Elias Ngeny WL 1:43.84 (previous best 1:49)

I made two principle predictions when I started coming here 3 or 4 years ago for which I was immediately ridiculed for and labelled a 'racist' :

Claim 1 :The previous 30 years East African domination of middle-distance and even long distance was almost entirely due to doping, and this would be proven in the coming years.

Fact check : There have been well over 50 Kenyan doping busts since I started claiming this, including the likes of Asbel Kiprop and Bett who cheated Kyle Langford out of a historic bronze medal. We even started to see Ethiopian busts, although this has stopped during the pandemic for obvious reasons.

Claim 2 : As testing improved and more East Africans were busted, it would spark a renaissance in performances and the emergence of young talent and even Coe/Ovett/Cram/Ryun like superstars in the West.

Fact check : There has been an explosion of talent in the West, nowhere more so than in GB, almost the moment I started spreading my message here. GB's middle-distance performances have gone from 30 years of hurt to their best shape since the Golden Era. Talents like Max Burgin and Hobbs Kessler in the USA, with similar in the women's. And this is just the start.

Renato Canova wrote:

Armstronglivs, you are not an idiot, only too much arrogant and not mentally flexible for accepting that the reality can be, sometimes, different from your thinking. You have still the possibility to become more flexible and less "taleban", and I assure you that the life is very much better when you don't have certainties in something wrong.

Sorry, but I have to disagree. He might have some high educational level but this sort of attitude ("you won't understand it") just shows the character of an idiot. I much more "accept" someone not that good educated but who can accept when being wrong. Armstrong can't (and he was often wrong on this board before).

restrunner wrote:

Renato Canova wrote:

Armstronglivs, you are not an idiot, only too much arrogant and not mentally flexible for accepting that the reality can be, sometimes, different from your thinking. You have still the possibility to become more flexible and less "taleban", and I assure you that the life is very much better when you don't have certainties in something wrong.

Sorry, but I have to disagree. He might have some high educational level but this sort of attitude ("you won't understand it") just shows the character of an idiot. I much more "accept" someone not that good educated but who can accept when being wrong. Armstrong can't (and he was often wrong on this board before).

Well... This is correct.

Coevett wrote:

Claim 2 : As testing improved and more East Africans were busted, it would spark a renaissance in performances and the emergence of young talent and even Coe/Ovett/Cram/Ryun like superstars in the West.

Fact check : There has been an explosion of talent in the West, nowhere more so than in GB, almost the moment I started spreading my message here. GB's middle-distance performances have gone from 30 years of hurt to their best shape since the Golden Era. Talents like Max Burgin and Hobbs Kessler in the USA, with similar in the women's. And this is just the start.

This is interesting because some African athletes have been "busted" and there has been an "explosion of talent in the West" but the fact is that the African talent is still there. The African athletes are still running fast.

So that kind of defeats the point.

Armstronglivs wrote:

Hicham III wrote:

Oh and also, his previous best wasn't 1:49, it was 1:46 from March in a race which he won.

The improvement was from 1.49 in 2019.

The literal title of the thread is 'Elias Ngeny WL 1:43.84 (previous best 1:49) - which is not true.

Armstronglivs wrote:

Brazier's big jump in times came at 17-18 years of age, not 24. There is a very different rate of physical development in a teenager. How much do you think Brazier will improve at 24?

Yes but that didn't come from him magically just growing 5 inches or getting stronger... It's because that's when he moved to college, presumably started weight training etc. etc. What I'm saying is that this guy, despite being 24, could have just started doing the things an 18 year old Donovan Brazier started doing when he was 18 i.e. training properly. The fact he's 24 has no relevance as he's still nowhere near his physical prime if he's barely been doing any training.

So no, I don't think Brazier will improve all that much when he's 24, the same way I wouldn't expect Ngeny to improve significantly once he's 28/29 and been training full-time for 5 years.

Going back to what I said about Brazier - hypothetically do you not think Brazier could run 1:42/43 at the age of 24/25 if he only started training properly at 23/24 (assuming he kept himself in fairly good shape)? Because that is the situation here with this guy... I think it's entirely possible (see Boris Berian).

Hicham III wrote:

Armstronglivs wrote:

The improvement was from 1.49 in 2019.

The literal title of the thread is 'Elias Ngeny WL 1:43.84 (previous best 1:49) - which is not true.

He took his 2019 best from 1.49 to 1.43 before May was up, in three big chunks. And it's hard to argue for a theoretical improvement in 2020 since he barely improved the year before. Even if he ONLY did the pb jump you want to mention it was still going from what would now be 84th in the world to WL. So well worth discussing. I would love to hear more about his training in previous years, what races he ran at school, what degree he was doing (eg was he doing medicine/engineering where lack of time for training might be understandable).

It's interesting that Athing Mu, who also shows a 2020 gap in outdoor 800m times (presumably due to Covid restrictions) went from 2.01 to 1.57. That was a pretty remarkable jump but at least her relatively young age helps explain it. Ngeny's 2019-21 jump is way way more than that and in what should have been a fairly physically mature body.

So the poster's predictions are usually wrong but yours will be right? (What was that you were saying about "boundless arrogance"?) Then, "since it depends on so many factors I will not predict something like this" (so you really aren't sure at all - you're having a bet each way) and yet you are equally insistent that the poster's predictions will be wrong. I would be surprised if you know which way you're facing after that series of contortions.

I have to disagree with your likening an 18 year-old to a 24 year-old. They are at different physiological stages, with the older athlete arriving at his physiological peak, which typically reaches its highest point at 27 (and this has nothing to do with training), while the adolescent is still rapidly changing. That is why there is an age division separating juniors from the open division.

In your last point, do I think Brazier could run 1 42/43 at age 25 on a year's training - in other words could he run as fast as he is now - no, I dont think he could. To believe he could is to say that the years of training and competitive experience he has accumulated have contributed not at all to the level he has now reached. Do you think that? Athletic excellence takes time to develop; it isn't produced like a genie from a bottle.

restrunner wrote:

Renato Canova wrote:

Armstronglivs, you are not an idiot, only too much arrogant and not mentally flexible for accepting that the reality can be, sometimes, different from your thinking. You have still the possibility to become more flexible and less "taleban", and I assure you that the life is very much better when you don't have certainties in something wrong.

Sorry, but I have to disagree. He might have some high educational level but this sort of attitude ("you won't understand it") just shows the character of an idiot. I much more "accept" someone not that good educated but who can accept when being wrong. Armstrong can't (and he was often wrong on this board before).

I am comfortable in the fact that I will never be proven wrong by you.

You have grasped what is too difficult for others here.

Renato, you have confused my use of the word "mature". I am not referring to life experience or emotional maturity. I am talking about physiological maturity - which is when a person arrives at their natural biological peak, which is typically between 24-28. This is regardless of training. 24 is physiologically mature in a way that a teenage isn't.

However you strenuously avoid addressing my point below:

But what I wish to know is whether you are ever sceptical of the genuineness of any given level of improvement. You have defended Ngeny's improvement of 5-6 seconds over the 800m at age 24. As I have asked you before, when does improvement become suspicious - especially in a mature athlete? He has improved from 1.49x to 1.43x in a little over a year. What if he was running 1.42x, or 1.41x? Would you simply ascribe that, too, to better training?[/quote]

Armstronglivs wrote:

So the poster's predictions are usually wrong but yours will be right? (What was that you were saying about "boundless arrogance"?) Then, "since it depends on so many factors I will not predict something like this" (so you really aren't sure at all - you're having a bet each way) and yet you are equally insistent that the poster's predictions will be wrong. I would be surprised if you know which way you're facing after that series of contortions.

"The poster" is Coevett. I have not done any predictions, so "they" can't be right or wrong. Again one of your problems: bad reading comprehension. I also have not said he is wrong, I have said (again): "let's see". You got it now?

For me it seems plausible, that 1:43.84 can't be Ngeny's limit and he will further improve in the next seasons if things are going well for him. But we also have seen many "one hit wonders" from Kenya and he disappears already next season. But how can you expect me to "predict" something for a runner I don't know anything about apart from a few results and some words from Renato?

Coevett's "predictions" are so extremely influenced by the country or the skin colour of the runner in question and not by rational thinking, that so often he is completely wrong. I just pointed on this.

How is it hard to argue he could have improved in 2020 just because he didn't improve in 2019?! Maybe he was still working whatever job he was working, or not training very much like he was in all the previous years and late 2019 is when he decided to start.

Jake Wightman spent a summer running 1:48 and 3:41 (both PBs) before running 3:35 in 2014 - does that not seem weird? Laura Muir went from running outside 4:30 at 18 (which for a girl is most likely after she's finished developing) to being British Record holder, 2 flat, 4 flat, 8:38 a few years later - does that not seem weird?

Improvement doesn't just come from the body physically maturing - there are literally hundreds of other factors in play. And in Africa, you can add in another load of factors like being concerned where they're going to get their next proper meal from. There are also other reasons from people not to train other than a tough university degree, believe it or not.

Okay so if the physiological development between the ages of 18 and 23/24 are so significant, how do you explain an 18 year old Brazier running 1:43, but has only ran quicker THREE times in his entire life since?

I, hand on heart, believe that if Brazier didn't go pro, or didn't seriously start running until he was 23, he could still run 1:43 by the time he was 25. That is essentially what's happened here.

Renato specifically stated that his lack of progress was due to him being at university, see quote below. So no case for invoking other reasons.

So you aren't making any predictions but you know another poster's predictions are wrong. Because you say he is "prejudiced". (But you aren't, of course - except against him). I'm not surprised you are backsliding - because you, too, are in the business of simply guessing.

The differences between 18 and 24 are significant, otherwise there would be many athletes who never run faster than when they were 18. Off the top of my head, I can only think of Amos. (If indeed he was only 18 in 2012). Most athletes get substantially better in their 20's - although teen prodigies less so. Brazier probably falls into the latter category. But we can be likely assured there will be no big performance jumps at 24.

What you feel "hand in heart" is not an argument. My brain reaches a different conclusion from what your heart tells you. I dont see an athlete stepping off the street at 23 and running as fast as they have at 25 when that was achieved after years of training.

Armstronglivs wrote:

The differences between 18 and 24 are significant, otherwise there would be many athletes who never run faster than when they were 18. Off the top of my head, I can only think of Amos. (If indeed he was only 18 in 2012). Most athletes get substantially better in their 20's - although teen prodigies less so. Brazier probably falls into the latter category. But we can be likely assured there will be no big performance jumps at 24.

What you feel "hand in heart" is not an argument. My brain reaches a different conclusion from what your heart tells you. I dont see an athlete stepping off the street at 23 and running as fast as they have at 25 when that was achieved after years of training.

This guy isn't 'stepping off the street'. He was running 1:48/49 every year, so he obviously trained a bit and kept himself in good shape. And Donovan Brazier didn't achieve 1:43 'after years of training', he did it when he was 18 after less than one year of serious training at college.

Most athletes get substantially better when they reach physical maturity AND train properly, not just when they blow out a few candles on their 21st birthday. If you haven't been doing the training, your peak age is going to be later.