Jakob was not 100% today, that was clear, but Kerr was also in stellar shape and held back early and saved his powder. He had a lot of powder too. The workout he ran shows just what level he was training at. 54.8/400m x 8 on 90s rest and 4-5 minutes, I think, after the 4th. That pace is no random figure. As he said, everything was figured out to the letter. 54.8 is world record pace, 3:26. He was ready to run 3:28 low, maybe 3:27 mid to high today. Great to see the shape the event is in currently. I hope Jakob comes back as he did after World's last year but he needs everything and smart tactics to beat the quality of competition he is facing.
He was not at his best. When he could run low 3:27 in Silesia with some separation from the pacemakers he should be able to run at least 3:28 in a race where he is front running most of the way. And if he had had the same speed in the last 100-150m as in the previous races this year it would possibly have been enough to hold Kerr off.
Whether it was illness or a bad day doesn´t matter. To underperform is just part of the game. Just ask Tim, Mechaal, Katir, Nuguse, Habz, Mario Garcia who all were some time away from their SBs.
So the talk of bad tactics or the lack of ability to win championship races are probably wrong.
He just had a bad day as in the indoor WC 1500m where he was beat by Tefera (when it later came up that he had Covid).
Nothing, Kerr was better at this day. Kerr placed himself just behind Ingebrigtsen at the last round, he waited and attacked just at the right time. Picture book execution.
He went to the front and did nothing with it. A 3:29 mid race isn't going to scare the top handful of guys.
Throughout the race I was amazed that Jakob wasn't pushing the pace. He wants to be in the lead. He emphasized a month ago that he's the pacer, the guy who always sits directly behind the designated pacers.
Tonight set up perfectly for him other than it was almost like he watched Kipyegon and thought he could get away with the same thing, controlling from the front but not expending all he had so he could save something for the 5000. But Kipyegon has a world class kick and Jakob nothing of the sort.
I was astonished that he didn't try to maintain at least a 2 meter lead throughout the backstretch. That was just asking for a virtual rerun of last year. Kerr said in the interview with Lewis Johnson that he could tell Jakob was holding something back at 200. Thank you very much. Goodbye.
Jakob pathetically tried to put his right hand out as Kerr passed him. It was almost like...hey, this is unfair. You're supposed to stay in your place.
To Jakob's credit, he's always conceded that he's more of a 3000 type who can have some success at 1500. He knows it's not his best distance due to lack of sprint speed.
But I never thought he would succumb to almost exactly the same strategy from Kerr as Wightman. The only significant difference was that Kerr didn't pause as long on Jakob's hip before surging past.
I think Jakob and the other Norwegian guy Narve is clean as Gjert is a clean coach. For them it's quite apparent it's only due to hard work and training. If Jakob had been doped he would still win despite not feeling well. The sore throat would be tidbits for him because the dope overcomes that easy. However there are some obvious dopers around the world if you take a look around which you may find in the video below. For example, if an athlete, whether it's a sprinter or distance runner makes sudden monstrous improvement so very frequently within a period of a few weeks and months inside a single season, and if it's also mid-career when he or she should have plateaued and max out his or her energy stores, then there is cause of reason to find doping.
: A well-known Physicist enclosed in this video seems to make finding doping easier using the laws of Physics on the graph plots of a few Singapore athletes who are semi-elite and not as good as the world elites.
Dear ladies and gentlemen, Dopangia is a new multi-part series exposing the dark and insidious underground doping cartel of a slew of consequently two-faced,...
I apply the observer advantage. This means, with the right skillsets and conditions, the subject experiencing a distress (vaccine health deterioration) cannot know better about the cause of his distressing symptoms than a dedicated observer scrutinizing on the sidelines. Although this premise isn't always the case, it is in the case of Jakob suddenly deteriorating ever so slightly at only the age of 20 years old months after Tokyo and before Eugene. You always go for the simplest explanation, nothing fanciful or exotic. This is called Occam's Razor---simplest explanation is the default truth. always is the case
Wouldn't have expected that, he gets a gold medal for creativity and innovation so props for that. I learnt a thing or 2 as well as I had always been bad at Physics in school. Never knew the answers could be that simple and straightforward. The video is a nice change of scenery and much welcomed information. Thank you for sharing.
Sorry if this has been mentioned. I have not read the entire thread.
On Instagram JI claims he is injured AND sick.
The Instagram crowd is roasting him. Most along the lines of "You didn't seem to be injured or sick when you were gesturing to the crowd and trying to disrespect your opponents."
Excuses or explanations aside, the random italians, spaniards, and other dorky europeans in his instagram mentions crying about sportsmanship might be the weakest people of all time.
God forbid someone tries to hype up the crowd more in a semi. You’d think he slapped his opponents in the face when they tried to shake his hand the way people are talking.
They will get their two dozen likes from the feeble hive mind and retreat to their dilapidated shack on the mediterranean sea to smoke a pack of cigarettes indoors
Sounds like the good life. Also very much enjoying 'weakest people of all time'.
Any race strategy Jakob chooses comes with some risk. If he tries more of a sit-and-kick, he saves some more energy and doesn't let others draft off him, but there would be more runners in the mix in the finish and it would be more of a lottery.
If he tries to solo low 3:28 or faster, there's the hope that he'll break down the rest, but there's also the risk that he'll go beyond his own limit and fall apart at the end.
The tactic he did choose was more or less what I had envisioned beforehand: let Kipsang lead early, then take the lead and very gradually wind it up.
In hindsight, you wonder whether he took the lead too early (around 500m?). He ended up taking a lot of wind in total. Maybe taking the lead at ~800m and really hammer it from there would be better? Hard to say.
Ultimately Kerr had a great day, and Inge might not have. And Jakob's just vulnerable to this; in hindsight he was lucky to be 'paced' by Tim in Tokyo. Either way, it was odd to see him lose virtually the exact same way as last year, given how mad he was about it. Will he change anything going into Paris '24?