Why I don’t really care about the Mens 1500m Results despite the top 3 doing really well

And there will come a time when 3:27 will seem laughably slow for an Olympic final - I might not live to see it but it will occur. But people will know that was world class back in the old days and will see that Hocker, Kerr, and Nuguse were the medalists, and that’s all that will matter.

You seem to have misunderstood what I said about times.

When considering all 1500 times ran (i.e. all the times ran by runners, so El G and Jakob are in the top 25 multiple times, with El G at the top)

equal 17th (with El G) Hocker 3:27.65

20th Kerr 3:27.79

21st Nuguse 3:27.8

25th Jakob 3:28.24

In the list of fastest personal bests in the 1500 by athlete (so every athlete can only be in this list once), Hocker, Kerr and Nuguse ran themselves into 7,8 and 9 place with their times in the Olympic final. Of course, Jakob is still above them on this list, he's 4th fastest ever currently, due to his race in Monaco. I consider his 3:26.73 with wavelights and pacers(?) a much more impressive performance than running 3:28 after leading most of the race but only finishing 4th.

Faster times are always better than slower times, your in the bargaining stage of denial and trying to claim that Jakob's 3:28 is more impressive than the top 3's 3:27s because of the context of how the race was run tactically, because your a Jakob femboy and you adore a grown man

Sorry my post got so long again, this often happens with me. Anyways here are my thoughts.

Of course the tech matters if you want to compare how impressive different performances are, better tech makes running easier than it used to be. Tracks, shoes wavelights etc. are the main drivers for advancements of the sport. I remember a video explaining a study where they found that corrected for the tech of the time, the WR on 100m from early 1900s was only marginally slower than Bolt's efforts.

The advancements in pure performance are apparently way smaller than it seems for events like the 100m dash (and probably most events). When Jakob gets the WR, he is the fastest ever, I agree. WRs and times are fun for sure. But I wouldn't argue that his physical performance was more impressive than El G, just because his time was faster. We only measured their time around a track, and not all aspects of their pure performance. They didn't run with the same equipment, so the only thing we can decide is that Jakob ran faster. It's really difficult to decide which physical performance is more impressive. When comparing efforts across races, much is left to speculation.

You can make an argument and discus it for sure like OP did, and it's not illogical imo. Also naming a GOAT is hard and just subjective. People are very selective which what they choose to include when pronouncing someone GOAT. Imo El G is GOAT.

It's good that the event is run as a race, and it's the guy who won that counts when giving medals. It's after all not a time trial with a controlled environment.

Stop with the old LRC polarization. Yes, I like Jakob, I think he's a fascinating and inspiring athlete. No, I'm not a Jakob femboy, Kerr femboy, Hocker femboy or Jakob hater. I'm a sports femboy. I love sports and great races. I think the 1500m final was a phenomenal race (the best I've ever seen, tied with olympics 400mH WR race), and I have no personal emotion tied to Jakob's result. I think it's great for the sport with rivalry and a stacked field with high performing athletes. I think Hocker really deserved his gold. Btw I'm also a geek boy with a hobby interest for sports science.

What I was getting at is: people using the times as a reference for comparing the level performances is difficult, and requires context if it's to make any sense. Too much context for us to actually make sense of it if you dig deep enough. Imo the time of a race like 1500m is imprecise as measure of performance, and comparing across races is a toughie. To be very precise you would also have to consider wind in addition to all the factors above.

Comparing how impressive pure physical performances are in the same conditions, on the same track, equivalent shoe tech is easier. You could make an argument based on formulas for wind as well as the psychological difference of leading vs chasing.
One thing is who crossed the line first, but another thing is the physical work the athletes exerted (which imo is the pure physcal performance). Racing involves other perfomance aspects like tactics in addition to the isolated physical performance which OP was getting at.

Imagine a cycling race (which is convenient since we can measure watts). Rider A front rides 650 watts for 10 minutes. Rider B tails him producing only 510 watts, and beats him in the sprint. Rider B did the better race and took gold, meaning their racing perfomance was better. However, the isolated physical performance of athlete A for those 10 minutes is more impressive. Allright that's enough geeking in circles from me.

To some degree I agree with what the OP is saying. Obviously everyone wants to win, but I do think there are other things that matter to Jakob as well (and also other things that matter to the fans). These things include making it an honest race, and running a time that you’re proud of.

I just rewatched Centro’s gold from Rio, and all of the flak that he catches for running a 3:52 is completely understandable. I felt like I wasn’t even watching a race for the first 2.5 laps.

Of course an Olympic gold is cool no matter what, but I sure as heck appreciate Jakob making these races as honest as he does. It’s honestly a shame that leading is such a detriment at these fast paces, I think most fans would prefer not to watch a jog fest

One thing is his PR. But do you also think Jakob's own 3:27:95 (which was a paced DL meet) is more impressive than 3.28.24 from the front?

Lol grown man... You're clearly not a grown man seeing as you're resorting to personal attacks and insults rather than argumentation.

Mate, you literally wrote this:

Here you are comparing all the times in-race towards alltime races. You are here ranking their perfomances based on their order in the all time list. Making this comparison, you are conveniently ignoring that Jakob's time was front-ran, while the others got the best (unintentional) pacemaking job ever. I think comparing the efforts in this way is silly. Hence all my writing in above posts about context.

In the context of the 1500m final, the podium guys had better racing perfomances than Jakob's. OP's argument was that what I would call Jakob's pure time trialing performance was more physically impressive than the podium guys' performances. Not that it matters much other that giving fans some consolation as Jakob goes from the final without a medal, but that doesn't mean it's not an interesting discussion. Here's another fun one: Imagine what another Jakob could have done being paced by the Jakob of this final. He could probably have gotten pretty close to WR.

Pretty close? He would have gone way under 3:26, and I am fully convinced of that.

No one cares that you don’t care.

You commented on this thread, so clearly atleast you care 🤣

Jakob's 3:27.95 is more impressive than his 3:28.24, because it's faster. If he'd won the olympic final in 3:28.24 I would rank that 3:28 as a better performance, because of the context that it is a win in an olympic final, but that's got nothing to do with him leading, if he kicked the last 100 to run 3:28.24 and win that would be just as good as leading and running that time.

Sounds like you are saying you love Jakob the best anyway. Lol.

It would be different if it was the 2016 Olympics where the time was awful. As a group these guys are the fastest we have seen ever (assuming they are all clean). 3:28 is not that great as you consider even less than a month ago he ran under 3:27. He ran a terrible tactical race and will have to find a different way.

I share this exact sentiment. I basically explained the same POV to my friends on how insane Jakob’s performance was. He has changed the sport and leveled everyone up in the process.

I don’t know about you guys, but I watch professional sports solely to assess perceived effort and tactical planning. I am not entertained by the results at all. I care about giving 110% and that everyone has fun.

4th place when you are supposed to win is not fun

Keep shining that turd 😆 🤣 😂

Until they change the rules from 12 athletes lining up competing against each other to see who gets to finish line first, to each one picking their own pacer and trying to run the fastest time, it is meaningless.

It seems I have finally gotten to the bottom of your disagreement with OP then, as well as our own disagreement. I'll do another breakdown now that I've been able to sleep on it. Thank you for an exciting and illuminating discussion!

You seem to care most about what I call the racing performance, which involves tactics and the better disposition of the athlete's fitness to get first to the finish line. At the same time you care about their time, as you consider a faster race more inpressive. You do not however, care about the athlete's aerobic performance (what I previously called the "pure physical performance" in lack of a better term).

OP argues that he cares most about the aerobic performance as a big Jakob fan, and he weighs this higher than the other athlete's running performances.

Now that I've been thinking about this I have changed my opinion, as I previously was inclined to agree with OP. I appreciate that Hocker put down a very impressive aerobic performance to be able to follow Jakob, and he obviously delivered the best and most impressive racing performance as the winner.

At the same time I am able to appreciate that Jakob's aerobic performance was likely more impressive than Hocker's, though his race was way less impressive as he lost his head getting too excited and failed to pace himself ideally. I sincerely doubt Hocker could front run a 28:24 even if he wanted to.

If we try to determine a "total" performance we have to consider which of these components that matters most. Seeing as the event is a race, the racing performance is definitely more important than the aerobic performance. And in this discussion we haven't even considered how stacked the rest of the field is and so on. The world doesn't care who did the highest VO2 max, but who won the race. Therefore I disagree with OP that Jakob's performance was more impressive. However I won't take from him that Jakob's aerobic performance was dope. Jakob's aerobic performance is in this sense independent from his racing result.

My disagreement with you is your argument that a time is "more impressive" than another time just because the time is faster. If you want to compare people's times as a measure of how impressive their aerobic performance was, it's not sensible to ignore headwind and the other factors. It is a faster time yes, and can be a more impressive race.

I think Jakob's 3:27:95 is a more impressive total performance seeing as he won, but likely a less impressive aerobic performance than a 3:28.24 from the front based on what we know about drafting advantage.

Further, I'll now argue that Jakob's 2021 total performance was more impressive than this year's because he got a gold. Do you think this year's race was a more impressive performance than 2021 gold only because his time was faster? It got higher on the all time list after all?

Let's pretend that Jakob ran the 2021 olympic final in 3:28:24 instead of 3:28:32, so equal to this year's. Then his total erformance would have still been more impressive, but obviously it required less aerobic fitness to draft to that time. Hence, this year's final demonstrated a superior aerobic performance to 2021, not only because it was faster, but also because it was achieved without drafting. To me, this context is important because it gives more insight into the details of the athlete's performance.

If you want to compare times, and only times, you ignore all aspects that go into the performances except the velocity of the athlete. In an of itself I think it's too imprecise to talk only about velocity.

Based on your above arguments, would you also say that a 9:57 100m dash with a 10 m/s tailwind is more impressive than Bolt's 9:58 (which obviously was within the wind assistance rules)? It's a faster time for the 100m dash after all.

That's great snowflake ,but I don't see your point. That means if Jacobs performance was the greatest--and it had to do nothing with winning the gold--sure he's the champ then in his own mind--or yours! Lets extrapolate--even though I don't have to. I've seen Walter Payton of the Chicago Bears give it his "all" or in your words "the most impressive performance". Guess what Walter Payton doesn't show up in the score box!!! Point is BEST PERFORMANCE MEANS NOTHING IF YOU CAN'T WN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cheruiyot executed the same front running in WC 2019 with great success.

I think Jakob is around 2 sec better than Cole, Josh and Yared in an all out 1500m with the same conditions for all. But racing and strategy and coincidence matters…

I think Jakob wins with almost all strategies, if they are executed well.

Jakob’s choice of strategy was exactly the same I would have judged as the best -the one with least risks and also a dominant and impressing one…

I think Jakob would have run 3.27 flat if he had done his first lap 1.5 sec slower (still front running all the way). -He would then beaten Cole with around 0.5 sec, and everybody would have praised him for his tactically ingenious race. But he missed out for the reasons he stressed in his post race interviews. No downer at all in my view -and I’m happy for the good pbs Cole, Josh and Yared were pulled to…