Incredible performance, not least because I thought she'd been dealing with a severe hamstring injury. I was expecting something like 1:57, something that showed she was a WC contender but still a ways away from top form.
1:54.7 season opener against a sub-DL field is saying she'll make a run at Jelimo's (should-be) WR at Worlds. That's absolutely staggering, especially coming off injury. I'm a big Keely fan but we should be honest, that's the kind of think that typically raises eyebrows on these forums.
Shortest route, yes. Still entirely possible to get boxed in that way though
Not when everybody cuts in after 50m.
Overstated. Compare some running from their lane to a point 100m down the track from the horizontal position on the track (this makes the calculation a lot and affects the answer by less than 0.01 percent). Compare making a straight line from your lane to the first lane 100m further down the track. From Lane 6. You go in 5 lanes or about 5.5 meters. The length of that hypotenuse is the two other legs, 100m and 5.5m. So square both 5.5 and 100, little less than 30 and 10,000. Add them and take the square root. The square root of 10,030 is barely over 100m at 100.15m. Compare this minimum distance from running the shortest possible route with cutting in at 50m. Doing this same calculation for 50m and adding 50m more we get 50.30m+50.0m=100.30m. So this "inferior" strategy adds 0.15m or six inches.
And lanes as far out as Lane 6 can't get to the rail so the gains are even less.
I'm not from the region but its a common knowledge among us the fast African are nasty runners in Middle distances. Keely could be appealing to some but she must thank the new shoes and the withdraw of Athing Mu who is no more interested in running.
Is is so hard to acknowledge the truth?
If Hodgkinson was still putting in times slower than Mu's PB, I'd be inclined to agree, but she's now run quicker than Mu's PB twice in 2 years.
Funny. 4 years ago, people thought Mu was the generational athlete and Hodgkinson was just the pretender.
It's actually ended up being the other way around the biggest difference between them is between the ears. One of them has 'it' and the other one doesn't.
Someone can look it up, but since they have turned pro, Keely has probably raced at least four races for every one of Athings, even with a long injury period. And she has won almost all of them, with excellent times and records indoors and out, throughout each season.
The only reason people here thought Mu had the most talent was because Mu was Sudanese and Keely is a blonde white girl. In other words, racism. And it's suspicious AF the way Mu can no longer even quailfy for the national finals when she should be at her peak. Of course, she is an American Sudanese, so she gets a pass. Keely is the dirty one for coming back from injury and running well.
The reason why people thought Mu had more talent was because she was faster than Keely when they were both teens. Nothing to do with blondeness or Sudanese origins.
It actually more has to do with the progression. Mu went from 2:01-2 to 1:55 and destroyed her competition in a year or two, while Keely made small progress every year for a long stretch of time.
I love Keely, but talent-wise she can't really compare to Mu, in fact not even close. I believe Keely will run 1:53 one day, but Mu could've run 1:52 and even 1:51, had Kersee not messed her up. She already had the wheel with her 49. And despite all this and the fact she hates running, she still has better hardware than Keely. She has the complete package, while Keely is still missing that World title from her collection. If we compare them to current crop of men, talent-wise, I would say Keely is Arop or sedjati, but Mu is Wanyonyi and in fact I think she could've been the Rudisha of women's 800m, sadly she and her coach blew it..
Just look how Mu led wire-to-wire ala Rudisha in 2021 Olympic in 1:55 on YT (Letsrun doesn't allow me to post links), better yet, she ran it on the outside lane the whole way! That's something Keely would never be able to do. That's how talented this woman is (or regrettably, was)
Just look how Mu led wire-to-wire ala Rudisha in 2021 Olympic in 1:55 on YT (Letsrun doesn't allow me to post links), better yet, she ran it on the outside lane the whole way! That's something Keely would never be able to do. That's how talented this woman is (or regrettably, was)
You’re right Keely would never run such tactically poor races..hence she wins most if the time.
You can’t say ‘Mu would have run a second faster with Bicarb, if she had a different coach, if she was more committed’ etc etc.
We need to stick to facts and actual performances.
Talent means nothing if you don’t realise that talent and actually put it to some good use
The only reason people here thought Mu had the most talent was because Mu was Sudanese and Keely is a blonde white girl. In other words, racism. And it's suspicious AF the way Mu can no longer even quailfy for the national finals when she should be at her peak. Of course, she is an American Sudanese, so she gets a pass. Keely is the dirty one for coming back from injury and running well.
It's nothing to do with race. The main issue is that when people on LRC talk about "talent", what they really mean is "this person ran fast in school."
marks achieved at a young age come into it but actually there is something to the "eye-test" that goes beyond statistics or racial profile.
as far as i can explain it to myself, the thought process when watching the athlete perform and assessing their talent is: does this [fairly impressive performance] look easy for them? for long legged, relatively powerful runners with relaxed symmetrical strides, we assess them as being talented.
it's not black and white, african and non-african. steve cram had "it", german fernandez had "it".
mu certainly has it, or had it.
actually, it does a funny thing to my brain to see a number of the super champions of the moment have form that is unexceptionally graceful for an elite runner. hodgkinson, wanyonyi, ingebrigtsen, el bakkali. (can even chuck in some stars from other events: shericka jackson, karsten warholm.)
It actually more has to do with the progression. Mu went from 2:01-2 to 1:55 and destroyed her competition in a year or two, while Keely made small progress every year for a long stretch of time.
I love Keely, but talent-wise she can't really compare to Mu, in fact not even close. I believe Keely will run 1:53 one day, but Mu could've run 1:52 and even 1:51, had Kersee not messed her up. She already had the wheel with her 49. And despite all this and the fact she hates running, she still has better hardware than Keely. She has the complete package, while Keely is still missing that World title from her collection. If we compare them to current crop of men, talent-wise, I would say Keely is Arop or sedjati, but Mu is Wanyonyi and in fact I think she could've been the Rudisha of women's 800m, sadly she and her coach blew it..
Wrong on the progression, they both went from a 2.01 PB to 1.55 in 2021. Thing is, Keely has improved from 1.55.88 in Tokyo to a 1.54.61 PB, while Mu has only knocked 7 hundreds of from 1.55.04 to 1.54.97.
Mu had an outstanding breakout season in 2021 and has been on the decline ever since. She was still good enough to win the WC in 22, but 23 showed another decline until the worlds, then put in a bit of effort to do the 1.54 DL final, and has continued the overall downhill trend since
Incredible performance, not least because I thought she'd been dealing with a severe hamstring injury. I was expecting something like 1:57, something that showed she was a WC contender but still a ways away from top form.
1:54.7 season opener against a sub-DL field is saying she'll make a run at Jelimo's (should-be) WR at Worlds. That's absolutely staggering, especially coming off injury. I'm a big Keely fan but we should be honest, that's the kind of think that typically raises eyebrows on these forums.
it might have been a 157
if she took up bicarb for the first time
So bicarb is as powerful as EPO - yet isn't a banned drug?
More importantly, at worlds she'll be running two rounds before the final. I haven't seen the schedule, but in Paris she won comfortably in 1:56 even though she ran 1:54 earlier in the year. What this does suggest though, is that if she'd had a full season, maybe she could have take a run at getting towards 1:53 in a DL.
Tokyo is back to the usual schedule - heat on day 1, SF on day 2, rest day 3, final day 4