You're not factoring in the additional gain in shoe tech from 2021 to now. Times across the board are faster. 3:49 2021 Centro could be 3 years slower and still 3:49
While true, he has usually shown significantly better fitness than this over 1500/mile. He ran 3:53 in a relaxed win last indoor, and 3:38 in May in 2022. I love the guy and root for him at every opportunity but there's no denying he's been a bit underwhelming this year and I'm starting to get a little worried. Didn't run well at the Ten, didn't run great at Bryan Clay, didn't run well at Oxy now.
On the bright side, it's not toooo different from his results in 2022 and 2023: he's run 3:39 and 27:26 so far, compared to 3:38/13:36 in 2022 and 27:42 in 2023 (although he also had run 3:53 and 7:33 atp), so there is certainly hope. Just a bit worrisome to see him so far behind Nico and Abdi, who are on the same training program, and inarguably are less favored to medal on the world stage compared to a 12:52 man who placed 4th twice.
He was injured over the winter and spent a lot of time not running.
See earlier post about all the other variables involved. Closing speed only one and not really the most important one in the trials. Not saying Centrowitz will win. But he will have fresh legs compared to many in that race which negates age to some degree. I would still refer you to the 92 trials and Spivey’s race against “much faster” younger runners.
Spivey was 32y, 3mo at the ‘92 trials
Nick Willis was 33y, 3mo when he scored the bronze behind Centro in Rio.
Matt will be 34y, 8mo at the trials this June. You have to assume 3:33/3:49 from 2021 remain his absolute limits in 2024, but likely slower. Yes he has tremendous experience and tactical wisdom, but pushing 35 makes it hard. Father Time is undefeated.
I like Matt and genuinely wish him the best. Hope he surprise everyone including me. But you wouldn’t take my bets and you know it.
I’m glad you looked up everyone’s age on Wikipedia. Maybe you can tell us why 32 years and 3 months is necessarily any different than 34 years 8 months. It isn’t. Different people altogether, different time periods with training and shoes better now, which helps older as well as younger pros, and you do realize pro runners have excelled in mid distances at ages up to 40 in big races (Lagat, etc, etc) and beaten even I dare say young, talented collegians in big races. In the trials, experience and tactics usually trump everything else. That’s a fact. Go back and look at all the surprise qualifiers for the US 1500 trials over the past several decades. Go watch the various finals videos on You Tube. They often weren’t the most talented or fastest in the field. But all these messy facts might undermine your preferred narrative.
Young is going to give Fisher a serious run for his money at the trials, if Fisher has a bad day like in '22 I think Young will get him. He is a stronger contender than Klecker for sure.
I agree. I would actually say right now he and Fisher are in a tier of their own — Kincaid and Klecker aren’t there at this point.
If you had paused it at 200m to go and asked me who I thought was going to win I'd have had to put a little money on Centro. He looked great, just needs to sharpen up to get another gear on the end. I'd say he has an outside shot right now, if he improves and gets his finishing speed back he might be able to make a go at it
Nick Willis was 33y, 3mo when he scored the bronze behind Centro in Rio.
Matt will be 34y, 8mo at the trials this June. You have to assume 3:33/3:49 from 2021 remain his absolute limits in 2024, but likely slower. Yes he has tremendous experience and tactical wisdom, but pushing 35 makes it hard. Father Time is undefeated.
I like Matt and genuinely wish him the best. Hope he surprise everyone including me. But you wouldn’t take my bets and you know it.
I’m glad you looked up everyone’s age on Wikipedia. Maybe you can tell us why 32 years and 3 months is necessarily any different than 34 years 8 months. It isn’t. Different people altogether, different time periods with training and shoes better now, which helps older as well as younger pros, and you do realize pro runners have excelled in mid distances at ages up to 40 in big races (Lagat, etc, etc) and beaten even I dare say young, talented collegians in big races. In the trials, experience and tactics usually trump everything else. That’s a fact. Go back and look at all the surprise qualifiers for the US 1500 trials over the past several decades. Go watch the various finals videos on You Tube. They often weren’t the most talented or fastest in the field. But all these messy facts might undermine your preferred narrative.
The only undermined narrative will be yours on June 24.
Nick Willis was 33y, 3mo when he scored the bronze behind Centro in Rio.
Matt will be 34y, 8mo at the trials this June. You have to assume 3:33/3:49 from 2021 remain his absolute limits in 2024, but likely slower. Yes he has tremendous experience and tactical wisdom, but pushing 35 makes it hard. Father Time is undefeated.
I like Matt and genuinely wish him the best. Hope he surprise everyone including me. But you wouldn’t take my bets and you know it.
I’m glad you looked up everyone’s age on Wikipedia. Maybe you can tell us why 32 years and 3 months is necessarily any different than 34 years 8 months. It isn’t. Different people altogether, different time periods with training and shoes better now, which helps older as well as younger pros, and you do realize pro runners have excelled in mid distances at ages up to 40 in big races (Lagat, etc, etc) and beaten even I dare say young, talented collegians in big races. In the trials, experience and tactics usually trump everything else. That’s a fact. Go back and look at all the surprise qualifiers for the US 1500 trials over the past several decades. Go watch the various finals videos on You Tube. They often weren’t the most talented or fastest in the field. But all these messy facts might undermine your preferred narrative.
Have to strongly disagree on one thing. There is a difference between 32/3 and 34/8; almost 2 1/2 years. Matt is a great runner and competitor, no question. He's also well beyond the prime of most 1500m runners (probably about 28 yrs old on average). In the Trials, anything is possible, but I certainly doubt he makes the team.
Had he moved to 5000m a few years ago ( I realize he was injured for a while), I believe he would be in the Oly team discussion. His PR is 13:00.40 and he's only take a couple of shots at it.
I’m glad you looked up everyone’s age on Wikipedia. Maybe you can tell us why 32 years and 3 months is necessarily any different than 34 years 8 months. It isn’t. Different people altogether, different time periods with training and shoes better now, which helps older as well as younger pros, and you do realize pro runners have excelled in mid distances at ages up to 40 in big races (Lagat, etc, etc) and beaten even I dare say young, talented collegians in big races. In the trials, experience and tactics usually trump everything else. That’s a fact. Go back and look at all the surprise qualifiers for the US 1500 trials over the past several decades. Go watch the various finals videos on You Tube. They often weren’t the most talented or fastest in the field. But all these messy facts might undermine your preferred narrative.
The only undermined narrative will be yours on June 24.
And I will giddily remind you of it.
And if he makes the team, you can make up some other half-baked narrative to suit your personal echo chamber.
If the trials is a TT style race like the last few global finals have been, Centro is in serious trouble as that was never his strength even at his peak. If they screw around and take it easy for the first 2+ laps (like milers have been known to do), I'm not going to bet against the best 1500 tactician of this century. He still won't be favored to make the team, but it wouldn't be a big shock.
Excellent 1500m men will typically run 3:34-36 at least when ready. Luis wasn't healthy in the winter and has come back behind last year but he'll be fit when it counts, I think.
Or, they actually don’t worry about peaking in races that mean nothing, and they actually focus more on a specific training plan to run a specific race at the specific right time. Because that is what actually matters. See Viren, Shorter, Coe, Spivey, Kipchoge, Lopes, Snell, the list goes on and on. But you’ve probably never heard of most of them.
Lol. My absolute favorite thing about liberals (who know deep down they are wrong), is that they just make up personal insults out of thin air, comically at odds with reality.
If LR had a betting section, I'd give you even odds Centro doesn't even make the finals in Eugene. If he does, I'd give you 20-1 he makes the top 6, and 50-1 he makes the Olympic team.
We'll circle back on the evening of June 24. Bookmark this, "Historyclass"
I’ll take you up on those odds. Rojo… will you escrow the bet?
Bravo to the Olympic chap. This makes things much more interesting. I wrote him off in December but this gives his fans some hope he can be a factor in 7 weeks.
If you had paused it at 200m to go and asked me who I thought was going to win I'd have had to put a little money on Centro. He looked great, just needs to sharpen up to get another gear on the end. I'd say he has an outside shot right now, if he improves and gets his finishing speed back he might be able to make a go at it
He doesn't have access to the gear he got back in the day.
I think Centrowitz could close a slower paced 1500 in 53, don’t you?
And the issue is whether Hocker, Hobbs, Nuguse and Teare can close even faster. At age 34(almost 35) the odds are against Centro.
No question at least one will close faster than that. Odds of Centro winning are very slim. But 3rd? Very doable. Teare hasn't shown he's quite on the level of the top 3, and while Hobbs is a great runner, I've never see him do anything crazy the last 200. I have seen Centrowitz do some very, very crazy things in the last 200.