His parents were elite runners at Villanova and know what they’re doing. He was lightly raced in high school. Hardly did any cross country races. At the state track meet his senior year, he ran just the 400 and the 4x4, which is a big salute to his coaches and parents when he would have easily won the 1600 and 800 too.
emmanuel wanyonyi is 2/2 in this year's diamond league, a clear world number one, and he's heading for 1:42 this year. younger than sumner. the future is here.
emmanuel wanyonyi is 2/2 in this year's diamond league, a clear world number one, and he's heading for 1:42 this year. younger than sumner. the future is here.
emmanuel wanyonyi is 2/2 in this year's diamond league, a clear world number one, and he's heading for 1:42 this year. younger than sumner. the future is here.
Size can hinder a runner in the 800 and 1500m, as you'll know if you watched Anass Essayi, who has the best pr in the 1500m field, get bounced around repeatedly. But Sumner has enough size. That is not an issue for him. He closes like a freight train. I too think that close plus 400 speed means he could be an absolute star at 800/1500m like Coe. You do not see 1500 guys very often with low 45 or sub-45 speed, but then you do not often see guys with that kind of 400 speed close really hard in the 800m regularly like he does. He has more endurance than the other 400 AND 800 guys, and his parents both ran the 800/1500 double, if I recall correctly. Still, he showed here that he has more than enough 800 talent to be a world contender. Brazier's hs 1:47 was a 2 second negative split and showed he could run 1:45. A year later he ran 1:43.55. Sumner just dropped about 2 1/4 seconds from his hs time, which was within a tenth of the hs record, and he did it with a 2 second negative split that suggests he can break 1:43 this year. He has a great future.
That’s what, a 3 second improvement in one year? At this level? I wasn’t fully on the Sumner hype train before but now I’m seeing 1:42 and a world/old medal or two at some point.
Really excited to see where he goes over the rest of this year and in the future. Cool to see Georgia have a mid-d star too.
I think this is possible but let the kid develop. we clearly haven’t learned to not put too much pressure on our young stars.
Wanyonyi has been training like a top flight pro for 3 years. He also was fully mature physically at 16 (regardless of if the age is fully accurate). Sumner has been brought along a lot slower. While I think Wanyonyi is extremely promising, they are far different athletes at different stages of their development.
Emmanuel Korir, while at UTEP, ran 1:43.73 at a competition in Berkeley. Totally unexpected. His negative splits were 52.48 and 51.25. Date was 29 April 2017. Korir was still 21 at the time. What follows is my report for Athletics International:
Regarding Emmanuel Korir's rather astounding negative-split 800m race in Berkeley (see below): his 1:43.73 was constructed from a 52.48 first lap and a 51.25 closing lap. A red-shirt Cal runner was surprisingly entrusted to do the pacing, and as this runner struggled to come through 400 in 52.31, you could see that Korir could not wait to take the lead. Had there been a true 400 runner who could have paced the desired 49- something, that result could easily have been a sub-1:43. Clearly, the emergence of three Kenyan runners this year at UTEP has been the product of 'chief scout' Paul Ereng. My understanding is that Korir ran cross-country last fall (but may only have trained with the team without any real competition participation.) His first track race outside of Kenya was an 800 in Nashville one week before he broke Nico Motchebon's 18-year-old world best for 600 metres. This was much like what I saw in Cottbus many years ago as Yuriy Borzakovskiy ran his first race outside of Russia, and left jaws dropping at his sprint down the final straight.
This post was edited 4 minutes after it was posted.
Reason provided:
Added full archived report.
I'd be shocked if he doesn't turn pro this summer bc he's about to get some big offers. He can do college later lol. Strike while the iron is hot it's a no brainer
I'd be shocked if he doesn't turn pro this summer bc he's about to get some big offers. He can do college later lol. Strike while the iron is hot it's a no brainer
Makes sense, but in the other hand, doesn’t NIL change the aanalysis/calculation, possibly?
Wanyonyi has been training like a top flight pro for 3 years. He also was fully mature physically at 16 (regardless of if the age is fully accurate). Sumner has been brought along a lot slower. While I think Wanyonyi is extremely promising, they are far different athletes at different stages of their development.
understand the urge to separate them seeing as wanyonyi was winning international meets and coming 4th at world champs last year while summer was at high school running domestic junior races... but no one is "fully mature physically" at 16.
they both look fantastic and i agree with the resemblance to borzakovskiy. no surprise at all to me if summer is running 1:42 in the next 18 months. however wanyonyi needs respecting as the current world number one and an athlete who looks ready to run 1:42 right now.
would love to see sumner, wanyonyi (and burgin?) all doing special things when paris olympics comes around.
IIRC, Nils Schumann won the Sidney Olympics like ~53.5+51.5.
If he stays healthy, Sumner is a medal contender at world level from NOW.
Might only be, he will need a bit time to get more experience and more work to be able to get through rounds, as 3 races in a couple days are demanding.
