Matthew Boling Turns Pro

If he wants to win gold medals: focus on 400, where he will never be great but can probably finish in the top 8 at national champs. From there, just rack up mixed 4x4 golds until he retires.

If he wants to take advantage of talent and test himself: focus primarily on long jump while still racing at 100 and 200 fairly often.

[this is when the "Jeremy Wariner should run the 800!!!!" guys return]

As a long jumper?

He should focus on the 400h or the 800.

teach him to pole vault and he'll put Jenner to shame.

400 + LJ double:

- Will retain enough speed for a strong run-up

- Almost guaranteed 1 medal per champs from the mixed relay as long as he makes the final of USAs

- Those are his 2 individual events with the most chance (although still outside chance) of medalling ever. He will never medal in the 200 or 100 unless everyone else dies or gets injured.

LJ at USAs is notoriously weak as well, often the top 3 at USAs have not even attained the standard. With some specific training he can definitely make teams

why not the 3000? Marathon?

It's not even a crazy double. Christian Taylor ran 45.07

I tend to agree with this, but it sounds like he wants to focus on the 400.

Agreed on LJ. But.

He's got a better chance of medaling in the 200 than the 400 individually. In the 200, he needs to be in peak shape and hope 2-5 guys get injured. In the 400, he would need to be way beyond his current personal best before other guys getting injured is even relevant.

200m basic best: 19.89. In Budapest, that would have netted him 4th place. With an injury to Lyles, Tebogo, or Knighton, that gets him a medal. Of course, he'd first have to make the team - a taller order, as this would have essentially put him at 5th at USTAF. But, with an injury to two guys, he's in (and then medals).

400m best: 45.17 in 6th. This doesn't even get him into the final at Budapest - the slowest qualifier was more than 0.2 ahead of this personal best performance during the semis.

"Oh but he once ran a relay leg I thought was impressive" is the only explicit support anyone ever uses for this proposition. It's all Wariner Should Run The 800 pt 2.

No, that's not it. It's does he want to run the 200 and not medal? Or run the 4x400 and get a gold medal?

I'm not saying there's a right or wrong answer. That's for Boling to decide.

But he isn't ever going to be top 3 in the world in the 200.

Agreed, but considering how hard it is to even make the USA team, if he somehow snuck on I feel like he would end up being fried by the 200m final at the majors having peaked to make the team. 19.89 - 4th is all well and dandy, but almost everyone in the final has a better PR than him (and their PRs are from pro meets and not Georgia Tech Invitational which happens to be his only sub 20) - and for one reason or another everyone apart from maybe Knighton ran slower than they could've that day, so I struggle to think if Boling was there he'd be the exception. Unless of course, he improves at the event.

You're right RE: his current 400m stats, however he only started 400m training after NCAA outdoors and I believe he can be a 44 low runner with a good base under him, and even without this, 44-high to 45 low gets him mixed relay medals whilst he can still focus on the Long Jump.

Boling has Olympic gold potential in one event and one event only: decathlon

While it may be painfully obvious to some, I suspect Matthew and his coaches/team will not fully realize this until he's in his early 30s

I hear this a lot but I really think he would be inept at every event requiring a technique (hurdles, throws, pole vault) and hence wouldn't be able to carry himself with the 100, 400 and 1500.

So happy for him!

He was a 26 foot long jumper in high school. Obviously he had more speed than the standard 26 foot jumper but being able to do so in high school requires a level of familiarity with technique that absolutely transfers to any other decathlon event.

To this point, he has been far better at 200m than 400m, though he has not run or trained for the latter enough. 19.89 basic will make some teams and potentially even medal. If he improves with coaching that suits his strengths and weaknesses better than he's seen at Georgia (where he didn't improve much in the 100m and regressed in the 400m), a 200m team and medal would be possible. Many guys improve a lot after college. I wouldn't predict it as most likely, though. Long jump is definitely a soft event right now. At 100m, he'd have to get into the 9.8s to make a team and potentially medal and that's difficult given how he regressed this year.

Surprised he is good enough to go pro (?) although perhaps he isn't but he has just gotten a lot of press since the HS 100m run and so he's marketable.