I'm not going to lie. When I first hear Korir was out, I thought, "Brazier had better win this baby now. "
But shortly thereafter I thought, his chances for gold have certainly gone way way up but so have his chances of no medal. If they had both made the final, I really think he and Korir would have just made it into a time trial but now the onus is on Brazier to make it fast and also he's got a ton of pressure.
Before, he would have had someone else to set the pace or at least share it and he'd be a big underdog. Now he's basically got to be Rudisha out there.
However, he does have one other huge thing going for him other than Korir being gone. There are zero excuses for not making the final. Normally making a global 800 final is one of the hardest things in the sport as cutting down from 3 to 1 heat in one fell swoop is very dicey. The heats are now out and there are only 2 heats. You have a 60% chance of making the final.
Heat 1
ORDER / LANE BIB ATHLETE COUNTRY PB SB 2018
2 194 Hamada MOHAMED EGY EGY 1:47.82
3 226 Elliot GILES GBR GBR 1:47.61 1:47.61
4 377 Andreas KRAMER SWE SWE 1:46.86 1:46.87
5 433 Drew WINDLE USA USA 1:45.53 1:45.53
6 200 Álvaro DE ARRIBA ESP ESP 1:45.43 1:45.43
Heat 2
ORDER / LANE BIB ATHLETE COUNTRY PB SB 2018
2 118 Antoine GAKEME BDI BDI 1:46.65 1:51.81
3 204 Saúl ORDÓÑEZ ESP ESP 1:46.96 1:46.96
4 340 Adam KSZCZOT POL POL 1:44.57 1:46.47
5 404 Donavan BRAZIER USA USA 1:45.10 1:45.10
6 313 Mostafa SMAILI MAR MAR 1:45.96 1:45.96