Sadie Engelhardt has now run faster in the 800 than Athing Mu did at same age!

I was way faster than huddle when we were the same age in HS/College. She's now way faster than me. Things change. It'll be ok, buddy.

I'm gonna hedge my bets and state Sadie Engelhardt will never be an Olympic Gold Medalist. Would wager over $100k on this fact.

you talking about molly huddle? and if so, are you a woman?

Did you get the impression I was implying she was going to be an Olympic Gold Medalist?

Despite my saying she clearly won't eclipse Mu and you can never bet on freshman girls' future success?

Are we not allowed to be excited about great performances anymore? I think a distance specialist running slightly faster than a sprint/long-sprint specialist at the same age is notable.

Did you even read the OP's post? I bet you only ever read the headlines. Am I right?

Engelhardt's long term future is in the mile or equivalent. the fact that she can run 2:05 in the half just indicates what an exceptional athlete she is that she can gut out a lightening fast time in an event thats probably just short of center of her ideal distance (she can also run a 58 second quarter by the way). But the Engelhardt/Mu comparison at this distance is a little meaningless. Mu was designed for that distance and as I recall achieved the mind boggling progression of going from like 2:01 to 1:55 in less than two seasons. No one else has ever done that as a teenager (jury is still out for Willis/Whittaker/Gorriaran though. at least one of those ladies statistically has to continue into the stratosphere and become the next Mu or Ajee Wilson). The real question is will Engelhardt be running sub 5:30 by the time she is a senior or will she plateau before then?

*4:30

A better comparison is Mary Decker who ran 2:02 and 4:40 at the same age. Mary ended up with a 1:56 PR and don't think Sadie quite has that speed but we will see.

That's exactly what they said about Mary Cain in 2012 comparing her 800m PR to Ajee Wilson at age 16. Plain and simple; a 400/800 body will always survive puberty better than an 800/mile type for obvious reasons.

Was just pointing out that Mu had run very fast before turning 16 and now Engelhardt has run slightly faster in what has become Mu's most dominant event. It was meaningful to me in terms of assessing Sadie's upside for the longer distances she races.

As for "the real question", history says the odds are against her running prs as a senior, but I'm rooting for her all the same.

Genuinely curious why you’d think not? She seems to have excelled for years now.

Meant to quote Jonny’s comment

Not Jonny, but it doesn't help that no American woman has ever won a gold medal in any track event longer than 800m in the history of the Olympics.

just noticed Sadie is entered in the inv mile at arcadia. seems kinda strange to me considering Arcadia is all about the 3200.

Are the heat sheets out? All I see are whether an athlete is in an individual race and/or a relay.

If I'm not mistaken, historically Rich G. doesn't do heat sheets. Instead he likes to send out docs that make coaches/fans do all the work to put heat sheets together. I believe his thinking is that allows him to sell more programs. Pretty cringe for such a big meet, but that's Rich for you. So many dinosaurs in this sport it's really a shame.

Don't get me wrong, he does great getting the meet together and it's a ton of work. A TON! But not having heat sheets does the meet no favors.

Why I think not? I've been in the sport over 25 years and have seen better talents not sniff Gold at the Olympics. Don't get me wrong, she's great and amazing and I'm a big fan. You also need to understand what it takes physiologically to win Olympic Gold. Basically, we need to take 12-second 100m speed and move them up to the 10,000m

Looked around a bit for Mary's 400 times in HS but couldn't find anything. Any ideas? Or even when she was a pro would be interested to know if she ever threw down any solid 4x4 splits.

They really, really want that mile record. Ok fine. Have it. So the girl can start to run something else.