The good: Grant translated his 26:33 to a final kick and composed running.
The bad: He ran a little too conservatively in his best shot. If he runs the last 600m the way Mo Ahmed has in his 5,000 medal performances, he had a real shot at bronze/silver
Meh race. Does not even compare to the 2007 world champs where the conditions were a lot worse and the winner Bekele had to REALLY work hard to win it since Tadese and Mathathi really pushed the pace. not like this sit and kick boredom city
So proud of Stanley Mburu. Fell and still won silver. I think given how Kibiwott Kandie blew past Mburu at the Kenyan trials, he's the only one who could've have beaten Cheptegei today, if only they'd let him run. Rodgers Kwemoi has no kick and should quit the track.
For those who don't know Mburu, he (and Edward Zakayo) beat in the 5K Jakob Ingebrigtsen at the world juniors a few years ago.
Agreed. He ran awesome - hit fitness is clearly there - but he spotted a few steps to everyone going into the last lap and that was the difference between 4th and a medal. He's now good enough to kick with the best but he's not good enough to kick better than them and make up ground.
Unclear what was awesome about that. He needed to move earlier. He knows he doesn’t have the fastest 100m speed and has the WL. Needed to unbox himself between 1600 and 1200 and be on the shoulder of the leader or in the lead. He was never gonna make up 5m-10m on these guys over 100m
Exactly. Who cares if he finishes strong and gets 4th or 5th? He needed to take a chance and put himself in the top 3 for the last 1200 and try to hold on. There was no chance he was going to come from several meters back to move into the top 3.
" He should've ran wide on that last curve! Played it too safe and had a ton of work to do on the final straight. Still, amazing run."
I've re-watched the last 200 meters 3-4 times now on Peacock, and I think this is exaclty the right take by CollegiateAthlete10. Except for everyone passing Barega, the finishing order of 4-3-2 was exactly what it was coming out of the final curve, with GF looking like he had more gas than 3 and 2 but ran out of room to use it in. Still, dozens of tactical decisions that race, and I guess hard to make everyone correctly when you're in O2 debt.
No he didn't. Horribly out of position the last five laps. Wasn't ready the moment the pace picked up on the back stretch. He lost that race because of his tactics.
I think Fisher ran great but he was in the wrong position when the sprinting started. At the pace they were running, the last lap was gonna be a 53, you're not going to move up from your position when everyone is sprinting that fast, he'd have had to run a 51.5 which he's not capable of.
Great race, great execution by Grant, learning experience for next time.