Femke vs Handsome Hoey: who gets the 800 WR first?

Olga Kotlyarova is quite a good comparison here.

In 2004, aged 28, she ran a one-off 800m, her first for 4 years (she ran a one-off 2:05 in 2000) in 1:57.96. Earlier that season she had run 1:23.44 over 600m indoors and 1:07.68 over 500m indoors. She had run a SB of 49.77 that year, one week before that 800m.

The following season she switched to 800m, with a best of 1:57.55 at the Oslo meet (2nd place) & just one 400m all year, a 52.00. In 2006, now aged 30, she won the European Championships in 1:57.38. Her one outdoor 400m was 50.99 in Russia. She continued to run 1:58 for the next two seasons (aged 31 & 32)

Kotlyarova had been a 400m specialist for 11 years and only broke 50 flat 3 times in her career. On top of that she switched to the 800m at nearly 29. Femke Bol has started her transition to 800m aged 25 and run under 50 flat 12 times. She has better PBs than the Russian over 200m, 400m & 500m. She has run a hand-time 600m indoors faster than the WR. With this in mind, I expect Bol to at least run 1:57 in her opening season at 800m, but there's every reason to think she will run 1:56 or faster. WR? No chance, not in her first season, and possibly not ever. But she can run 1:54, all her PBs and talent point to that. What I think is critical is ensuring the balance between speed & endurance. She cannot afford to lose her speed.

Down-voting is a reflection of a point of view, not truth and especially not intelligence.

A female 800m was running with a male pace???

HOLD THE PHONE.

I thought that she was completely unproven at anything over 500m.

I mean, she ran a 2:19.5 for 800m just before turning 17, in the same meat that she ran a 25.1 200, and just a month before she ran a 54.3 400m. Clearly, 25.1 - 54.4 - 2:19 looks not only bad but actually terrible for prospective 800 runner. (Her coaches seemed to agree, since she never ran it again).

But WAIT. She was cruising comfortably with a male pacer in a video her team put out, so she MUST be ready to run the WR.

Hoey and Hull have both had EXTREMELY suspicious progressions.

Hoey's leap is the most suspicious jump in all of pro running. I don't think there has been a bigger percentage leap among all WC/Oly finalists for decades. (If so, show me.)

There is a big difference between Hull and Hoey.

In 2013, Hull ran 4.27.60 for 1500m at age 17, in 2014 at age 18 she ran 4.20.66 and 2.09.95 for 800m. This is important to get an idea of what her baseline natural talent was (it's usually quite evident by these ages).

Josh Hoey was a 1.49.37 kid at age 17 and 1.47.67 talent at age 18. This is all that is really important here. Those following 5 years when he stagnated at 1.47 could be due to a number of things - it doesn't wind back the reality of his baseline talent unless you believe he was doping at age 18. If you came to me and said "here is an 18 year old kid who has run 1.47.6 back in an era of no "super" spikes, bi-carb and old school race strategy etc, and when he is 25 he will be a 1.42.0 performer with all the benefits of the era" - I wouldn't think that's crazy.

If you said "here is an 18 year old kid who has run 4.20.6 for 1500m - she's going to have run 3.57 at age 26 and then a year later that will be 3.50.8" - I mean that is a far bigger stretch to me.

Hoey was a considerably bigger talent than Hull, he had no period of consistent, stable coaching/training (because as we know the family burned through what, 5 coaches in 5 years before Rinaldi) and made his jump at a much younger age. Hull had a stable progression into her twenties (including going through the NCAA system) which began to plateau in her mid twenties and then at age 27 made this truly historic leap.

Like any data point you can't just look at the face value/number and make a firm conclusion based on that. There is always some form of context/circumstances that need to be applied to it. When you do this with Hoey (comparing to Hull), you see it's not really apples to apples and where he is today isn't that outlandish.

What? How do you know that she can't beat Keely?

I'm with you that Hull's progression is absurd.

But I think that both showed talent early on.

Hull ran 4:20 and 2:07 in 2015, at 18. (Worth 1046 and 1026 points respectively on the World Athletics tables.)

Hoey ran 1:47 and 4:07 at 18. (Worth 1150 and 1036, respectively.)

I don't think he was on another planet from Hull at a young age.

Their wacky improvements...

Hoey PR as of 2023: 1:47.26
Hoey 2024: 1:43.80 (3.3% improvement!)
Hoey 2025: 1:42.01 (another 1.7% improvement!) (5.2% improvement in two seasons)

Hull PR as of 2023: 3:57.29
Hull 2024: 3:50.83 (2.8% improvement)
Hull 2025: 3:52.67

Both are beyond fishy.

Numerically, Hoey is off the charts. Both claim that changing training programs catapulted them after years of stagnation.

I will stay tuned for someone to show me a similar 3.3% single-year improvement to the global elite level (i.e. taking a 24 year-old from nowhere to winning a Diamond League race and world indoor gold). Let alone a 5.2% improvement from 23 y.o. to 25 y.o in an elite 800m man.

Femke is 6 feet tall. She is going to tower over Athing Mu the same way Mu towers over the rest of the 800 field. Long strides gobbling up ground.

It's an advantage that isn't being considered by those who think she will transition slowly. But it can also lead to problems in traffic. I would be very, very surprised if Femke's 800 career isn't marked by at least one or two high profile stumbles.

Dude looks eerily similar to Charlie Kirk...he's not handsome

Thanks for the words of wisdom, old man.

I might agree to disagree with you on the first part of the talent measure.

100 points on the tables is significant. For context, that translates to a 1.49.3 800m which while I think is a good time for an 18 year old, is a different level of talent to 1.47.6 which I think displayed (or at least used to!) really high potential. I wouldn't bring in their secondary events (the 800m for Hull and 1500/mile for Hoey) as a measure at that age. It's whatever the top end performance is.

I guess I just don't see the logic behind the "jump" theory - especially with Hoey and how there is no grace for him in that age period of 19-23. So if he had run say 1.45.8 at age 20 and then 1.44.7 at age 22, would 1.42.0 at age 25 seem so crazy to you? Because 1.47.6 at 18 would definitely suggest that a healthy progression would have him around those times at ages 20 and 22 and there are a number of really understandable reasons why he didn't do this. Injuries coming out of teenage years, the coaching turmoils, the family involvement etc etc - I guess I just struggle at the lack of grace here in understanding how these things could have created this plateauing of his career for that 4-5 year period.

It needs reminding that Bryce Hoppel ran 1.48.52 at 18, 1.44.25 at age 22 and then 1.41.67 at age 26. So the one difference between him and Hoey is that Hoey is missing the time at 22 right, or else what - now he fine? It's far to harsh to hammer him for not putting it together in his early 20's. And it's not hard to see how that could have happened right? That camp just bounced out the one guy so far in his career that was able to help them put the pieces of the puzzle together after only 18 months which is utter madness - is it surprising that they f-ed up the kids early 20's and managed to stop him progressing the way he should have.

Hulls timeline is much different to this, including a good collegiate career, a gradual rate of improvement at an older age and then boom, acceleration to a level that maybe Hoey may not even achieve (her PR is worth a 1.41.5). I honestly don't know either way. Both could doing "things", both could not be. If I had to pick one to unfairly accuse, I'm picking Hull.

As for your improvement question - Cooper Luktenhaus just went from 1.47.58 to 1.42.27 in one season across the ages of 15 to 16. How does that rank then in the big picture?

This is such a garbage argument. All of the best 800m runners are running under 3:35 at least nowadays.

On the 'Femke being paced by a male' comments, that male was 18 year old 400m hurdler Michal Rada*, from Czechia, who - along with some other Czech athletes - have been training in South Africa with Meuwly's group.

The session was 200 repeats (not sure how many or what rest...). It was the last session of the week. There were two other women in the group of 4: Eveline Saalberg & Lada Vondrova. This makes sense as both those women are 400m runners that also ran over 800m last season. Saalberg, already mentioned on the thread, with a 2:02.97 & Vondrova with a 2:02.84. However, note Vondrova has been running 800m's in her training for over a decade. Needless to say, after about 30m, Rada & Bol pulled away from the other two. Rada then pulled away from Bol in the last 50m.

Michal Rada*, Euro U18 & U20 Champion at 400mh, World U20 silver. PBs of 48.78 (400mh), 46.56 (400m) & 21.58 (200m)