Noperest wrote:
Agreed, many kickers could have out kicked Centro in a 3:50 race. Hell, at that pace, Rudisha would have clobbered Centro. So would Farah and Murphy. Easily. ----They wouldn't have succumbed to Centro's block at the bell lap either. Farah would have blown by @ 500 to go, Rudisha with 300 to go, or Murphy with 50 to go. Lagat would have cooked em all from the beginning, Kiprop excluded. Face it, Centro used great tactics combined with luck and tremendous flailing by his competition to win gold. Never will happen again and I'd put money in never seeing Centro line up in 1500 with that type of competition again.--- He's knows he was lucky and doesn't want future comps to reflect that!
You guys need to give Centro more credit for that finish. Not only was his last 400 split 50.5, but he was 1:17.9 for the last 600. Let's say it like this: he was 1:03.7 for the last 500. With a running start of course, but that's about 4 seconds off the WORLD RECORD for that distance. And he did that having led the whole race, having just run his last 100 in 14.2, and having to keep control of the race and hold off all of the fantastic runners behind him.
Does winning such a strange race make Centro the best 1500 runner in the world? Of course not. But it was a top, top level performance and a well-deserved gold.