Breaking: Josh Hoey has parted with Justin Rinaldi, the man who took him from 1:47 also-ran to 1:42 World Champ!!

I don't find Hoey particularly likable. The arrogance of feeling like you know better than your coach when it's quite clear from looking at his season that he was tired and did not peak correctly. He did a few interviews with Citius since the Olympic Trials and he said he hasn't taken any sort of break or rest period since then- that's insane! Imagine how good he would be if he allowed himself to recover, lose fitness, and build back. Also.. someone who insists on not needing breaks or down periods screams of PEDs to me.

It was Rinaldi who told him to do that as he admitted in public.

At least she won Olympic and world gold

Whether it's Josh or his dad, somebody not named Rinaldi is acting the fool. Sticking to your guns is never commendable when you're an idiot.

If this is all about USAs, Josh needs to look at his execution. He took it out in ~24.0/49.27. Was that prescribed by Rinaldi? I highly doubt it. He has nobody to blame but himself.

The comparison to Webb isn't fair to Webb. He was never this dumb.

Let's not pretend that BT cannot coach 800/1500 guys too. Like Hocker's teammate who won indoor NCAA and ran 3:52 (or 3:53?). There are a whole bunch more examples too.

This. It's easy for runners to forget how incredibly mentally tough you need to be to train correctly. To so badly want to be the best / your best, yet still train within yourself day after day, AND maintain the killer instinct for when you need it, requires a level of self-belief that few people have. Even athletes in other sports struggle with that level of confidence and self-control; it's unique to running in some sense because of the day-to-day injury risk.

On one level it's no surprise that so many elite runners have this ability since, after all, that's part of how they became elite runners. But it's far from universal and I don't think the majority of people have this level of toughness. It's less that Hoey is weak and more that many other elites are exceptionally mentally strong.

I’m still genuinely flabbergasted that someone who goes from 1:47 to 1:42 in one year walks away from that season ready to fire their coach.

I’ve followed him as closely as I can this year because he has really intrigued me, and not once have I thought his coach was the one causing any of his “problems”. I chalked the end of his season down to being fast enough but not experienced enough to race a world class field, and maybe a bit of burnout from the fact that he’s been going full steam since January. Even if he was overtrained/undertrained by the end of this season, his problem in racing was his tactics. Did he think he was gonna charge to an unrabbitted 1:40-1:41 in the third round of the US champs?

This comparison makes no sense and I’m sure you know that. Brazier displayed unreal talent including an AR at the time and a dominant WC victory. He had been there before so it makes sense given he is still relatively young that he could get back to that level. Hoey and his progression is far more unlikely.

Corporate finally gave me permission to publish my column.

Here it is:

https://www.letsrun.com/news/2025/10/column-josh-hoey-discarding-justin-rinaldi-has-to-be-one-of-the-dumbest-coaching-decisions-in-sports-history/

He told him to get out and frontrun, but I believe the directive was 49.5-50.0 not 49.29. It makes a difference as far as stringing out the field (only Hoppel ran anything extra in the race the first lap), and having something to kick with the last 150. I tend to agree that the strategy was *still* a little off, I'd say 49.8-50.5 to bunch the field more and allow a little wiggle room if he got a little excited. Still, the race plan to me was fine, but just poor execution.

All of the incels who are jealous of Hoey’s money situation are the biggest screechers in the thread. They will screech even more to deny this reality. It was admitted for instance Rinaldi was behind the idea of the fast first lap at Nats but they pretend to not know that.

Yeah, Hoey’s dad is ultimately behind this. He’s an arrogant loon. Josh needs to tell him to stand back.

So just jumping to the last page of this thread, therefore, I don't know if this has been stated. But, of course I assume it has, possibly multiple times-

If the main reason for josh's giant improvement was PED's and bicarb, maybe the coach actually didn't have as much to do with his improvement as some suspect. Maybe it was the "regimen" instead.

If so, firing the coach might not be irrational as would appear. 🤷

Next it will be ChatGPT. When that doesn't work, it will be Claude. Then, perhaps, Gemini. After that, Fran will build the boys their own AI coach at their own datacenter on the farm.

Talk about hypocritical doping apologists… Lol. He was on the bench for three years and comes back in March and by August is running a PR. 🤣 Sounds legit. Cooper is to the gills of course, and much less talented, right?

it is about time for this to end very badly.

coach might be very lucky to get out at the peak. he will be in great demand. and wont be blamed whatsoever for what is a near certain narcicistic collapse.

Being recently mildly well-off, I'm not jealous, but I am close enough to such people to know that they reliably follow two golden rules: always credit themselves for all successes, and defer all responsibility for their failures.

This is (part of) how you keep the image of a winner even when you are being carried by others and/or not all that great on your own. (Which seems like a perfect description of Hoey here.)

Didnt an ivy league school hire one of you jokers? So yeah i think worse coaching decisions have happened.

Article is RIDICULOUSLY dramatic. I always say your takes are way too biased by the relationships you have about the respective athletes/coaches and this is another great example. Hoey will be fine. Rinaldi did well with him, but its like you always say, "The athletes make the coach". Obviously, you follow your own 'principals' very selectively so I guess that doesn't apply in this situation.