JC93 wrote:
As the aforementioned poster who mentioned Phoebe on this forum a couple of years ago after seeing her run 2.03 just after turning 15, I wanted to hop on and share a bit of knowledge RE Phoebe as I'd seen some questioning her progression and wanted to explain why I don't think we should necessarily regard her 2.01 PB as representative of her ability last year.
She was carrying a manageable but frustrating calf injury for most of 2023, April, May & June were pretty tough months. Come July, she ran a 54 flat 400 at her home track, I was there and it was mightily impressive. A few days later she ran a lone 4.11 1500m, which was a new British age group record. She then flew to the Caribbean in August to compete in the Commonwealth Youth Games, where she even split a 2.02 800 PB and again, won by a wide margin among her peers. Her 2.01 PB was set among older athletes a few days after returning from Tobago where the CYG were held. She raced exclusively in age group ranks and won every race by a wide margin aside from that race.
I just wanted to share that, as I don't think looking at a young athletes PB in isolation is necessarily representative of their ability. We will all hold different opinions, but I'm of the opinion that Phoebe was in 1.59 shape last summer.
That's a variation on the "talent" argument: she was really faster than her previous bests showed. But actually she wasn't. But that notwithstanding, at just turning 17 she ran faster - alone - than Mary Moraa (another Kenyan, which these days invites its own scepticism) did to win the Diamond League a couple of days earlier. I'm never surprised by anything in the sport now.