Oh baby what a race. M3k at World Indoors. Paris 1500m rematch. Hocker, Kerr, Nuguse + Beamish. Who you got?

I’m going to go with Hole Cocker FTW. Kerr doesn’t have it anymore.

Surprized to see Australian Peter Bol in the 800m - might mix things up a bit. Looks like the 1500m without Hocker and Nuguse is for Nader to lose. Missing Botswana's Tshepiso Masalela there. He actually ran 3:32.55 and beat Habz in February, but got disqualified for his celebration. Considering that was his only race this winter season, he didn't qualify...

3000m is an open race. Two french (Schrubb and Habbz), two Ethiopions (Yihune and Wale), two Americans (Nuguse and Hocker), two Irish (Coscoran and Griggs) + Kenyan Jacob Krop and British Josh Kerr - all in contention for medals. Add Beamish, if the pace is going to be silly slow.

I agree. Kerr is the best tactician in the race - ran a good race at Millrose, except ran out gas in the final 100m due to fitness levels post injury return. I expect him to be a lot fitter for this race.

Hocker...he could easily win this, but then again, I wonder if he will start second guessing his tactics after some fails, and make some poor decisions.

Last years 3000m had no. 1 and 3 all time (indoor and outdoor). What does this year´s field have?

Tactical yes, slow overall time, but the last mile will be like a 3:52 with Hocker in the race, Kerr and others aren't going to let the pace slow to a final 400m kick.

For starters, this year's field has three 2x global champions and another 2x global medalist.

Kerr and Hocker are now tied as the most cocky runners, between them I'm pulling for Kerr and I've never done that before, but Hocker "but them a sleep" pose after the 2 mile race was a bit much. Hopefully they are both upset by someone and that would make me very happy :). I'd love one of the young Americans to win the 1500m Last year Luke Houser got the bronze and that was behind an insanely in shape , double world record setter shape Jakob Ingebrigtsen. I really would love an American to win that race, but if world champ Nadar is there it could be very interesting along with Beamish of course.

2 of the 4 names that have any chance of winning this are OAC (ok, Schrub can be added at a 1-2% chance), but yes go ahead and tell me more about how OAC is washed

Can’t wait to see people glaze over beamishs finishing kick when he goes from 10th to 4th

Last year´s field had one runner with 6x global championships and 3 silver medals and 4 WRs. And another runner with a silver medal in the OG 2024 10.000m and 2x silver medals in Worlds Xcountry and 2 WRs (5k and 10 k road).

Which field had most medals and WRs?

So what you're saying is last year's field had 2 highly accomplished runners, and only 1 who had ever won global championship gold. This year's field has 4 highly accomplished runners, 3 of whom have won global championship golds.

Thanks for helping make my point. This year's field is stronger.

Would be a more biting criticism if Beamish wasn’t an NCAA mile champ, a 1500 indoor world champ, and a steeplechase world champ because of that kick.

There are levels to this. Jakob is one of the greatest distance runners of all time. Any race with him will be extremely difficult to win. We know that when he is at his best you have to have perfect fitness and a perfect race to beat him. Let's go through each runner I believe you cited of the four:

Josh Kerr: 8:07, losing and looked completely gassed despite a pedestrian time. Says he received a slight injury so skipped British Champs. Clearly not at his best and not comparable to Jakob last year.

Cole Hocker: Nearly beaten at the USA 3k. Good fitness wise but we see that he can make large tactical errors that can make him lose such as in the 1500 at USAs. Won the 3k at USA's but would have lost if Nico had better tactics. The best of the four but still not as good as Jakob was last year.

Yared Nuguse: 2nd at Millrose and 3.2 seconds slower than Jakob last year. Beaten at sound running. Going in with worse form than previous years.

Geordie Beamish: 5th and 7th in two 3k races he contested this year.

Maybe it can be argued that the depth of the field is slightly harder but that is not the only definition for the strength of the field. Last years field had a guy cap off the reatest indoor season ever, a guy who rarely loses. It's harder to win against a guy like that.

Rojo-

Please post the schedule and where we can watch the meet !!

Jakob is great, which shows how awesome this year's field is. Three of the men in the field beat Jakob in his main event at the most recent Olympics when he was in 3:26 shape.

Both Kerr and Hocker have recently said they are in as good or better shape than they've ever been indoors. Hocker's tactics were good enough to win USAs, win Millrose, and win two global gold medals. Nuguse was sick earlier in the indoor season, which affected his results, but he's been feeling better since then and proved it by beating Young at USAs. Beamish has a track record of looking ordinary in the regular season and then winning when medals are on the line.

We agree that there's more than one way to evaluate the strength of a field. One way is to look at the top, and there's no denying this year's field has twice as many highly accomplished runners as last year.

The other way of looking at it is from the winner's vantage point. When someone wins a big race, we evaluate the quality of that win by looking at who he beat. Last year, Jakob beat one very serious threat and an otherwise ordinary field. Whoever wins this year will have to beat at least three bonafide extraordinary runners. Oh baby what a race!

Listening to Beamish recap his recent races on the CCP, he was pretty dirty at himself for letting himself slip far from the lead group in an 8:07 race.

Sound Running he was sick.

I'm hoping he will have a better feel for the race like he did in Tokyo last year, where he was accounting for his kick FTW, despite sitting back. But kicking against Hocker and Kerr indoors is a more difficult task than El Bakkali. We'll see, I'm excited.

It seems like this kind of race is a recipe for Dairy Queens. I sometimes think that it is it a bit like the last 2 minutes of the Super Bowl or Game 7 of the NBA Finals, that unless it is something palpably egregious that you just let the guys play, or the runners run. Indoors is just so different.

Following up on my previous post, what is the percentage chance that Hocker wins?

Present fitness is the most important thing. All four of the runners you cited other than Hocker look far off their best. I could care less what they say their results speak for themselves.