On ESPN they just said the leader Tim Duckworth of Kentucky is only guy in field who has never been sub 5 for 1500.
Dude clearly is athletic and not that big. Instead of being pissed off he can't run faster yet is winning the decathlon, we should make him a better 1500 runner. What's the simplest fix he can do?
Actually try at the 1500?
Update: He just finished in 5:01.29. That was one of his best times and he was absolutely crawling the final 100.
A simple fix would be if you get last in any event you can't win the decathlon. Suddenly I bet he would be 10 seconds faster ;)
8300 points with a slow 1500 time and still just in college. He d oesnt need to do anything differently, it will come.
I'm a mediocre guy, but it's nice to know that my 100 PR (12.3) is faster than Mo Farah, and my 1500 PR (4:54) is faster than an NCAA decathlon champ.
NCAA decathlon champion. The dude won 50% of the decathlon events. I'm pretty sure nothing needs fixing.
LetsRun.com wrote:
A simple fix would be if you get last in any event you can't win the decathlon. Suddenly I bet he would be 10 seconds faster ;)
I feel like that would make the race a lot slower -- currently decathlon 1500s are basically time trials due to the points system, if you did that instead then the motivation shifts to place and it becomes a "championship-style" pack of sprinters at the back where everyone jogs 90-second laps until the final stretch thinking they won't be outkicked -- which I guess is kind of valid because they're all at least 10-second 100 guys.
Now that I think about it that would be fun to watch, but only once.
Did he win?
Great. Congratulations, Tim, on your victory. No one cares about your 1500 time.
Don't think, like most multis, he cares about his 1500. Can't get any big points unless you break4:15.
When the 1500 comes around, multis just want to finish so don't try to help him.
Let it go wrote:
NCAA decathlon champion. The dude won 50% of the decathlon events. I'm pretty sure nothing needs fixing.
The more he fixes in the other events, the slower he can run the 1500
He will want to squeak out points when he moves to the world stage. The 1500 is about the only event where has upside. He is so good that he would be in the mix for several individual events at the NCAA already.
LetsRun.com wrote:
On ESPN they just said the leader Tim Duckworth of Kentucky is only guy in field who has never been sub 5 for 1500.
Dude clearly is athletic and not that big. Instead of being pissed off he can't run faster yet is winning the decathlon, we should make him a better 1500 runner. What's the simplest fix he can do?
He's exactly the size of Eaton by height and weight. Eaton wasn't bad at all in the 1500.
Because training to improve his 1500m would ultimately lead to worse performance in the other events, which are all strength, power, and speed based. So it’s a balancing act. It’s like they are trying to run a good 1500m in spite of the other events.
How many Decathlons are ever lost or won by the 1500m? I would bet not many.
Alan
But wouldn't it be more exciting if a considerably number of decathlons were actually open until the 1500m and decided by them?
Last year Niklas Kaul got the gold in the U20 European CS (Grosseto) and broke the junior WR by running 4:15,5 (among other things, his best event is actually javelin)
The multi-event points table reward speed & power, not endurance. Tim is very capable of running 4:45; however, there was nothing to be gained by doing so. It takes a 4:53 just to score 600 points, and a 4:21 to score 800 points. Too much work for too few of points, and doing so would take away from the other events. Tim's real focus should be on his throwing events which are weak. He can gain another 400-500 points focusing on those events while maintaining his speed/power.
The 1500m simply does not make sense in the decathlon, which is why training for it doesn't make much sense either. If they ran the 800m instead you'd see the guys actually compete instead of what we see, which is akin to a huge climbing stage in the tour de france where a couple climbers go off and do their thing while the sprinters and their caretakers form a grupetto and just soldier through to the finish making the time cut and not embarrassing anyone.
Runningart2004 wrote:
Because training to improve his 1500m would ultimately lead to worse performance in the other events, which are all strength, power, and speed based. So it’s a balancing act. It’s like they are trying to run a good 1500m in spite of the other events.
How many Decathlons are ever lost or won by the 1500m? I would bet not many.
Alan
1960 Olympics come to mind...
You can help the kid by getting him bigger so he is scoring more points in the weights, and faster so he can make up points in the 100 400 and hurdles. A good friend of mine has won a few medals in the Decathlon. He says he hardly ever trained for the 1500, said all the other events were way more important. So, Tim Duckworth, congrats. Work on your strength and speed and the 1500 will come around. Good resources in AZ to tap into. Use them.
Great cycling parallel.
He is British? He doesn't sound it.