Ruminator wrote:
Vancomycin wrote:
Letesenbet Giday will go out in 14:22-24 for first 5k. Hassan might regret those heats semis and finals then.
+1
Yes, I think going hard Ayana-style at world record pace (or the fastest pace possible in tough weather conditions ) is Giday’s only chance. There is a chance that Hasan will be too tired to keep up, similarly to 5,000m in Rio, when Ayana came only 2nd as she was clearly tired from her 10,000m effort (10,000m was run before 5000m in Rio, if I recall this correctly).
If Gidey pulls something like 29 low in the heat this would be more suspicious for me than a Hassan triple. (With all respect I don't understand why people don't find Gidey, Tsegay and the other Ethiopians who improved up to 20 sec. to 14:14 in Hengelo or similarly out of nowhere at least as suspicious as Hassan who ran 3:56 in 2015) It would be like Cheptegei running 26:20 last Friday.
Hassan is suspicious in general but there was absolutely nothing off in her 5000m performance. I'd say the Hassan of 2018 before supershoes could have pulled this off with a bit of luck (although she sometimes lost to Obiri back then but would have been favored in a race at 15:00 pace until the last two laps). The one amazing thing was to have the 1500m heat with the fall but this was almost 12 hours before and the pace in that 1500m before the last lap was around Hassan's 3k pace.