Marco Arop believes he can break 3:30 in the 1500m at some point. Do you agree?

Here's the video of his interview with Citius. I recommend. He talks about his 2024 season, using the Kosmin Test to predict his 800m, and racing against Hocker, Kerr, and Nuguse in GST. The 1500m stuff starts at around the 12:18 mark.

Arop is such an affable guy. I wish him well.

The Arop shade is new from you. I don’t think minimizing the improvements from 2021-2023 where Arop went from getting bounced in the semis to bronze and gold medals even as his times didn’t move a ton is a fair move either. Big jumps in the 800 in a single race is not a new phenomenon.

Subtraction.

There was an old 2014 interview with David Rudisha linked here recently where he said a) he ran ~60 mpw not counting warmups and cooldowns, and b) he thought his 1500m ability was about 3:36. Now I know Arop is a completely different athlete, and that conditions for fast 1500 running have improved, but still: 1:41 does not mean a guaranteed 3:30.

Google/Wikipedia have their weights listed as 176 and 119, a difference of 57 pounds. Neither of those figures seem right, and according to two separate old LetsRun threads, Lydiard wrote in a book that Snell raced at 76 kg (167.6 lbs) and Peter Coe wrote in a book that Seb raced at 59 kg (130.1 lbs). Those seem like they’d be accurate, a difference of 37.5 pounds.

Not built alike, no question about that.

just instinctually looking at him, he's too large. I'd like to see him next to Jakob or Kerr to really confirm this. He'd have to lose about 5-7 pounds which he obviously doesn't have to spare without giving up muscle. I think he's better off pursuing the 800m wr and lowering it. He's built the same way rudisha is.

Internet says he's 6'4" and 172 pounds. I can believe it.

He has the talent regardless of his size, he could very well become a sub 3:30 man if he doesn't wait too long to train seriously for the 1500m.

Paul McMullen had a similar build, and he ran 3:33 with only 8 toes.

large maximum talented guys usually peak a deviation lower than the smaller guys at anything above 800m. Suddenly physics starts working towards you. On a cellular level I think he probably has it in him for a 3:29.99 but that will take enormous sacrifice, in which his focus should remain on training to achieve 1:40.xx

RIP the great Paul Mcmullen

Yes he can run 3:29 he is a different breed his range is crazy 200n 21 to probably even 13:30 5000m. I don't think it will be a walk in the park but I do believe he can run 3:29.

Typical Coevett.

It's definitely not new, it's just that the mods have been deleting my (and other poster's) comments suggesting any scepticism regarding Arop. He is definitely one of the 'protected' runners here. Georgia Bell? Pile on with the doping accusations - the Brits are all dirty. Marco Arop? Clean as Canadian snow.

Arop's progression is even more astonishing when you examine it closely.

At the end of the 2019 season at age 20, his pb was 1:44.14.

At the end of the 2023 season at age 24, his pb was 1:42.85

That itself is quite noteworthy given this season he reduced it to 1:41.20, and many people expected him to break the WR or even go sub 1:40, and still expect him to do so next year, when he will turn 27.

But that 1:42.85 was run in the last race of the season just 3 days before his 24th birthday.

If he hadn't ran that, his pb would have been 1:43.24 going into 2024 and the age of 24, an improvement of less than one second in four years, or from age 20 to 24, and an improvement of 0.02 seconds in two years, or from age 22 to 24, and then an improvement of two seconds in one season (2024 at 25).

2 indicators 1000m 2:13 looks positive but mile 3:57 not so

Overall I'd say no

Rudisha was swifter over 400 than Arop do their endurance to speed ratios may not proportionally line up

I don't think his progression is astonishing. If you're going to try to tarnish an athlete's reputation by casting aspersions on their performances, the least you can do is be fair and provide a more thorough account of their annual progression that includes contextual factors.

• 2019, age 20: 1:44.25 - excellent time for someone that young, suggesting he has tremendous potential
• 2020, age 21: 1:44.14 - COVID season, so he only raced 4 times; fair to say he probably would have run faster in a regular season
• 2021, age 22: 1:43.26 - very reasonable progression, given what he ran 2 years earlier at age 20; that time made him #4 in the world
• 2022, age 23: 1:43.38 - this was a weird year with the world championships held earlier than usual, in July. That threw things off in terms of the timing of athletes' peaks and having opportunities to run fast. Look at the top 3 times in the world for both men and women in the 800 and 1500 from 2021-2023. You'll see that 2022 was not as fast a year as 2021 and 2023. Arop's time in 2022 put him at #2 in the world, so his world standing improved from 2021 even though his time didn't. He also won bronze at the world championships.
• 2023, age 24: 1:42.85 - not a big drop at all, and he maintained his position as the 2nd-fastest 800m guy in the world. Upgraded from bronze to gold at the world championships. (Side note: it's crazy that you say, "If he hadn't run this time, his progression would have been __. You can't ignore what someone ran to try to argue they're suspicious. He ran the time, so you have to include that time in an analysis of his progression.)
• 2024, age 25: 1:41.20 - Yes, a 1.65 drop is remarkable, but it's consistent with what we saw in the event last year, and it was at an age where improvement is still expected. We know a lot of athletes, including Arop, started taking bicarb last year, so that has to be a factor. Once again, he had the 2nd-fastest time in the world, and he won another global championship medal.

So we have a guy who had a reasonable progression from a promising young athlete to one of the best 800m runners in the world. He has consistently been a global championship medalist with the second-fastest time in the world the last 3 years while in his mid 20's. This is not someone who suddenly transformed from also-ran to world-beater in their late 20's like some other athletes I can think of. He deserves respect.

Arop only started doing track during his senior year of high school and he ran 1:47 the summer after. His talent is unquestionable. If you have paid attention to his career early on, you would notice that it took a long time for him to get his 400 times under 47. He is not a Rudisha type of runner. I think he compares more to Joaquim Cruz and might have similar ability over 1500m. Cruz was good, but never great over that distance, but with modern shoes and tracks and without the leg length disparity, Arop has avoided the injuries that may have prevented Cruz from running a top level 1500 and possibly putting the 800 record out of sight for a long time.

When considering his 800 progression, if you watch a lot of his races, you will see that it has taken him a long time to find out his best pacing strategy. He was known as a front runner for a long time, but his best races have always involved him coming from behind. Whenever he really goes after it on his first lap, he tends to tie up at the end, as he did in most of his fastest races before this year. The problem for him is that if he is to hold back on the first lap, he must race from the back, as he has great difficulty running in the pack. Last year, when he ran 1:42.85, he was always chasing the fast times on the first lap. A gentle acceleration in the first 200 seems to suit him better.