Its weird that he couldnt run within 5 seconds of his previous race. Thats a very big non performance. he was in a heat that looks like it was much slower then the rest of them as well. Will be interesting to see what next season brings. Obviously hes very young, but giving up all that eligibility, could end up being a pretty premature decision.
LOL because the only way train to be a professional track athlete is to go to college? WTF planet are you living on???
Debatable doesn't understand elite running, and that's ok. I will say, that running in college does serve a purpose, and definitely adds experience. Running in college with a steady racing schedule is invaluable, you gain race experience, training experience, and most importantly you mature. Cooper clearly has the goods to be a world class professional, but he will need a year around support group to manage him. He's very young, and to all of the sudden be a professional runner earning a paycheck with a lot of expectations can be daunting. I previously posted that Cooper's coach should reach out to some world class 800m coaches for advice on how to train Cooper throughout the year, and to get him in a club with other world class 800/1500 runners. If Cooper and his coach choose to go it alone it could be a tough road ahead. You've got to look at least 8 years down the road when he will hit his physical peak, and hopefully will still be mentally motivated.
A truly amazing season. My only down comment is the way he gave up in the last 60 meters once he knew he wasn't making the semi's. That was disappointing to see him so obviously back off. Finish strong, you never know what might happen in front of you.
He reminds me of Ryan in 1964. He bombed out but everyone thought he was going to be great. Then he never won anything. Ran real fast but didn’t win nothing.
My biggest concern is his last race would have been almost 7 weeks ago. I feel like you can maintain a peak that long but you need to be racing at least once a week, imo. Was just wondering if they were planning on this whole worlds trip to just be gravy from that point.
Either way he has a bright future and prib shouldnt be running himself into the ground to maybe make it to the semi-finals.
But it wasn't a matter of 7 weeks from a peak. More likely that the trials was towards the end of a peak window.
Further racing would probably only have taken him backwards.
Anyway positioning was the problem today, not fitness.
He reminds me of Ryan in 1964. He bombed out but everyone thought he was going to be great. Then he never won anything. Ran real fast but didn’t win nothing.
Don’t forget Brazier bombed at US nationals after setting a collegiate record at NCAA as a freshman. It happens.
Getting to the big stage for the first time, esp when you didn’t expect to and have to extend the season, can be daunting. But the experience of being there and taking it in pays off in the future.
He reminds me of Ryan in 1964. He bombed out but everyone thought he was going to be great. Then he never won anything. Ran real fast but didn’t win nothing.
Have you ever heard about Alan Webb ? He ran 3:53:43 for the mile as a HS. Ended up with no international carrier and no formal education. Same here. How on earth you won’t even graduate from HS? What is the probability of having a successful international carrier?
This is nuts, what will happen if kid won’t perform well in the upcoming years? Grant Fisher - Stanford graduate, Graham Blanks - Harvard graduate. They can hang up the spikes today and get any position they want. Well guess what you can do after junior HS?
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This was only his second race against pros, and the first race was totally different. In the trials, Hoey took it out in sub-50, and Cooper's strong finish from off the pace was able to run down tiring athletes.
Here off a 53.7 opening 400m, off the pace was not the place to be. Basically, Cooper was already doomed at 600m. To get third and an auto Q, he would have had to catch Tual.
Cooper was 0.28 back of Tual at that point, but Tual closed in 24.98 (12.67 + 12.31), so Cooper would have needed to run better than 24.74 for the last 200m, while running wide. I'd question whether any athlete could have won from where he was at.
Incidentally, both Ovett and Coe made the error of getting too far off the pace in their Olympic 800m debuts (different races), Ovett, who came back to win four years later, was a teenager, Coe, less excusably, was the world-record holder and an experienced international athlete.
“You’re going to have bad races occasionally. That’s just how this sport is. And 1:47 still at 16, I’m going to have my head held high from that.”
Until reading that, I'd forgotten that if literally any 16 year old American ran 1:47, they'd (rightfully) be getting a ton of hype here. I'm also very happy that he has such a healthy outlook on losing, saying it was awesome to see his family watching him in the stadium, and it's something he'll never forget. That's a kind of perspective most 16 year olds don't have, and it goes to show not just his maturity, but how well the people surrounding him -- his coach and family -- are doing at helping him handle the pressure, to the extent that it seems like he doesn't feel any pressure.
I'm really happy to finally understand all the old people here glorifying Jim Ryun 60 years after his HS days. I used to think tech didn't matter THAT much, and he'd probably be close to 3:52 in today's tech. After seeing Lutkenhaus, I'm pretty sure Ryun would've been running 3:48 or faster in HS.
It's pretty common here when HSers go pro and then don't run pro level times to say "You can't compare them to the NCAA, they're pros now and should be compared to pros", or something along those lines. I think there's truth to that, but I'm hoping we can all understand it's still a bit different, even when it's someone like Kessler at 19, much less Lutkenhaus at 16. I was looking a couple days ago at Ethan Strand's year, and noticed that at the time of the semis yesterday, he'd been racing for over a year -- 366 days (first XC race September 14th 2024, 1500 semis September 15th 2025). Cooper has been going even longer, with his first XC race being August 23rd 2024. They both took significant breaks in racing, but every year a bunch of pros skip out on 1 race indoors to prepare for 1 race outdoors 6 months later, so they at least think it has an effect.
You're overlooking the fact that you're discussing a 1:42 runner in a WC. That isnt just another talented high schooler. But, unfortunately, he ran like a high schooler. He was out of his depth at this level.
“This level”? Worlds is a bigger meet than US, but he did ok at the US championship meet in which the final was a pretty good “level”- Hoey, Brazier, Hoppel, Miller, Harris…. What’d he get, 2nd place?
Have you ever heard about Alan Webb ? He ran 3:53:43 for the mile as a HS. Ended up with no international carrier and no formal education. Same here. How on earth you won’t even graduate from HS? What is the probability of having a successful international carrier?
This is nuts, what will happen if kid won’t perform well in the upcoming years? Grant Fisher - Stanford graduate, Graham Blanks - Harvard graduate. They can hang up the spikes today and get any position they want. Well guess what you can do after junior HS?
Did you have your head buried in the sand when the broadcast mentioned 1,000 times he was doing high school homework in Tokyo this week?
Or where he told everyone he still plans to attend college academically, even of most of it is remote?
He wasn't selected. The US doesn't have a selection process.
They have a "you earn it" process. Make top three on the day or don't. No politics. No assumptions about fitness. No past glories clouding anyone's eyes. You earn it or you don't.
Not being funny but how do you think that has gone for you?
I don’t think our selection process (UK) is great. However former world champs get an automatic selection and then current fitness levels/medal chances are also considered. Downside is it’s not very clear or black and white.
Hence Wightman getting selected even though he missed the champs.
Anyway, for a 16 year old he did amazingly well and I hope you don’t all pull him apart and pile pressure on him.
The current British system is the worst. It's like trying to go by a class system in sports in that you're pre-gaming the race by thinking who's likely to win. You're going to run out of former world champs. How can someone become world champ or medal when they're never given the chance to come in 8th, 12th, 40th and get some experience or even just have an unexpected good day?
Julia Paternain could be running for GB but good thing she chose to represent Uruguay as GB sent NO ONE for the women's marathon. It was her second marathon and she got bronze with a 2:27.
Not being funny but how do you think that has gone for you?
I don’t think our selection process (UK) is great. However former world champs get an automatic selection and then current fitness levels/medal chances are also considered. Downside is it’s not very clear or black and white.
Hence Wightman getting selected even though he missed the champs.
Anyway, for a 16 year old he did amazingly well and I hope you don’t all pull him apart and pile pressure on him.
The UK does not even send all their qualifiers, at least US sends the full team who earn a spot.
Not surprised to see how Cooper did. I was figuring from the USATF semis onward that he would have his “Welcome to the Big Leagues” moment in the next round. He finally did. He surely had the fitness, but 800m is very tactical and it was a boy against men. As the Peacock commentators noted, this year well over 100 men have run sub-1:45.
What I wonder is whether he might have been well served going to Europe after nationals and doing a DL race or whatever the next level down circuit is. Get into a race or two with 10 runners, a rabbit, after sleeping in a crappy hotel in Bratislava or Breslau, with not enough time to recover from jet lag and eating unusual food. Develop a little road-toughness. It’s asking a lot to go in weeks from a high school state meet to USATF to the World Championships.
He ran like it was a middle school race and he could botch every tactic before effortlessly swoop past the field late.
I guess that's not surprising since he talks so much about middle school racing and the tactic worked at trials.
But it is the reason I despise stretch runners and have all my life. So many things can go wrong. Yet somehow it isn't spotlighted and condemned to the same degree as a frontrunner who falters. Ethan Strand ran like a total moron. He often runs like a total moron with no clue regarding probability. Yet it's perfectly excused because we like American runners who lounge at the back.
Athing Mu did far more damage than to her own reputation. We desperately needed the example of an American who dictated year after year from the front. Flush away 50+ years of Dave Wottle wrong-lesson debris. Yet somehow she lost interest while still college aged and now the next prodigy is another from-the-clouds type.
Just wonderful. We'll have another generation or two of garbage coaches teaching the wrong style.
Just didn't have it today but it didn't help that he ran 3 of the turns in lane 2 or even the outside of lane 2.
How much extra distance is that? In hindsight easy to say he should have sat in back of pack 2nd to last in lane 1 and kicked the final 200.
More excuses, you could say he tripped up in the heats at trials and overcame 20m deficit to win his heat in 1:45? running turns in lane 2 much easier my dude, nobody trips you. you are a wimper. cooper was clearly running at a venue under RF attack. that explains all your 'gaps'.
Some of these takes are wild bat shi* crazy. Cooper did amazing just to make it to world champs at 16. Jim Ryun didn't do any better at his age. He will be fine. The kid is just tired, and probably just shaken at his first real vision of what the absolute top of the track profession looks like. Next time he will be ready and not just in shock and awe. Its was the longest season he's ever seen in his life. He just signed a pro contract after 10th grade. Imagine that if it happened to you in high school. The calls, the girls, the expectactions, the late night partying with your friends. He's going to be great. Analyizing his tactics, coaching, and positioning is absolutely nuts right now. He and his coach did a great job, considering what he has achieved so far, just to get here. Remember, no one did this before him, including Ryun. Leave the kid alone and let him soak this all up and enjoy his trip to Japan with his family and friends. He's the greatest middle talent we've ever seen. They used to call Brazier a head case after he broke Ryun's record as a freshman in college on this very message board, until he proved them all very, very wrong. I expect Cooper to do exactly the same. At 16, he's got 10 to 12 to do it. Let Cooper cook.