Really, the thread should be entitled, "Hall toasts three Kenyans in the final mile."
That's the news here. It's a sight we haven't see very often. Those four runners hung together for the entire race. No surges--which surprised me--but an honest pace, if not a blazing one.
Then, right at 12-mile point, Hall takes off. One guy falls off, Ndereba and Limo hang, then Limo falls off. Ndereba and Hall are together briefly, and then Hall makes a very strong move and Ndereba can't hang with him.
Say what you want about third-string Kenyans (and Limo is hardly that, although he's no Lel): Hall ran exactly the race he wanted to run, and he toasted three guy, one of whom would, in any other year, have won the race and helped incrementally prop up the myth of Kenyan world dominance.
Not this year. In retrospect, Hall controlled the race. Now, it's interesting to speculate about what would have happened if one of those guys had made a strong move somewhat earlier. But that's not what happened. And what happened is heartening.