Better question: How does a 3:26 guy expect to front run his way to a win against a bunch of 3:27 guys?
Because none of them were 3:27 guys until today. Jakob obviously looked at everyone’s PBs and thought I can outrun any of those times by front running it. To be fair on paper that makes sense.
Because hes a 3:27 guy... Dude closed in 52 in a 3:30 race, that clearly wasn't his peak time trial ability despite what some on these boards wanted to tell you
This - and when the 3.26 guy goes completely against his strength and opens up in 54.8 it equalizes the playing field pretty quickly.
Think about this - when Jakob ran 3.26 in Monaco he was also over a second slower through the opening lap. In a TT style race with pacers and lights - and without 2 prior races in 4 days.
I'm not detracting from any of those guys but J.I ran possibly the most damaging race to himself he possibly could. I can't believe that.
Jakob's 55, 57, 56 splits (actually 54.9, 56.6, 55.8) were sub-optimal. His 2:47.3 1200 split was "just" 3:29.1 pace, which obviously wasn't too fast for the kickers. I suspect the same 1200 split, but with the sub 55 lap as the third would have taken much more out of the kicks. Easier said than done of course.