Is it possible Hoppel takes another bicarbonate product that isn't Maurten?
That's amazing to go from 1:43.23 to 1:41.67 at the age of 26 especially without bicarb. Historically 800 athletes don't improve much if at all past age 25
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Or is it possible Hoppel is simply not telling the truth? I mean these people don’t have to be truthful about what they put in their mouths. Just saying…nothing about him personally but about human beings.
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Is it possible Hoppel takes another bicarbonate product that isn't Maurten?
That's amazing to go from 1:43.23 to 1:41.67 at the age of 26 especially without bicarb. Historically 800 athletes don't improve much if at all past age 25
And historically 800 athletes don't do altitude training and change their training up at age 26 either.
Or he’s doping. Great article. They are never going sub 1:40 without pharmaceuticals though. I do think the WR will be broken but it also wouldn’t surprise me if we don’t see times this fast again for years since they got the Olympic year bump
Is it possible Hoppel takes another bicarbonate product that isn't Maurten?
That's amazing to go from 1:43.23 to 1:41.67 at the age of 26 especially without bicarb. Historically 800 athletes don't improve much if at all past age 25
And historically 800 athletes don't do altitude training and change their training up at age 26 either.
the last 5 olympic 800 gold medalists were born, raised and trained at altitude
Burns said that what is currently happening in the 800 could be a toned-down version of what speed skating experienced when clap skates were introduced in the 1990s.
“You wouldn’t put [the clap skates] on and immediately start skating faster,” Burns said. “But if you trained for a while, you would change your skating technique to take advantage of that greater range of motion that the clap skate allowed…After this transition period of a few years, all the world records were smashed.”
Burns is confident that something similar has been happening in the 800 and more sprint-oriented events with athletes subtly, perhaps unconsciously, refining their form to take advantage of the new spikes.
I thought this was an interesting comparison, and it's the best reason I've heard for why the 800 has finally started improving. Before this he talks about footstrike impacting how much benefit you get from the shoes, so I think the implication is 800 runners have subconsciously adjusted to have more of a midfoot strike than being on their toes. I wonder if 8/15 guys like Kessler benefit from the spikes more than pure 800 guys or 4/8 guys because they already run like that.
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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.
Interesting that of the five athletes currently holding the top fifteen 800 times, all five were born in Africa - three born and raised in Kenya, Sedjati in Algeria, and Arop born in Sudan but raised in Canada.
And historically 800 athletes don't do altitude training and change their training up at age 26 either.
the last 5 olympic 800 gold medalists were born, raised and trained at altitude
Right. You missed his point, though. Those five Olympic champs were born and raised at altitude, so they didn't see any bump in performance at age 26. Hoppel, in contrast, had never trained at altitude until that age, so it may explain why (unlike most past 800 runners) he did see a dramatic bump at 26.