El Guerrouj VS. Brazier in a 1200

Math + Experience wrote:

please stop dude wrote:

Phil, you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. You can't run 3:26 and not have wheels, and El Guerrouj was clearly capable of 1:43 as well. Let's stop pretending him losing to Ngeny once means he can't kick. Watch the 2004 Olympic 1500m final if you still don't get it.

As for the original question, anyone who thinks Brazier takes this 1200 is on more drugs than El G was. Guerrouj wins comfortably.

This is what happens when you read a lot of books, but have virtually zero real-world experience.

+1

This guy has a bad habit of speaking with authority about things he doesn't understand.

Brazier only wears standard victory elites. Not the prototype spikes.

Lol where do you get your numbers? It’s 30-35mpw, not 45.

El Guerrouj destroy brazier in 1200m

I'm not an expert on shoes and the latest spikes, but when watching the coverage from Doha at the time, and reading subsequent articles since, it was certainly insinuated that all the NOP athletes were wearing the very latest carbon plated spikes. Perhaps Brazier's were not prototype in that race, although it seems strange that not all NOP athletes were wearing them? but I can imagine that even "standard Victory Elites" are superior to what El G wore and certainly what they wore in the 80's. Please explain if you think they are not.

I just found this from The Guardian newspaper (a very reputable broadsheet in the UK) on 2.3.2020, which would also suggest Brazier embraces the idea of wearing new/protype shoes: -

"However, there are other prototype Nike shoes that appear far more space age – including ones worn by the Dutch athlete Sifan Hassan when she won world 10,000m and 1500m gold medals and others worn by the US runner Donavan Brazier last week."

I'm not suggesting Brazier has done anything wrong, and I'm sure other current athletes could run in the same spikes, but when comparing his 1:42.34 to performances from El G in the late 90's, or before, surely the superior spikes (with all the recent controversy over performances on the indoor track and roads from athletes wearing these innovative shoes), and indded tracks, need to be considered and calculated in to relative worth of each.

El Guerrouj ... easily

1. El G is the greatest miler of all time, Brazier is a very good runner over 800 but nowhere near El G's level. No one has even come within a second of El G's 1500 WR and Brazier is still 1.4 seconds away from Rudisha. Over 1500 Brazier is very average for an elite runner.

2. 1200 is a better race for milers, so even if El G and Brazier were on the same level at their respective distances I would still take El G. I would look at NCAA DMR results to back this up, but just as an example the outdoor DMR WR 1200 leg was run by Elkanah Angwenyi (1:46/3:31) who has far superior 1500m time, and the indoor DMR WR 1200 leg was run by Centro - (1:44/3:30), who also has a stronger 1500 time.

Well yeah I’m sure any brand’s spikes in this day are better than what El G wore 20 years ago. But the article is wrong, Brazier said he didn’t like the prototype spikes. It was in a post race interview either this past indoor season or outdoor last year, I can’t remember.

No contest. While we don't know how good Brazier could be with different focus, right now he is by far at his best at the 800 (and 600m), I'd guess he would struggle against 1:44.7/3:34 Engels in the 1200m, despite having 2 seconds better 800m.

The 1200 is not really in the middle as far as abilities go, it's far closer to the 1500m/mile than to the 800m. Brazier is an immense talent, but he does not seem to be an 800/1500m guy. And already in the 1000m the "pure" 800m (or 800/400m) runner often does considerably worse and usually loses to the 800/1500m guy.

So someone here really thinks that the 10th best 800m guy of all time could beat the best 1500m runner of all time, on a race which is WAYYYY closer to the 1500m than the 800m ?

Remember El Guerrouj has the fastest ever 1200m split, in the beginning of a 1500 race in 2:44.75 and he wasn't even in peak form, he also closed his 1500m world record in 2:44.375. He could probably run sub 2:41 in best shape, his closest rivals would be Noah Ngeny and Sebastien Coe, who could probably outkick him (even if El Guerrouj kick ability is way better than what you think, Coe is still the best) but only if it's a race without pacemakers. I would put all my money on peak form El Guerrouj beating Brazier on a 1200m race at least 50 times in a row. The only chance that Brazier has to beat a peak shape El Guerrouj is on races under 950m. Even if Brazier is a great guy and maybe he will be a WR holder one day, you guys are a bit over-estimating him because he's American.

Jo72 wrote:

The 1200 is not really in the middle as far as abilities go, it's far closer to the 1500m/mile than to the 800m. Brazier is an immense talent, but he does not seem to be an 800/1500m guy. And already in the 1000m the "pure" 800m (or 800/400m) runner often does considerably worse and usually loses to the 800/1500m guy.

That's true. But keep in mind, El Guerrouj was a 1500/3000/5000 guy, and definitely NOT a 800/1500 guy. People often overestimate what El Guerrouj could have run in the 800/1000, but his strengths, races on these distances (admittedly few, for various reasons) and top-end speed always suggest that he wasn't as fast as people believe him to be (some truly believe he could have run 1:43 or something, just based on what he closed some races in..).

So by nature of relative distance in events, a 800/1500 guy would do better in a 1200 than a 1500/3000/5000 guy. If you think that someone like Coe (1:41/3:29), Makloufhi (1:42/3:28), Ngeny (1:44/2:11/3:28) or maybe even someone like Lewandowski (1:43/3:31, 10.5 and 47.0 in training) would struggle against a desperately front-running El Guerrouj being chased by these 800/1500 guys with superior speed is ridiculous.

Brazier is where it gets interesting, as 1:42/3:37 guy he is a lot weaker aerobically than the true 800/1500 guys (Brazier himself said he is more like a 400/800 guy) THEN the difference becomes just so big that El Guerrouj might just outrun him from the get-go, or as one poster said destroy him with some surges to make him hurt a lot. But he could still cause an upset.

All we have about El Guerrouj are his 1:47 and 2:16 in 1995, when he was just a 3:31 guy. Yes, he improved by 5s but you can't just say he improved by 2.5s in the 800m, it doesn't work like that. He probably improved primarily by becoming stronger aerobically, not anaerobically so his 800m time might have only been affected by 1s at best. Also, there is the theory that El Guerrouj took EPO, which again matters far more in the 1500 (there is a reason Kiprop focused on the 1500 despite having lots of speed, if you take EPO an event that's 75-80% aerobic is better than one that's 60%).

msb21 wrote:

El Guerrouj ... easily

1. El G is the greatest miler of all time, Brazier is a very good runner over 800 but nowhere near El G's level. No one has even come within a second of El G's 1500 WR and Brazier is still 1.4 seconds away from Rudisha. Over 1500 Brazier is very average for an elite runner.

2. 1200 is a better race for milers, so even if El G and Brazier were on the same level at their respective distances I would still take El G. I would look at NCAA DMR results to back this up, but just as an example the outdoor DMR WR 1200 leg was run by Elkanah Angwenyi (1:46/3:31) who has far superior 1500m time, and the indoor DMR WR 1200 leg was run by Centro - (1:44/3:30), who also has a stronger 1500 time.

I'm assuming there's a pacer in this exhibition as that's how it would happen IRL. Pacer would take them through in 53pt/1:47pt and El Guerrouj would win by a second. 1200 is pretty darn close to a 1500. Brazier has good endurance for what he is, and will eventually run 3:31-2 if he wants to, but he is better at 600 than 1000, and there will be a precipitous drop from there. Now if you did a 1200 match race of Coe and Ngeny vs. El G, Coe and Ngeny might just win.

zxcvzcxv wrote:

I am pretty sure that El Guerrouj has the fastest ever 1200m enroute to a mile time ever, so pretty reasonable to pick him. I think that he may have gone 2:44.75. If not, it would have been close to that. Jim Ryun ran the last 1200m of a 1500m in 2:46, I think. El G could basically run a 2:16 1k and close in 28. He averaged 54.8/400m for 1500m.

In the 1500m early season Bislett race in 85 that I posted here yesterday, Cram runs the last 1200m in around 2:47. They had slowed down a bit after the first 300m as well and Cram looked like he had plenty to spare. I doubt if he was quite in the shape he was in later that summer either.

sorry, forgot to add cleanly ... thought it was a given with Kiprop and Lagat as the only other guys in the 3:26.xx range

Math + Experience wrote:

msb21 wrote:

El Guerrouj ... easily

1. El G is the greatest miler of all time, Brazier is a very good runner over 800 but nowhere near El G's level. No one has even come within a second of El G's 1500 WR and Brazier is still 1.4 seconds away from Rudisha. Over 1500 Brazier is very average for an elite runner.

2. 1200 is a better race for milers, so even if El G and Brazier were on the same level at their respective distances I would still take El G. I would look at NCAA DMR results to back this up, but just as an example the outdoor DMR WR 1200 leg was run by Elkanah Angwenyi (1:46/3:31) who has far superior 1500m time, and the indoor DMR WR 1200 leg was run by Centro - (1:44/3:30), who also has a stronger 1500 time.

http://www.alltime-athletics.com/m_1500ok.htm

*ignore other reply*

Sorry, just went by memory and was only thinking about Lagat+Kiprop - since they both doped I excluded them - anyways the point still stands that El G is a far superior runner than Brazier

msb21 wrote:

Math + Experience wrote:

http://www.alltime-athletics.com/m_1500ok.htm

*ignore other reply*

Sorry, just went by memory and was only thinking about Lagat+Kiprop - since they both doped I excluded them - anyways the point still stands that El G is a far superior runner than Brazier

If you're gonna call Lagat a doper surely you realize El G was too.

LRP, 100 out of the blocks is so, so different from 400m flying start ability. Farah could easily run 48 or better in the quarter, but this is faster than his 100m ability out of the blocks.

El G easy.

You've picked the wrong distance the match should be over 1,000m

THOUGHTSLEADER wrote:

I'm assuming there's a pacer in this exhibition as that's how it would happen IRL. Pacer would take them through in 53pt/1:47pt and El Guerrouj would win by a second. 1200 is pretty darn close to a 1500. Brazier has good endurance for what he is, and will eventually run 3:31-2 if he wants to, but he is better at 600 than 1000, and there will be a precipitous drop from there. Now if you did a 1200 match race of Coe and Ngeny vs. El G, Coe and Ngeny might just win.

And Cram would also be a contender.

The point here is not speculation about which drugs made El G as good as he was. But that it doesn't really matter if one is a 1500/3k person rather than 800/1500 if one runs several seconds sub 3:30. Such a 1500/5k will still be much better than an 1:42 400/800m type in the 1200m, very likely even in the 1000m. As you correctly point out, it will be different if a 1:42 or faster guy who runs also sub 3:30 is in the mix as he guys mentioned above.