Elle St. Pierre is a terrible racer

Don’t underestimate the sunglasses effect. I legitimately think Kerr and St. Pierre would be better liked if they didn’t race in reflective sunglasses on a track. Save it for a bright day on the roads.

The 3 medalists in the 5000 would still have outkicked her.

It is interesting…

Hull is clearly on another level right now. Is it from speed training? Maybe. She is also coached by her “dad” after being affiliated with a club ripe with doping.

Elle also raced like an over matched freshman at the first invitational. It’s tough to cover up tactical mistakes on milk protein shakes alone.

I said the same after the Trials. 3:55.99 pr, was thinking at best she could knock that down into the 3:54low range in Paris. With Kipyegon, Tsegay, Hull, Muir, I felt like St Pierre didn't have a plausible route to a 1500m medal, felt like it was going to take 3:53.5 to be competitive and turned out it was quite a bit faster than that.

14:34 5000m pr coming in. Felt like if she was in 1500m pr shape she be equally likely to be in 5000m pr shape, maybe a chance to get down sub 14:30, maybe into the 14:25 range but that seems a little optimistic. Still a stacked field in the 5000m, it's not like any Olympic event has an easy route to a medal, but I felt like in the right race she had a better chance to pick off racers for a top 3 finish at 5000m.

I hate to say it but, ESP and Hiltz were not going to run 3:53 in medal. They both stuck with the lead group as long as they could. Maybe, hang back run 3:55, but ..

That wasn't a medal

To me she just doesn't "look" like a great runner, the way she moves, body language, and I admit this is completely subjective. I always had the same feeling watching Houlihan.

Do you think Batocletti’s fitness is that much higher than ESP’s. She was in contention so if Ellie was able to cover that move she’d be close enough to maybe scrape that bronze imo

I think her tactics were fine, her fitness just wasn't where it was in March. Nothing wrong with how she raced Millrose or World Indoors. Tsegay going out like an idiot was suboptimal for both Americans, but when Kipyegon and the rest of the contenders went with her, ESP and Hiltz really had no choice if they wanted to factor in the race. This isn't the first time ESP has peaked too early, seems like an issue with her training to me.

Considering Cranny was spat out the back and finished way off the podium (10th? 11th?) and was able to outkick ESP at trials tells me Elle had no chance in the 5000.

She's a mother.

She had what might be the dumbest meet I've ever seen. Tonight's incredibly idiotic race is only part of it.

She ran her heat 3 freaking seconds faster than she needed to to qualify --closing hard, battling for second, when the last Q was 25 m behind her. Right then I figured things would probably end badly.

Then she did almost the same in her semi. And then she went out sub-60 tonight, AND made a bunch of idiot moves along the way, that gained her nothing, but cost lots of energy.

Gosh what a shock that she had *nothing* left when she finally needed it.

She had a genuine chance to get on podium, and pissed it down the drain worse than anyone not named Gudaf Tsegay.

God how sad.

Elle needs to practice mentally and physically relaxing and staying clam that first 300/400.........bad coaching or bad tactics?....everyone can see it....most posts here are spot on....62 first quarter rather than 58 changes everything.....not like Muir (that was too far back), but something in between, just off the back....so many tactical mistakes, definitely didn't run like a confident world class runner

Muir went through 400m in 61.7, so faster than the 62 you've suggested.

Also, Tsegay (the leader) went through 400m in 59.23, not 58.

St Pierre went through 400m in 59.6.

The second 50 meters of the race where she went into a full sprint to move from ~8th to 2nd absolutely ended any chance she had at a medal.

Muir ran a *great* race. Dodo needs to go watch it again, and look at the splits.
She ran roughly a thousand times smarter than either American or Tsegay.

“Horrible racer” is harsh considering she won an indoor gold pretty recently but today wasn’t her day.