It's the women's 800 a particularly weak event?

Renewed Marathoner wrote:

A typical hs boys team usually has plenty of sub 2 runners. Which would make you I'd say a slightly above average HS runner? Win some local races maybe. But that would be very competitive on the world stage for women.

That's really not true for too many other women's events though right? Maybe 400m or hurdles?

The women's 100,200, steeple, 5k,10k are all pretty solid times you'd have to be a higher tier hs boys runner to hit.

1500 somewhere in between... 416 or so is legit for a hs boy runner. Far superior to 2:00

Why is this? Or am I missing something here

Typical hs boys teams do not have plenty of sub 2 guys. It all depends on the area where there is more speed or endurance for high school but the OG standards for most women’s races are not out of line what you would expect out of a competitive boys high school meet. As the races get higher distance it’s harder to for higher school boys to run those times based on the fact that they have less years of building aerobic capacity.

Hmm... Some good points about aerobic base.

But say 100m. Women Olympics could be won around 11.0. that's very rare for a hs boy.

1:57. Na.

Renewed Marathoner wrote:

Hmm... Some good points about aerobic base.

But say 100m. Women Olympics could be won around 11.0. that's very rare for a hs boy.

1:57. Na.

Google some high school state track meets. In Texas and other southern states you will find more sub 11.0 guys than sub 2:05 on a team or given meet.

Renewed Marathoner wrote:

Hmm... Some good points about aerobic base.

But say 100m. Women Olympics could be won around 11.0. that's very rare for a hs boy.

1:57. Na.

Also a hard no on winning the women’s 100 in 11.00. Making the finals, yes but no chance of winning. 10.93 has been the slowest time winning time in the last 32 years. Marion Jones won in 10.87 and was subsequently DQed so the winning time was 11.13 but I believe they were running into a headwind.

That’s like saying 1:45 would win the men’s 800 in an OG or WC. Know your numbers before making uninformed statements.

Without checking, I would agree that the 800 probably has more high school boys that could medal in the Olympics than any other event.

The Boston qualifying time for women is pretty weak.

High school boys can run all the women's time in my tiny home state. In any big state they can't be that impressive.

But the female 800 is weak right now. No Brazier on the women's said that's for sure.

I doubt you have any boys capapable of 14:15 5k or sub 30 10k.

The US women's 800 has been the most comfortable run event For years sub 2 has been the bench mark with pacers going out in 59 and most of of the field finishing in 200- 202 . Everyone thinking the race went well . In actuality the pace needed to be at 57 with a few well under 200 and others biting it !

Dr No wrote:

The US women's 800 has been the most comfortable run event For years sub 2 has been the bench mark with pacers going out in 59 and most of of the field finishing in 200- 202 . Everyone thinking the race went well . In actuality the pace needed to be at 57 with a few well under 200 and others biting it !

That requires very fast 400 women moving up to the 800 which is not happening much. The 57 has to be well within themselves and the faster the 400 the easier that is. It's hard to ask a 55+ 400 woman to split 57 with 50% of the race remaining. A women's 800 requires a bigger aerobic element than men and it is hard to find VERY fast 400 women willing to do that extra work. I remember a quote from Jearl Miles-Clark when she first moved up about how much she hated the Wednesday 4 mile run in training. I do think your point about complacency is a good one.

go run wrote:

Without checking, I would agree that the 800 probably has more high school boys that could medal in the Olympics than any other event.

In 2016 the Olympic 400m was run in 49.44. and the 800m was run ing 1:55.28. I think the 400m is noticeably easier for high schoolers. We had 3 or 4 guys would would be close to woman (i can't remember if they were 49.3 or 49.8 as their final PR. The fastest guy was 48.7 ) and only 1 guy who was sub 1:57. And we were a distance school. 4:08 would have been 2 or 3 guys depending on your 1600m conversion. Nobody was running 14:26/29.17 though

If you compare the top 100 on the athletic.net HS list vs. the world top 100 list, I'm sure you would find the longer the distance, the better the world's women's depth compares to HS boys'.

One theory could be that, where events on both extreme ends of the spectrum require more specific body types, the middle events that would fit more generally built athletes, have been siphoned off from the key runners could run them. That’s to say, your average 800m runner is probably off playing another sport like Basketball or Football/Soccer.

Regardless of the comparison with hs boys the women's 800 was an extremly weak event last year indeed, so much less depht than basically any other distance and a total joke compared to the 1500m. Hopefully it gets a bit better again, e. g. Melissa Bishop had to be fuming last year when she saw a nobody like Nakaayi winning the WC in 1:58.

As I wrote elsewhere the 800m women is a strange event. Of the 70 fastest athletes of all time (all sub 1:57 since 1976) only 7 have run their best marks in the last 10 years. Three of these athletes have been banned from competition in the event because of an intersex condition. The other four mostly ran their fast marks being dragged along by Semenya. One of these 4 is Hassan, who prefers longer distances.

There are several factors at work here: Historically tainted discipline where 70s/80s style doping was very effective (and so is abnormal hormone level because of rare conditions), domination by an athlete like Semenya for the better part of 10 years that might have driven athletes into different events, and generally the growing importance of longer distances for women that made the 800m less important. When the Eastern bloc women ran 1:55 en masse in the 80s, 3k and longer had just been introduced into the women's Olympics.

I think that with Semenya gone we will see a different 800m than in the last years. The level will obviously be lower (because the fastest are gone, also in their function as second lap pacers) but slowly more women will see a better chance for them in the 800m. Nevertheless, the historical record seems to show that in times with decent controls 1:57-58 are very good times for a woman and maybe we should not realistically expect faster.

Couple of simple points!

One is that the 800 is not as popular as that the shorter Sprints or the longer distance races

Second is that the 800m distance is just an event where young male athletes have a natural Edge over women athletes

Let's face it the longer distances take a big build-up of aerobic training

And the shorter Sprints take more specialized skill training with mastering the start as well as a lot of weight training

The 800m is just a good distance for non specialized natural ability , that is a basic combination of speed strength and endurance, without any really specialized training

[quote]ContextisKing wrote:

The 800m is just a good distance for non specialized natural ability , that is a basic combination of speed strength and endurance, without any really specialized training

Let's face it the longer distances take a big build-up of aerobic training

And the shorter Sprints take more specialized skill training with mastering the start as well as a lot of weight training

/quote]

Sums it up well

We had 10 guys under 2 in HS. In NYC. And we didn't win intersectionals. Maybe I'm biased bc of NYC times are faster than some states? But my impression kids are even faster now than 15 years ago when I was in hs

I agree. Sounds about right.