Allie O in Pre Steeple

You are right, don't get mad just because 1 guy doesn't understand the steeple. Kipruto dominated the men's steeple, which is full of 6'2" guys like Jager and Mekhissi. Kipruto's size? 5'6", smaller than some women like Coburn, Frerichs and Quigley. If he can beat the best steeplers in the world on the high men's hurdles, it's very unlikely the small women's hurdles would affect Allie O in any negative way.

Steeple is about technique, skill and efficiency, not about height. For height to matter they would need to be higher considerably.

I see similarities to Jordan Hasay (ever heard of her...) The sooner she moves to the roads, post-collegiately, the better her chances of success.

A partial answer to a complex issue wrote:

The reason is because the height of the barrier is constant for all athletes, the shorter athlete has to raise their center of mass a greater distance upwards than the taller athlete does in order to clear the barrier.

You are right that the distance the center of mass must be raised affects how much force a runner has to exert to get over a barrier. But the force also depends on the runner's weight -- it is, as you note, all about the center of mass. Since shorter athletes weigh less, they have less mass to raise than tall athletes, and thus have to exert less energy to jump the same number of inches.

TL;DNR: It's even more complex than Mr. Complexity says.

Saif Saaeed Shaheen -5’.9” ...7:53.63

Honestly, I'm curious.

How exactly would you measure precisely how much energy, directly attributed to one's height and solely one's height, one uses to get over a barrier (meaning without other factors also influencing the measurement -f actors such as flexibility, dexterity, and jumping ability)?

Allie's Insta post from her race at Pre was captioned "One last run as a Bronco", so she's either going pro, or moving to another program as a 5th year graduate transfer, as I believe that she has remaining eligibility

All men must raise their center of mass in order to clear the barriers while the taller women do not. Allie O is a shrimp who will never run faster than 9:15. That doesn't get her into the top 3 in the US and only gets her a stipend from a sponsor. She can be a good marathoner.

Didn't address the question.

I do think height is an almost indisputable advantage in the steeple. But outliers definitely exist and can succeed. There’s so many different factors that lead to running success in general (VO2 max, lactic threshold, aerobic strength, lung capacity, explosive power, running form, ability to healthily maintain a low body weight, mental toughness while racing). Most elite runners rank excellently in all of these areas, but there are certainly elite runners who are lacking in one or two of these areas and make up for it elsewhere. I’m sure all of us can come up with some names of excellent runners with mediocre form or slightly higher body weight, for example.

Allie O is tremendously talented and tough, and this helps make up for her short stature. You don’t have to be perfectly made for an event to be really good at it. Some of the African steeplers have awful hurdle form and still steeple fast thanks to their general fitness, for example. One doesn’t always need all the pieces to come together to be good. If Allie had a few years of really strong training (with her injury history thus far, I don’t think she’s close to her ceiling yet), I can see her being a force to be reckoned with in the Steeple. (I could also imagine her quitting steeple and moving to the roads, though.)