I’m worried about Marco Arop

It's tough when some of your competitors are dabbling with chemical substances.

If the world anti doping agency does their job i’m sure Arop will medal

I agree with this, I’m pretty certain Sedjati is doped. Tual is the one that I guarantee is on a crazy stack. Over 2.5 second PB in 1 race? Yeah right. But as a Canadian, I will never give up on arop.

Yes part of the resurgence of the men's 800 is certainly that many of the sub 143 guys are doping or on steroids. Arop could actually be clean, of all those sub 143 guys he'd probably most likely clean.

Very valid take. The progression of the guys from the Paris race apart from wanyonyi is extremely suspect. I wouldn’t be surprised if arop is clean too. Ran right around his pr.

He ran 14.4 the last 100. He used to have this problem earlier in his career and fell apart in the last 100. He will improve if he lets someone else push from 200-600.

That look on Arop's face with 100m to go..."how are these guys running so fast when they were nowhere to be found last year?"

1. Arop was testing his fitness on a full front run agai st a world class field. got a good data point on the feeling of going backwards in the final 80.

2. IF some of the field is doping, they are FINISHED doping, meaning just off cycle and back from hard-to-test camps, riding that fitness to the olympics. this is likely their peak fitness. with rounds and running clean for a month to pass all tests, the olympic final will not go 1:41.XX. if Sedj is stupid enough to dope during the olympics, then yeah, it'll be a hollow medal for someone 10 years from now.

3. He has never been a kicker, so he does need to figure out how to hurt Sedj/Wayn/Hopp/Kess after 3 rounds to just pull a train for a final similar to his world champs. not sure what his camp coaches him to do.

4. Bronze is up for grabs for a back straight sit/kick

I agree. He had the balls to lead, something the other guys in the race didn’t. Tual and sedjati with their PRs should have led. Safe to say Marco dragged them to a fast time. Easier to be the hunter than the hunted.

Yeah because the testing during the Olympics will be way more strenuous. So yeah the final will not be 1:41. As of now, I still think AROP will get silver or gold. WADA should be seriously investigating Tual and sedjati.

Assuming no-one gets banned, Sedjati and Wanyonyi will lock up the first 2 spots and 3rd will either be by someone else who made a jump this year but has rounds experience (Kinyamal most likely) or by someone who was "running for 3rd" outkicking everyone who is dying off of Sedjati's pace

That being said because of fear of retesting I can see Sedjati going down to 1:42 high in the Olympics. I expect Wanyonyi to run 1:41 though tbh

Good call on that.

I'm not worried about Arop, he's from the city of champions and is an extremely hard worker.

so pretty much if your favorite does not win, everyone else is doped.... Well that's the way to go

I think “get it together” is an overly critical way to describe someone who just ran his second fastest time ever, just 0.08 off his PB.

Yeah to be honest I watched his Canadian champs races and he hit really quick 600m splits but didn’t close as well as you’d like off it. Today he went even faster to 600 and it looked about the same. It just shows to me he should let Wanyonyi do the leading and make his move at 300 or 250 to go maybe. There are too many guys now who will crush you if your last 100 isn’t lights out.

The reigning world champion finished out of the top 5. He needs to figure out what happened. I have faith in the premier 800m coach in the United States Coach Woods to sharpen him up. If he can nail the last 100m like he did in Budapest he will medal.

But who else should we consider suspect?

That might be the look on our faces if we don't get some good news from Hoppel soon.

...it's been several hours since the 800 finished and with no explanation for his sudden DNS, it's starting to be concerning.