He’s got the best kick. He doesn’t need to be patient.
strand and koech both basically matched his mid 12 kick today. And strand had much worse position and had to put in a lot of work on that backstretch leading up to it
Well, then all the more reason for Hocker to be in better position.
Silver lining is that we might see Hobbs and Yared chase some crazy fast times and the DL title to get the wild card in August
Does Hobbs have a path to the wild card?
I know Nuguse definitely has a shot
I wonder that too. Hobbs has not looked like himself since indoors. He still has long career ahead and races don't always go as expected. He placed himself in good position on the rail the entire way but tied up at end. Same with Nuguse who is perennial front runner and seemed to have off day. Hope they make run at Diamond League points and make it thru - how amazing will that be to have 5 Americans making run at final?! I was impressed by races Gary Martin put together and look forward to seeing him in the future. Ethan Strand was stellar and I underestimated his current ceiling. Still great racing and glad no falls or hiccups.
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Time for Kessler to up his level. He’s still only 22 (Strand is almost 23). But he’s now been around long enough that when he set the high school record, Jonah Koech was still on the Kenyan national team.
I think it was about 1:50 into the race, Mackay turned around and had some words with someone. Behind her were MacLean and someone else so I'm not certain who she was addressing. My guess is one of them clipped her and Mackay took offense. I doubt she knew who it was until she turned around. It reminded me of Elle St. Pierre chastising the group when she was knocked off the track a couple years ago.
Yeah, I saw her proper yell at someone! Just wasn't sure what it was about.
It seemed to me that while Kessler didn’t quite have the same gear that the top 3 had, staying behind Nuguse instead of swinging out is what actually cost him a spot on the team. He probably assumed that Nuguse wasn’t going to fade in the final 100 (reasonable given that he is a 3:43 guy), but he ended up being totally boxed on the home straight and had no forward momentum relative to the top three by the time he was free. I’m not saying this for certain, but if he swings wide with 105 to go it’s very possible that he makes the team instead of Hocker.
I can't buy that his positioning, within the top 4, cost him .75 seconds. that's A LOT.