Is the Men's 800 Meters the most stagnent track event and why?

In order to harness pure hate, one must harken back to the good ole days.

It is a difficult task.

the human race has peaked. Too many countries have a reduced fertility rate. Combined with civilized luxuries, there is no pressure for evolution to make us faster.

If there was a man-eating predator that could run 1:40.00, that might make a difference, in whatever country it was eating people.

Drug testing in the early 80s was very immature.

This is all about peds.

I do believe the all-time list would have the same names on it without peds, but the times would be a lot slower.

So dominated by two Kenyans.

And 7 of the fastest 11 Kenyan 800m performers in 2017 have received suspensions due to better testing.And the only guy (another East African) to run under 1:42 busted.

Hmmmm..I wonder why 800m times are stagnant?

Yes indeed.

All these modern attempts to rid the world of hate have had a negative effect on 800m running.

You just can't rip a good one without pure hate in your heart.

Another sub 1:42 runner from East Africa? I know that facts are not for you, but there arte really not that many sub 1:42 runner at all. So it should be possible to check this - even for you.

Wondering without any answer: Coevett.

I wonder whether the theoretical best 800m runners are opting for different events. Following the World Championships in 2022, Wightman dropped down to the 800 for a while and was immediately able to beat the 800 specialists. You’d have to think that, if he focussed on the event, he could beat most of those guys on a regular basis.

It also doesn’t help that the most talented 800m athlete of the current era (Brazier) has been injured for a couple of years now. If he had been fit and in form we might have seen a ‘Rudisha effect’ type scenario, where the overall field runs faster because of a generational talent pulling them round to fast times.

Because super shoes don't really make you faster, they just save your legs a bit, which doesn't really matter for the 800 and down.

Newest wave of modern drugs don't benefit the 800 as much. Same goes for cheater shoes and DumbLight.

The world leading 800m time was under 1:42.50 in 11 of the 24 seasons from 2000-2023. Rudisha had the no. 1 time in 5 of those years. On average, ~1.91 men broke 1:43 each year from '00 to '22, so having 2 under last year is pretty much par for the course. There are plenty of years where the world lead is only 1:43.

I think the event looks bad in part because a dude competing 40 years ago would kill any of today’s guys, but also because no one has been able to fill the void Rudisha left. You need a true superstar to drag the other mortals to fast times.

Look at Jakob in the 1500m: we had 11 sub-3:30 last year, up from just 4 in 2022 despite having the same shoes, same tracks, and most of the same athletes. The difference? Jakob ran way more Diamond Leagues in '23 than '22. So far, the others have not been able to break 3:30 without him in the field, and until the 800 gets somebody like him, we’re not likely to see a huge number of 1:42s.

The 800 also doesn’t benefit from wavelight nearly as much as the longer events do.

400m is pretty similar

They need to hop on the same stuff they had in the 1980s before drug testing. You talked about the men's record, but the women's record was set in 1983 by a man.

Outside of drugs, tactics to actually win the race, disincentives going out at a suicide pace to be the pace maker for the rest of the field. The only one to do it was Rudisha who is the GOAT of the 800m and why he pulled Nick Symmonds to a 1:42 along with like 7 others in that race.

Lastly talent, why run the 800m when the World Champion for the 400m was won in 44? If you can run a 1:41, you can run a 43 high.

I am not sure what others think but I don't think Coe was a doper nor do I think Cruz was a doper. So my question is/was how did they run in the 1:41's 40+ years ago and today we do not see those times. However in all other events the times have dropped.

What did Coe do in training to achieve that time. I would like to hear his take on this subject.

This is an evergreen subject, often discussed.

For slower athletes and those starting out, the 800 is a middle distance event. This favors a certain type of athlete. At the top end, the 800 is more of a sprint which favors another type of athlete. There aren't many events 400-800 that develop an athlete who'd eventually be a top 800 runner. Therefore being good at the 800 requires radically changing one's training over time. The best 800 runners probably suck at xc and therefore aren't going to get developed for like half a year if they're American juniors.

Better anti-doping controls especially of testosterone like anabolic steroids. That and the super shoes dont benefit the faster events as much.

I started a thread with a similar genesis point a little while ago simply titled "Why is the 800 so weird?" Like you, I'd noticed a weird stagnation not just between Coe's era but even earlier. Previous record holders Juantorena and Fiasconaro would both be competitive globally today ~50 years on from their records and even Peter Snell with 1:44 would be a world class from the 60s!

Responses I got on that thread pointed out that the training is inherently risky because you must straddle the volume of a 1500+ runner while also getting in high intensity sprints. That balance of training is difficult to manage. Jakob talked about how he views threshold training as less of a gamble than other systems and this works great for 1500 and up but everyone notes that Jakob does not have that top end speed at 800.

I also think the 800 is one of the most variable races in terms of time. Because the race is run on such a knife edge between too fast and too slow, if you get it wrong you can easily go from running 1:42 to 1:46. I think of 2015 USAs where Duane Solomon was leading through 700 and had hit great times on all splits but then literally stopped and went to his knees on the track. Again, even among the true specialists it seems that the race can vary like this and you have runners struggling.

I personally love this aspect of the race and find it so much more interesting because of all the weirdness of the 800!

It seems to me that the 800 isn't really getting faster but more people are running under 1:45.

Maybe we're close to the limits where time is concerned but more and more people will run at those limits? And, I think that the average career may be longer than it was 30-34 years ago so that crowds up the field a bit.