I'm no Centro hater but ....

flukeornot wrote:

Doesn't matter if it was a fluke or not. He made it through all the heats at worlds, Ran 3:32.xx on barely any racing this year, is now a 13:00 5k guy, and is the USAs best hope for a medal next year in the 1500m. He will walk all over the domestic competition at the trials next year in what should be his final olympic year to run a good 1500m.

He ran poor tactically at Doha this year and should have just sat back and kicked for third. Had he done that, he would have been in the mix for a medal. Going at Tim hard that early in the race cost him 1 to 1.5 seconds.

This is a great summary of reality. Well-thought out.

Moran-ic tripe wrote:

Boston is a turkey trot compared to Olympic or WC t&f finals.

Further, Centro career podiums come at better than 1 in 3.

That puts him in rarified air.

More than Rupp. More than Jakob.

More than Desi. More than Webb.

More than Andrews, Enfels, Gregorek, and most other milers not named Coe, El Guerrouj orCram.

Despite your truly moranic diatribe, there are facts involved.

Opinions dont trump facts. Brining a Desi comparison is beyond moran-ic. Its like saying Jakob sucks because Shalene Flanigan is a better marathoner.

Its pure douche-baggery.

wow do you set up straw men. I never wrote that Desi was better or as good as Centro. You made that up. As for Centro having had a better career to date than Jakob, Webb, Andrews Engels or Gregorek, yes, congratulations you have stated the obvious.

Do you really feel that way?!

Wasted effort? Do you understand what it means to be a professional runner at this level?

That seems crazy you want so many things of athletes after busting their *sses all season and then fighting through qualifying rounds. Like telling NBA teams they need to score 120 points per game in finals or it won't count for a victory.

Get a life.

3hr-marathoner wrote:

Moran-ic tripe wrote:

Boston is a turkey trot compared to Olympic or WC t&f finals.

Further, Centro career podiums come at better than 1 in 3.

That puts him in rarified air.

More than Rupp. More than Jakob.

More than Desi. More than Webb.

More than Andrews, Enfels, Gregorek, and most other milers not named Coe, El Guerrouj orCram.

Despite your truly moranic diatribe, there are facts involved.

Opinions dont trump facts. Brining a Desi comparison is beyond moran-ic. Its like saying Jakob sucks because Shalene Flanigan is a better marathoner.

Its pure douche-baggery.

wow do you set up straw men. I never wrote that Desi was better or as good as Centro. You made that up. As for Centro having had a better career to date than Jakob, Webb, Andrews Engels or Gregorek, yes, congratulations you have stated the obvious.

You must have no friends.

Except your mom.

....Is she still trying to help you understand the meaning of tea-bagging?? Poor gal.

3hrs with your mom wrote:

3hr-marathoner wrote:

wow do you set up straw men. I never wrote that Desi was better or as good as Centro. You made that up. As for Centro having had a better career to date than Jakob, Webb, Andrews Engels or Gregorek, yes, congratulations you have stated the obvious.

You must have no friends.

Except your mom.

....Is she still trying to help you understand the meaning of tea-bagging?? Poor gal.

I'll also reply with some non sequiturs. Nike should be banned by USADA. I never did last 3 hours with your mom.

You are confused about the very fundamentals of the sport.

A race is by definition a competition between other racers in a specific race. The object is to get to the finish line first. There are no extra points for doing it quickly or doing it with style or anything else. That's the beauty of the sport. First to the finish line wins. End of story.

In football the objective is to score more points than your opponent during the allotted time. That constitutes a victory. You don't get anything extra by scoring 100 more points than your opponent vs. winning by a single point. This is the same in every major sport I can think of at the moment.

I'm not saying there is no value in setting WRs and PRs, but the objective of racing in organized competition is to finish in front of as many people as possible.

Letsrun knuckleheads wrote:

Do you really feel that way?!

Wasted effort? Do you understand what it means to be a professional runner at this level?

That seems crazy you want so many things of athletes after busting their *sses all season and then fighting through qualifying rounds. Like telling NBA teams they need to score 120 points per game in finals or it won't count for a victory.

Get a life.

Running is my life. My most disappointing 1500m races were from races like these, where, when I was young, I didn't have the courage to front-run and set the pace against the "expected" leaders. I allowed them to set the pace and this totally ruined the race for me. Those races were a write-off. As I said, this races are as much a disappointment to the athletes who run them, as they are to the rest of the world. They are a wasted effort. A unique experience like the Olympics where is there is so much pressure to perform should be taken advantage of to push athletes to new highs. The athletes lose out by not taking advantage of it to do their best and instead play these stupid tactical games over a useless hunk of medal. As I said, they didn't even run a 1500m. They jogged 3 laps and then raced 400m.

....So, accordingly, Rupp sux too??

Trix are for kids wrote:

....So, accordingly, Rupp sux too??

Where did I say that Centro sucks? Or that any runner sucks?

"It is basically a race that never happened."

Some 1500 racing at last wrote:

... He has a shot only in slow, tactical races - not real 1500 strength.

He has twice medalled in 3:36 races and was 4th in a 3:34 race to go with his Gold in 3:50.

4 top 4 finishes at championship races doesn't seem flukey.

This was the first championship race faster than 3:33 since since 2001.

So, he only has a shot in almost every championship race that they run.

SDSU Aztec wrote:

"It is basically a race that never happened."

https://youtu.be/YkKqN0jVglw

Ya, as I said, they raced a 400m. It was a bunch of 1500m runners racing a 400m.

-Championship races are centralized races to determine the best runner in the world that year, not to run a PB. If you think that Championship races provide ideal conditions for PB's you're living in an alternate reality or don't understand how distance track works.

-Mid Distance track is very strategic. You have to accept that a runner's skill level is determined by 1) their physical attributes (measured by their PB) and their 2) strategic expertise , which is usually revealed in a championship race.

-It is true that a gutsy, frontrunning performance like Cheuriyot's last weekend is more entertaining that a sit n kick, but it is not true that slower races are pointless. Centro was the best runner over the whole 1500m in Rio. He controlled the race strategically and proved superior fitness in the later stages of the race.

- To refute your point about this turning a 1500m into a 400m race, Centrowitz (1:44,6) beat Makhloufi (1:42,61), Soulieman, (1:42,97) Kiprop (1:43,15), who should have by your logic beaten Centro easily in a 400m. Centro was better over the whole 1500m race, in terms of position, pacing and final sprint.

-Your point about time limits is simply idiotic. The beauty of distance running is in its simplicity, and implementing a restriction just to satisfy some arbitrary time that is "required for a champion" is backwards.

You line up, the gun goes off, the person who crosses the line first is the winner.

So I guess the rest of Centro's medals are a fluke too?

In Rio 2016 the fastest any of THE BEST 1500m runners in the world ran, in any heat, was 3:38.

In the final 0.87 seconds separated the top 6 athletes.

Maybe it was the sh*tty, heavy Brazilian air? Maybe a different hemisphere? The athletes aren't missing out. You seem to think that runners only enjoy racing when the races are fast. What about someone like Centrowitz or Blankenship or Gregson or Willis who made it to the finals? If everyone was racing 3:28's and 3:29's in the qualifying, they wouldn't have made it to the finals and gotten the opportunity.

Prefontaine sounds like your idol, while Centro should be because he's much better at winning.

Alternate Reality wrote:

Truth is Here wrote:

He won in 2016 because he is a world-class tactician with a great finish. You can't call it a fluke or "lucky" when he has finished 4th, 3rd, and 2nd at other world championship races and has a 3:30 PB. Most championship finals feature slower starts with burning finishes, while fast-from-the-gun races like the one Cheruiyot engineered are outliers. If anything Centro just got UNLUCKY this time around.

In reality, while this race was faster, Cheruiyot's and Centro's races were about the same.

1 runner dictated to the rest of the field how the race was going to go.

And both times each runners wordless command was so strong that everybody else just listened.

Time to move to the 5000 wrote:

That was a crazy race... a sub-3:30 in a championship, especially from the front, is quite rare. Centro didn't run poorly - 3:32 is still quite fast. But, he's not getting any younger for a 1500 guy and would have a hard time kicking for a medal off any pace anymore I suspect.

Just accept you wete a bum runner like the rest of us instead of projecting your failures onto him.

He won Olympic Gold fffs

FrenchDawg wrote:

Alternate Reality wrote:

In reality, while this race was faster, Cheruiyot's and Centro's races were about the same.

1 runner dictated to the rest of the field how the race was going to go.

And both times each runners wordless command was so strong that everybody else just listened.

^^^^

Exactly.

Its what champions do.

I've yet to see one whine or declare a national tragedy on their way to winning one either.

- It is stupid to think one race determines the best runner that year. The best runner that year may not even be able to make it to that one race.

- Centro was the best runner over a 400m following a joke 1100m.

- This is no refutation. A 1:44 guy can sometimes beat a 1:42 guy in a 400m and even in an 800m.

- Running a 1500m that slow is idiotic.