Perceptive. Her tempo in her recent 400m looked more like the rhythm for 400 hurdles. Lack of 200m speed lessens the chances of sub 48.50. Gabby Thomas could give the 400m WR a scare should she wish to train specifically for the 400m.
Lack of 200m speed? She ran 22.07 into a headwind and beat Gabby Thomas easily when they raced head up.
By not running in Tokyo she's somehow saving herself for a meet in 3 years time? God knows what could happen between now and then (injury, pregnancy, something else...)
You gotta take the opportunities when they arise. Respect to her for taking on the challenge of racing Paulino & Naser. I'm slightly upset that Bol appears to be in her best form ever, and we are robbed of that race, but taking on the two current fastest 400m runners is great for us fans. We were robbed of Miller-Uibo v Paulino v Naser in Paris, but at least we get this match up.
So Bol was not in her best form for the acme event of athletics - The Olympics? Well allllrighty then.
So Bol was not in her best form for the acme event of athletics - The Olympics? Well allllrighty then.
She was in her best form then (but ran a bad race..) but has since improved her race plan & strategy with this new stride pattern. She also skipped a full indoor season. The outcome: opening faster than ever.
Bol's 24 season was a full indoor season incl World Indoors; World Relays; European Championships, DL meets and then the Paris Olympics. She ran the mixed 4x4 before the 400mh. She was right to do the latter & get a gold, but don't underestimate the effect it had on her.
Come the 400mh final she was 'flat'. But crucially, she & her coach also said she went out too fast. They knew the last 50-100m was her strength, but didn't know how fast she could cope running the opening 200m. She went with SML's pace and paid the price. As she said at the London DL meet, now she knows how fast 'too fast' is. Had she held back a bit more, no doubt she would have won silver.
Anyway, 2025 has been more measured, less competition-intensive, & with a new race plan. She looks better than ever.
Note, Bol only runs the 200m at the Dutch Championships, as she has done in recent years. This will be a well-needed speed test for her, as usually by now she would have done a shorter distance either indoors or out by now.
what's wrong with a new challenge? why y'all so bitchy? Lighten up, let the girl run
FFS. Why y'all act so freakin stupid? I know education is severely lacking in the USA but given that you wrote your response in English, I assumed you understood it. Hmmm, English must not be your first language. Apologies. You must be using a translator to compose such an idiotic post.
Oh my. Did your nanny fail to give you your meds this morning, NYDCRunner? My apologies if you found my slang posting inappropriate, sweetie. I will make a conscious effort to use the Queen's English from this point forward...
so y'all don't get y'all's panties in a bunch, beeotch !
You gotta take the opportunities when they arise. I'm slightly upset that Bol appears to be in her best form ever, and we are robbed of that race
Thank goodness that a 4-time OG/WC individual gold winner and 6-time WR breaker like SML has someone online to say when you gotta take the opportunities.
Seems like she's already taking opportunities pretty well.
More productively than any other track athlete of this era, including Bolt and essentially level with Duplantis in his field event. (Unless you can name someone else with @2x Oly gold, 2x WC world and 6x broken WRs.)
Thank goodness that a 4-time OG/WC individual gold winner and 6-time WR breaker like SML has someone online to say when you gotta take the opportunities.
Seems like she's already taking opportunities pretty well.
More productively than any other track athlete of this era, including Bolt and essentially level with Duplantis in his field event. (Unless you can name someone else with @2x Oly gold, 2x WC world and 6x broken WRs.)
Small correction: 1 individual World Gold, not 2.
3 gold medals & a silver at Global Championships is absolutely fantastic. But oh hun, come on, coz I can name LOADS active athletes with more global gold medals, and this is just off the top of my head:
Sydney has the same medal-haul as Malika Mihambo, Miltiadis Tentoglu, & Maris Perez. She's only just ahead of active-compatriot Dalilah Muhammad on golds, but less medals (2xG 3xS 1xB)
Sorry, but gold medals are worth much more than WRs, and all the above with more medals are pretty high on the 'productivity' scale...
So Bol was not in her best form for the acme event of athletics - The Olympics? Well allllrighty then.
She was in her best form then (but ran a bad race..) but has since improved her race plan & strategy with this new stride pattern. She also skipped a full indoor season. The outcome: opening faster than ever.
Bol's 24 season was a full indoor season incl World Indoors; World Relays; European Championships, DL meets and then the Paris Olympics. She ran the mixed 4x4 before the 400mh. She was right to do the latter & get a gold, but don't underestimate the effect it had on her.
Come the 400mh final she was 'flat'. But crucially, she & her coach also said she went out too fast. They knew the last 50-100m was her strength, but didn't know how fast she could cope running the opening 200m. She went with SML's pace and paid the price. As she said at the London DL meet, now she knows how fast 'too fast' is. Had she held back a bit more, no doubt she would have won silver.
Anyway, 2025 has been more measured, less competition-intensive, & with a new race plan. She looks better than ever.
as I recall she was one lane outside SML and thus was "ahead" of SML through that first 200. So she may have gone out too fast but it is not that she was trying to stay even with SML.
Small corrections are supposed to fix things, Syd won in Tokyo and Paris. By the way there is this flawed notion that Bol is improving in her quest to catch Syd. Instead the gap between them has gotten bigger each time, getting close to 2 seconds. Take the gap and divide by her, yielding 0.45 seconds. That difference in the 100 is like very good high school times to global champions.
Bol's time in Paris is almost as good as in Tokyo while Syd's has improved by over a second. Bol is very good but no one else has broken the prior World Record in every single final since 2021.
Clearly not. If you are honest, you can tell there are a lot more casual track fans know Koch’s 400m WR than who has won the latest 10 world championships. As for public (not necessarily track fans) the only champion they would remember maybe the Olympics champion. Personally I think that’s one of the reasons why Sydney and almost all US athletes regard Olympics gold medal a lot higher than the world champion. You could see Sydney trying ‘new’ events at worlds but she will not take Olympics to do such a test.
Oh come on. You know you and Bol are secretly overjoyed that Syd won’t run hurdles at Tokyo. That’s the ONLY chance Bol could get her gold medal. based on past experiences, the gap between them getting bigger and bigger every time they met. So if they met in Tokyo, Bol will be more embarrassed.
but I don’t think Sydney will skip hurdles at LA. She herself hinted that she wants a rare hat trick gold medals in some interviews. You can wait and see what will happen by then.