Is the 800m "dash" the weakest event in track?

Trolett wrote:

I know you think you are clever but are stunning internet example of the Dunning-kruger effect.

Unlike people like you, who think you're clever because you openly think Trump is stupid (a self-made billionaire who became the most powerful man in the world), and of course, the lumpen proletariat who voted for him (and never swallowed your evil Marxist bull).

Well I got to an elite university when I was the only boy in my year to get to any university, and since then become a successful self-made businessman. I also contributed in my own small way to the election of Trump. I also have an IQ of 157. So by any reasonable objective measure of intelligence, I am pretty clever. :D

Coevett wrote:

This is why Coe is the greatest runner in history.

A luck of birth location. If Coe grew up in the US, I wonder if he would have bothered to focus on his 400m speed as much as he did focus on 400m speed. At age 14, Coe was a 56.xx 400m athlete. Maybe that made him a big shot at 400m in England in the early 1970s. Age fourteen in US, is either 8th grade or 9th grade. Coe would not have made either my junior high 8th grade one mile (4x440yds.) relay team or 9th grade one mile (4x440yds.) relay team with a 56.xx 400m PB. Coe would have lost so many sprint races in US from first day he could walk/run through his teens, Coe would've beaten down psychologically too much to bother racing a 46.87 400m in his early twenties.

It's very possible some top 400 runners would be good 800 runners but have no way to bridge the gap and don't want to risk sacrificing some of their 400 fitness for a new event they might not be good at. Brandon Johnson is one example of a decent sprinter who would never have known how much better he would be at 800 if he didn't accidentally stumble into it. I do not think it would be easy for anyone to run 1:42 however.

Coevett wrote:

No, it's the strongest. The 2024 Olympic 800m gold medalist could come from any continent and any ethnicity. I'd bet my house that the 2024 100m champion will have West African ancestry and 90% likely to represent the USA or Jamaica. I'd similarly bet my house that the 2024 10,000m champion will come from East Africa, although better testing might change that at least to some extent.

In other words, the 800m champion is the best of 3 billion males on the planet, the 100m is the best of maybe 25 million (the rest aren't 'even competing) and the 10,000 the best of 50 million (East Africans)

The strongest and most popular trackevent in athletics is the 100m, by far.

The fact that it is dominated mainly by one ethnicity is irrelevant.

This is the only track event where East asians compete, en masse (bar marathon) and it is the event where they are the most competitive.

China alone who has a population higher than Africa/Europe/America, regarlarly fill out its quota of three athletes in this event at international meets (Wch,OG), so do the the Japanese.

They generally field very competitive 4*100 relay teams (Japan silver Medallist at OG 2016) and a Chinese (Su) made the final in the last two World Champs.

East Asians do not even bother to compete in the 800m (there was not a single of them entered in this event last year in London). Their morphology is also more adapted to short sprints than the middle distance.

You could even say that Caucasians are faster in the short sprint than in the 800m nowadays. Sebastian Coe record dates back from the 1980s, while C.Lemaitre dates back from 2010.

The current crop of British sprinters, of all ethnicities are faster than what they were in the 1980s. Richard Kilty or Andrew Robertson are faster than Allan Wells (who is an OG gold medallist). Is it the case in the 800m ?

The German record in the male 100m is from 2016 ( the 800m one is from 1983), and the current generation of German sprinter is faster than the generation of East German sprinter of the 1980s.

When East Asians are taking an event seriously, you know that it is because it holds a certain prestige (100m : fastest man in the World vs 800m : ???)

Let's be honest, I'm pretty sure that Chinese propagandists would rather see a Chinese winning the 100m than the 800m at olympics and breaking stereotypes.

And this is normal, because the average soccer player has a build closer to a 800m runner than a 100m sprinter.

That means that the 100m is less impacted by the popularity of football (soccer) than the 800m.

Yes there is an overlap between the bodytype of a 100m sprinter and a football player , but less than the 800m.

The 100m sprint is very anaerobic and demands for specific muscle composition that correlates less adequately with endurance required with football (soccer) which is roughly half aerobic/anaerobic.

Secondly, sprinters are at the higher end of robusticity of the "footballing" physique.

the BMI of a 800m sprinter is closer to the football player'sone than the sprinter :

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0090183

Addendum

6) Many potential 400/800 athletes do not like to train for XC. I had high school 400/800 XC teammates whom were 52 to 55 400m and 1:59 to 2:07 800m athletes. All were guys from other sports: S&D, Am. football & soccer. The 400/800 guys raced 5K XC in the range of 17:15 to 18:45. None ran any mileage mid-June through mid-August. No one pressured them to log mileage during the summer. College was different. A sub-47 guy on my college XC was able to negotiate his XC training with head coach . The 47 to 50 400m guys on my college XC team had no leverage to negotiate their XC training. Many high school 400/800 athletes are scared away from racing 800m in college due to many/most college programs mandatory XC for all 800m athletes.

I agree that the 100m is by far the most popular in terms of 'celebrity', hence Bolt's fame (aided by his personality).

It is surprising to me that East Asians don't do better in the 800m. I would have thought that it requires the combination of 'nimbleness' and endurance (exemplified by Coe) that would make it perfect for East Asians. Coe, btw, was quater Indian.

East Asians might be able to produce world class but not elite sprinters, but still haven't produced anybody who seriously challenged for medals. China might eventually produce 100m champions if only by weight of numbers and wealth they might be able to throw at producing such champions (not to mention that they are diving head first into genetic engineering and eugenics).

The stats regarding white sprinters getting better and white middle-distance guys getting slower is misleading. First of all, whites never dominated sprinting in the 70s and 80s (although Wells should get credit for his gold medal). Nobody thinks that Wells was as good a sprinter as Ovett or Coe were as middle-distance runners. Christophe Lemaitre is an outlier indeed. Also, guys like Kilty are barely faster than Wells, and relatively speaking slower. For example, Wells PB for 100m was 10.11 and for 200m 20.21. Kilty's is (so far) is 10.01 and 20.34. When Wells was running those times, sea level sub 10 and 20 second times were almost non-existant, so he was in fact only a tenth of a second or so off the best marks in the world (before Carl Lewis came along). Kilty is much more than a tenth of a second off the very best in the world. Wells had victories over just about all the top Americans of the time save for Lewis. He even beat a pre-roided Ben Johnson. Kilty has never come close to beating the top Americans and Jamaicans and never will (at least over 100 or 200).

The reasons for British (and European and to an extent American) middle-distance decline are numerous. White sprinters didn't face a near sudden horde of African competition in the late 80s and 90s (many of them EPOd up).

Ethnic 'diversity' does matter. Imagine if China starts producing superhuman runners who sweep the board in every event thanks to eugentics and germline genetic enhancement? It's hard to see how it could be banned, as the athletes would never have needed to take any peds since birth - their genes would be responsible for their success. In any case, most people would think that athletics hadn't become 'stronger', it would have become weaker because only one country could effectively compete.

Coevett wrote:

No, it's the strongest. The 2024 Olympic 800m gold medalist could come from any continent and any ethnicity. I'd bet my house that the 2024 100m champion will have West African ancestry and 90% likely to represent the USA or Jamaica. I'd similarly bet my house that the 2024 10,000m champion will come from East Africa, although better testing might change that at least to some extent.

In other words, the 800m champion is the best of 3 billion males on the planet, the 100m is the best of maybe 25 million (the rest aren't 'even competing) and the 10,000 the best of 50 million (East Africans)

I would agree with most of this, with the exception of East Asia, most regions have or have had a good 800m runner. Also if you adjust the likes of Snell from grass to Mondo, progression has been like 2% over 56 years, which means means athletes are making small gains here and there. At present it looks like the 800m has reached a point of maximal lactate tolerance with present training methods and drugs.

I'm always excited about the idea of a good 400 runner trying the 800.

Coevett wrote:

This is why Coe is the greatest runner in history.

But not the greatest 800m racer in history.

A 400m/800m double is an incredible achievement, meaning you are a master of both sprinting and middle-distance, and that's why Juantoreno is still a legend after 40 years.

I agree.

Alberto is not only the only man to have doubled 400/800m gold at the olympics, he is also the last man to medal at both distances in one championship.

Arthur Wint (JAM) took gold and silver at London in 1948, Mal Whitfield (USA) took bronze and gold at London in 1948, Alex Wilson (CAN) took bronze and silver at Los Angeles 1932, and Bevil Rudd (RSA) took gold and bronze at Antwerp in 1920, but no one has taken a medal of any colour at both distances in any championship since 1976.

cheers.

No

How was your date Saturday night, jamin? Did she spend the night?

jamin wrote:

sbeefyk2 wrote:

Using that logic...

Why arent 400 runners scared of 19.3 200 runners? Surely 19.3 200 runners can jog a 42.0 400 with minimal effort.

It's true, but successful 200m runners get the title of being "fastest in the world" and if they move up to the 400m then they are demoted to "fastest in the world over 400 meters" plus a more painful event.

Well whaddya know? You had the answer all along!

Why are you calling it the 800m dash? "Dash" denotes that blocks are used for the start. When have you ever seen an 800m race start out of blocks?

Lol we didn't need 2 pages after the second post.

/thread

The 800m is the only event that is half-and-half for anaerobic and aerobic energy contribution. Yes, most elite 400m runners can jog a 50-51s 400m, but they are primarily utilizing their anaerobic system to complete that effort. Good luck finding a pure 400m runner that can run a 53-54s using entirely their aerobic system with a completely exhausted anaerobic system. They simply don't have the VO2 max or oxygen exchange rate to handle a fast 400m with only their lungs.

800m definitely has higher depth than the 400m at the Olympic level. Unless you're David Rudisha, there is never a favourite for the win. Almost every guy has a chance at winning by factoring in their individual ability, pace, tactics...ect. You don't see that in 400m running. Look at the '96, '00, and '04 Olympics. The winners were definitely not the absolute fastest 800m runners at the time; they kind of came out of know where to win. Can you imagine Pavel Maslak winning the Tokyo Olympics? I can't. But in 2000 Nils Schumann, basically just a decent white guy, took the win over a triple world champion. That's depth.

jamin wrote:

normal sports like football and basketball.

implying the opinions of normies actually matter

The 800m is up for grabs for many athletes due to one turn stagger. As I stated previously, at 350m, the men/women go out very fast are slowing a bit. The even pace runners and pulling the leaders in. The even pace runners must race in lane two and lane three. If 800m were a four turn stagger race, the best athletes would win most often. The 800m, T&F would be more like 200m, S&D. 800m, T&F is complicated because we have made it complicated with one turn stagger.