New men's 5000m predictions

kimeli

gressier

mills

I think Hocker would be the favorite now. It'll be a slow race and he's in the best 1500m shape in the field.

Imagine if Fisher, Young and Mehary just grow some balls and take it out in 12:55.

If they really want to win that's what they do.

Hocker will win, he will be hot favourite.

According to Oddschecker, Jakob is still the actual betting odds favorite, which strikes me as a bit wild given the egg he laid in the 1500 prelim, but that's clearly where the oddsmakers see the most exposure. Gressier 4-1, Nico 5-1, Grant and Hocker 6-1, Laros 10-1. If you really believe in Kimeli, you can get him at 15-1.

As I recall, Mills broke his wrist about two months ago. I feel like that would mess with one's training.

Google "Prisoner's Dilemma." If one of them takes it out in 12:55, he is sure to lose.

These odds seem nuts.

You have to understand that the betting houses don't care about who's going to win. They care about not losing money. They react to their own risk and adjust their exposure. Notice that the top six guys in the betting odds are westerners. Is it really that unlikely that an African will win the 5k? Probably not, but most westerners with the $ to bet are more likely to overestimate that their favorite western runner is going to win, and so that's where their exposure lies.

Why does Nico have no chance in a 13:20 race? Are you saying he does not have speed?

The implied odds sum to 165%. This is a ridiculous amount of vig. Usually the implied odds for major sports sum to around 102-110%, and it's very rare to even see 140%. Betting on track and field is simply not widespread enough for bookmakers to care about optimizing their odds. It would be a terrible idea to bet with odds as awful as these.

Unless somebody makes this a 12:4x race at least by 3k or so, Hocker is going to run the 1500 that he didn't get to run today. Nobody else seems ready for it.

Ethiopia is fielding Hagos Gebrhiwet, Yomif Kejelcha, and Biniam Mehary. There is some chance (35% ? who knows) that Gebrhiwet and/or Kejelcha ramp it up from mid-race. That would make it interesting, and mess with what some of us are saying here.

He has wonderful speed for a 5K/10K guy, but if he is kicking against a 3:27 guy he will lose.

Better to lose in that fashion than to lose in a 13:25 race being outkicked by a nobody.

(that is exactly what is going to happen)

This will be Kejelcha's last track race before moving to the roads, right? I'd love to see him really put himself out there with a blazing last 2k or 3k in a bid to tire out the kickers. Especially after coming 2nd in a super slow race to a guy who just kicked to win the DL title, I'm hoping he doesn't do the same thing here (with Kimeli and Gressier switched).

But I've said that for 3 or 4 years now, and after last year I said I'd never bet on it happening again, so my bet is Hocker-Kimeli-Young. USA 1-3 baby lets gooooo

I can definitely see Young doing that, but Fisher isn't likely to. Hopefully it's an honest race and someone just stretches out the field.

Yeah watching this years 10000m makes me think all the runners are pussys compared to the great zersenay in Osaka 10000m and the Kenyans in Beijing 2015. They forced a fast pace in similar weather to attack Bekele and Farah. It was glorious to watch. Now it’s a snooze fest of cowards

Ethiopia’s 5k squad is Gebrhiwet, Mehary and Kuma Girma - no Kejelcha. I don’t see any of them making it a fast race.

The weather is forecast to be improved for the 5k: ~76F with a dew point of 63, compared with a mid-70s dew point for the 10k (which is awful). So I’m not ruling out the possibility of someone making the last 5-6 laps a real race. In that event, if the winning time is sub-13:10, I think Hocker remains fairly unproven in the 5k at the World Championship level. This race is very wide open.