Why is women’s running from 1500–10k so predictable? I feel like once you’ve seen a person’s kick and how it stacks up to others, you can basically predict every race on the women’s side, regardless of time trialed PBs.
For example, Gidey PBs were significantly faster than Hassan's, but there was a snowball’s chance in hell of Gidey winning an actual race against Hassan. Same thing with Gudaf vs Hassan and Kipyegon—she might have comparable or even faster PBs, but her kick is what it is and there’s no changing it. Maybe it’s because women’s muscle mass doesn’t vary as much, so kicking ability is relatively constant?
Gudaf isn’t a better kicker now than she was in 2019, even though she’s clearly fitter based on eyeball test and personal bests. Hassan, even when she showed up terribly out of shape at 2022 Worlds, still had that easy speed--she was passing everyone on the final lap before badly fading in the last 100.
It just seems like, at least on the women’s side, each person has the speed that they have, and it’s really hard to make anything more than minor changes. There are many implications, one being that it's difficult to change how you will stack up in a championship setting, regardless of how fit you get. Would be interested to hear what all of your thinking is on this.