worst 800m Olympic final in a long time

What bad race. Give us a break. It's all about winning. If people didn't want to take initiative, those who took it_ kudos to them. They harvested 🤓🤓

You could have still gone, raced and won at your own convincing/ appropriate time!

Stop this overreaction please

It’s not just about winning — or at least it’s not winning at the expense of integrity. Usually that toxic mentality is a bigger problem in the US than elsewhere, but now we’re seeing it everywhere. It’s not just about the result. It’s about the process. It’s about passion for the sport — it’s about pushing yourself. It’s about embracing your talents rather than finding shortcuts. But, instead we have a field that mostly doesn’t want to be there trying to find ways to manipulate their ways to medals rather than actually proving they are the best 800 meter runners on the planet. The same mentality that leads people to run like this is the same mentality that leads people to dope and cheat. The idea that only results matter and nothing else does.

I think your argument holds up better for longer races. But come on. The 800 is a sprint at this level. What’s next, people walking the first half of the 200 because they are better kickers? And even more puzzling, that the actual fastest people in the field agree to it because they lack confidence and/or are lazy? Because that’s exactly what’s going on now.

mbai haule wrote:

You could have still gone, raced and won at your own convincing/ appropriate time!

Stop this overreaction please

Sorry for caring about the sport and caring about achieving actual greatness unlike a lot of the people in that 800 meter final.

l'histoire wrote:

slowbro wrote:

The time isn’t the issue. I hate this gimmick that the 800 can be “tactical.” Not everyone will be Rudisha, but having no names win every few years is embarrassing. Rotich and Korir are excellent runners, but the rest of the field chose not to show up through that second half.

How much does saving 200-400m of wind resistance really matter for an 800?

Why should an athlete have to get out in 23 seconds just to get the pole?

That’s a gimmick. The race is two laps. If the whole field is scared of minor fatigue then there’s no incentive to run honestly. Run a 2- turn stagger so everyone has to deal with it at least.

How does Amos go from sub 1.43 and word lead to where he was in the final in three weeks?

I absolutely agree. Ovett would have been perfectly positioned with 200 to go and would have smoked everybody in the home straight

I inadvertently fell asleep during the decathlon events before the 800m and fell asleep through the 800m, just like the athletes did

Utter BS. NFI.

slowbro wrote:

l'histoire wrote:

How much does saving 200-400m of wind resistance really matter for an 800?

Why should an athlete have to get out in 23 seconds just to get the pole?

That’s a gimmick. The race is two laps. If the whole field is scared of minor fatigue then there’s no incentive to run honestly. Run a 2- turn stagger so everyone has to deal with it at least.

They did this in 1976. Juantorena, the 400 guy, won! In a World Record!

THOUGHTSLEADER wrote:

Korir running 1:43 flat in Monaco I guess doesn’t matter.

There’re plenty of 800m finals like this you guys have been spoiled by Rudisha in the Olympics. Look at the 2009 finals or the 2015 one. Very similar races and the 2017 finals was way worse than this one.

Rudisha went 52-50 in 2015. It’s not even close. He threw the afterburners down with 270 to go. Not even close to similar

a regular guy wrote:

What a joke. Winning time 1:45 after a pedestrian first lap. It seems like nobody wanted to win.

WHAT DOES EVERYONE COMPLAINING ABOUT THIS HAVE TO SAY ABOUT CENTRO'S 2016 "GOLD MEDAL" LOLOLOLOLOL.

If you think today's 800 opening lap was a joke, you're right. But at least the time 1:45 is a men's time. The Rio 1500 was much, much, much more of a joke with a women's time for the win.

Kicked at 100m to go wrote:

How does Amos go from sub 1.43 and word lead to where he was in the final in three weeks?

So many idiots saying that 400-800 frontrunners should learn to come from behind.

This race shows that guess what IT DOESN'T WORK THAT WAY. Once a front-runner, always a frontrunner.

Also how did Murphy do lolololololol? USA picked the wrong three guys on this one.

Kicked at 100m to go wrote:

How does Amos go from sub 1.43 and word lead to where he was in the final in three weeks?

Remember when he went from 1:45 to 1:41 in three weeks in 2019?

Ask Ex-Runner.

They missed Vasquez today. Nobody else has the balls to take it out fast.

Compare today with the Doha final. Does anyone think Rotich is better at 31 (official age) than he was at 29? Yet in Doha he barely scraped a bronze (and Korir didn't make the final).

Peter Snell from Tokyo 1968 would have won today.

Sam the Congan wrote:

They missed Vasquez today. Nobody else has the balls to take it out fast.

Compare today with the Doha final. Does anyone think Rotich is better at 31 (official age) than he was at 29? Yet in Doha he barely scraped a bronze (and Korir didn't make the final).

Peter Snell from Tokyo 1968 would have won today.

And women could have won the 2016 Olympic 1500.

back to reality wrote:

a regular guy wrote:

What a joke. Winning time 1:45 after a pedestrian first lap. It seems like nobody wanted to win.

WHAT DOES EVERYONE COMPLAINING ABOUT THIS HAVE TO SAY ABOUT CENTRO'S 2016 "GOLD MEDAL" LOLOLOLOLOL.

If you think today's 800 opening lap was a joke, you're right. But at least the time 1:45 is a men's time. The Rio 1500 was much, much, much more of a joke with a women's time for the win.

It was more exciting though. At least there's an argument that Centrowitz had a perfect tactic and was not challenged by anyone - especially Asbel Kiprop who probably ran the worst 1500m of his life.

centrowitz did want to win and played the only tactics in where he had a chance to win. It turns that it worked.

The time was so bad that is was actually exciting.

you're right. 1.45 w/ a 53 first lap is not bad, it is just "meh".

the 1500m time was so bad that it made the race exciting. A 3:36 winning time in Rio in where the favourites bombed and there was no real challenge for the win would've been comparable to this.

back to reality wrote:

Sam the Congan wrote:

They missed Vasquez today. Nobody else has the balls to take it out fast.

Compare today with the Doha final. Does anyone think Rotich is better at 31 (official age) than he was at 29? Yet in Doha he barely scraped a bronze (and Korir didn't make the final).

Peter Snell from Tokyo 1968 would have won today.

And women could have won the 2016 Olympic 1500.

no. Not in the way it was run. It is like that argument of saying that a Paralympic 1500m champion ran faster than the Olympic 1500m champion. That actually happened. But no way the Paralympic runner would've beaten Centrowitz.

Only if you don't understand a clue about track and field you could make that argument as well as this one that a woman could've won that race.

a regular guy wrote:

It was more exciting though. At least there's an argument that Centrowitz had a perfect tactic and was not challenged by anyone - especially Asbel Kiprop who probably ran the worst 1500m of his life.

centrowitz did want to win and played the only tactics in where he had a chance to win. It turns that it worked.

The time was so bad that is was actually exciting.

you're right. 1.45 w/ a 53 first lap is not bad, it is just "meh".

the 1500m time was so bad that it made the race exciting. A 3:36 winning time in Rio in where the favourites bombed and there was no real challenge for the win would've been comparable to this.

I think you make a good point about the difference between an absolute joke 3:50 (Centro's time) or say 1:54 in a men's race, and a "meh" 1:45 or 3:36 in the Olympics. Fair.

But would you not also say that Korir wanted to win today and played it perfectly for that goal? Nobody in America except us cared that Centro won in a women's time, and nobody in Kenya will care that they just got 1-2 but the time was meh.