At most, agreed, and even 10cm is a 10x overestimate. See post #29, where I calculated it to be about 7mm extra, and surely under 1cm extra even if she didn't run the exact line I calculated.
For fun, I just took a look to see how far out the water table was in last year's Worlds 5000, where Jakob went out to get water. The water table was in lane 5. You deviate from lane 1 three lanes to reach it, about 3x1.22=3.66m lateral deviation. Even that is only 27cm extra distance to go from lane 1 to lane 4 to lane 1 again. (Jakob went out to get water two times, so about 54cm extra for the two times.) That's less than a 12-inch ruler extra... and maybe everyone should go out to the water table in a 90 degree F race.
She didn't use the full straight (by far) to move those 50cm outside and back, so it's much more than those 0.7cm. That's why I generously said 10cm. Has she lost any time because of that? Given the drafting and the psychological effect, I tend to: no, more the opposite.
I think that Kelati actuaaly might have been a nice target to focus on and run down during the last few laps. Tsegay actually might have run slower without her there.
If you're going to have a runner move aside then a marshall needs to step onto the track and motion it to the lapped runner to avoid collisions.
Kelati cost Tsegay sub 14 because she didn't get out of the way when getting lapped. That's definitely .22 of a second.
I'm always in favor of lapped runners moving out to lane two. However in this case Kelati was in the middle of the backstretch. Tsegay passed her easily, and I seriously doubt that it cost her any time.
Has anyone answered the question of how she got a lane? She could not have been the US Wild Card. The organizers would have given it to a Nike runner. Probably one based there like whoever on BTC is healthy. I have the same question about Grant and Cole. I imagine they were both Wild Cards since it doesn't seem they would have even been close on DL points. I haven't been able to see the WA points list.....
Kelati was the usa wild card, Hocker was a usa wild card, Fisher amazingly was in on points due scratches. The runners are instructed not to move out when lapped as can cause a colision.
Great post whoever you are. I've been wondering. So Fisher really got in with 6 or 7 points from just one race? I have to wonder why the guys who ran meet after meet during the DL series weren't all there. Did some object to the 3k situation or was it just post-World burnout? Maybe a couple are injured, I don't know. But happy to have that cleared up. I wondered if he, too was wild card.
So Hocker was not a bad selection for that slot as we saw what he did. But he's also dyed-in-the-wool Nike. Not merely sponsored, but hasn't ever worn anything else in high school or since. In Eugene. Ideal selection you're the meet organizers or Phil himself, who of course wants his stadium to be full of Swooshes. So he makes sense. And did not embarress himself, the meet, or his sponsor. Those last 2 are one and the same, which brings me to:
If Kelati was a wild card, why didn't the meet directors get somebody who was fit? Since the organizers are all Nike-paid, why did they go this route? Is there literally nobody else who would have run? Did Cranny say, "You know, I'd really rather only run a mile or so. Maybe I'll stay in until 2k. Give that spot to somone outside of our group."??
I think that Kelati actuaaly might have been a nice target to focus on and run down during the last few laps. Tsegay actually might have run slower without her there.
If you're going to have a runner move aside then a marshall needs to step onto the track and motion it to the lapped runner to avoid collisions.
Kelati would still have been a target to chase down running in lane 2.
The one most affected was Chebet - as she had to pass Kelati coming around the last turn. Don't think it was enough to cost her the Kenyan record (Kipyegon) however.
At most, agreed, and even 10cm is a 10x overestimate. See post #29, where I calculated it to be about 7mm extra, and surely under 1cm extra even if she didn't run the exact line I calculated.
For fun, I just took a look to see how far out the water table was in last year's Worlds 5000, where Jakob went out to get water. The water table was in lane 5. You deviate from lane 1 three lanes to reach it, about 3x1.22=3.66m lateral deviation. Even that is only 27cm extra distance to go from lane 1 to lane 4 to lane 1 again. (Jakob went out to get water two times, so about 54cm extra for the two times.) That's less than a 12-inch ruler extra... and maybe everyone should go out to the water table in a 90 degree F race.
She didn't use the full straight (by far) to move those 50cm outside and back, so it's much more than those 0.7cm. That's why I generously said 10cm. Has she lost any time because of that? Given the drafting and the psychological effect, I tend to: no, more the opposite.
The angle that she deviated is a low angle, even if she cut in fairly quickly moving at speed, and as geometry nerd, I guess, I've thought a lot over my life about the distances along long sides of triangles (cosines). My guess of under 1cm for her actual line was a bit wrong (by under 4mm), but it's much closer to 1cm than 10cm.
To get a better estimate, I rewatched the last 3/4 lap to get better distances for the sides of the triangles. She took 52 strides to run her last 100m, so that's 1.92m per stride. I'll use that to estimate distance along the back straight. I counted her strides to get from rail on the straight to being alongside Kelati. That was 22 strides, or about 42m. After passing Kelati she took 10 strides to get back to the rail, or 19m. Doing the Pythagorean theorem (using the same 0.6m lateral deviation I observed earlier), that's under 14mm extra distance. That's like the width of my pinky finger. They sometimes don't even have photo finish results that accurate when it's hard to tell exactly where the torso is.
Lapped runners should hug the rail, not swing wide at the last minute.
The officials should be monitoring the situation in the last quarter of the race and yelling at the trailing athlete to move out and stay out once the leader gets within 10 metres of lapping them and DQ and fine anyone who doesn’t move out when the time comes.
You see this regularly in cycling in individual time trials and rarely do the riders getting caught impede the faster rider from taking the fastest line on the course.
In major meets in a stadium with big screens it is even easier for all athletes to stay aware of what is happening in the race so even less forgivable not to move out.
That's not the rules of this sport (this is not cycling) and it's burdensome for officials to cover moving targets over 400m. You don't get DQed for etiquette "violations". And I have never heard of a runner being fined.
Passing a lapped runner who is moving slowly is much easier than passing a runner who is trying to hold you off.
The worst case scenario is that the lapped runner does move out, but a little late and the leader has to cut out and then back in get around. Keep it simple. Hug the rail, just like you are supposed to when trying to run your fastest.
7 mm is a ludicrous estimate. She didn't use the entire straightaway to evenly go the least distance around her. If she moved out over 20m, which is more than it probably took, she ran an extra 11 cm or so (=.0168 s). But she probably slowed down or exerted enough energy in the process of changing direction twice to slow her race time by more than .2 seconds.
7 mm is a ludicrous estimate. She didn't use the entire straightaway to evenly go the least distance around her. If she moved out over 20m, which is more than it probably took, she ran an extra 11 cm or so (=.0168 s). But she probably slowed down or exerted enough energy in the process of changing direction twice to slow her race time by more than .2 seconds.
See post #72. At first I just a rough analysis, assuming moving out for 50m and then moving back. In post #72, I looked at her actual line. Still only 14mm.
Do the math. Moving back laterally 0.6m over 19m along the track is only 9.4mm extra. She moved out laterally 0.6m over about 42m along the track. That's only 4.3mm longer. Total extra 13.7mm extra. Even going by your "if she moved out over 20m" both out and back, that's only 18mm extra. Saying 11cm tells me you did the math wrong.
To get even 10cm longer, she'd have to cut out laterally 0.6m over just 3.5m and cut back over just another 3.5m. No way at that speed - that would be a visible juke/slalom move and she'd be pulling decent some lateral g forces.
Have you people never passed a walker on a sidewalk/ bike path before? This thread has gotten so ridiculous. To think that there is any extra physical or mental strain that would cost 1/4s for a pro runner to route around a slower moving object on a straight course is honestly an insult to the runner (Tsegay).
Good article on Tsegay, and the writer (Hannah Borenstein ~ does an excellent job with Ethiopian athletes who are limited as far as English) intimates that it might've cost her sub-14: "Having to navigate her way around lapped runners probably cost Tsegay a sub-14-minute finishing time, but she was nevertheless delighted to emerge with her first senior outdoor world record, crossing the line in 14:00.21."
Either way, this record is on borrowed time for multiple Women ~ Kipyegon, Tsegay and possibly Chebet. Haylom certainly down the road may get there, as may Welteji. It might be past Hassan/Gidey for now as they look to the Marathon. It was run with some wind. I don't think the heat was too much of an issue actually, and the pacing was really good (~rarely get to 3K). If it doesn't happen because of championship doubles/triples these women are looking to do certainly in 2026, someone is going to go all out and maybe 13:55 is possible.
If you assume she ran the tangent perfectly, and that she moved out by 1.5 meters (I think it was less than that, but not the point, say 1.5 meters), she would have run a total of an extra 4.5 *centimeters* on the straightaway, and at the speed she was running, that would have cost her an extra 0.076 seconds.