dumbquesitondumbresponse wrote:I'm not a Centro fan but at least he's gutsy and he seems to have the knack for racing well and smartly. We'll see what happens. He'll need a hell of a kick to finish top 3 in the final -- I know that much.
Centro will need to race way over his head just to make the final. Even in his first-round heat (the one that just finished), his 3:34.46 only ranked him seventh going in (barely ahead of Alemayehu's 3:34.59), so he had to exceed expectations just to make the semis. Similarly, his PB would have ranked him 8th in the second heat and tied for 8th in the third heat. 1500m running is very, very deep right now (though it's not as fast at the very top end as it was a decade ago). That being said, smart racing and a good kick go a long way in championships, so I wouldn't bet against him making the final.
As for Wheating: yes, he didn't run smart. No need to be in lane three, particularly on the curves. But in the end, tactics had nothing to do with his elimination. He's simply not fit/sharp: you could see clearly that he was working harder than everyone else with 250 to go, if not earlier. 3:30 last year does nothing for you this year if you've been hurt and don't have the fitness. If his heat had gone faster, maybe he would have squeaked into the semi as a fastest loser, but he was never going to make the final in his current shape. It's the same reason he got dusted at USATFs: he's just not that fast right now.