raw speed NOT needed to win Oly games...

raw speed NOT needed to win Oly games...

in 1988.

sweathog wrote:

raw speed NOT needed to win Oly games...

in 1988.

In 1988, it didn't do much good for Sydney Maree, a faster 1500m runner than any 5000m man alive today.

I just saying something similar on another thread, using Ngugi's Olympic victory has a great example of ferocious (and calculated) frontrunning to destroy faster finishers without relying on pacemakers.

Perplexed wrote:

In 1988, it didn't do much good for Sydney Maree, a faster 1500m runner than any 5000m man alive today.

The guy who won the 5000 at the last world championships has been known to thrown down a decent 1500m from time to time.

3:26 isn't that good.

meichenl wrote:

Perplexed wrote:

In 1988, it didn't do much good for Sydney Maree, a faster 1500m runner than any 5000m man alive today.

The guy who won the 5000 at the last world championships has been known to thrown down a decent 1500m from time to time.

Sydney Maree was nowhere near 100% in 1988.

If you take the 1988 John Ngugi and put him in the 2004 Olympics 5000, he would not even have medaled, no matter what "tactics" he used.

Perplexed wrote:

In 1988, it didn't do much good for Sydney Maree, a faster 1500m runner than any 5000m man alive today.

That was my point. Racing has changed since 1988. There have been very few front runners capable of breaking a top quality 1500 m runner at a major championship since, and nowadays they don't even try. I actually doubt if Ngugi could have broken Maree in his 13:00 shape.

think is what I think wrote:

3:26 isn't that good.

Excuse me, ElG is retired.

Perplexed wrote:

Excuse me, ElG is retired.

he was talking about lagat, you n00b.

this is bad news for alan webb.

speed over tactics wrote:

If you take the 1988 John Ngugi and put him in the 2004 Olympics 5000, he would not even have medaled, no matter what "tactics" he used.

That may or may not be true (Ngugi was no slouch at 5000 meters, and could certainly run faster than the times actually recorded in the 2004 race), but the more pertinent point is that, if someone with Bekele's ability had run the kind of gutsy race in 2004 that Ngugi ran in 1988, El G probably wouldn't have been able to use his superior speed to grab the win. Bekele's strategy and tactics in that race remain, for me, a real mystery. There was some speculation that his workouts following the 10,000 were too tough and left him fatigued or hurt going into the 5,000, but I got the impression from the race that he just overestimated his ability to handle El G over the last 400 meters. Ngugi, on the other hand, had no illusions about his ability over the last lap, and decided to try to win the race in the best way that he knew how.

If he thought it was easy to handle the fastest 1500m runner ever over the last 400 meters, then Kenny B is a tactical idiot.

I doubt that he thought it was EASY to outkick El G, and there's no question that it was POSSIBLE for a 5,000 meter runner to outkick El G (as Kipchoge had done the previous year in the world championships), but it's puzzling that Bekele, as the world record holder who had just witnessed El G's 1500 meter victory over Lagat, thought that the best strategy was to get a jump on El G (and Kipchoge) with a few hundred meters to go and then try to hang on for the win.

Maybe Bekele didn't feel comfortable setting a faster early pace after already competing in and winning the 10k? Maybe he felt this was his best chance to win as well.

Did you watch the Paris 5,000m?

Same situation with both Bekele and El Guerrouj attempting the double. At the start Kenenisa went straight to the front and set an incredible pace, something like 5:05 for 2km. Yet the whole field was able to sit on him. When he realised that his sub 12:50 pace was doing no good he settled back into the pack. After what happened in Paris I would have thought the what he did in Athens was understandable.

In Ngugi's day a 60 second lap put the fear of god into every 5,000m runner. These days that's a fast lap, but nothing more.

I don't recall how much time Bekele had between the 10 and 5 in Paris, but he had quite a lot of time between the 10 and 5 in Athens, and he actually got in some significant workouts during that interim period. Also, his Paris 10K was probably a somewhat harder race than his Athens 10K, with a second half that was significantly under 13 flat.

In contrast, El G had almost no time between a very hard 1500 against Lagat and the start of the 5K competition in Athens. I would have expected El G to be more fatigued than Bekele going into the 5K.

Of course, none of us knows why Bekele did what he did in the Athens 5K, or what he was feeling on the day of the race. But I've never heard a good explanation for his choices in that race, and I've wondered if he simply overestimated his ability to outkick El G if he got the jump on him with 300-400 meters to go.

At the time, many thought that Bekele may have had better closing speed than El G. El G was known for an extended kick not for blasting the last 400. On the other hand, Bekele had shown that he could blast the last 400. As I watched the race, I thought El G would go hard with 800 to go. Instead he backed off and made it a 400m race. I thought Bekele would out sprint El G in the end... I guess not.

Also realize that El G had a 12:50 PR in very few attempts. Maybe he could have approached 12:37.

No matter the tactics, these days you need raw speed to win in the Olympics.

Raw speed is a requisite. Up to, say, the late '80's you could be fast-twitch- challenged and still outfox the sprinters(eg. Viren, Lopez Bren Foster) Now the standard is such that you simply cannot.

These guys (and Ngugi) did it by having markedly superior aerobics to their rivals. Now it seems impossible for someone to be a quantum leap better in endurance that they can, say, break the sprinters with a mid race 56sec, or whatever.

This makes for much less interesting races IMO.