Interestingly, when I did this exercise last year and put Cheruiyot 3rd, you said you wouldn’t have him in the top-8:
Even though last year he was 2nd in the Olympic 1500 in 3:29.01 and had run 3:28.28 in Monaco, compared with 6th in Eugene in 3:30.69, which at the time was a SB.
Since he was 6th in the Eugene 1500, I don’t think 7th in a WC 1k is a stretch when you consider that in this hypothetical, you’re reducing the number of events between 200 & 10k from 4 to 3, so on average the mid-distances would become more competitive.
Cheruiyot ran that impressive 1:43.11 PB 3 years ago. My 2019 World Championship 1k top-8 were as follows:
2019 World Championship Final Results:
1. Timothy Cheruiyot 2:12.64
2. Donavan Brazier 2:13.00
3. Marcin Lewandowski 2:13.33
4. Taoufik Makhloufi 2:13.39
5. Ferguson Rotich 2:13.73
6. Jake Wightman 2:14.16
7. Amel Tuka 2:14.39
8. Craig Engels 2:14.85
52.42, 1:45.83 [53.41], 2:12.64 [26.81]
The last time Cheruiyot raced an 800, he ran 1:46.78 for 8th place in the 2020 Doha DL. He’s had intermittent hamstring issues in the last couple seasons, and it’s now August 13th and so far this is the first season since 2016 in which he hasn’t broken 3:30. I think Cheruiyot could easily be more like a 1:45.0 type performer this year who’s retained his ability to run 56s pretty comfortably. I’m not convinced he would have the confidence or the ability to lead through 800 at an aggressive pace, nor that he would have a relatively strong finish after going through 800 in 1:47.xx.
As for Wanyonyi needing a few cracks at 1k to learn the distance, I’m assuming that he’s raced 1k plenty of times because it’s the distance, while .8 kilometers is a weird off-distance that is rarely run. I suppose that further supports your contention that the times would be faster—though the WC 800 only went out in 52, so who knows.
Kerr ran pretty well at Worlds, 3:30.6 and beating Cheruiyot, and although his 800 PB is “only” 1:45.35 (from 2019, when he was 21), I suspect he’d be just as good at 1k as 1500, perhaps marginally better. Here I envision him starting as the defending Olympic champion, and just not being able to close down any on Wightman in the final 100 but passing Kipsang and a fading Arop.
Lemi ran 1:44.65 last year and 3:32.98 in the Eugene final ain’t terrible, so I figure 1k would be right in his wheelhouse. Mario Garcia Romo’s 800 PB is 1:46.90, but obviously that 3:30.20 at Worlds was a big breakthrough, so who knows.
If you care to THOUGHTSLEADER, I’d be interested in hearing who you think would even be in a 12 man final instead of the 12 men I’ve got. For example, I thought about putting Neil Gourley in the mix, but decided that Max Burgin would have qualified from the British Championships and then withdrawn last minute. Oliver Hoare would be a consummate ‘tweener, but decided he’d be running the 4k (as would McSweyn and Ingebrigtsen, certainly). Korir on the other hand would definitely be running the 500.