Wow: Genzebe Dibaba says she definitely can run faster than 3:50 and get this - she wants to do the steeple

She needs to just "Man up" and drop a sub-4 mile then in the name of Sheila.

She did run 3'50-flat off inept pacing at 400/800

The pacer was actually proud of how inept she was at pacing !!!

62/62 pace thru 800 & someone to hold it to 1100 ( !!! ) & we would have been looking at

~ 3'48-low/mid !!!

That is more like the intrinsic value of her talent

as i recall the original pacing was 60/64 (ughhhh), but even with optimal 62/62 would she save enough to knock off that much? and who would sacrifice to hold on through 1100m because very few can even hit that? unless of course someone jumps on the track for that lap

i think she can hit 3:49 low

pacing??? wrote:as i recall the original pacing was 60/64 (ughhhh)

she has myriad sisters well capable of 62/62

anyhows, she wouda had huge saved energy off 62/62 to have attacked last lap

i think she can hit 3:49 low

i'll stick with my hand..

Simpson gets hurt easily doing steeple training. That's the reason she walked away from an event for which she was an ÄR holder. However, having a world champ gold in your hip pocket isn't too bad. Regarding dibaba, I think vent is right on this one. After seeing her training this last fall, I even think straight 61's is feasible, but it should be noted that I'm a careless optimist.

The 3kSC WR is definitely in play if she goes for it. 3:50 for 1500 (or from vent, 3:48) along with 14:15 strength projects IMO ~8:55 2mile (WR 8:58, Defar), meaning if she has passable steeple form (or not, lol) and/or pacing from E. and T. Dibaba (one can dream) she's right there, possibly well under.

Can't imagine the Kenyans lining up to pace her, though. And no Ethiopian has gone sub 9:09, with that coming in 2012. She'd get the NR for sure.

I love the optimism in this thread, but I'm compelled to play devils advocate. Dibaba had a banner year, world record in the 1500, outstanding performances in numerous events as well. She is drunk on confidence. How likely is it that she can replicate her training, balence her new found glory, and attempt a new event? My bet is the odds are not good, and thy we may have to wait years to see a women break the 3:50 barrier. Perfection is rare, like a lightening strike, and it is even rarer for it it to strike twice in the same location.

She should go for the flat 3000.

How about the 800m

An Anthropologist wrote:

I love the optimism in this thread, but I'm compelled to play devils advocate. Dibaba had a banner year, world record in the 1500, outstanding performances in numerous events as well. She is drunk on confidence. How likely is it that she can replicate her training, balence her new found glory, and attempt a new event? My bet is the odds are not good, and thy we may have to wait years to see a women break the 3:50 barrier. Perfection is rare, like a lightening strike, and it is even rarer for it it to strike twice in the same location.

She's run 8:16 for an indoor 3k? 14:15 for 5k along with two other times sub 14:20? She has broken like a 5 world records in the last two years... Not to mention it's not like it came out of nowhere-- she had been a prominent athlete a few years before that.

I think lightening has come her way MANY times. It's not uncommon in the sport to keep that type of dominance for many years (example: Kenenisa Bekele, Tirunesh Dibaba).

ventolin^3 wrote:

i'll stick with my hand..

In my opinion, Dibaba could break her own 1500m record and be close to the 3000m record, but I don't think she quite has the endurance to beat the 5000m record just yet. You can see from her attempts this summer that she did not quite have it in her.

I feel that Dibaba is probably close to:

1:55.5 800m

3:48.5 1500m

sub 8:10 3000m

14:13 5000m

Metric Miler wrote:

In my opinion, Dibaba could break her own 1500m record and be close to the 3000m record, but I don't think she quite has the endurance to beat the 5000m record just yet. You can see from her attempts this summer that she did not quite have it in her.

I feel that Dibaba is probably close to:

1:55.5 800m

3:48.5 1500m

sub 8:10 3000m

14:13 5000m

Well if everyone else is offering their opinions, I'll join...

I think she was in good enough shape to break the 5000m record this year. If I'm recalling correctly, her lap times were not even. My calculator gives her about 14:06 for one of her 5000s this year (can't recall which right now) if she had paced herself better.

Regarding her 1500m ability, her 3:50 could have been 3:46.84 (if I'm recalling her lap times correctly) with better pacing. The corrected 1500m and 5000m times produce

800            1:53.62

1000          2:25.27

1500          3:46.84

1-mile       4:04.99

3000          8:04.56

2-mile        8:43.15

5000          14:06.0

10000        29:57.55

half-mara   67:15.82

marathon   142:10.48

What she's missing is now that they are finally starting to crack down on African doping, she'll be lucky to get anywhere near her current PRs, much less break them.

that's a bummer. You should post in the Kiprop WR thread. Some guy said the same thing about Kiprop, that 2015 was a fluke.

Dibada sub 3:50 in 2016. Kiprop sub 3:26 in 2016! You heard it hear first!

You've added so much to this discussion with your insult. Awesome job.

What about a marathon on a track?

I'm gonna put these down for my predictions of what she will run next year, providing things go well, and she chooses to run the race of course!

800m: sub 1:56

1500m: 3:48.5

3000m: 8:12 if indoors (I think she will run slower if outdoors, maybe 8:20)

5000m: 14:10

Must say I believe that if Genzebe does go faster than the 5000m world record, Ayana will go faster than her.

A 4 second PR in 1500m this year ... don't you think there is something else going on?