Great point .. at the bell there were 9 guys bunched together .. all of them "came close to medalling" .. if they could just "put together their last lap" as you say. Simple as that, right?
Mo had his doors blown off in 07 .. He came 6th, as the pack strolled by him. He didn't "nearly medal". Nor in 09 when he came 7th .. the entire pack walked away from him the minute they wanted to. He wasn't in the hunt for a medal there. Now he's untouchable.
You guys make it sound like any one of these athletes who were within a 100 yards of the lead pack could've become unbeatable down the road if only they'd start eating their Wheaties and hitting some bicep curls. Compare Farah's last lap in EITHER of those 2 races with his last 800m in Beijing .. or his last lap in 11, 12, 13, etc. Or the 10 000m in Beijing. He didn't "put his last 200m together" ... he became unbeatable, regardless the tactics. Last lap sprint, last 200m sprint, hard from the start, surges, whatever, nobody on the track can touch him right now.
Kejelcha just blew away everyone in a great 5000, running the fastest time of the year, the equivalent of Mo's PR, with a 7'42 last 3k. Yet Mo smoked him. The Mo of 07 or 09 would've just had his ass handed to him in both the 5 and the 10 - again. Yet today, he crushes it easily, even with tired legs, etc. There's NOTHING "slow and steady" about that kind of dramatic shift in such a short period of time at that stage of an athlete's career.
Please point out another example of something similar, if its so straight forward .. or are you suggesting Mo's the only athlete in history to have stepped up and started working seriously and gone from consistent 7th place to unbeatable?
"yards behind the great Kenenisa" is laughable .. there were a dozen guys "yards behind the great Kenenisa" ... and at the end of the race, they were STILL yards behind the great Kenenisa.