Argue with a wall... Josh Hoey Could Break the 800m WR in 2026

So what, Seb Coe get's penalized for never bothering to chase a 600m performance just to get it in the books and prove his talent?

He ran 1.41.73 in 1981 - and this was in an era where chasing WR's multiple times in a season wasn't like it is now. He went 2/2 in terms of races where he really wanted to get the 800m record so it's no inconceivable to believe he could have pushed that record into the 1.41.1/2 range before Kipketer even came along.

That's beside the point - you don't think that if Sebastian Coe chased a 600m in the summer of 1981 in particular, he couldn't have run under 1.13.0? If you want to talk facts, Coe ran 46.87 out of blocks and 46.3 in a relay split which is faster than what Josh Hoey has ever done. You might rebut that and say "well he just split 47.5 as part of a 600m from a standing start so chasing a 400m would do the same" - and you might not be wrong. But then that's the exact same logic behind what Coe and his 600m potential in a race environment.

Yes Hoey is a great talent - but his current profile existed almost 45 years ago so it's not exactly generational.

All fair points. I do think that Josh will run 1:40.7 this summer if he primarily focuses on the 800 which I completely expect he will. I’ll make it a prediction and I will be sad if I’m wrong, but I’l quickly get over it. The problem is that I think Wanyoni and others can run just as fast and I’ll be surprised if the record isn’t broken multiple times this summer.

-Seb Coe- My book: GOAT 800-1500 guy. The 4 medals. I believe he would have been a strong contender in the 800 -OR- 1500 in Seoul. I do believe he definitely could have run 1:13 or better. However, he never did the full range in 6 mos like Hoey.

That being said, there’s a huge difference between being the GOAT and a generational talent. I’m afraid Hoey is meant to burn bright and shortly and I expect that his career will be over or on the strong wane before the next Olympics.

Where you see form deficiency, I see reckless abandon. It’s definitely possible that I am just taken with this athlete as one occasionally overidentifies because of a perceived attribute.

Finally, I’ve often wondered why MJ didn’t run 43.0x or better. Just one of those mysteries, but I can tell you I strongly expected it. That it didn’t happen show just how hard it is to be a 200-400 person IMO. Or maybe I’m prone to fits of overexuberance every 20 years or so.

Not as silly as believing Brazier hopped off the couch after three years of nothing and with five months training PR’d. Please. Other posters have mentioned the jealousy so many people have when it comes to Hoey being wealthy, and I think they’re right. They turn a blind eye to the Brazier Fairy Tale and to Wanyonyi’s coach who has six athletes so far suspended for drug use. But Hoey comes from a well off family so that makes him bad.

Good points here. Hoey does not seem any more suspicious than several others, including Lutkenhaus. My belief is that even if Hoey is on the sauce, it hasn’t been the main contributing factor. The main contributing factor was a focus on more mid distance focused training, which I described in my earlier post and that a Letsrun article with Rinaldi from about nine months ago elaborated in detail.

He just did