Is Pete Julien a bad coach?

fghrunner wrote:

Koko is as good as she was when she started working with him but hasnt improved and seems to just be super talented. .

Hasn't improved? She ran a German national record 5,000 in 2019, her first year working with Julien in14:26, a huge improvement over her previous 14:51 PR. She ran a German national record 3,000 in 8:20, a ten second personal best. She medalled in the World Championships 5,000 that year, the first time a German woman has ever medalled in that event. In 2021 she set a German national record over 10,000m.

dryer parts wrote:

Wait, what? This is absurd. This is in the last 12 months.

Brazier, Undefeated in 800, fastest time in world. American indoor record.

Jenkins 27:22, #9 USA at the time.

Klosterhalfen, 10,000m German NR

Hull, 1500m, 3000m, 5000m Australian NR

Osako, 2:05 marathon for the 2nd time and NR

Engels, #1 USA outdoor time.

Rowbury, back from nowhere to run 14:42/4:02.

Rogers, Anyone can see she’s roaring back. Just dumb racing. 1:59 over the weekend

Even Paul Tanui won that Kenyan 10k champs by like 30 seconds.

You all cray? It’s early May! Cut the man some slack.

Riding the same wave started when AlSal was in charge.

12 months? Try 24 months.

Braziers win streak is coming during the least competed and least competitive time period ever in T&F and he has not actually faced tough competition like he will this year (maybe)

Braziers rust buster 1500 was 3 seconds slower than last year's rust buster where he comfortably ran and won versus this year where he struggled the whole way and a High Schooler outpaced him by a second on the bell lap.

Telling.

Now Julian has Brazier dodging Saruni, Hoppel and Murphy!

Ankle??

Sure, Julian

You are literally the poster boy of delusion. It’s clear you’ve repeated your own thoughts in your head so many times, that you now believe them. Truly, you’re way off. You know what you’ve read on some unreliable message, abs contributed to the false information in the form of an uneducated opinion that you pass off as fact.

Seriously, you’re way, way off.

Which part is delusional?

Braziers was 1:43xx first year out of HS at A&M

He then flailed all over the 2016 Oly trials with poor tactics, immaturity, and a series of coaching changes

before NOP, WITH AlSal, got him in form and got him to race with better tactics.

BUT,..... he's gone exactly 1.5 seconds better since his 143

@ A&M. Julian's had him for almost 4 years now.

Brazier has massive potential but still hasn't realized that potential

....For reference to greatness, Rudisha had 6 of the top 10 fastest 800s ever and 10 of the top 20 under his belt before turning 23. ....Brazier who turns 24 this year has not had a performance yet that cracks the top 25 fastest 800s ever.

Brazier has not performed near his potential and coaching is part of that. He may go on to greater performances still but it's delusional to think what we've seen out of Brazier in 2019 & 2020 is "greatness"

Not by historical standards. Yet

Either way, Julian will be judged accordingly if he doesn't get Brazier to the line healthy and in form

I'm not surprised he's actually not a good coach.

Sometimes I wonder if anyone knows what cheating actually does. NOP clearly cheated with several athletes. That is why Salazar is banned.

Cheating bolsters an athlete's performance unfairly. That is to say, the athlete's results are basically lies. This idea that these athletes are talented and would have achieved similar or the same result is BS. They aren't as talented as you think they are, because they cheated.

Not sure if Pete is a good coach, but he has clearly sold his soul.

Efraimson ran 4:04.5 and 4:04.1 (A Standard) in China in 2019. Then ran 4:27 (In the old Nike shoes) for the mile in a time trial in 2020, saw on instagram. She is pulling out of common funk women find themselves in, in their early 20's. I'm sure Coach Julian will get her running faster than coach Hickey ever did.

Good point!

Well after Brazier's performance last weekend I'm not so sure. Engles looked poor during indoors and hasn't run outdoors yet. Where is KoKo? Is anyone running well under Pete Julien these days?

Umm, ever heard of Jordan Hasay?

Umm yes. What’s your point? She’s been so poor lately I completely forgot she was even coached by him.

Although I don’t know if anyone can get her back to where she was. I wouldn’t put that on Pete Julian.

Let’s take a look at World Athletics profiles and break it down.

Sinclaire Johnson just got her first 1500 pb since 2019. Never got better at BTC in her premier event. Check.

Raevyn Rogers looks good this season after winning a medal least season. Ran a 1500 pb a few weeks ago and opened with a 1:58. Check.

Jessica Hull just finished 3rd in Doha a few days ago in a world class class field. Check.

Women broke that DMR in the winter. Check.

Donaghu just PBd in 5k. Check.

Klosterhalfen. 8th in Olympics 10k, World Bronze in 2019. Had a decent winter winning German XC Champs and I believe second at a Millrose. I’ll give that a “check” because there are some obvious issues Julian has had to navigate.

Hunter was second at Aussie champs in 800 a few months ago. TBD

Engels is his own problem and perhaps the fact that he’s still competing, like Koko, may be more of a tip of the hat to Julian than the other way around. Blank box.

Brazier looked damn good in indoor. Took a dump at Doha, but that’s the 800. All of those 800 guys are wildly unpredictable. Ask any coach that coaches the 800. I remember Rudisha simply showing up to races and going straight to the back. Not to compare the two but that’s the nature of the event. Check (based on the fact these broken outdoor NR and indoor NR and won World gold under Julian).

Yes, he’s a good coach and many of his athletes are running extremely well. He’s not the best coach, as that probably belongs to a high school coach somewhere in the world, but UAC does pretty well.

You take any of the pro teams and there are generally more misses than hits, but they only glamorize the hits (On Athletics Club comes to mind) and that’s ok. Once you scrub away the hype you realize that all the teams have their performers and letdowns. But that’s just the sport.

Whoosh

After the trials last year I broke on the message boards that Donovan Brazier had actually run the entire trials with a broken foot and that Pete Julian most definitely had some level of culpability in that situation.

The reason I came to that conclusion was that was the inability of Brazier, coached by Julian, to get healthy in 9 months for what was the biggest and most important year of his career (the Olympic Games coming off a world title). My claim that Julian is actually a poor and vastly overrated coach actually looks far stronger now after Doha where Brazier looked wildly out of shape, not even competitive in what was a shockingly poor Diamond League 800 meters (maybe the worst 800m in the history of the Diamond League).

I asked myself if I was being too hard on Brazier and therefore Julian, but not sure I am. I would guess that if you made the effort to fly to Doha to run you are in shape to compete - otherwise what would be the point of going and disrupting 10 days of buildup to Eugene, and if not then this would be even more evidence of a coach having absolutely no clue what they are doing (sending a guy halfway across the world in poor shape to get absolutely destroyed in a 1.49 race). And it wasn't just that Brazier got beat, it was how he got beat - he did not even look strong, even assuming he wasn't sharp.

When you look at the fall-off of the others in this group, mostly due to getting injured, it's fair to revisit the narrative that Pete Julian actually isn't some boy wonder coach but a decidedly average one who was just really a waterboy for Salazar. Sure Salazar only officially coached his doping experiments, uh I mean "elite" crew of Farah, Rupp, Centro, but it's clear he had far more influence over the rest of the NOP. When he left and Julian got handed the keys, the car kind of ran on residual fumes for 12 months and then has completely faltered.

Bad coach? Trending that way. Put it this way, he's not very good (shrugging shoulders)