Wilkinson must have raced it in to get 7th - he was far behind for much of the race. Not bad! Fab run by El Bakkali and Ruppert
Look out for Serem Jnr too
also where is the DL championship i.e Serem Snr
Some degree of injured still I think. He got carried off on a stretcher at the Kapsabet weekend meet. While the use of a stretcher might not have been necessary (he fell in the water jump, ran another lap, stumbled again and stepped off the track), it seems like a pretty serious set back for him.
That was back in mid-March so maybe he's running again but I haven't seen it. Perhaps there's a small chance he'll race Kip Keino Classic next weekend but I doubt it
The scary thing about Wang's 8:06.1 is that she ran the second half in 3:59 along with a 2:36 final km. She was probably worth 8:04. She also ran 8:12.1 in the heat a day earlier LMAO.
In her 29:31 10k WR set 5 days earlier after being paced through 5k in 15:05 and up to 7k in 21:14 she suddenly sprinted away, following a 3:04 7th km with a 2:45, 2:44 & 2:46 for a final 3k of 8:17 (last 5k 14:26). As the 5k WR was 14:36 at the time she essentially broke 3 WRs in the same race, her 29:31 clocking largely a result of a 3k TT at the end of a 30:15 race.
She was easily capable of sub 29 that day.
Oh, and between these 2 races she also found time to run a 4:01 heat and 3:51 for second place in the final. Qu's 3:50.46 WR would last 22 years.
Go to 58:08 of this clip. There's a closeup of his face and he's wearing an Under Armour singlet. It's definitely Jonah Koech. But for some reason he's entered as Edward Kemboi. I know what Edward Kemboi looks like -- he was a former NCAA 800 champ for Iowa State -- and he looks nothing like that.
8:06.11 Wang Junxia CHN 09.01.73 1 Beijing 13.09.1993
A day earlier she ran 8:12.19 in her heat!!!
One of the most doped athletes of all time?
The whole Chinese team was heavily doped at the time. Became a major scandal but unfortunately that came much too late to help any of their clean competitors..
Cole Hocker, Bryce Hoppel, Grant Fisher, Hobbs Kessler, Kenneth Rooks
That group owns 4 Olympic medals from Paris and a 4th and 5th place. Winning a diamond league is hard, huge congrats to Koech.
Not in any way trying to discredit how hard winning is, but there have been people win with barely any credentials. Hanna Green won in Paris in 2019 and only made one US team (World in 2019) where she was dead last in her opening heat.
Didn't that split 2:30/2:23/2:30 though? Surely with better pacing he's closer.
The El G 3000m from Brussels?
I know he was 3.54.4 at 1600m and 4.53.3 at 2000m. So that was a 59.1 for that lap - I'd be surprised if he ran run a 1.24 600m off an opening km of 2.30. I used to have this race on a VHS back in the day and not sure I remember it being that crazy from the first km to the second - especially for El G who never shy of fast splits in the opening 1/3 of any race he time trialled (often to his detriment).
The Brits on cbc are excited about Burgin's 2nd place and PR.
Burgin has been so brittle the last few years, but he has huge talent. Starting the year with a PB is a great indicator but also not unusual for him. I'd love him to stay healthy and really see what he can do.
He has had his probem correctly diagnosed and treated (a 'sural nerve' issue rather than his achilles), so hopefully he is over it now. It would be great if we get to see what he can do over 1500m as well.
Well, this is a sobering reminder of how absurd 8:06 is.
Turtle blood is a helluva drug
Imagine a country that completely closed down for 4 years, limiting travel, threatening people's jobs, preventing people from shopping for food -- unless they got jabbed with a drug.
Now imagine that same country constantly attacking world class runners from other countries and trying to accuse them of being on drugs.
Yes this actually happens, and it started long before the lockdowns requiring the drug jabs.
I'd love to see this be real but there is just no real explanation for Ruppert's performance. He drops 14 seconds in the steeple at 28 to 8:01. He had run 7:46 indoors/13:21 on the road this year, but still ludicrous. What would Cooper Teare be expected to run in the steeple as a fairly tall 7:30 guy if 7:46 flat gets you 8:01 over barriers? This is a guy who ran around 1:57-58 at age 19, so not a prodigy.