Tsegay has great influence over the pace of pacers and wavelights, and gets to dictate a fast aggreesive early pace, for many reasons.
She normally has the fastest personal best time in the field and is fit and in shape.
She is the current world record holder in the 1500 and a former record holder 5k record holder. She has run numerous top 10 times at many distances.
She has multiple global championships and medals.
She is arguably the biggest star in most races.
She wins paced races that start very fast and aggressive more often than not.
Her aggressive style of running makes for more interesting and entertaining races than those that start out slow. The possibility of a new world record makes a developing race more interesting than if the race went out more slowly. Her races are often promoted in advance as world record attempts and that adds interest.
She almost always starts races fast and stays with pacers out at very fast paces, so she backs up decisions to have a fast early pace.
Even when she fades and loses the race, the race is arguably more interesting than races that start out slow.
A fast early pace helps ensure that there will be many season and personal bests run by other runners in that race. Eleven women broke 4 min in the Silesia race. Meet promoters and many runners like fast races.
Chebet, Hunter Bell, Hiltz and others would have all preferred that 1500 to be paced much slower than it was. Until they run as fast as Tsegay and consistently beat her she will have more influence on pacing.
I checked some of her recent races, and it seems this has been her tactic.
At the Paris Olympics, she went out in 59.3 for the first lap and 2:03.3 at 800m, but faded to finish 12th in 4:01.27—a big disappointment for her.
This season, two races stood out to me the most:
At the London Diamond League mile, she went through the first lap in 1:00.0 and hit 800m in 2:03.3. She ignored the pacer and led the race on her own, but was rewarded with a PB of 4:11.88, a big improvement compared to Paris.
At the Silesian Diamond League, she opened in 59.3 and reached 800m in 2:00.4, finishing with her second-fastest time ever, 3:50.62.
I think she’s probably not confident in her finishing kick, so she always tries to “destroy everyone” from the start. If she maintains that form in Tokyo next month, she’ll be a serious contender for the podium, but I don’t believe she can beat Faith.
2022 1500m world champs Tsegay blazed the first 400m in 58.72 seconds and Faith kipyegon was still there on her heels and eventually dropped Tsegay in the last lap. So that tactic won't work against Faith in the 1500. In the 5k and 10k that's where chebet's strengths lie I also don't think such tactics will work on chebet in the 5k and 10k.
Tsegay has great influence over the pace of pacers and wavelights, and gets to dictate a fast aggreesive early pace, for many reasons.
She normally has the fastest personal best time in the field and is fit and in shape.
She is the current world record holder in the 1500 and a former record holder 5k record holder. She has run numerous top 10 times at many distances.
She has multiple global championships and medals.
She is arguably the biggest star in most races.
She wins paced races that start very fast and aggressive more often than not.
Her aggressive style of running makes for more interesting and entertaining races than those that start out slow. The possibility of a new world record makes a developing race more interesting than if the race went out more slowly. Her races are often promoted in advance as world record attempts and that adds interest.
She almost always starts races fast and stays with pacers out at very fast paces, so she backs up decisions to have a fast early pace.
Even when she fades and loses the race, the race is arguably more interesting than races that start out slow.
A fast early pace helps ensure that there will be many season and personal bests run by other runners in that race. Eleven women broke 4 min in the Silesia race. Meet promoters and many runners like fast races.
Chebet, Hunter Bell, Hiltz and others would have all preferred that 1500 to be paced much slower than it was. Until they run as fast as Tsegay and consistently beat her she will have more influence on pacing.
Most competitive runners prefer winning over being "interesting". What is more likely is that she is a poor judge of pace and her own capacity.
She can still test her limits while running a more optimally paced race. I agree that she just didn't want Chebet anywhere within striking distance with 400 to go after being badly out kicked in their earlier races.
It will be interesting to see if she tries this strategy in Tokyo in the 5000 where she will have to sustain the pace for a lot longer and Chebet and Kipyegon will try to keep it slower.
She's not running for your approval of what you think is optimal. She's running to test her limits.
She is a 28-year old professional athlete. I don't think she is on some journey of self-discovery to "test her limits". She wants to win races and break records to make more money and uses whatever strategy she thinks will help her achieve that goal. And I think she would love nothing more than to take down Faith's 1500 record.
Of course, I'm just speculating. I can't really discern her inner motivations by watching her race on a live feed, as apparently you can.
She's not running for your approval of what you think is optimal. She's running to test her limits.
She is a 28-year old professional athlete. I don't think she is on some journey of self-discovery to "test her limits". She wants to win races and break records to make more money and uses whatever strategy she thinks will help her achieve that goal. And I think she would love nothing more than to take down Faith's 1500 record.
Of course, I'm just speculating. I can't really discern her inner motivations by watching her race on a live feed, as apparently you can.
Of course she is. That's the default mindset of the professeional runner. When you establish a new plateau you want more. And wanting more means you have to test your limits. Except for Mondo Duplantis. He just wants to squeeze every minutia out of it.