn't be surprised if Ayana ditches 5000m to focus on the half marathon or marathon....because she aint winning a medal at 5000m - It's a wrap.

Lol have any of you basement-dwelling NAF keyboard warriors actually ever participated in a full track season? It's called "having a bad race", maybe you've heard of it? As another poster said before, Obiri split 8:25 at the WCs, obviously she can do better than 8:30 and compete with Hassan and Kloster.

All of you are bullshiter@ with a capital B

The only reason Obiri managed to win the 5k in London was because it was a 14:34 race. When Ayana runs at WR pace or a little above that- noone can hold on- not Dibabas, not Obiri, not Cheriot. All of their wins were when Ayana ran way far from WR pace. And I'm not even gonna mention that spider form Hassan- Hassan, do me a favor ok...

As for the 10k- forget about it Ayana laps people

Obiri went to birmingham in order to get 4th place ha? That was her plan?

After winning the World Champs, she skipped training to catch up with all the movies she's missed, binged on yam fries, nutella pancakes and oreo blizzards from Dairy Queen. She had earned that. Fourth was a good result.

What it should be worth, and face value, all of that is Hypothesis. All I know is I have seen 3 of the top women at 5000m grit and grind trying to break it, and they didn't. So, to me, that is not a weak record. And two of the women aren't 10,000m runners.

Funny thing is, Dibaba broke that record at the age of 23, in 2008. She never came close to it again. Matter of fact, after that race she never ran faster than 14:23, and she went on to run 5000m for another 5 years. And Meseret Defar, her nemesis, and a better 5000m runner, tried to break the record in the following month, but ran 14:12.

That time is a lot tougher than what you think, because it is possible that T dibaba was doping, considering the fact that she goes out and runs 14:11 at the age of 23, but never even runs in the teens( seconds) again....that's a huge drop off in my book.

Anyway, I agree to disagree.

Bottom line, Obiri beat Ayana 2 times in a row ! You gotta deal with that, doggie. It's hard. I know it is.

And here is the thing, I like Ayana. I think she is a hell of a runner. I believe she is the best runner of all time at 10,000m. But 5000m? Nope. No golds medals. ,NO silver medals. No WRs. and NO DOUBLES.

What kills me is that you guys keep saying she only lost because she did the doubled!

Well, Vivian won the double at the WC, and T dibaba won the double at the WC and Olympics

I guess Ayana isn't strong enough.

: )

scorpion_runner wrote:

Bottom line, Obiri beat Ayana 2 times in a row ! You gotta deal with that, doggie. It's hard. I know it is.

And here is the thing, I like Ayana. I think she is a hell of a runner. I believe she is the best runner of all time at 10,000m. But 5000m? Nope. No golds medals. ,NO silver medals. No WRs. and NO DOUBLES.

What kills me is that you guys keep saying she only lost because she did the doubled!

Well, Vivian won the double at the WC, and T dibaba won the double at the WC and Olympics

I guess Ayana isn't strong enough.

: )

Ayana has ran 14:12 and a 14:24 split DURING a 10k. Perhaps Ayana is still trying to figure out how to pull of a double, but she is strong without a doubt. I'd like to see both Obiri and Ayana fresh for another 5k and see just how fast they can push.

Then how come Hassan wasn't fatigued? She was in the same 5k race (and also came off the 1500). More like cycling off.

I kind of agree with you regarding Ayanas lack of strength to double up. I believe her front running style takes a lot out of her. -The mistake people make is that she is renown for front running races at a pace generally above the ability of her competitors to maintain over long distances. Therefore everyone reckons she is blessed with huge strength and stamina and should bring this into every race she runs.

However, her front running style would deplete her resources far in excess of her competitors who sit in the pack. If you look at her 10000 runs she is largely by herself for the last 6km, so in effect she is time trialling without assistance. This is extraordinarily difficult and energy sapping. I guarantee that if anyone on these boards ran a 25 lap race entirely on their own and tried to match their best official race time, not only would you not succeed, but you would have depleted your physical resources far in excess of the official race time in which you PR'd

Unfortunately for Ayana, world championship races will always have the 10k before the 5k and I honestly believe if she opted to only run the 5 at the next WC she would produce a totally different result.

I don't take a ting away from Obiri, she has been targeting this 5 all year and kudos to her, she executed her plan perfectly.

Thank you for posting a quality assessment. You make some very interesting points, and I agree with them.

People often state: Well, all she needs to do is go out in WR pace to destroy her competitors - As if she isn't going to get taxed or tired by doing so. That is what is so funny to me. Like she can just go out and run WR pace without any physical or mental consequences.

Juiced2thegills wrote:

Then how come Hassan wasn't fatigued? She was in the same 5k race (and also came off the 1500). More like cycling off.

There was no reason for Hassan to be fatigued because she didn't run the 10000m race hard like Ayana.

It was a very successful World Championship, Athletics for Hellen Obiri. I understand if Obiri decided not to run at all since 5000m WC final. The next big race for Hellen Obiri will be 2018 Commonwealth Games unless Kenya makes Obiri do a Kenya T&F Trials prior to Commonwealth Games.

For someone who is accustomed of being a front runner it isn't more difficult to run at a certain pace than at the same with a rabbit. Just to remind you, having a pacer is a mental help, not physicall help. The pacer isn't physically towing the other runners.

So she should have peaked for Birmingham rather than the WCs?

So you are blaming Ayana for not having the guts to take the WR pace from the gun, rather than sub-WR pace the last 4000m? OK, I agree, she is mentally weak. In both the conventional and Canova senses.

Kid running after kipchoge wrote:

All of you are bullshiter@ with a capital B

The only reason Obiri managed to win the 5k in London was because it was a 14:34 race. When Ayana runs at WR pace or a little above that- noone can hold on- not Dibabas, not Obiri, not Cheriot. All of their wins were when Ayana ran way far from WR pace. And I'm not even gonna mention that spider form Hassan- Hassan, do me a favor ok...

As for the 10k- forget about it Ayana laps people