Cole Hocker probably will just be another Andrew Wheating

hiney licker wrote:

Following up on my previous post and some others I have read.

Re: Wheating-

All world talent, weak mind. Anybody that was on the team at the same time as him knew this. If things were great, he was good. If things were less than great, he was a disaster, including crying before races and Vin babying him to the point of setting up special heats at UW with a rabbit to keep him from finishing behind teammates/competitors.

Once he had some injuries and adversity, it was over.

Re: Manzano-

Another example of a solid but not all works 1500 guy with a great kick who hit it spot on on the right day and has an OG medal.

Hocker is better or equal to him over 800 and light years ahead in the 3000/5000 plus has as good or better of a kick. It’s also my opinion that his 3:31 in the OG in the 3rd race of the week, with all that pressure, after 10 months of racing, etc was with *at least* a second in a regular fast rabbited race. So Hocker is likely already empirically faster than him over 1500 too.

Re: Jakob-

He’s likely not going to catch and surpass him ever, we’re talking about an all time talent here, but it only takes one day.

Hocker seems to have the mental makeup, the strength, the speed, the insane racing instinct/kick and of course the win streak + OG performance. How anyone can doubt that he will be a force- unless something wacky happens- on the world scene is beyond me.

If we were talking Hobbs, that would be a much different convo.

hiney licker wrote:

The 1500 is the best event to be elite in because tactics and finishing speed play the biggest role in championship races. Centro and Willis have multiple global medals despite not being Uber competitive in the DL. Now Josh Kerr has one as well.

Hockers ncaa year was better than any of theirs, save maybe Centro because he ended it with WC bronze. On top of that, he was only a soph, so much less experienced than them.

Although future success cannot be guaranteed, one would be crazy not to assume that Hocker will compete for global medals going forward. If you re watch the Tokyo final you will notice that his 3rd lap is much inferior to Kerr’s (his last lap may have been slightly as well)- this is where he needs to improve. That said, as a kid who nobody thought would even compete for an ncaa title before the year, August racing certainly was not in the plans. And, that was his 3rd race in a week. Safe bet to say he’s much better prepared next time.

TLDR: he has a very good chance to compete for medals based on being better than Centro, Willis and Kerr in college, younger than them and in the event with the most variability.

OozmaKappa wrote:

High hopes wrote:

You do know that Jakob closed the last 200 of the Olympic final faster than Hocker? And both Jakob and Kerr were faster over the last lap. He's on the pro scene now where his kick is still good but not spectacular. Let's keep in mind that he only just ran down an ageing and out of shape Centro at the trials. He's got a long way to go before he's been in the very top tier of 1500 runners. His competition right now is people like McSweyn, Wightman, and Heywood.

Also, Hocker didnt even actually run down Centro. We don't know if he actually could have outkicked Centro on that day because while Hocker was busting a gut and running like a girl to win a race that hardly mattered to Centro, Centro was just cruising knowing that he had already made the team and that's all he needed to do on that day.

To Centro, as the then reigning olympic champ, it didnt make a difference if he got 1st or 2nd, nothing he can do at trials will net him a more lucrative deal than being the defending champ.

But for Hocker, who at the time was not pro, there is a big incentive to get a win over the defending champ bc it could heavily influence his value on the market.