This amazing field has fallen apart over the past few days. Still a great field but not as strong as originally planned. The men's 800, on the other hand, hasn't lost anyone that I am tracking.
Women's 800 by PB
1:54.61 Keely Hodgkinson
1:55.61 Jemma Reekie
1:56.02 Mary Moraa
1:56.28 Georgia Hunter Bell
1:56.64 Tsige Duguma
1:56.83 Addison Wiley
1:57.06 Renelle Lamonte
1:57.16 Prudence Sekgodiso
1:57.25 Audrey Werro
Added
1:56.76 Oratile Nowe
1:57.67 Claudia Hollingsworth
1:57.81 Anais Bourgoin
Lol, Keely tossed a hand grenade into the field with that 1:54.
This amazing field has fallen apart over the past few days. Still a great field but not as strong as originally planned. The men's 800, on the other hand, hasn't lost anyone that I am tracking.
Women's 800 by PB
1:54.61 Keely Hodgkinson
1:55.61 Jemma Reekie
1:56.02 Mary Moraa
1:56.28 Georgia Hunter Bell
1:56.64 Tsige Duguma
1:56.83 Addison Wiley
1:57.06 Renelle Lamonte
1:57.16 Prudence Sekgodiso
1:57.25 Audrey Werro
Added
1:56.76 Oratile Nowe
1:57.67 Claudia Hollingsworth
1:57.81 Anais Bourgoin
Lol, Keely tossed a hand grenade into the field with that 1:54.
Anna Hall doing the high jump. Makes sense for her because the technical events are high value in the heptathlon. If she can keep pace with Thiam in that event the totality should fall her way. Hall cleared 1.95 at Gotzis and 1.90 at trials
Thiam's also entered in Lausanne, so we'll get a sense of where she's at.
Unfortunately Anna Hall is no longer listed in the high jump. She competed a couple of days ago at Citius Bern in the long jump and only managed 6.03. That was trounced by the other two major heptathletes in the field. Annik Kalin won with 6.70 and Sofie Dokter continues to improve at 6.58.
I didn't see anything wrong with Hall. But the coverage was so bad it was difficult to tell. Hard to believe European Athletics uploaded that video. It was choppy and unwatchable even before the brief deluge that postponed all the events for half an hour.
What the heck is Eveline Saalberg doing in the 800? She said she was thrilled to dump that experiment a couple of months ago. There are many more accomplished 800 runners in the Lausanne B race who could be promoted above Saalberg.
It must be pacing duty. I thought Lisanne de Witte had that Diamond League role now. Keely praised her profusely after Silesia and called her Queen on an Instagram post. Lisanne wrote that she is learning from each pacing role and becoming more nervous beforehand.
This is the third Dutch 400 female who has paced this year. Laura de Witte started doing in it in local races before Lisanne got the higher profile events.
Eveline is not as smooth as Lisanne and more elbowy. She should be fine as long as she doesn't get amped and take it out too fast. Running many 800s this year provided a feel for the tempo.
Regardless, I'm surprised Diamond League doesn't have a regular jockey room of specialized pacers, instead of summoning runners who have seldom if ever done it before.
Saalberg will pace, but I agree she's a bit of a weird choice. She's inexperienced at pacing and she can be a bit nervous at times. She is however very experienced in the 4x4 and is running times close to her PB in the 400m. Since Keely and Femke are friends, maybe their coaches arranged this ? Saalberg is only running the relays, so it's relatively easy to schedule some 1 on 1 training.
But yeah, my guess is that Keely or her coach asked for this because the DL would have probably picked a more experienced pacer.
Saalberg is pacing. She has run in the 51s three times in the past month so hitting 56 or so should not be difficult. My guess is Keely will ask for another 56.2 or faster after Silesia. As long as she doesn't get too anxious and go out too fast she'll be fine. Besides, can anybody really complain about adding Saalberg to any race?
I think this could be a FAST race for all. Silesia produced a 54, 2x56, and 3x57 with a much weaker field. I think Keely will run in the 54s again, and Bell, Sekgodiso, Wiley, Nowe, and Werro could all be in the 56s. Bell could hit the high 55s. It's possible that nobody runs slower than 1:58.
World record might be on in 800. Only 9 racers and 2 are irrelevant in Tual and the Swiss athlete. Sieradzki and Wanyonyi combine well. Rarely do you get a field with only 7 guys who could all play nice-ish the first 200 without freaking out over positioning. With the Algerians out, none of the runners are too scrappy either.
Tough to say - though no Sedjati/Moula does help because Moula in particular seems to like blasting out in the opening 150m which forces guys to obviously best his pace or get stuck behind him when he cools off the second 200m.
Last year they had 8 plus the pacer and really 4 main guys - Arop, Wany, Hoppel and Tual. They were the front 4 at 200, 400, 600 and 800.
It's similar this year with I guess Hoey just plug and play for Tual who seems uh a little "different" post the Paris DL. As I think has been discussed to death on the 800m WR topic, the margins are just now so thin with respect to the pace distribution and how that affects the final performance that any 100m section not run optimally really hurts these guys - even Wanyonyi in the other "WR race" this season in Monaco where I suspect he pushed too quickly through 400 and 600 relative to his ideal splits.
The one thing going for this race is that there is nowhere near as much hype around it as with Monaco. Lausanne has always been like this because it's not the biggest meet even in Switzerland, but the conditions there are sneaky ideal with just enough altitude, the proximity to water and it's non metropolitan location. Last year that race just popped up out of nowhere and they came within 2 tenths of the mark.
I think I'd still err on the side of being surprised if it happened but it's definitely the last of the big chances this season with only the DL and World finals really left.
I wonder where Sedjati is? It seems like he was in every DL race last year.
The W 3000SC features Doris Lemngole and Norah Jeruto up top, both of whom should contend for bronze in Tokyo next month. The Lausanne race likely will not feature the sort of Markezich/Lemngole rematch fans of the two ON athletes once anticipated, but seeing both race well would tide us over nicely.
Expect good things from Elise Thorner who has made a marked performance jump since her Gator days and, like Kaylee Mitchell, looks to sharpen up ahead of Worlds.
Also keep an eye on Alemnat Walle, the 19 yr old phenom who splashed onto the scene at last month's Pre Classic when she hung with Jennings and Bouzayani to finish in 9:06
Tough to say - though no Sedjati/Moula does help because Moula in particular seems to like blasting out in the opening 150m which forces guys to obviously best his pace or get stuck behind him when he cools off the second 200m.
Last year they had 8 plus the pacer and really 4 main guys - Arop, Wany, Hoppel and Tual. They were the front 4 at 200, 400, 600 and 800.
It's similar this year with I guess Hoey just plug and play for Tual who seems uh a little "different" post the Paris DL. As I think has been discussed to death on the 800m WR topic, the margins are just now so thin with respect to the pace distribution and how that affects the final performance that any 100m section not run optimally really hurts these guys - even Wanyonyi in the other "WR race" this season in Monaco where I suspect he pushed too quickly through 400 and 600 relative to his ideal splits.
The one thing going for this race is that there is nowhere near as much hype around it as with Monaco. Lausanne has always been like this because it's not the biggest meet even in Switzerland, but the conditions there are sneaky ideal with just enough altitude, the proximity to water and it's non metropolitan location. Last year that race just popped up out of nowhere and they came within 2 tenths of the mark.
I think I'd still err on the side of being surprised if it happened but it's definitely the last of the big chances this season with only the DL and World finals really left.
I wonder where Sedjati is? It seems like he was in every DL race last year.
Being serious? He is clearly on the AIU's watchlist of the "interesting athletes" - in the same way Ruth Chepng'etich was. In particular at the DL the doping control protocols are much stricter (most testing and more testers, more professional) and so I'd say they are just conveniently keeping away from these meets because it's not worth the hassle. Hasn't raced in over a month - wonder if we will see him in Zurich?
To be honest the rain factor is massively overrated in terms of the actual race. In fact there are some legit benefits in terms of negative ions in the air that come from rain or being near large bodies of water.
The hassle is always in the warmup - nobody wants to get soaked warming up and Lausanne is a grass warmup field (vs a track) so that sucks a bit. But if these guys can get to the start line having not been dumped on in the warmup then they can still go out and run really fast.