Nuguse goes home devastated

The pacing lights broke at about 55 secs, the pacers were in the blue zone and the leaders were in green. From there the pacers looked flustered and maybe panicked they were running ahead of lights. To my eye the speed varied greatly, Jakob even looked restricted at points. Obviously the lights breaking was a big factor.

Amazing how the narrative has changed.

3 days ago : Jakob's time is up, he as no speed and won't be able to handle Nguse's kick, U-S-A, U-S-A

Today : Great run from Nguse. Beat Hoare and his kick was as fast as Jakob's.

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+1

Exactly! No one, including Jakob, went with the pacemakers.

So when Nuguse set PB in such a "slow" race he should be satisfied. He has shown he is in the very top at the world. I will say he is no 2 after Jakob. He has beaten most of the top milers apart from the 2 Cheruiyots.

But we will be wiser after DL Bislett where Tim reportedly participates. I think Jakob will try to run fast in front of his home crowd. My guess is that Jakob will beat Tim convincingly in Oslo.

Jakob stated in his interview that he is in shape to PB his year.

Josh Kerr (3:29, Olympic Bronze), Jake Wightman (3:29, WC Gold), Stewart McSweyn (3:29) have entered the chat.

Yup and wejo's "closed as fast as Jakob" factoid neglects to mention the fact that Jakob was checking all the way over his shoulder with about 50m to go wondering where the hell everyone else was, and then visibly slowing before the line. There's enough pressure on Nuguse without making excuses in a race where he was comprehensively beaten.

And really, all this 'he'll know better for next time?' chat. What is there to learn here? Jakob didn't start pushing seriously ahead until about 150m to go, it's not like he surprised everyone with some unexpected move at 800m! Having said all that, excited to see how it goes in Oslo, and exciting to see Nuguse collect some pretty decent scalps in that race.

Actually just watched it again- he turned to look for the others 3 separate times in the last 50m and was already celebrating with his arm up well before the finish, this was not a guy gunning for the line. I hereby declare the 'closed as fast as Jakob' defence utterly unusable.

Notice the theme he found in the first place. Americans are obsessed with closers, as if they magically envision a locomotive on the outside. I'm American but that mythology never ceases to amaze or amuse me.

IMO, the steady demise of horse racing played a role. If you bet closers at the track you do nothing but tear up tickets every day. But since younger Americans didn't grow up with racing as a mainstream sport they never learned that lesson.

Nuguse didn't impress me at all by remaining behind Hoare. If he genuinely intended to win he needed to be stalking Jakob. But like so many American middle distance types they are petrified of risking anything until the closing meters.

Arguably?

You allow randos on the internet to manipulate your opinions and thoughts?

Looks to me that they were pacing using the lights but then there was a technical flaw and the lights stopped working. Then the pacers thought they were ahead of the lights. Duh! Get Eric!

I was thinking of Nuguse as the new kid challenging the veteran champ.

Buy Jakob is 15 months younger than Yared

Nuguse proved in his 3:47 race that he can kick hard in a fast race, so at full strength he'll test both Jakob and Tim. He won't let himself be gapped again in a race that goes out in 2:52, I trust. From his interview, it is clear that he knows that he can compete and that he has more work to do and he is doing it (ON did 1k's at tempo + 200s after the race).

This is the thing I don't get, I keep seeing the idea that he was 'gapped' or caught out in some way. The actual 'gap' didn't appear until approx 100-150 to go, Goose had almost the entirety of the bell lap to pass Hoare and sit on Jakob or kick into the lead or whatever the plan was meant to be. Instead, the top three stay very close together and Jakob essentially does a short finishing sprint, noone can keep up, and all the folk on the board are like "ah yes, Nuguse will learn from this". If he doesn't already know to 'speed up at the end of the race', I think there are many more lessons to be learned.

Nuguse ran as if the plan was simply to see if he could handle the pace of a DL race and kick off it absent any one particular entrant. He ran with the guy he knew he could run with (Hoare) and kicked past him. He didn't run with the guy he doesn't know....and still doesn't know...if he can hang with.

He needs to be more aggressive.

A good Diamond League debut for Yared. Can’t spin it any other way.

If anyone is going home devastated it’s the loser who started this thread. What a loser. Shame this person.