Andrew Wheating 1.44.62!!!!

What about his 3:51 mile. I find that just as impressive.

This is about what I was expecting from Andrew and Nick; KD looks like he is in 1:44 shape himself. I suspect Wheating will call it a season now.

He's scheduled for at least two more races. Unless you are just talking about the 800M. But yeah. I have my doubts that Wheating could sustain this level well into August or September. I'm not ready to say Wheating is better than Symmonds in the 800. He could be playing the role of Robby Andrews right now.

TrackCoach wrote:

This is about what I was expecting from Andrew and Nick; KD looks like he is in 1:44 shape himself. I suspect Wheating will call it a season now.

This marks the first time in almost 3 years that Nick has been beat heads up by an American in an 800m (excluding premlims and when he was dqed at indoor worlds)

That is fact since I am a fact guy, but my opinion is that Andrew Wheating's future is at 1500

I am bias towards the mile. A 3:51 just sounds more impressive than 1:44. Besides, not many American's are willing to run the mile that fast. This year for some reason we have 3 guys under 3:54. Let’s not forget about AJ's 3:53 mile.

Time for Wheating to call it a career in the 800. The problem is he will have a hard time making it in the 1500 with Manzano, Lagat and Lomong.

Prefontaine Meet - I doubt he'll have any problems with Lomong, Lagat is on downside of his career and especially at 1500m, I agree Manzano looks sharp but there isn't a huge difference.

I love how joe9090 says that not many American's are "willing" to run the mile that fast, as if the guys running in the 3:55 range are just doing it because they aren't willing to run faster. That to me is funny

I thought Lagat said he was starting to focus less on the 1500m and much more so on the 5k? Or did he just mean this non-championship year?

Whoever our squad is in London, we will be well represented, that's for sure. Can't wait to see Lomong, Wheating, Manzano, and Lagat @ the trials if it turns out that way!

Why in the world should he call it a career? He is only 22 years old. He has plenty of time to run both.

Today's 1:44.62 is worth a 3:51.41 Mile, according to the IAAF tables, so his performance indicates he is currently just slightly better at the 800 than the Mile.

RRRR wrote:

I thought Lagat said he was starting to focus less on the 1500m and much more so on the 5k? Or did he just mean this non-championship year?

Whoever our squad is in London, we will be well represented, that's for sure. Can't wait to see Lomong, Wheating, Manzano, and Lagat @ the trials if it turns out that way!

Didn't we use to have a 3:46 miler. Al something?

whose jersey was Wheating sporting? i thought it was USA but it was hard to tell from the universalsports feed. He hasn't reached the deal with Nike yet?

concord wrote:

Why in the world should he call it a career? He is only 22 years old. He has plenty of time to run both.

Yeah but at 22 Coe was running both, and substantially faster at 1:42 and 3:48. That was over 30 years ago.

I'm not saying Wheating isn't good, he is, and I'm sure he'll improve, but if he's going to be the kind of athlete many on these boards say he is (and even more want him to be), there is a precedent which shows he should be able to run both events at this age and not have to mature into one then another.

At least the US is now producing competitive distance runners. I would go as far as to say the US is the best non-African running nation. Maybe, this is really not saying much since the Africans are so superior. Still, give Wheating some credit. He has run a 3:51 mile and 1:44 800. Thirty five years he would be the world leader in both events. Gone are the days when Stember and Jennings were just content with running 3:55 and 1:46+. This new generation has the fighting spirit.

I don't care what anyone says, we should be proud of this new crop of US distance runners.

True. But it has been a couple years since he consistently showed up against the best in even our nation, let alone touched his AR. Until he...well...races at all, I wouldn't put him on the short list in a Championship/Trials type of meet against guys who are in the top 3 consistently (Lomong, Leo, Lagat) and the steady up-and-comer Wheating. Same with Fernandez. When he ran that 3:55 indoors all alone @ Big XII's last year, he looked like the second coming of, well, Webb. But he's also been re-tooling, recovering from setbacks, and until he starts racing, shouldn't have the same expectations put on him as the guys that are regularly performing at the International and professional level.

Webb has a couple years though, and he's under AlSal, so hopefully he's ready to put up some consistent times and performances soon. Does anyone know if he's slated to race soon? I would have thought he'd have gotten a rust-buster in, even if it was just to get the debut nerves out of the way at some low-key meet in Europe.

Wheating looks like a young Steve Cram from the 80's!

Impressive first European run for Wheating. How did the guy in 3rd not get disqualified? He was full-on running on the infield to make an inside pass.

the strong winds from earlier seem to have died down almost entirely for the meet and the skies cleared, making it a beautiful evening. It didn't make any track sense to run the distance events before 9 and the short sprints after 9, but anyway, a large crowd for the meet, not what seemed to me to be a knowledgeable crowd, but one that paid attention to everything and well aware of its French athletes. Strange to put so much emphasis on Bolt when in such a huge stadium it is hard to see much of the 100m (the runners are barely separated in seeing them from a distance) and it is obviously over so quickly. Wheating and Symmonds naturally were way behind everyone else in the first 100, but Wheating was a bit more aggressive than Symmonds in moving up after 200 or so. The race was won in 1:43.5, but Wheating closed well on the field and was only a half second out of Mb's 2nd place, so it's likely that in a significantly faster race (say, a low 1:42 winner) he would get under 1:44, given his strategy of hanging off the field and then gradually moving up before the last 200m. This was a good result, fifth in a field where he had one of the slowest pr's, and in his first Euro race. Take away jet lag and just not being used to racing in Europe against fields like this, and add a faster race, and he will run 1:43 high. As far as dropping the event, that's pretty stupid. He just beat the three time American champion.