Jurgis Rudkus wrote:
While a 3:32 to a 3:30 improvement is nothing to write home about it, Makhloufi is much better than a 3:30 guy at the moment. He made Silas 3:29 Kiplagat look like an overeager high schooler on the back straight in London. It wouldn't surprise me to see Makhloufi drop a 3:28 or even a 3:27 this season, which is certainly an otherworldly improvement for a guy who was a complete nobody until the Olympic 1500.
This is misleading. There is no way Kiplagat (for whatever reason/s) was in 3:29 shape in the London final. When he ran 3:29.63 in May this year in Doha, he ran a last 400 of 53.2 & a last 300m of 39.2 (faster than Makhloufi ran ~ 39.3 ~ in a 3:34 race!)
If Kiplagat can run 39.2 at the end of a 3:29 race, then he sure as hell should be able to manage it at the end of a 3:34 race. In fact in London his last lap was 54.9 & his last 300 was 41.5, to finish in 3:36.2. That is poor running and more akin to someone in 3:33 shape than 3:29.
It gets worse when you look at Kiplagat's last 200 & 100 in Doha.
He ran 26.0 and 12.7!! in that 3:29 race. Compare that to Makhloufi's 26.9 & 14.0 in a 3:34.1, and it doesn't take many brain cells to realise that Kiplagat from Doha should have easily beaten Makhloufi in London, despite all this rubbish about him trouncing a great field. It's nonsense.
When Kiprop ran 3:28.89 in Monaco a few weeks back, he ran his last 200 in 26.1, again markedly faster than what Makhloufi achieved in London, in a race 5 secs slower! Indeed, Kiprop did this at the end of a last 800 in 1:50.3, exactly the same time Makhloufi ran his last 800m in at the Olympics.
For me, what is more surprising is not the fact that Makhloufi hit a season's peak in keeping with a 3:30 performer, but why the Kenyans in particular, and most of the Olympic final field in general, ran so poorly.
Ok, Kiprop was clearly injured, but what was Kiplagat's & Chepseba's excuse?
They were clearly below what they have produced on the circuit earlier in the season. To me, that is more strange than Makhloufi running a bit better than he did in Monaco a few weeks previous.
And everyone goes on about how much Makhloufi looked and finished like Ramzi in 2008. I disagree. We all know now of course that Ramzi cheated, and I was suspicious of him from looking at an overall bigger picture going back 3 or more seasons at the time. But, Ramzi didn't "easily" win that race as some have purported on here. He actually had to work really hard in the last 100 to stay ahead of a closing Kiprop, and he was straining down the back straight to get to the front, when he put in his initial spurt.
Ramzi's last 800 in that 3:32.9 final was a reasonable, but not super fast, 1:51.3.
His last lap was 53.1, just 0.3 slower than Makhloufi's in his 3:34.1 & only 0.1 faster than Kiplagat in his 3:29 in May.
Ramzi's last 300 was 39.0, 0.3 faster than Makhloufi.
Ramzi's last 200 was 26.2, half a second faster than Mak's
And his last 100m, straining to hold off Kiprop was 13.3, again, some 0.7 faster than Makhloufi.
So, Ramzi's last 4 x 100 went, 14.1, 12.8, 12.9, 13.3. This was in a 3:32 race.
Makhloufi finished with 13.5, 12.4, 12.9 & 14.0 in a 3:34 race.
Yet these "extraordinary" finishes are meant to be indicative of 3:26 or 3:27 ability to some posters on here!
In Stockholm on Friday Makhloufi ran a 1:43.71 800 to set a new pb, despite getting beaten. I have looked at his run carefully on video and have found his 200 splits to be roughly, 25.6, 24.8, 26.2 & 27.1, or laps of 50.4/53.3.
He ran wide on part of all three bends, running approx. 2m further on the first bend, 2m on the second and 1.5m on the last. He received no drafting from 200 - 400, where one would expect it, but did get drafted from 450 - 650m, where one wouldn't expect it when going all out for a fast time. So, in essence, the 2 cancel each other out, and he received sufficient drafting overall.
Taking the extra 5-5.5m he ran, then his "ideal" time in an "ideal" race is 1:43.0, with revised splits of ~ 25.6, 24.6, 25.9, 26.9.
Now on the face of it, that doesn't indicate 3:26 ability. Kiprop has run a similar time for the 800 and he isn't a 3:26 runner.
Now, having said all this, I am NOT saying I think Makhloufi is clearly innocent. At this stage I don't know, and haven't seen him in enough races to be more sure.
What I do know is that stats don't lie, and looking at the stats, his run in London & Stockholm were nothing out of the ordinary for a man in 1:43/3:30 shape. If Kiprop had been in London in his 3:28 shape or Kiplagat in his 3:29 shape, then Makhloufi would not have won. Again, that is no proof he hasn't taken something, but it does underline how exaggerated several posters have been about the fact he must be on something because his run was so extra-ordinary. It wasn't.