Pre Classic Announces Loaded Men's 5K Field Separate from Cheptegei WR Attempt

This makes no sense. Who is going to be in the A race? Just Cheptegei? Rumors of Jakob. Anybody else? They should absolutely make it one race.

Lame. Some Teare/Hocker type stuff.

Cheptegei Ducking the competition 🦆

Typical Nike-driven crap.

Pathetic. Are they going to have a gilded pacecar with 10 personal attendants in this one as well? Bleeeech. No thank you very little.

Stop spreading nonsense. Only eight personal attendants, max.

It's a joke. If Cheptegei wants it, let him do it in a race vs all those other athletes.

Do they get pace lights in the Saturday race? It would be peak karma if Cheptegei failed Friday night and someone got it the next day.

This a dangerous road ahead. World athletics needs to put a stop to this kind of nonsense. The pacing lights are bad enough, but non-competitive time-only races (much like some of the BTC time-trials a year or two ago) are not good for the sport. Will get to the point where getting a record in a championship race is next to impossible. One of the reasons why mixed races (men/women) don't count as that cannot happen in a championship.

You do remember what was going on in the world two years ago right…. You sound like an idiot

Also is why are none of the US BTC runners in this race??

Because most of them are racing the 10k US trials which is the night before.

They're running the US 10k trials on Friday.

While it’s lame, when’s the last time you can remember Cheptegei playing a principal role in an exciting race months before a Championship? I tend to think he’ll be in, as Grant Fisher says, better time trial shape than championship shape. The second race has guys who can kick like crazy/shift speeds, don’t think we’ll be missing out on much with Cheptegei not being capable of dropping a sub-56 last lap yet.

I don't know about that. The 2019 Pre Classic 2-mile was pretty exciting. And yeah, he got smoked in Florence last year before the Olympics, but he also wasn't fully healthy at the time.

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True, though Barega completely made that race. I guess I’m skeptical of Cheptegei in a real race months before he needs to be in top form. I don’t see him as a Bekele type who would take it from 800 out and then drop a 52-54 daring anyone to catch him. I think Barega is the fun guy to watch.

So he’s not in top form but gets a solo WR attempt set up for him? Doesnt make much sense

if he can run the WR by himself (with the lights), he doesnt need to take it from anywhere, he can just go wire to wire. None of those guys would be shifting gears or sit and kicking him if he drops a 1230

What am I missing here?

Put the loaded field in with the WR attempt on Friday night. Set the pace lights to sub-12:35.36, hire a couple of pacers with a chance to last for 6-7 laps, and make it clear to the rest of the field that their appearance fees are contingent on not willfully interfering with the WR attempt (which seems unlikely anyway), though of course they’re free to beat Cheptegei and steal the WR if they’re capable. Then you have both the time trial and the race in one, and we don’t face the absurdity of wondering whether Cheptegei is actually better than the winner of the elite race. And the WR doesn’t seem like a farce.

And we potentially get the fastest 5k in history, not only for the winner but actually more likely for the field—a rewrite of the toplist, if the field elects to track Cheptegei.

As for “months before he needs to be in top form”…we’re talking about running a 12:34 5k here. If you run the 5k world record, you’re in “top form,” period.

Looks like Nike just wants some WRs for its shiny new stadium. The women's one hour record is soft as hell, equating to 66:52 HM pace. Gidey will demolish it in a training run. It's so soft, even an American could get it.

The 2 mile attempt is pointless. It's also incredibly soft compared to the 3000m and I don't think it's even an official WR anymore, just a World Best because no one outside of the US care about the 2 mile. Why not just go for the 3000m record? Too hard?

Cheptegei's attempt is the only interesting one but it will fail. He'll run around 12:45 at best, unless there's a huge financial incentive. He already owns the record and no one else is close so it's not like he's motivated by his place in history. I'm also mindful of his last WR attempt for the 3k record which was a big failure.

All together, the Friday record attempt night is a pointless innovation. I'd rather just see all of those athletes in real races

Seriously? That’s ridiculous. No matter how good he is, hiding in his own private wave light race is pathetic