te5n1k wrote:
people keep pointing to previous years where he had bad races and bounced back and there could be some merit to that...but getting older isnt going to help his cause and certainly should be factored into the likelihood that he bounces back from this. plenty of time before the trials and ultimately the olympics to pick things up, but with what we have seen so far this year i wouldnt be surprised if someone like Teare was our best option for the 1500 at Tokyo.
Let's be clear - there's nothing to "bounce back from." It's MARCH.
Your reasoning is that "older usually means slower", even though Centro has a full decade of international results on his resume and his worst SB since 2011 is a 3:34 (3:50i equiv)? Would you make the same, subjective statement about Lagat? Mo? Bekele? Kipchoge? One lukewarm rust buster from them and they're done?
Meanwhile, it's reasonable to hype a 21y/o as "our best hope" in Tokyo, who's never raced with the big dogs? Teare is incredible, but he has one international-level PR and one NCAA-level PR, both from the last four months.
Two athletes have made the jump from NCAA Mid-D shooting star to world beater in a year's time the last ~10 years: Murhpy (3rd in Rio) and... Centro (3rd at Seoul WC, 4th a year later as a Pro, in London). Meanwhile, they were preceded by a much hyped NCAA shooting star, Wheating, who rolled 4th in his Beijing heat.