Agree with your top 3. The winning time will be faster with a greater gap between Jakob and Yared. Jakob will be under 3:28 all by his lonesome self. As for farther down the list, I think Kipsang will go out too hard and will fall farther down the list at the end and Laros will have a slight regression to the mean after an amazing year. I’m putting Hocker in 4th, followed by Nordas, then Garcia and then Kipsang and Laros.
I believe Jakob could run 3:27 from the front, and he very well might if that’s his objective. However, we know he won’t be first off the line and I can imagine him taking a little bit of time to get to the lead in order to best conserve his energy, and then measuring his effort somewhat in the penultimate lap instead of gunning it for the fastest possible time (plus, he might give up a couple tenths in the homestretch celebrating, showboating or just shutting it down).
I think Jakob’s objective is to have a history making-statement run, and one where he not only wins but assets his absolute dominance over the rest of the current competitors and further establishes him as one of the few all time greats. So, yes, he’ll do his customary hang back for 200 meters and then I expect him to go to the front and hammer it all the way right at his limit. I expect he’ll come off the final turn with nobody near him and lengthen his lead all the way to the end. After Jakob, it will be a scrum. I do think Yared and Kerr will be the other medalists, but the placing 2-7 or so are up for grabs, certainly true of 3-7.
I went Jakob, Nuguse, Kerr in the prediction contest. After seeing the semi-finals, I'm sticking with that. Going to be one incredible race, that's for sure.
hot take, but i do not think anybody other than Jakob is breaking 3:30. Jakob will win in high 3:28 while everyone else scrambles for silver/bronze in 3:30 territory.
I gotta say the Brojos/Gaults dismissal of Kipsang is completely bizarre. On the podcast, Jon wavers on whether he’s a medal threat and Rojo admits not to have been watching him. The guy has controlled the first 2300 of his races and looked in cruise control pulling up to Nuguse in his semi. Meanwhile when asked about Nordas he was a slam dunk for medal contention. To me after Jakob - Kerr, Kipsang and Nuguse have made qualifying look the most like a breeze with Garcia Romo, Hocker and Laros in the next group. Nordas/Nader/Reynold/Habz look fine but theyre having to get physical and get into their full sprints to get through. It’s been a struggle for Gourley.
If you watched Kipsang in Silesia and so far if this thing strings out it’s ideal for him. His problem is tactical races where he’s not in control. But this final might just be a fitness contest and I’d take him in that to be right with Nuguse and Kerr fighting for hardware.
Kipsang has run exactly as he ran at Toyko. He will likely be the default rabbit for the Final and yo-yo late.
He needs to run smarter to get a medal because he's not strong enough to drive that from 600-1200m.
Nordas has looked great. I think he's a medalist. Youre going to see Jakob out front and that move with 500m to go will be critical because you dont want to be running in lane 4 with 250 to go in a race with this many fast finishers
Kipsang has run exactly as he ran at Toyko. He will likely be the default rabbit for the Final and yo-yo late.
He needs to run smarter to get a medal because he's not strong enough to drive that from 600-1200m.
Nordas has looked great. I think he's a medalist. Youre going to see Jakob out front and that move with 500m to go will be critical because you dont want to be running in lane 4 with 250 to go in a race with this many fast finishers
Do you expect Jakob to let him do that? I agree that Kipsang is vulnerable IF Jakob/someone else seizes the lead from him early and it gets bunched. But if Jakob pushes it and takes the burden off the Kipsang that might put him on his slipstream as others have to work to move up.
jakob just closed effortlessly in 50.63. i don't see anyone beating him under any circumstances.
i could see yared getting 2nd. laros or hocker for third.
I could see Jakob losing with his arrogance like last year. He is under the opinion that he can do whatever he wants and win the race. Last year he got bumped around a bit on the first lap and made an early surge to the front on the second lap to lead. We all know how that ended up. If he leads the race fast he will act as a rabbit for a guy like Nuguse who does potentially have the chops of running 3:28 in the final. And Jakob isn't going to run 3:27 leading the whole thing, he only runs 3:27 when he has pacers for most of the race and everyone else lets him sit on the pacer. And if he sits back too far thinking he can outkick everyone, he risks getting bounced around with 500 meters to go and being a few steps behind a guy like Nuguse who again, can run 3:28. Jakob has to continue to race smart if he wants to win. If he gets cocky he has a good chance of losing.
Been saying this for months. It's like his loss last year made him less humble 😭. I actually like the overly-confident athletes tho so I get it but Nuguse for the win. That's my favorite runner.
Kipsang has run exactly as he ran at Toyko. He will likely be the default rabbit for the Final and yo-yo late.
He needs to run smarter to get a medal because he's not strong enough to drive that from 600-1200m.
Nordas has looked great. I think he's a medalist. Youre going to see Jakob out front and that move with 500m to go will be critical because you dont want to be running in lane 4 with 250 to go in a race with this many fast finishers
Do you expect Jakob to let him do that? I agree that Kipsang is vulnerable IF Jakob/someone else seizes the lead from him early and it gets bunched. But if Jakob pushes it and takes the burden off the Kipsang that might put him on his slipstream as others have to work to move up.
I think Jakob lets him take the lead and hold it slightly longer than last year. He's not going to have Cher fighting with him like last year. He might let Kipsang take it to 800m this year and then bang in a huge move with 900-700 to go, to avoid the scramble that will come at 500m to go.
He knows he lost from the responses to the moves last year. Something tell me he's going to want to run more like Tokyo, but just mobilizing his finish from further out.
Maybe. Kipsang runs 55-59. If Jakob goes patient he can run 57 easy in last and then a 56pt. passing the field. Press from there to chase after 3:28 with a fast finish. The risk is that second lap could get hairy and Kipsang might fight to stay up front.
Think it will be Jakob for gold, but also hope Kerr or Garcia or Hocker or Nordas for silver. Anyway, hope that's the top 5. Those are my favorite runners there
ingebrigtsen will punish the field the last 110 m. he will win by 5 meters. a gang will battle it out in his wake. a gang of maybe 5-6 runners. i think those that no one regards as big threats will sneak the medals.
i hope the kenyans have a team tactics this time and dont run with their heads under their arms. jake weightman said that u have to rattle jakob. do something that will shake him up. and take the lead with one lap to go. something like that i think he said.
so say that the first lap is rather slow. 59-60 sec. in that case throw in 2 ridiculous fast laps. like two 55-56 sec laps.
if the first lap is steady (57-58)- i´d say go with an old dan wearn trick; put in a very speedy 3rd lap.
and most likely it will be fast from the gun with kipsang taking the lead. jakob drifting at the back but then gradually working his way up and from 700-800 m it will be jakob show. and the others hanging on for dear life.
it would be great to see great finishers like leo manzano n makhloufi against jakob. i think ramzi n makhlouf actually cud have given him a run for his money...
actually jakobs biggest threat could come from nordås n norway.
either if he tries to medal nordås too by running in a way that benefit nordås he might loose the sight of gold.
or, if i am being cynical, its obviously bad blood between gjert n jakob and gjert knows jakobs weaknesses. so nordås could capitalize on that. it could be as dirty as talking foul to jakob. saying something that will throw him off a bit.
or he could run in a way that disturbs jakob (which i find it surprising that no one does....like run on his heels or give him some elbow...or run in front of him, box him in, while a few others run away...)
The proper way to anglicise his name is "Nordaas". Proper pronunciation for the "aa" would be pretty close to how you pronounce the first vowel of "awesome"
I think Jakob’s objective is to have a history making-statement run, and one where he not only wins but assets his absolute dominance over the rest of the current competitors and further establishes him as one of the few all time greats. So, yes, he’ll do his customary hang back for 200 meters and then I expect him to go to the front and hammer it all the way right at his limit. I expect he’ll come off the final turn with nobody near him and lengthen his lead all the way to the end. After Jakob, it will be a scrum. I do think Yared and Kerr will be the other medalists, but the placing 2-7 or so are up for grabs, certainly true of 3-7.
I can sign this. Jacob will win with 1.5-2.5 sec difference. 2-12 can be any order. I don't see big difference between all of them. Everyone can be second, everyone can be 12, everyone can miss the final, depend of the day.