Getachew improved her pr six seconds in this race, Georgia Bell improved her pr 4 seconds, Hull 5 seconds, and so on. The 100m splits show clearly that the start location was correct. For the 400m to be short, each 100m would have to be equally short, which is not credible when the 100m (slow but into a 2 m/s headwind)/110mH/400mH/400m times were nothing exceptional. Faith and Jessica got out quick and Faith finished quick. Other than that there is nothing anomalous about the 100m splits.
Her training partner is her physio (3:46/14:15 1500/5k guy in his own right). She's in a good environment back home where she has dedicated training partners who are always a few seconds ahead of her.
Now that they're in Europe and training together consistently, the confidence she's getting from staying on his shoulder during hard workouts is taking her to another level.
Is there another female 1500m runner in the world who has a 3:46 guy to train with 2/3 times a week?
Not sure if you really don’t know this but in East Africa virtually all the best female runners have personal pacers and many groups employ many to cater to the different speeds being set in their runs. Faith Kipyegon has had the same Kenyan guy pacing her for her entire career. It’s not only big stars - Betsy Saina has credited a lot of her success to her male pacers (plural). In the West, it isn’t as standard but Hull’s certainly not the only one. Weini Kelati and Emily Sisson come to mind. Hard for me to believe this is the reason for the staggering time drop. I like that word choice from Salvatore.
This post was edited 40 seconds after it was posted.
Australian distance runners do not have a known history of doping. As far as I have seen, I have struggled to come across frequent articles of Australian distance runners with positive PED tests.
You do the math, but typically these things are issues regarding to a country's culture.
So the question is really, is this an acceptable progression give Hulls age, her exposure to competition in the last 3-4 years (with wavelight and "superspikes" at her disposal which haven't suddenly evolved even more in 2024) and the level of performance over 1500m within the womens category that she made the jump to and from.
Well, since you mentioned it, I think there actually may be room for evolutionary improvement in the air-bag spikes. A few years ago, I understood the air-bags for the commercially available shoes were going to be set to 15psi for women, and 20psi (or was it 25psi?) for men. However, I thought I read a small blurb in the past year where “N” was going to be experimenting with different bag pressures.
Oh Please, You're painting an over zealous picture of Australian Anti Doping. I could just as easily obtain PEDs in Melbourne as I could anywhere in the world. All you need is a dodgy doctor willing to write a prescription for someone. There are plenty of people on roids at every gym in Australia, its by no means even hard.
And thats ignoring the fact that she spends months at a time overseas
Lol, meatheads in gyms getting steroids from bikies and other meatheads.
If you're a competitive athlete in Australia, especially in an Olympic year, you're going to get tested numerous times and when you least expect, even by the team doctors leading up to and while at the Olympics.
If you're into, or intending to take PEDs, the last place you would do it is Australia.
Yeah. Speaking to a researcher/analyst whilst within the actual ASADA lab (ASDTL ) in Sydney a year or so ago, he said that they do so much testing that they get these drugs more in other sport codes, and randomly in gym junkies through police (crim) samples, that no one hears about. Any positive athlete (T&F) makes immediate news.
To all those who say she's doping: Please explain what an acceptable progression looks like? Is it 1-2 seconds per year? And are race conditions a factor? Cory McGee recently ran a big pr in the trials but only finished 5th. Does her time raise a flag, considering her age? Is it possible to break a world record without doping? If not, how do we stop this? Hassan said "test me every day". Would that do it? Or do we need 24 hour cameras monitoring all distance runner for 3-4 months before Olympic or world championships? Thanks in advance to all you "experts".
Oh, come on. Even a slow 8th grader could do better than this.
Do you honestly think there's nothing unusual about a 27 year old top tier pro who had plateaued at 3:58-ish for several years dropping her pr by 6.5 seconds in less than a year? Or by 5 seconds in two months?
PS Here's her year's best and rank on the AT list for the last few years:
2019 195 4:01.80
2020 137 4:00.42
2021 71 3:58.81
2022 76 3:59.31
2023 51 3:57.29
2024 5 3:50.83
Do I think it's unusual? Yes. But....I think it's possible to catch lightning in a bottle, even if for only 1 race. She got towed around by Kipyegon and even surprised herself. We've seen so many runners run pr's in races they didn't win. It was stunning to watch Monson run 14:19 last year. I remember when Ritz ran 12:54 in a race where he finished 3d. It's happened so many times that it really isn't that surprising. Plus, Hull is probably at her physical peak. Finally, the training effect is different for everyone. The hard work she did for a few years could finally be coming to fruition now. I know for myself it took several months before my higher mileage started to show results. Moreover, she has been improving steadily for the last few years. I understand the skepticism. But it is possible for a runner to jump to another level.
So the question is really, is this an acceptable progression give Hulls age, her exposure to competition in the last 3-4 years (with wavelight and "superspikes" at her disposal which haven't suddenly evolved even more in 2024) and the level of performance over 1500m within the womens category that she made the jump to and from.
Well, since you mentioned it, I think there actually may be room for evolutionary improvement in the air-bag spikes. A few years ago, I understood the air-bags for the commercially available shoes were going to be set to 15psi for women, and 20psi (or was it 25psi?) for men. However, I thought I read a small blurb in the past year where “N” was going to be experimenting with different bag pressures.
I can only imagine the downvotes to this quite interesting and germane post are from the woefully ignorant on the matter, or from a contingent that doesn’t want it over the target. Whatevs.
Her training partner is her physio (3:46/14:15 1500/5k guy in his own right). She's in a good environment back home where she has dedicated training partners who are always a few seconds ahead of her.
Now that they're in Europe and training together consistently, the confidence she's getting from staying on his shoulder during hard workouts is taking her to another level.
Is there another female 1500m runner in the world who has a 3:46 guy to train with 2/3 times a week?
Not sure if you really don’t know this but in East Africa virtually all the best female runners have personal pacers and many groups employ many to cater to the different speeds being set in their runs. Faith Kipyegon has had the same Kenyan guy pacing her for her entire career. It’s not only big stars - Betsy Saina has credited a lot of her success to her male pacers (plural). In the West, it isn’t as standard but Hull’s certainly not the only one. Weini Kelati and Emily Sisson come to mind. Hard for me to believe this is the reason for the staggering time drop. I like that word choice from Salvatore.
Had no clue about Kipyegon having a personal pacer - it makes sense and I have no clue why it's not universal across the west, I guess there's no market for 3:45 guys to make money unless you already have another role combined, like Physio etc.
That being said, I'm giving context as to why Jess' performance has seen a drastic jump. Unlike Faith, who's had a personal pacer her whole life, Jess has had one for 18 months, and 'consistently' as in, for every workout as opposed to every fourth workout, only during the past two summers in Europe. Her mental health has improved dramatically since she's moved away from the US and back home close to family and friends, and that environment has really worked out for her. Hence, big improvements. She's been running PB's across the board this season, and this is her first big 1500 that's gone out at this sort of pace. It's not unexpected at all.
People can downvote me all they like, but I'm the only person ITT who has any sort of actual knowledge about her training situation and what's changed in her life since she was running 3:57 🤷♂️
It's one thing to suspect an athlete being coached in a for profit situation, but to imply that any decent man would approve of his daughter using PEDs to get a medal, as would have to be the case here, is beyond the pale. Social media is so fffing toxic on this stuff.
You know that someone's PB isn't a direct indicator of their ability? If Kipyeagon wasn't in this race do you think Hull would have ran the exact same time? Sometimes you don't get in to the perfect race while having the perfect fitness and perfect conditions every year all the time lol
This is exactly the problem. You can’t judge an athlete from her PB alone. The reality is that a better measure is the average of the top three, maybe even five, best times.
You are proving your own point with Hull’s unfathomable outlier performance. It’s so cooked it’s laughable. The good thing about these recent women’s 1500m races is that they are doing all they can to show us that there is no such thing as truly clean sport.
Mark Coogan the coach of Ellie St. Pierre stated that Ellie will run low 3:50's particularly if she can run 3:55 while leading almost the entire race after 4 races at the trials.
Ellie and Jess are of very similar abilities. If Ellie was in that race she would have probably run 3:51.
Laura Muir ran 3:53 but stayed with the 3rd pace setter...yes there was a pace setter for the 2nd pack.
Jess went for it and was rewarded with a huge pb. Good on her!
She's 27. That's at least a decade+ of hard training but in one year drops 7 seconds.
She's had super-spikes for a while now, so it can't be there. She's done altitude training stints prior to 2024 and 2023, so it can't be that. She doesn't look as 'skinny as ever' as a different letsrunner suggests.
Reminds me of the progression of Mo Katir. Sure, we can say double thresholds if you makes you all feel better but Jessica Hull is not a natural 3:50.XX runner in this dimension.
Ya'll are so daft.
Super shoes ain't done, yet. The super shoes of 2024 ain't the same ones as 2020.
They didn't stop tweaking the tech 4 years ago, each model's faster and faster.
Give it a rest lolllll
Morans on heretalking about how they understand "supershoe technology" and "perfromancing enhancing drugs", yet haven't seen a math/physics/chemistry/bio course since they were getting Cs and Ds in them in HS.
1000% guarantee you are pulling comments like this out of your *** and are not qualified to actually speak on the matter. Or be able to actually direct us to some well conducted studies that constitute the beginning of a good argument for your viewpoint.
It’s sad. I was a Jessica Hull fan until today, but she just jumped the shark along with Nikki, Addy, Jared, Grant, and pretty much everyone in Kenya and Great Britain. After Paris, I’m taking an indefinite break from this sport. We’ve hit Tour de France circa 2000 levels. Peace out doped beyatch.
To all those who say she's doping: Please explain what an acceptable progression looks like? Is it 1-2 seconds per year? And are race conditions a factor? Cory McGee recently ran a big pr in the trials but only finished 5th. Does her time raise a flag, considering her age? Is it possible to break a world record without doping? If not, how do we stop this? Hassan said "test me every day". Would that do it? Or do we need 24 hour cameras monitoring all distance runner for 3-4 months before Olympic or world championships? Thanks in advance to all you "experts".
Okay well let's not get all emotional - stay calm okay.
It's not about "acceptable progression" because this is all relative isn't it. Like someone used the example of Maggi Congdon earlier and Maggi has made a far bigger jump this season from 4.15 to 4.02 so is that "acceptable"?
But of course there are some key things in her situation that absolutely matter, 1) she is a 21 year old NCAA athlete that was never exposed to this level of racing before the US trials season where she ran her PR and 2) 4.02 is not 3.50 and let's be honest with ourselves, we are assuming this is the 3rd fastest time a woman has ever run because Dibaba certainly wasn't and neither was Yunxia Qu so this is a seismic jump to a pretty high/historic level of performance.
So the question is really, is this an acceptable progression give Hulls age, her exposure to competition in the last 3-4 years (with wavelight and "superspikes" at her disposal which haven't suddenly evolved even more in 2024) and the level of performance over 1500m within the womens category that she made the jump to and from. Now I won't be the judge of that or even give my opinion, but we would be remiss if we couldn't accept that this really is an incredible, staggering increase in performance that if not totally unprecedented, certainly hasn't been seen often. And there are good reasons for that - because it's really freaking hard to do and it's harder to do the higher the level of performance you achieve.
Kipyegon ran 3.54 in 2019, 3.51 in 2021 (2020 being the bizarre covid year we can omit this as she only ran one 1500m that season in Ostrava and won it in 3.59), 3.50 in 22, 3.49 in 2023. Like for me personally, even if something funky is happening with FK - that is a progression at this level of performance that is not head scratching. Neither is that of Tsegay who ran 3.53.09 in 2021, focussed on the 5000m in 22 and 23 but still ran low 3min54's - medalling in the 22 worlds in a 3.54 and in only one 1500m outdoor race in 2023 ran 3.54.03 before running 3.50.30 this season. This is also a progression at this level of performance that is not jumping off the page.
You know what does when we look at the historical list and woman under 3.51 which is really top top percentile?
Yunxia Qu - 3.57.08 to 3.50.46 across 1992-1993
Genzebe Dibaba - 3.55.17 to 3.50.07 across 2014-2015 (via 3.54.11 in 2014 prior to the WR)
Jessica Hull - 3.57.29 to 3.50.83 across 2023-2024 (via 3.55.97 in 2024 prior to the 5AT)
Acceptable? Come to your own conclusions. I think "staggering" is maybe a better adjective and from there it's up to you how you contextualize that against other athletes who have had similarly "staggering" performances. Maybe she is just one of the great outliers whose potential was so remarkably untapped only until today.
Spare a thought though for athletes like Linden Hall who has seen her own stellar once Australian record beaten this year twice - the first time by just under a second and now by almost 6, and also for Laura Muir who has grinded away for season after season in the 3.54/55's and finally pops a sensational career best in 3.53.8 but found herself almost 20m behind a woman she started the season with a PR almost 3 seconds faster than.
^This. Those massive jumps CAN happen, but typically as a runner is physically maturing (18-22) or introduced to drastically new training (going to college, turning pro). Hull has been training and competing at the highest level since she’s been 18. Improvement can still happen at 27, but never a jump this big. Never.
