Maybe you should look up his coach and what his athletes have accomplished. Look up their HS PRs. Hocker was US OT champ and 6th in the Olympics. Seems like decent coaching.
Getting a bunch of A-/B+ high school athletes to run 3:35-3:40 and put together a good DMR is a lot different than developing a truly world-class athlete year on year. Thomas is clearly out of his depth.
He had a challenging first full year as a pro. He should have gone to World Indoors when he had the chance - when you're hot, press on the gas and go for the medals because you never know when an injury is around the corner.
He was hugely overhyped on this board before Tokyo, but I still think he can get back to being one of the top-10 1500 guys in the world. To get beyond that and into the medals, he would need to change his tactics but there's no reason to think he can't do that.
wouldn’t you say 5th in the Olympics for a 20yo would be equal to the hype?
He had his senior year of track in HS, 4:06 or 4:07 alone in Indiana no post season racing, then he runs 3:57 as a frosh with a bigger workload and good training partners. Covid happens and he runs a bit (and stops for water a lot)
Then he goes and cracks a 3:50 off all that training, sounds like a big PR but there's a good chance he would've ran like 3:35-3:37 in the 1500 with the way he ran the next year
But because there was such a large gap his improvement looks like a lot more
He is 21 and still has a ton of time to figure things out. Centro won gold at 27 Willis won bronze in that same race at 33. The men's 1500 is very strong right now, practically anyone in the top 10 could win a medal or championship. Way too early to write him off.
He had a challenging first full year as a pro. He should have gone to World Indoors when he had the chance - when you're hot, press on the gas and go for the medals because you never know when an injury is around the corner.
He was hugely overhyped on this board before Tokyo, but I still think he can get back to being one of the top-10 1500 guys in the world. To get beyond that and into the medals, he would need to change his tactics but there's no reason to think he can't do that.
wouldn’t you say 5th in the Olympics for a 20yo would be equal to the hype?
He is 21 and still has a ton of time to figure things out. Centro won gold at 27 Willis won bronze in that same race at 33. The men's 1500 is very strong right now, practically anyone in the top 10 could win a medal or championship. Way too early to write him off.
This is true. However, Centro (who won gold at 26), was also a World Championships medalist at 21. Hocker, who's close to turning 22, is behind Centro in development. Here's hoping he has a healthy season.
He is 21 and still has a ton of time to figure things out. Centro won gold at 27 Willis won bronze in that same race at 33. The men's 1500 is very strong right now, practically anyone in the top 10 could win a medal or championship. Way too early to write him off.
This is true. However, Centro (who won gold at 26), was also a World Championships medalist at 21. Hocker, who's close to turning 22, is behind Centro in development. Here's hoping he has a healthy season.
Wightman won his first medal (and Gold) at age 28.
Maybe you should look up his coach and what his athletes have accomplished. Look up their HS PRs. Hocker was US OT champ and 6th in the Olympics. Seems like decent coaching.
Getting a bunch of A-/B+ high school athletes to run 3:35-3:40 and put together a good DMR is a lot different than developing a truly world-class athlete year on year. Thomas is clearly out of his depth.
Everyone is slobbering over Ritz right now who's been coaching all of what, 3 years?
Hocker's 2021 was otherworldly. His 2022 up to USA's was very good. He gets healthy, he's a medal contender in Paris.
Les wrote:
The winner of that race was also 20.
and possibly the greatest non-African distance runner of all time.
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