Blowing.Rock Master wrote:
[quote]Gallagher wrote:
Actually, Bekele was well off the pace with 20o to go and caught the second Kenyan and made-up ground on Galen
Actually Rupp was following Bekele for the majority of the race but beat him quite handily over the final 600m.
True, but I think Galen's race plan was more to stay in touch with Mo Farah - Bekele tried to stay close to the front, and even though Rupp passed him well before the bell, Bekele was able to close his last lap faster than Rupp. Put Bekele in real contact at the bell, and he will still be able to outkick Rupp - this is true at 5 or 10, assuming Bekele is on his training schedule and can duplicate last year's improvement - 3 weeks between dropping out and a 26:42. This year already showed a big improvement - 13:13 to 13:01 in 2 weeks, before he has really even started peaking for the Olympics.
The commentators on Eurosport (Hutchings or Cram) said something about how Rupp would benefit from a faster sustained pace in the last two laps or last km, as opposed to leaving it to the last lap. The commentators also said that a real push over the last few laps, rather than letting Farah do an upping of the pace on his terms, might be something that could undo him. I don't know if there is anyone who can run away from Farah like that today.
I thought Farah looked like he was biding his time to move up and was slowly upping his pace (eg. he caught and passed Bekele around or just past 4000m in setting up his last lap) - while Rupp dropped back a bit, and had to make a real push to the front at the bell to be with Farah - looked just like the WC final. In this race Rupp was able to last only about 120m or so in second even with this push, and then was passed again by Koech. I think this shows that while Rupp is in phenomenal shape, he may not be able to sustain a faster pace over the last couple of laps to try and outlast a kick from faster closers - he didn't look like he could have today, at least. And to make sure he can outlast the kickers, maybe he needs a sub 60 penultimate lap before the final one - or did he do that in this race?
Taking this to another level, I wonder if doing something like Daniel Komen (1997 WCs) running a 58 and 57 to break the field open as he hit the final mile, before settling to 62s for the last two laps, could win in a major final today. I think that Paul Kipkoech did the same thing in the 1987 WC 10k as well - with 2k to go he made a surge over 2 laps in 155ish. I guess these two races were slower than recent winning times in championships - I think Komen won his 5k in something near 13:10, and Kipkoech won in upwards of 27:30? But do you think someone who is strong enough, and with enough self-belief, could do something like this and break open an Olympic final?