Grant Fisher deserved to get beat

Wise Old Man?

Your name should be something along the lines of “Young & Emotional” or “Off The Cuff.” LOL

You may be old but you are certainly not wise. Fisher is just getting started. He TT a big pr but is only just learning championship style racing. He got out kicked off a soft pace, he is not a machine. They’ll learn from this and know for next time at national level. As far as WC, the weather will once again be a glad for in Eugene. It will be super hot and at that point, anything can happen.

I really struggle to understand the sentiment on this thread. It seems like a lot of ya’ll are serious Fisher fanboys who are devastated that “your boy” didn’t win. It also seems like many of you don’t understand some of this sport’s simple tenets of talent and peaking…..

1) It’s a US title. These are not easy to win.

2) Other users have rightfully pointed out it is 6 weeks away from WCs. Fisher isn’t fully sharp (and you can bet Klecker isn’t either).

3) Fisher is absolutely NOT a gold medal threat in the 5k or 10k at this point in his career, and likely won’t be. I’m really not sure why you LR fanboys anointed him as “next” based on his accomplishments. Yes, he ran 12:53. Well cheptegei and Barega have gone EIGHTEEN and TEN seconds faster (and I’m in the camp Barega could go under 1240 but hasn’t gotten in the right race). Yes, he ran 26:33. But Cheptegei ran TWENTY TWO seconds faster. Barega could as well.

Folks don’t appreciate that these BTC time trials have been absolute top quality production and pacing efforts, better than most world record attempts. And while Grant is admirably fast, he’s just NOT on their level. And the key to this sport is, there are OTHER guys in the level between him and them as well….

4) Klecker is no slouch. Everyone who keeps stating that Fisher unequivocally is more talented than Klecker ought to look up the work “pedigree” in the dictionary. I’m not saying Klecker is MORE talented than Fisher, but they’re on the same wavelength. Klecker gets a bad rep from his 17th at Tokyo, but bigger, denser runners traditionally get worse results in hot, humid conditions. This guy is too 10-15 in the world at 5k-10k, ya’ll have been sleeping on him. He was 2 seconds behind Jakob this month in an actual race (not just a time trial). How easily we forget….

Grant ran well, and accomplished mission #1. Its a bit disappointing he didn’t win but it’s not totally shocking. He has never been a last lap burner.

Shorter and Moore intentionally tied at the 72 marathon trials. All about making the team.

Klecker half the talent of Fisher? How ridiculous of a statement. So you mean Klecker should not be able to run a sub 53 minute 10000? Lol. Making the Olympic final last year was being half the talent of Fisher? Why are you ignoring that Klecker was going through injury issues last year?

Klecker also destroyed "ALL" of the supposed super talent Americans.. McGorty, lomong, Kipchirir, everybody. Instead of crying as to how poorly Fisher did maybe you need to wake up and realize Klecker is two levels above last year and now a true world class athlete?

Destroyed? Klecker beat Fisher by .1 seconds and 4th place by about 2 seconds.

If Fisher had wanted to push the pace, he would have won. I would have expected him to have the best kick off of a slow pace, but qualifying is more important than winning. What matters is what happens at WC.

I called it after he broke the AR earlier this year....he screwed up and should have been working on his kick.

The notion that you only work on speed 4 weeks out from the championship is antiquated and I thought died 20 years ago in the dark ages of american distance running.

He got the record but Rupp would have DEMOLISHED him in this 10k.

Fisher has never won a US title, right? That’s not a throw away accomplishment I would think, so there is no doubt he wanted to win and this was not just a “make the team” and move on sort of effort for him. Yet, in that scenario he got beat down the stretch off a slow pace. It was disheartening to see for those convinced he was moving up to the A level internationally. Unlike Cranny, the 10 is likely his best event. I have nothing against Klecker. However, I’m sure 95% of LRC posters and half way knowledgeable fans consider him an international B level runner (makes global races, but not ever competing for a medal) and no where near the talent level of Fisher, not now, not ever. Maybe that’s totally wrong, we will see. Ok, yes, Fisher may come back at worlds and show A level form, but last night was a big loss and a bad one. It was a national championship that he’s never run for Peets sake!

I love that you are so literal in your reading of my post….under that reading, I’m half the talent of Fisher….actually I’m 55.4% of his talent now….

I wouldn’t call a race where the first 9000m was run at 29:O0 pace, a 10K. Since the race was for qualifying for the WC, I wouldn’t call it a “championship” either.

You conveniently ignored my post above.

You are a poor judge of “talent”.

I know, it’s crazy, he should have moved on to the last lap right away. The last lap is the only thing that matters and yet folks keep running 24 laps for nothing.

The thing I am not seeing mentioned here is that Fisher was horrible tactically last night. He let himself get stuck in a bad position with less than 800 to go and had to do way too much work to get into a position to challenge Klecker. In contrast, Klecker took the lead early enough so he could run that shortest distance on the last lap without having to pass people who were already kicking for home to do so. He executed the Mo Farah strategy to perfection. Fisher should have at least moved up to second with 1200 or 1k to go, before the pace increased dramatically.

The good news for Fisher is that someone will likely make a move earlier in the WC final and allow him to work his way through the field with less traffic. It is still concerning that Fisher could only manage 54.x off of such a slow pace. However, if worlds goes fast (for a championship i.e. high 26:40s) I think he could still sneak in for a bronze but it is more likely that he finishes 5-7th.

It will be interesting to see what Klecker can do going forward too. I always thought of him as more of a "strength" runner but he showed pretty good closing speed and great tactical awareness last night. Maybe he can end up threatening top 5 at worlds too. Especially if a few of the East Africans burn themselves out going for the win and fade a bit.

That I think too highly of Fisher or not highly enough of Klecker? Do you think Klecker is of equal or greater talent? I don’t think many serious talent judges do. After Grant ran the 12:53 and the 26:33 this year, and not just run these times, but the way he did…the last mile in Boston…running down Mo in the 10, I think pretty much everybody figured he’d leveled up. Was this wrong? No, I’d never thought I’d see that Grant Fisher unable to take down Klecker off a 28 min 10 regardless of his sharpness unless he was sick or injured. Never.

Good thing for Fisher then these are not the days of prelim round at Olympics for 10000m. Splitting 9000m in about 25:40 in prelim round then racing sub 2:35 final 1000m was the norm.

Just saying that I voted Klecker to win. Give me my flowers

Dude, just read my post above. You (and not just you, many) overrate Fisher and underrate Klecker, as I explicitly stated.

They’re both world class, but both under the level required to medal, at this point in their careers. I hope they prove me wrong, but athletics has a funny way of repeating trends year on year, cycle on cycle. Barring injury or poor selection by the ETH and KEN and UGA teams (ala 2012), we won’t have a 10k medalist. They’re still DAMN GOOD.

You don’t think running 26:33 and beating Mo, a global medalist, in a race Mo was clearly trying to win, does not at least hint that Fisher is ready to compete for a global medal this year? Seriously compete? We’ve seen nothing to suggest Klecker has that in him, yet. Fisher is now 19-1 against Klecker….I’ll stand by my talent assessment.