GWEN JORGENSEN: Letsrun's was 100% wrong about 0% chance

For future reference when assigning a categorical probability to events: https://m.imgur.com/a/M6Do6

I mentioned this in another thread, but there are a couple of things in Gwen's favor.

1) She is already an Olympic gold medalist, and as such, can handle the pressure of competition.

2) The Olympic marathon almost never goes to plan.

If you consider the 2012 Olympic marathon, you'll recall that it was the first one after Wanjiru's win in Beijing, and was right after G. Mutai had obliterated Boston and NYCM course records. Sub 205 was the super elite bar, and between Kenya and Ethiopia, 5 of the 6 runners had broken that barrier, with only Abel Kirui above in 2:05:04.

Everyone figured it was going to be a coronation for Wilson Kipsang, who had not only broke 205, but 204 as well (the following year he would be the world record holder).

But we know how that went. All three Ethiopians dropped out. E. Mutai ran 215 (why did they not select G. Mutai???=). Wilson Kipsang burned himself out with bad tactics and finished 3rd.

Unheralded Stephen Kiprotitch with a 208 PB won the race.

It's early to be considering 2020, but with the women's marathon a couple years behind the men in terms of depth and speed, it seems that a repeat could happen. Everyone will be watching the slew of sub 219 Kenyan and Ethiopian runners while someone with a 224 PB stays in it and finishes hard. Can Gwen be that person? I think it would be cool to see.

VIPAM wrote:

This year her on could be sub 15 and sub 31:10. By 2020 all the way down to sub 14:50 and sub 30:40. Let's support our emerging stars in their dreams without printing such negativity for all to read and trashing their dreams

I think the weird thing about this analysis is that there is already another AMERICAN with PRs better than this, who has been slowly and seriously moving up to the marathon: Molly Huddle. So this line of thinking also has to assume that Molly is better suited for track and Gwen better suited for marathon. This is a leap given the evidence we have (e.g.,, Gwen stating she hadn't run more than 90 minutes for Tri).

I like her a lot and hope she does well, but I just wanted to present the idea that comparing track times seems silly when the former AR holder at 5K and current AR holder at 10K and Half is going to be toeing the line against her.

The negativity on these forums is notorious and has increased. What is missed is a lot of it stems from its creators and moderators. For these four nobodies to transcript their “round table” doomsaying was in poor taste. They will go on and on about cheating at times. Yet, gush endlessly about the performance of some of these tainted athletes and pretend their predictions matter or that they were the first to predict success. In two years they can proudly claim they called Jorgensen’s failure or gush about her success pretending they never pissed all over the goal. If they were fans of sport and endurance sport they may have watched some of the huge races Jorgensen had done as a triathlete. She accomplished a lot in that sport representing this country.

Completely missing the point as per usual. LRC does very, very little to promote the sport at all. In fact, one could argue it potentially has a slight adverse effect on the sport with how much of cesspool these boards are. Here I am posting on them trolling since I am a POS, but in reality, I would rather since a better board with anonymity. Also, for f*&^ sake update your website 90s design to a modern designed website...

There is 99% chance my posted will be deleted as I am disagreeing with LRC...

Ok. I'll post a modified version of what I wrote on page 5 or 6 of the other thread.

When I said zero chance, I want to be clear, as a former Dallas city math champion, I understand that there is clearly not a zero percent chance. I'm just multiplying her chances by 2 and rounding to the nearest whole digit.

If she makes the team, she then has to beat 6 Kenyans/Ethiopians that likely will all be better than her. So what are the odds of them screwing it up? I'd say normally of the 6 spots, the federations will totally butcher at least one. So lets' say she only has to beat 5 good women. I'd say there is at most a 33% chance they butcher their training. So what are the odds that all 5 butcher their training? .39% as 1/3 x 1/3 x 1/3 x 1/3 x 1/3 = 0.39% of that happenening. But then what are her odds of making the US team? I'd say less than 50%.

Hasay - stud. Huddle - stud. Cragg - stud. Flanagan stud. Sisson -stud in my mind. Davila - etc.

So 0 % is just the closes whole digit of her chances.

Now, the more I think about it, the more I realize I'm probably being too negative. Those are what the odds should be. But her big hope is you can't trust the Kenyans or Ethiopian federations to not totally screw it up. The more I think about the odds of their Olympic marathoners not showing up in good form are probably correlated since they often foolishly make people who are used to training own their own with their own coaches train in a group.

So what are the odds that zero of the three Kenyans show up capable of running 2:22.?Maybe 10%? Same thing for the Ethiopians. And if that's true, we're still at 1%. But let's say it's 20% chance the Kenyans butcher it (and same for Ethiopians). f it's 20% then there is a 4% chance of someone not from Kenya or Ethiopia winning gold but I'd still put the odds of Gwen being that one person of everyone else in the world at way less than 1 in 4. So It's certainly less than 1% chance for Gwen no matter how I look at it.

So please let me stand corrected. Her odds may not be zero. But they are mathematically less than 1% no matter how i look at it.

There's nothing wrong about saying that. I'd certainly say that Weldon's odds of making the Olympics were less than 1% considering he never broke 30;00 in 5 years of college running and was never higher than 5th in the Ivy League 10,000. That didn't stop him from dreaming big and twice finishing 4th at USAs and running 28:06.

-Rojo

PS. Actually, I just read what we first wrote about her. I wasn't the one who even called it zero percent. So I never said it was zero percent.

http://www.letsrun.com/news/2017/11/big-debate-gwen-jorgensen-moves-marathon-will/

And to the guy who says we don't promote the sport? What do you thin the whole website is about. It's designed to make it possible to be a fan of the elite side of the sport. We want a distance fan to be able to come to our site and follow the sport just like they would be able to follow their local NFL team if they picked up the newspaper. And guess what? When I read the Baltimore sun, it blows my mind how negative the columnist is about the team. Way more so than I would be.

this is a great article, linked on home page ik but figured id drop it here too

I agree with Rojo for once.

As for Gwen's height, 5'10" so what? The real question how tall is her husband.

I agree it's baffling how people live their lives were negativity is the norm for them which is evident by the increasing negative post on one of the most troll-icious board ever.

Gwen leaves triathlon, have a baby, and 4 months later open indoor season by becoming the 8 or 9th fastest U.S performer ever. All while returning from pregnancy and a limited 40 miles a week. She is now up to 80 and training with America current best female marathoner Shalane Flanagan. Long runs increased from 90 minutes to 150 minutes and the pace drops to a minute plus faster. Anyone else see a tremendous upside to Teen's growth as a elite runner.

She is capable if MUCH faster than all of her pb's if she stays injury free over the next 2 years.

IMO she should let her performances do the talking.

rojo wrote:

Ok. I'll post a modified version of what I wrote on page 5 or 6 of the other thread.

...

First off, I agree that the chances are small but obviously greater than zero.

Secondly, you are trying to prove something mathematically by making up numbers.

I have provided recent example where this supposedly less than 1% scenario actually came to fruition. The 2012 Men's Olympic marathon. All three sub 205 guys from Ethiopia dropped out, E. Mutai who was strangely chosen over G.Mutai ran 2:15, and the other two (Kirui and Kipsang) ran tactically bad races. Unheralded Stephen Kiprotitch with a 208 PR beat all those 204 and 203 guys. No one picked that.

The USA is strong enough in the marathon that if you make the team, then on any given day they can compete. As much as I like Shalane, no way did I think she was going to run away from Mary "2:17:01" Keitany. Unpaced races are what will give Gwen (or any US woman) a fighting chance.

GJ is already in world class physical condition, a good precedent for transitioning to another event. However I wonder how much risk is involved concentrating on just running. The possibility of injury I think dramatically increases unless she still includes multiple disciplines into her new training. Hopefully she takes that into consideration as she is an experienced athlete.

rojo wrote:

I want to be clear, as a former Dallas city math champion

Wow, we learn something new about you all the time

I think people do a poor job of estimating highly unlikely events.

If she's on the team I wonder what her odds of winning are. The good thing with the Olympics there are only 6 Kenyans and Ethiopians she has to beat.

In 2014 we had an article we said the odds of Ryan Hall or Meb winning Boston were between 3.7% (1/27) and 0051% (1/19,813). Clearly, Meb won Boston. But how often is there a totally crazy race? Maybe more often than we think.

http://www.letsrun.com/news/2014/04/can-american-win-end-30-race-drought-win-boston-yes-telling-theres-chance/

Having said that I think Steve thinks Gwen's chances of winning the Olympics in the marathon are well below 1% so he said 0. Now maybe we should have pushed him "Steve is there ANY way you can see Gwen winning the marathon?"

So I put that question out there now.

Steve is there anyway she can win the marathon?

I just looked this up Emma Coburn was 5% to win Worlds last year and she was already on the team and won of the top runner's in the world.

http://www.letsrun.com/news/2017/08/betting-odds-2017-iaaf-london-world-championships-track-field-athletics/

But there is more variability in the marathon.

Constantine Tomescu won the 2008 Olympic marathon. Granted she was a 2:21 runner in her prime but her win was a total surprise.

Dril wrote:

For future reference when assigning a categorical probability to events:

https://m.imgur.com/a/M6Do6

How do stats people talk about less than 1% chance events. "Almost no chance" probably is a better way of saying "Zero % chance". I hate Zero percent chance as there is some chance.

Gwen might not outright win gold. She will have to wait until the drug testing system improves a few years after the Olympics before the drug cheats are caught. Then she will move up the ranks.

It seems the strict testing procedures cannot (or won't) detect the EPO that can be purchased OTC in Ethiopia, Kenya, etc. Pretty disgraceful. Don't know why clean athletes even bother competing.

Kiprotich had a PB 5 minutes off the WR. Has Gwen run 2,20?

HAAAAAhahahahahaaaa wrote:

VIPAM wrote:

This year her on could be sub 15 and sub 31:10. By 2020 all the way down to sub 14:50 and sub 30:40.

Vipam, I usually like your posts, but in this case you're entirely dreaming.

Plus she'd have to run 14:30 / sub 30 to have any chance.

Shalane is a legitimate challenger for a gold medal, at least in her shape from last year. She has run neither of those times. Moreover, Olympic marathons tend to be run more during the day and feature much high temperatures than normal which changes the game. I'd give someone like Shalane a 5-10% chance to win Olympic gold. In my mind, gwen has perhaps a 1/3 to 1/4 chance to develop into a similar caliber runner as Shalane (upper 14s, lower 30:xx). Putting those two together gives you at least a 1-2% chance, possibly going as high as towards 5%.

The major question is how does Gwen develop coming off tri. If her huge aerobic volume means she doesn't progress much and only shaves off 10s over the next two years...it's probably not in the cards for her. On the other hand, the fact that her training hasn't been geared toward running could make it possible she shaves 20s the first year and 10s the next year, and then you're talking about a Huddle/Hasay caliber athlete. Those types have a very legitimate non zero shot at winning.

Anyone that thinks Gwen has a zero percent chance has to think that people like Shalane and Hasay also have a zero percent chance at gold, or are certain that Gwen can't make some significant two year improvements because she is already near completely developed from triathlon training.