Great run for Jager - BRONZE

That was not a great run. He blew the gold and silver.

He did not play to his strengths.

It amazes me how great athletes screw up in championships races. Just run as you normally do to dominate.

HE gassed himself..

Agreed. Can't believe I'm disappointed. He just looked so good this summer.

Have to take a medal though! Congrats Evan.

Definetly a step up from 2015 Beijing

scorpion_runner wrote:

That was not a great run. He blew the gold and silver.

He did not play to his strengths.

It amazes me how great athletes screw up in championships races. Just run as you normally do to dominate.

HE gassed himself..

I did not see the race live. All I know is he was leading at 2k. What did he do that was so wrong?

realistic realism wrote:

Not many Americans medal in the distance events. Congratulations to Evan Jager for hanging with the Kenyans and snaring a bronze medal! GO USA.

Oh my goodness, Such low expectations for Evan! He had every right to win that race. He just did not a very smart one. He needs to take tactical lessons from runners with lesser athletic gifts but with superior tactical ability.

cbenson4 wrote:

scorpion_runner wrote:

That was not a great run. He blew the gold and silver.

He did not play to his strengths.

It amazes me how great athletes screw up in championships races. Just run as you normally do to dominate.

HE gassed himself..

I did not see the race live. All I know is he was leading at 2k. What did he do that was so wrong?

He went to the lead before he was able to sustain a demoralizing pace. (i.e. he broke wind for his competitors and gave them every reason to believe they could tuck in behind him and then blow by him as he tired, which is exactly what they did. He was lucky to get bronze on the day when he had every opportunity to get gold.

Schumacher and Jager both know tons more than I do about racing at the World Championships, but I was surprised to see him take the lead so early like that.

He's worked for so long on his kick and has proved that it's now up there with the best of them. I thought he would wait longer, especially considering his efficiency over the barriers compared to the others. I might have too much faith in his ability to close over the final 400 meters against the best in the world.

Regardless, he's the greatest American steeplechaser of all time and could arguably go down as one of the world's greatest steeplechasers of all time.

Congratulations to him on the bronze. He definitely earned it.

jimjamesrunner wrote:

could arguably go down as one of the world's greatest steeplechasers of all time.

You jest. I could rattle off a dozen better than him without even having to think. Panetta would have crushed him for example. OK Panetta probably doped but Jager is no different.

At least Jager beat that French jerk.

14 seconds outside his PB and looking flat. Nothing to see here.

He ran a smart race and was beaten by El Bakkali (who has looked better this year) and Kipruto (who almost always beats him). Clearly some people here don't follow the sport.

HardLoper wrote:

He ran a smart race and was beaten by El Bakkali (who has looked better this year) and Kipruto (who almost always beats him). Clearly some people here don't follow the sport.

Yes it was a smart race. He's not going to out kick those guys. You don't turn a weakness into a strength. Almost never, to the point the outlier exceptions are meaningless.

Jager's only chance was to push from the front to thin the field and somehow how Kipruto had some type of mishap behind him.

I can almost guarantee Jager's tactics would have been different if Kipruto had missed the race or obviously been hindered in the semifinal. Once Kipruto was fine Jager had to essentially concede one spot on the podium and strategize to give himself the best chance to nab one of the other two while also allowing a slight opportunity to actually win.

Expectations far too high. He's simply not as good as Kipruto.

I don't think it was a smart race, but he ran out of necessity. Just before he took the lead he was clipped while going over the water barrier, then bumped going over another barrier. It appeared that He was getting banged around and wanted to get clear.

As for his kick.. he has closed races in well under 60sec. So to say that it was tactical choice because he can't kick is false. I think he just ran out of gas from his early move and wasn't able to respond. If it had played out differently he could have went right to the wire with kipruto.

Nothing El Bakkali had done this year had made him look better than Jager. That's why Jager went in as the gold medal favorite. El Bakkali had a very strong run (8:05 closing in 60?) for a win a couple of weeks ago, but Jager crushed the field in a quicker time at Monaco and closed just as well.

Jager went too early. He ran 8:01.xx at Monaco to win by several seconds closing the final 800 in 2:03, unpressured. He had every right to believe he could kick with anyone, because he can.

If he had waited to kick, he still may have lost, but weighed against a statistical analysis, his choice of tactics today was not his best opportunity to win.

The only thing "dumb" I saw about Jager's race was that his legs wouldn't work. He should have been able to run a 60 on that final lap, given the pace the race was at. He couldn't.

Ah well, he has a silver and a bronze in his last two big finals, maybe the gold will come next.

Expectations werent to high. Do you think if they raced 5 times he'd have finished erd 5 times?

I am happy that we are at a place where we are disappointed that an American did not win.

Much better than the 90's where we needed 2 injured Kenyans, a sick Ugandan, 4 Eastern Europeans getting popped for drugs, an off-form Moroccan, and the entire Ethiopian team missing their flight for an American to have a slight outside shot at a distance medal.

He looked tired and flat. I don't believe tactics would have given him a medal.

Jager was way over confident. He thought he had this in the bag. He listened to Fake news that told him he had it in the bag, AND he Believed it. He ran Their race, and sputtered. A lesson learned