Jonathan Gault's latest feature is out. We REALLY recommend it:
At the start of 2024, only five men had ever broken 1:42. Five have done it in 2024 alone, and David Rudisha's 1:40.91 world record looks poised to fall. What is going on? Jonathan Gault interviews coaches and scientists from all over the world and unveils Project 99 - the quest for the first sub-1:40 800 in history.
I take issue with this sentence from the article: “From October 2019 to September 2023, only one man broke 1:43 – Botswana’s Nijel Amos, who ran 1:42.91 in Monaco in July 2021 and was handed a three-year doping ban less than a year later.”
On October 1, 2019, Donavan Brazier won the 800m final at the World Athletics Championships in 1:42.34.
What’s odd to me is that the top men in the 800 have improved A LOT while the top women have stayed about the same, at least from what I can tell.
I like to be an optimist and believe that improvement is due to better training, better diet, better shoes, better legal support, etc, but I’m really skeptical of what the men have done recently.
What’s odd to me is that the top men in the 800 have improved A LOT while the top women have stayed about the same, at least from what I can tell.
I like to be an optimist and believe that improvement is due to better training, better diet, better shoes, better legal support, etc, but I’m really skeptical of what the men have done recently.
I take issue with this sentence from the article: “From October 2019 to September 2023, only one man broke 1:43 – Botswana’s Nijel Amos, who ran 1:42.91 in Monaco in July 2021 and was handed a three-year doping ban less than a year later.”
On October 1, 2019, Donavan Brazier won the 800m final at the World Athletics Championships in 1:42.34.
Also that's not the correct time. Amos ran 1:41.89.
I take issue with this sentence from the article: “From October 2019 to September 2023, only one man broke 1:43 – Botswana’s Nijel Amos, who ran 1:42.91 in Monaco in July 2021 and was handed a three-year doping ban less than a year later.”
On October 1, 2019, Donavan Brazier won the 800m final at the World Athletics Championships in 1:42.34.
Also that's not the correct time. Amos ran 1:41.89.
It is the correct time. Amos' 1:41.89 was from July 2019.
No worries. Had to fact-check it about three times to get my own head straight before publishing. =)
That's maybe the weirdest part about that weak stretch of the 800. There were some occasional anomalous performances like Amos' 1:41 or Korir's 1:42 low in 2018 that gave signs that the event might be back but they were all ultimately false dawns. Sadly even Brazier's AR to win worlds ended up an anomaly because of his injury struggles past 2020.
There was a thread not long before the DL meet at Paris this year, where the event really got broken, and I looked up where on the current all-time performance list 1:43.00 would land it was somewhere like 110th at the time (this is all performances). Meanwhile, the same ranked 1500 performance was Steve Cram's 1985 world record of 3:29. That was crazy to me and showed the difference in the state of both events at that time. While it is a little sad for me to see that Coe, Kipketer, and maybe soon Rudisha will be swallowed up by modernity but also as a fan of the 800 it's awesome to see people run so fast again! After 2019, I thought Brazier might usher in this kind of era the same way Rudisha did in the 2010s but it looks like Wanyonyi is that true dawn the event has been waiting for.
Great article Jon, and I'll have to admit I was pretty stunned Hoppel does NOT use bicarb when he told me that! A couple of things really stand out from your conversations in it:
1) Wild that they were targeting a 1:39 time when Arop's PB was in the 1:43s!
2) The second 100 discussion. I think this is honestly maybe the most underrated factor! It's like if we learned that every sub-3:30 1500 had guys running 53-second laps from 400-800m. Then if all of a sudden those 53s could become 55s and even-paced effort of course it would be a huge help.
Great article Jon, and I'll have to admit I was pretty stunned Hoppel does NOT use bicarb when he told me that!
Nor does Nuguse (at least not last year when he ran 3:43). So if the stuff works, does that mean they run 140/325?
Last year, I was very skeptical of Jon basically doing Marten's PR for them. I was like well of course everyone is going to take what Jakob takes. But this year when I saw all the 800 times dropping like flies, I was starting to think, "I guess it really does work. Let's dont' deny the obvious (as aren't there some studies now coming out on it?)." But then I saw Hoppel in this story and it gave me hope maybe it's all just a social contagion.
Great article Jon, and I'll have to admit I was pretty stunned Hoppel does NOT use bicarb when he told me that!
Nor does Nuguse (at least not last year when he ran 3:43). So if the stuff works, does that mean they run 140/325?
Last year, I was very skeptical of Jon basically doing Marten's PR for them. I was like well of course everyone is going to take what Jakob takes. But this year when I saw all the 800 times dropping like flies, I was starting to think, "I guess it really does work. Let's dont' deny the obvious (as aren't there some studies now coming out on it?)." But then I saw Hoppel in this story and it gave me hope maybe it's all just a social contagion.
I thought the consensus was that it is clear it does work but the tradeoff was that it does affect some people more than others and Yared sounded like he tries not to mess with too much stuff before he races. What I do wonder though is, does it work better for the 800 than the 1500? Bicarb's job is to neutralize the production of hydrogen ions and I'd think more of those are produced during an 800 than a 1500... right?