What Happened to 1:44 1500m Men like Morceli?

Uhhh they retired. Same as Aouita, Coe and Cram and 1000 other runners that were the best of their generation going back 100 years.

Ryun, Ovett, Snell, Peter Elliot, etc. ......800/1500 was the classic combo. Aouita was the anomaly who was world class from 800 meters to 10k. Ovett had the 2 mi world record and Morceli the 3k world record. Neither ventured into the 5k seriously (Ovett won the Commonwealth Games 5k late in his career with a so so time and a big kick). The rest of those guys did not run above 2k.

There are still plenty of them: Wightman, Habz, Cheruiyot, Kipsang, Gourley, Giles…

And I’m confident that some of the more strength based 1500 guys could run under 1:45 if they took more cracks at it.

I've always felt that the 1500 shares a lot more in common with the 5k than the 800, even if the actual differences in distance is larger. the 800m is a lot less viable for guys who cant run at least 46 for 400m these days, whereas the 5000m is still wide open to runners with "bad" leg speed. distance training is also just less hard on the body overall than the type of training necessary to really get an 800m guy feeling ready for race day, so skewing more strength based just makes more sense if you're going for a double.

Wightman has run 1:43

We need more 1500m guys like Alan Webb who can run 1:43 and drop a 12 second 100 from 800-900 in a championship 1500 only to fade to 9th on the final lap. Back when 1500m runners had real speed or whatever.

The kind of training that was making guys good at 800m-Mile would now be considered pretty outdated. Doing most quality work at threshold is far from optimal for the 800m. If you heard a pro miler was blasting 400 repeats sub-58 twice a week in 2023, you'd probably tell him to fire his coach. Well, all of that anaerobic work being thrown away was good for the 800m!

So yeah, milers are running more volume, and moving much of their quality VO2/Mile Pace/800m pace into thresh work, and it should not be a surprise that using a meter to make sure that your body is never tapping into an anaerobic system is not ideal for well... An anaerobic race.

You've seen divergence on the 800m side as well. The average mileage of the top guys is now closer to 30 than it is to 100. MaxV Sprinting and lifting is probably in more top programs than a run over 1hr. So of course, now you also have all these 1:45 guys who can't break 3:43/4:00.

Here we go...
You must praise the "home star" of LRC fanatics

otherwise the robotic downvotes are awaiting.

All these mens were great runners but after the end of their became very ordinary persons (lack of personality? weak culture? fright to return to the difficulties of the past?)

And what have done Marita Koch and Lars Viren for their countries?

...

With the exception of Said Aouita, definitely one of the most influential African sportif of all times.