I'll admit I was a Hocker doubter. I thought Nuguse could maybe do it, but Hocker would need a slower race. I definitely did not think he could run 3:27.65.
I'm not shocked he won, I am surprised he won a 3:27 race. What a run! I loved that as the pace strung everyone out the 3 Americans went right with it. They all ran with great confidence and courage, so cool to watch.
I've watched track a very long time, I struggled in the 80's watching Steve Scott win a silver at worlds but like all Americans get crushed in the Olympics and the 90's and 2000's just a debacle and yes I was happy about 2016, but in 3:50????. This is the greatest showing by Americans in history and Hobbs Kessler is scary good and all three are so young. Forget the British and Norwegians, The Americans are here to stay! Kerr will never win another championship race but Jakob will take is 3:43 mile and 3:26 1500m speed and revolutionize the 5 and 10. He's young too only 23.
Congratulations to new Olympic Champion and medalists! Extraordinary race by the way! Wrong tactic from Jakob. You have to runaway from everybody, if you can't you should wait in the middle of the pack for a while. He wanted to show that is way better then anybody else, but guys are close to him.
Anyone remember when matt centro trashed cole hocker on instagram saying that he was an olympic champ and that hocker/teare were just college kids. Look at hocker now, he is better than centrowitz all time.
Centro wasn’t wrong when he wrote that, was he? Nor did he instigate the exchange (in fairness, Hocker didn’t either). And at this year’s trials, Centro had nice things to say about Hocker.
Maybe the real “eating their words now” story is Kerr calling US middle distance running “soft” two years ago:
Hocker got so f-cking lucky that Jakob moved out with Kerr. If Jakob had stayed on the rail, Hocker would have had to go around and I don't think he would have won.
That wasn't luck, that was calculated. He knew Kerr was passing Jakob on the outside and that Jakob would move to contest him. He won because he knew Jakob wasn't expecting him to be there and was focused on Kerr. That's the advantage of being an underdog
Other than Ingebrigtsen trying out his Bayi impression the first lap, the final was very much like the semi. I figure Hocker was thinking at the end of the semi "I don't know about these two, but I definitely have another gear". So he gained considerable confidence that if he was in it, he could win.
And at the end, Kerr and Ingebrigtsen went harder. Hocker went faster.
For those of you slagging Jakob for his tactics... what would you have had him do differently? He's not outkicking Hocker or Kerr off a slower pace.
There was a brief moment maybe 900m into the race, where it looked like he was starting to get separation. Maybe if he drops the hammer and goes for it there? Outside of that, he just wasn't winning this race.
Hocker was the Next Gen guy who said you can't have an opinion on the state of T&F unless you're super fast? Well, I guess he can set the agenda now. Amazing run. Jakob should've never checked over his shoulder & shouldn't have given up the inside lane. Would've been interesting if Hocker would've won going wide. Nuguse might've been closing better than them both but needs to be a little closer. Could've gotten Kerr at the line. Did not have Jakob out of the 1500 medals. No more front running. He just rabbited everyone else to perfect races.