Olympic 1500 final. who should have gone to the front.

Kwemoi and Kiprop.

They are naughty boys.

Kiprop can go out and run 3:30 any time he wants, which is faster than anyone else in the field on that track (a Monaco 3:30 is a 3:33 elsewhere). All he had to do to win by at least 20 meters was do exactly that. He already did it several times this year.

The only conceivable reason why he didn't was he was pressured to throw the race. Simple bad tactics at that slow pace can't harm the kick of a man who can jog a mile in the same time, and obliterates everyone else's 400 pr on dirt.

The sad truth is most top elites have hot samples from way back that can be unfrozen and tested if they don't do exactly as they're told. Wasn't the IAAF exposed as having reams of suspect BP data that it never acted on? Didn't Diack extort money to cover up positives? Totally crooked.

ryan foreman wrote:

Today I have read seemingly endless posts about how stupid and gutless everyone was in the 1500M. But in none of these posts has anyone mentioned names of who should have gone to the front. So I challenge people to give me specific names of who should have pushed the pace early in the race. Was Blankenship duty bound to do it? Willis? Makh? Souleiman?

If you ask me the only obvious name that should have gone to the front was Kiprop. I'm guessing that is what others will say. But I'm challenging people to give me other names.

The only ones who should have gone to the front are those who would have stood a better chance of winning if they had. Kiprop, Kwemoi and perhaps Souleiman. With WIllis' finishing kick there's no way he should have done it, and I don't think it would have helped Makhloufi much either (given his 800m form).

It's not about being duty bound, it's about what gives you the best chance of winning. I think the Kenyans and maybe Souleiman threw away their chances because they didn't push the pace.

Well. If I remember correctly, Kiprop started an early move, his countryman tried to follow him and got tripped up. I believe Kiprop knew his countryman tripped and decided not to push the pace so he could recover. That allowed the race to stay slow.

Any of the 6? guys in the race with a faster PR than Centro.

Elijah Manangoi did it last year in Beijing. He would've have gone in front and made the pace decent. But alas, he got injured in the semifinals.

Kiprop absolutely should have, being much faster than anyone else, but no one else in the field would have been better served to make it hard.

I believe Kiprop knew his countryman tripped and decided not to push the pace so he could recover. That allowed the race to stay slow.

Good theory, but I read some where else that they didn't get along. So why would he wait for him?

Whole thing doesn't make sense, but at least you have theories here. Did anyone interview him yet? What happened to Kiprop? My theory is he is injured but doesn't want to admit it.

Kiprop does seem a bit off this year.

I don't think Kiprop would have won if he had led for most of the race. He isn't in 3:26 shape this year, and even if he was, I highly doubt he could run that solo. Mahkloufi and Centro would have sat on his hip and one of them (or both) probably would have beaten him in the end.

Kwemoi might have been the best one to do it. Blankenship had a better chance of lucking out with a kick than by trying to lead in a race where his PR is 5-8 seconds slower than several of the top guys.

I generally agree that Kiprop should have pushed the pace. But the thing about Kiprop is that he has won multiple world championships over the years by more or less running from the back. For better or worst, I think that is just habit for him. So even if he should have pushed the pace, none of the other runners should have expected that he would do it. So I'm curious to know who else besides Kiprop should have pushed the pace.

I'm not applying the question just to those favored to win a medal. Lets face it. Probably a handful of runners in that race were just happy to be there. Blankenship is one. Should Blankenship have gone for broke given he had nothing to lose? Blankenship didn't talk about it, but he appeared to be working for the team by pulling up on Centro's shoulder and forcing anyone to go wide about midway through the race.

That is idiotic. In those other races, he had rabbits. He wanted to get up near Centrowitz at 500m out but was boxed in. By the time he got out, Centrowitz was sprinting and Kiprop had to run to fast down the backstretch to have enough left to go by Matt.

One word to describe that race; PATHETIC!

Only two runners can possibly look back on the race with any satisfaction, Centrowitz and, perhaps, Willis. (For the reigning champion to win silver is not, I suspect, a very satisfying experience !)

Who should have pushed the pace? Anyone who knew that he was not going to come close to a win if the field jogged the first 1000! Being aware of your own capabilities and racing accordingly is very much part of being a good racer. Or was being part of an Olympic final good enough in itself for the majority of the field?

No criticism whatsoever of Centrowitz - he ran a tactically brilliant race and, yes, in a major championship the win is all that matters. But the majority of the field gave themselves no chance to win the race; that's what was so disappointing to those of us watching it.

First of all runners can aspire to medal, not win the whole race.

Secondly, plenty in that race had some chance to medal. Others probably had no chance whether the first 1000M was jogged or sprinted.

So you are not really being a help here.

Kiprop should have just done what Centro did, but faster.

In a 3:50 race, everyone can close in 50 point, so positioning really matters.

No one can really close faster than 50 point, but as the race gets faster and faster, less and less people can still close that hard.

I believe if Kiprop had hit the bell at a modest 2:45, he still could have closed in 51.0 ran 3:36 to win. Running from the front could not be any less sporadic than the running he does. And at least if he changes paces a million times, everyone behind him feels that.

Centro showed us running from the front works if you keep your cool, you just can't do it like what Francine did in the women's 8

I thought the general idea was to win the race. Does anyone go into the race aiming at second or third?

You also want to look back on a race satisfied that you left everything out there, that you did everything possible in an attempt to win that race. My point is that the majority of runners in that race cannot possibly have that feeling of satisfaction.

The Kenyans, but because there was only two of them and they both wanted gold neither wanted to be the sacrificial lamb. This is the problem with modern milers, they're so used to pacemakers doing everything for them they have forgotten how to run tactically. Heck most now need pacemakers for training.

If Kiprop went to the front he was afraid that Makh would sit on him and outkick him.

And Makh didn't want to lead Kiprop.

And no one else wanted to lead because they didn't want those two plus Centro sitting on them.

Anyone that wanted a medal didn't want to lead at a fast pace.

you take away their final drug preps and it changes the race. Kiprop went at blew up. Something has changed there.

It was a great race. You all are used to processions where the most talented wins. This was a mental race. The smartest won.

Makhloufi with a gold and two silvers in the 800m/1500m now has a shot in Tokyo to win the most medals at the two events, but he also knows that he had a great shot at gold in the 1500m with Kiprop disappointing and he couldn't get that devastating acceleration he's had before, because the pace was already so fast that last lap. I would think that he might have won had he gone to the lead with 500m to go and gradually picked it up, saving plenty for the last 200m.