Paddy White wrote:
This is a fair point but i kind of disagree. He has struck me as a guy who runs with the lack of fear you often get with youth like this.
He didn't get boxed in Beijing, nor did he fail to time his race correctly. He simply trailed home looking like he had nothing left. This doesn't indicate to me a guy who let the occasion get to him but somebody who wasn't at is physical peak for some reason.
Maybe I'm wrong about the amount of races he ran being too many but i strongly believe that his season was managed badly. Can anybody tell me this info - how many races did Webb run in 2007 leading into the World Champs in Osaka? (I'm genuinely asking for the info, not leading into some smart a*s point).
But if we are to accept your premise then we must also accept that the poor management finally hit at exactly that moment. Oh and, what a coincidence, it just happens to be the Olympic final.
That's an awfully large coincidence to swallow. Particularly when their are far simpler explanations out there.
One does not have to be boxed in to give in to pressure. In 1984, Fernando Mamede was the 10k world record holder and he ran off the track in moritification in an easy heat at a pedestrian pace. There is no way that an 18 year old is unaffected by the pressure Olympic final, no matter how much ignorance-of-youth he possesses.