Andrewww wrote:
Yea I have no problem with Mary Cain in general - she is an amazing runner - I just thought it wasn't cool that she was entered in the 1500 and it was like advertised (even on letsrun) and when the startlists were out she was out too.
She waited really long to change events too - this article from Friday shows she was going to run the 1500m:
http://www.armorytrack.com/gprofile.php?mgroup_id=45586&do=news&news_id=268057
Got it. I'm going to lay out what I think has happened / will happen, then you can hack away at my claims if you're so inclined.
Cain's training this outdoor season hasn't been going very well while she's been trying to keep more of a school/running balance than she did last year. Salazar keeps expecting her to turn the corner and it keeps not happening. He stepped her down from the 1500m to the 800m at Pre, but that race didn't go particularly well. The time was ok - 2:02.31 isn't a disaster - but Cain got caught up in traffic and never really found a rhythm in the race.
The Adidas meet has been hyping a Cain - Simpson showdown in the 1500m for quite a while [which was always bogus since Aregawi is the odds-on favorite to win the race and Cain even at her best hasn't shown she can be competitive with Simpson], so Salazar was hoping to keep Cain in the 1500m. It's become clear to him, however, that Cain isn't fit enough to run with the leaders of the 1500m to the 800m, so if she stayed in the 1500m she'd be stuck in the midpack scrum, and that's the last place he wants her to be right now.
One option would be to pull her out of the meet completely, but he wants to get her back out there racing so he put her in this 800m, which features a smaller, slower field than she faced at Pre. She should have plenty of room to run and be able to focus on getting her racing legs back.
At this point she isn't close to being ready to race the DL 1500m in Paris, so she'll run US Juniors [presumably the 1500m] and [barring an injury or something really bizarre happening that keeps her from qualifying] Junior Worlds.
If she runs great at Junior Worlds, she might do a late season pro meet or two, but her main focus the rest of the summer will be on making the transition to college. Once she's settled, Alberto will make some decisions about how to handle the 2015 indoor season and the build-up to 2015 Outdoor Worlds.