The Official Men's 1500m Thread

Joran wrote:

Current Jama Aden team:

Taoufik Makhloufi

Abubaker Kaki

Hamada Mohamed (semi-finalist 800 Olympics 2012)

Musaeb Abdulrahman Balla (semi-finalist 800 olympics 2012)

(2012 1500 3:30)

Hamza Driouch (semi-finalist 1500 olympics 2012, winner world youth championships 2012)

Pretty good running team.

What happened to Ayanleh Souleiman?

Duckster wrote:

Wait, this guy is juiced but bobblehead Paula Radcliffe gets a pass here all the time? At least this guy moves like a runner. He's probably dirty, and Paula is ridiculously dirty.

Whaaat? She's been an anti-doping campaigner for like forever. She's led the battle against dopers. Your comment is ill-informed.

Cram was just on the BBC again reviewing the race and they were less blatant than in commentary apart from an opening question, 'Makloufi, nowhere last year?

He then spoke about the non-controversy about the 800m

Then '...this guy has come from almost unknown, he's run some quick times this year, ah, all over a sudden and has come and obviously completely the Olympic final although Kiprop was injured.'

Lennox Lewis (for it is he) said: 'He had it won from a long way out?'

Cram replied: 'He, what he did was, he ran 12.6 then 12.4 for the 200 er 100 m sections from 300 to go and round the top bend and he built up that massive gap and I think he actually eased off in the end there, but yes, it was pretty impressive stuff...'

[the words 'impressive stuff' were spoke in a particularly non-impressed manner, slightly quizzical]

Then the interviewer spoke about British athletes and moved on quickly!

Darwinian wrote:

What happened to Ayanleh Souleiman?

He is injured:

kettlebell wrote:

Any Youtube experts in here?

I want to upload this race but it says it will take 80 minutes.. never uploaded a video before, is this normal? Seems a bit long.

Maybe I just have shitty internet.

Perfectly normal if you have shitty broadband and not fiber. Just do it.

Just going to add some quick common sense background on Mr. Makhloufi to this post below. Some of it has been posted, but it remains clear that Makhloufi is young and in a great training group. The bigger question than doping is how the Kenyans, the Ethiopian, and Willis ALL did so poorly at the end.

1st, his bio on wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taoufik_Makhloufi

2nd, from Renato Canova's blogpost at

http://www.albertostretti.org/2012/08/1500-men-final-day5renato-canova-opinion.html

"Makhloufi was in training in Iten for about two months this winter, and I know him very well. He suffered in high altitude, but always was very tough with himself in training, and did a lot of workouts for increasing his aerobic power. Like many athletes from Maghreb, Taoufik works a lot in the gym, and this fact can explain the muscle mass they have compared with Kenyans. He was together with the group of Kaki, Hamza Driouch and Balla with the coach Jama Aden, and their training continued together also later....Makhloufi showed, during the two previous rounds, to be very smart tactically, and to understand exactly where to stay during the race, and when to move at the end."

At the end of the day, Mak-daddy's pushing and shoving demonstrated in the heats and the finals is not sportsmanlike, but that isn't uncommon among many runners from North Africa, and isn't doping. As for how he pulled a 25.x 200 and finished without looking tired, Willis did a 50 sec 400 at the end of a workout and he's got a similar finishing PR of 3:30. Mak-bloofer def. could be doped up, but it is not nearly as clear as it was with Ramzi.

The French commentators where in different places. One of them was astounded at the performance during the last lap, the other just repeated "no...no...no, he's running like a 400m runner, like he's on a 400m relay" in a nonplussed voice.On another note, it seems Kiplagat burned up trying to follow Makhloufi. If there was doping, I'd say it's not enough to give the gold medal to Manzano, the race should be run over.

kettlebell wrote:

Any Youtube experts in here?

I want to upload this race but it says it will take 80 minutes.. never uploaded a video before, is this normal? Seems a bit long.

Maybe I just have shitty internet.

French link:

On a lighter note, just in case anyone was wondering who Hicham El Guerrouj was rooting for: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9ZFnXP0a-c&feature=share

If he really did run ~25.1 seconds from 1200 to 1400, then that would mean his last 100m would be over 14 seconds . I need confirmation on his last 300m time but I think I saw 2:54.72 -> 3:34.08 (Kiplagat had the official 1200m time, but Makhloufi passed him right afterwards).Seriously, what's wrong with a last 300m of 39.36 (off a 56)? Or the fact that a 1:43 800m runner finished first and a 1:44 runner finished second? Heck the 4th place finisher (Centro) only has a 1:47 800m PB and still ran a final 400m in mid 51 last year in Daegu. Geez - Farah just ran 53.48 to close out a 10000m (versus Makhloufi's 52.76). There is absolutely nothing sketchy here except for the fact that everyone else sucked (his 2010 PB was the same as Manzano's - ~3:32). Maybe he had really bad gas and no one wanted to run behind him? Kiplagat's final 300m was 41.47!!

common wrote:

Makhloufi didn't close in 49.x. Hand timed from video he was 52.77. Official time on the lap was 52.76, and Makhloufi was just off the leader, by maybe .05. Manzano was also hand timed in 52.79, but he was slightly off screen, so could be 52.8-52.9.

The thing that is just wrong with Makhloufi is he did a 25.1 for the middle 200 of the last lap, and eased up at the end. No visible stress at all. Not breathing hard, not laying down, nothing. Sketchy.

WILD guess: the bronze medalist, Iguider, from Morocco?

gramthlete wrote:

On a lighter note, just in case anyone was wondering who Hicham El Guerrouj was rooting for:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9ZFnXP0a-c&feature=share

Thanks for the link, I turned it on the second the race started! Great for Leo, sorry about kiprop.

I thought that Nick Willis' pre-race bravado was misplaced, this proves it. He would have done better in a fast race.

"Look at Manzano...Look at Manzano"

Forgive me for dropping in on page 22 of the thread and not reading all that came before. I'd like to make the point here I have made elsewhere: if every time we see a great result in an event on the track, we start speculating about PED use, we are hurting our own sport and, what's worse, we are taking our own joy out of it. I am not naive and I realize the testing is not perfect, but our sport has done more than any other sport for forty years to combat PED use. I am going to trust the testing procedures and continue to enjoy the sport. In this race, given the times, I certainly see nothing out of line anyway.

I am so proud of our team, from the 800 on up. I am so proud of Leo and Matt. congratulations, boys !

Kirani James had a great result in the 400m but he's not getting the same accusations. And rightly so because Makhloufi is a completely different type of 'great result'. Suspicious to say the least.

1) He's from North Africa, notorious for doping

2) Mirrors Ramzi's performance from Beijing

3) Two big PBs in an Olympic year

4) Shunned by his fellow competitors (anyone else notice this after the race?) & isn't fooling the media either (and certainly not fooling Steve Cram)

I like this article I found while searching around for stuff on this guy.

"WHAT ON earth has happened to the Olympic 1,500 metres – once the blue riband event, now in danger of becoming the black armband? Four years after Rashid Ramzi was forced to hand back his gold medal for failing a drugs test, Taoufik Makhloufi came out last night and won the gold medal after already failing a credibility test – and that might just be for starters."

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/sport/2012/0808/1224321717455.html

manzano could have won the 1500. If you look at the video he didn't really start kicking in till he had a view of the finish with 100 meters to go. He had a lot left in the tank when he crossed the finish line.

Not sure if video links have already been posted but here's one anyway

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s4km4BOrOE

If the Algerian was not in the race... things may have played out differently though