LateRunnerPhil wrote:
She still hasn't decided between 1,500 and 5,000 in Doha.
I strongly recommend her and her coach to go for the 5k.
I agree. For me it was already quite clear after the race in Stanford that she was among the top 3-5 5k runners this season.
She is a pure slow-twitch runner with no speed at all. She is simply not competitive in the last 200m, no matter what distance.
This is not quite true. She beat the likes of Dibaba and Gidey in Stanford (and Obiri already two years ago in Birmingham) on the last 200m of a 3k. And she did improve her finishing speed a little bit since she's with NOP.
But the 1500m in London DL showed that sub60 in a ~4:00 race is nothing special (the first 6 ran sub 60 last laps in that race) and will not even be enough against Debues-Stafford, not to speak of Muir or Houlihan.
Koko could probably run 3:55-56 in an even-paced race, but a championship race will be more like the race in London and in such situations she is fairly helpless because she lacks that 58 last lap.