Last 800m: Coe 1:48.5 / Centrowitz 1:48.7

I evened out his splits in that Stockholm 1500 and got 3:29.14. That was based on an opening lap of 53.4 instead of your 52.4. The reason for this is that I was assuming that the announcer was saying 52.4 was what the rabbit ran not Coe.

Using your 52.4 instead of 53.4 for the first lap turns 3:29.14 into 3:28.62 which agrees with your biographical excerpt.

Then using that 3:28.62 with his 1:41.73 gives...

13:31 for 5k.

Well that was 1986 not 1981 (5 years prior!).

;p

Peer Mediator wrote:

Coe also beat Coghlan (World 5k champion 83) and McLoud (Olympic 10k bronze medalist) in a 4 mile road race at the end of the 1978 season, when he had been mostly running 800's, with a 17:55, beating Brendan Foster's course record by 11 seconds. Both McLoud and Coghlan had run 13:20's during that 78 season. Coe was still only 21 at the time.

17:55 for 4 miles isn't particularly remarkable. And that he beat those runners says more about the shape they were in than it does the shape Coe was in.

Peer Mediator wrote:

Coe was certainly capable of 13:20 based purely on his 800/1500 training. There was nothing wrong with his endurance. It certainly wasn't inferior to Centro's.

Centro's endurance is definitely better than Coe's was. His 3k is 8 seconds better and his 5k is 46 seconds better.

Peer Mediator is right about the splits in Stockholm.

Robinson went through 400m in 51.5!!

Coe's split was 52.4, but they only called out split times to the leader. Coe was too far back to hear them.

reader of the forums wrote:

Peer Mediator wrote:

Coe also beat Coghlan (World 5k champion 83) and McLoud (Olympic 10k bronze medalist) in a 4 mile road race at the end of the 1978 season, when he had been mostly running 800's, with a 17:55, beating Brendan Foster's course record by 11 seconds. Both McLoud and Coghlan had run 13:20's during that 78 season. Coe was still only 21 at the time.

17:55 for 4 miles isn't particularly remarkable. And that he beat those runners says more about the shape they were in than it does the shape Coe was in.

Peer Mediator wrote:

Coe was certainly capable of 13:20 based purely on his 800/1500 training. There was nothing wrong with his endurance. It certainly wasn't inferior to Centro's.

Centro's endurance is definitely better than Coe's was. His 3k is 8 seconds better and his 5k is 46 seconds better.

Coe's time was actually 17:54 not 17:55.

That is 13:54 pace for 5000m, continued for another 1436m.

That is very impressive for someone who was predominantly running 800's all season. It also indicates at least 13:30 ability on the track.

He also ran 7.5km in 20:59 in 1980, beating Cova, which is 13:59 pace continued for another 2.5km, and 18:28 for 6.7km in 1983 (13:46 pace for 5000m - continued for another mile).

Coe never ran a serious 3000 or 5000m on the track, his pbs being in low key meets in winter or Spring. Anyone basing his 5000 potential on those is fairly ignorant of his ability based on other races.

He easily had at least as good over distance endurance as Centrowitz.

Deanouk wrote:

Peer Mediator is right about the splits in Stockholm.

Robinson went through 400m in 51.5!!

Coe's split was 52.4, but they only called out split times to the leader. Coe was too far back to hear them.

Coe said he was apoplectic at the end, having not been given a single split time. He said he would have run faster had he just run on his own.

Brueger, the Zurich meet director reckons that Robinson purposely set up the ridiculous pace at the behest of Andy Norman, Ovett's agent and top dog in European Athletics at the time.

A few weeks later Robinson paced Ovett in his mile WR, and gave him 55 on the first lap!

Centro's 5k was coming off of injury. He had taken time off in the winter and the only reason he ran the 5k was because he wasn't in as good of shape as normal.

He had done a strength cycle to get back fit and they didn't want him running 1500/800 speed efforts out of the gate.

Centro is a 13:10 dude any day of the week.

Maybe 13:05-13:10....

He trains with Mo, Galen...

aussieagain wrote:

The bronze medallist in 2004 ran like 1.46 last 800 - quicker than elg and lagat

Rui Silva

True. But Deano will tell you how Coe was still superior to El G, never mind telling you that Coe having run 10"wide here, 4" wide there, likely had run the last 800 in 1:44 at the Moscow Games. LOL

It's not that amazing that some world class runners run under 1:50 for the final 800 when a race starts at a jog (for them). Centro is no Coe over 800. Coe was definitely no Centro over 5k, despite all the predictions. At the end of the day, they're different runners.

Deanouk wrote:

Coe's time was actually 17:54 not 17:55.

Well that changes everything.

Didn't Abdi Bile close in sub 1:48 in the 1987 WC 1500?

BonifaceMerande wrote:

Didn't Abdi Bile close in sub 1:48 in the 1987 WC 1500?

Just checked. According to Wikipedia he closed that race in 1:46.00.

there is no official split for him that i have ever heard off

i very much doubt anyone bothered to take his 700m split as he was dead fuuckin last at the time & not expected to win

if they were going to take anyone's splits, apart from leader at any point, it wouda been of cram, the favourite

the vid is not great help as there is no side-on shot of them going thru in 700 & you have to surmise from off-field landmarks & body-adjustments ( mostly head angle changing as going into curve ) of when the leaders are going thru 700m & where Abdi is in relation

i looked at it hard & i get a last 800 split more like

~ 1'45.7

BonifaceMerande wrote:

Didn't Abdi Bile close in sub 1:48 in the 1987 WC 1500?

This is coming often in this forum and there hasn't been a final answer so far I think. I just checked it because it's a really very special finishing split.

From 600m to 700m into the race, Bile is almost exactly 1 second behind the leader Steve Cram. Cram reaches the 60m mark (40m before the finish line, besides the victory podium) in 1:44.2, which gives Bile a time of around 1:45.2 at 660m. Extrapolating this for 700m gives Bile a time of 1:51.5/1:51.6 with two laps to go. He might have sped up little bit during these 40 meters, but I really can't see his time at 700m faster than 1:51.0.

This would give Bile a time around 1:45.2/1:45.3 for his last 800m and almost definitely not slower than 1:45.8.

I'm always sceptical about very fast finishing splits, and this one just seems to be "too fast". But I can't see what I have done wrong. It could be added that Bile is running little wide in the curves and at one time even has to stop little bit to pass Mike Hillardt. I'm really not someone who looks for some sort of superlative where there isn't one. But this split seems to be absolutely unique. It seems to be a sub (at least close to) 1:45 effort! In a 3:36.8 race. No wonder Steve Cram couldn't follow Bile on the homestraight.

The ATFS annual for the '87 season gives Bile's last 800m as 1:46.6, which seems to be wrong.

Can someone detect some mistake in my thinking? I still hardly can "accept" a 1:45 in a 3:36.8.

Two months before Rome, Aouita has beaten Bile over 1500m by 2 seconds, so he might have finished in around 1:43... :)

Here is the link for the race:

Hey Said88.

Strangely enough I did the same thing today. I agree that approaching the 700m mark, Bile was 1.0 secs behind Cram.

As it's late and Im about to go to bed, I won't go into too much detail now, but I used 2 points, one before the finish, one after, that you can see someone passing on both the 2nd and 3rd laps.

The 3rd lap is the only one where you actually see the pack pass the finish line from side on. So by taking times around this point and using them for lap 2 (the 700m mark) we can get a fairly accurate idea of Bile's time at 700m.

The mark before was the edge of the podium (the 3rd one) on the infield. Cram hits this point in 2:40.4 on the 3rd lap, then hits the finish line (400m from end) in 2:45.1. He then reaches the beginning of a puddle! in front of the blue stadium infield clock at 2:47.0. So the time from the first marker to the 1100m is 4.7 and the time from the first marker to the 2nd is 6.6.

4.7/6.6 = 0.71.

Then going back to the second lap, Cram hits that first marker in 1:44.6. We don't see him passing through the finish line from side on, but we see him hitting the 2nd mark (the blue clock) at 1:52.0. Obviously this 2nd lap is at a slower place than the 3rd, but we can use the difference between the 2 points, 7.4 sec and then multiply by the 0.71 ratio from lap 3. That gives us 5.2. Which sounds about right

Lap 2 - 5.2/ 2.2 = 7.4

Lap 3 - 4.7/ 1.9 = 6.6

From this we can deduce that Cram hit the 700m mark (finish line) in 1:49.8. Bile was 1.0 sec behind Cram at 1:42.7 into the race. At the 2nd mark (1:52.0) he is 1.0 sec behind Cram.

So he would have been the same time behind him at a point between these 2. I estimate Bile's 700m time was 1:50.8.

This gives him a last 800m of 1:46.0!, faster than I originally thought, but certainly not 1:45.2.

I estimate that his last 1200m was 2:49.8.

I checked your analysis Deano and it seems to be OK.

But, what's then wrong with my own analysis? This line besides the victory podium is the 60m mark (40m to the finish, which can be seen when looking on the men's 100m race, where Ben Johnson ran 6.38 at 60m). And I can't see Bile has sped up so much during these 40 meters.

This might be my last post on this board, since I can't handle it when a big amount of my posts are deleted for no reason.

said88 wrote:

This might be my last post on this board

See you in Kona.

deano

bile ran 24.8 last 200 in the 89 world cup 1500 beating coe and running wide around the bend in a 3.35 race.

how does this compare to coe's best ever last 200

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YneaUw5pWyM

awewwerwera wrote:

deano

bile ran 24.8 last 200 in the 89 world cup 1500 beating coe and running wide around the bend in a 3.35 race.

how does this compare to coe's best ever last 200

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YneaUw5pWyM

I make it 24.9. Bile hits the 200m mark at 3:10.6 and finishes in 3:35.57.But he probably ran between 1.5 and 2m wide, so it's certainly worth about 24.6/24.7.

Coe ran the last 200m in Moscow in 25.0, and was also wide by about 1.5m. I'd say that was worth c. 24.7/24.8

You then need to put both kicks into a wider context. Coe's came off a last lap of 52.2 and last 800m of 1:48.5.

Bile's corresponding times were 51.4 and 1:51.0.

So both pretty comparable.

Coe's fastest last 200m came in a 1:47 800m (European Cup 1979) where he covered the last 200m in 24.1, and ran the entire bend wide, partly in lane 2. Worth something around 23.7/23.8.

As we'll see at Monaco, Centro is capable right now of running faster at 1500m than Coe ever did (I agree that Coe could have run considerably faster with an El G pacing him the whole way, as Lagat and Ngeny were able to take advantage of), yet he has to this point run nearly three seconds slower than Coe at 800m. Hence, Centro has considerably less speed and better relative endurance. It would make sense, then, that Centro's curve is flatter than Coe's, and hence, that Centro runs a much better 5000m than Coe. Moreover, Centro trains with 5/10k runners. As it stands, Centro's 13:20 is much better than Coe ever ran and let's see what he can run if he jumps into a sub 13 race in August, like Webb did (he ran 13:10--not sure what the winning time was that day).

jjjjjj wrote:

Moreover, Centro trains with 5/10k runners.

Being on the same team as them doesn't mean they are doing the same training.

I don't see much evidence that Centro is even in PR shape. He closed a very slow race very fast because of his newfound speed not a 3 second improvement in 1500m ability. You must think that Robbie Andrew is currently faster than Coe as well. His close was not that far behind Centrowtiz.

Look at how El G and Lagat closed in 1:46 in a 3:34 race. They were in 3:26-27 shape. Centro closed slower in a race that was 4 seconds slower. And you think he's only 2 seconds slower than El G and Lagat???