Men's 1500 is a world final, only Wightman missing.
The 5000 looks great even though there's a lot of very top guys missing. I think this could be a front running masterclass from Kiplimo with Grijalva pushing him. And a chance to see where Chelimo is at.
Men's 1500 is a world final, only Wightman missing.
The 5000 looks great even though there's a lot of very top guys missing. I think this could be a front running masterclass from Kiplimo with Grijalva pushing him. And a chance to see where Chelimo is at.
Nice to see van Niekerk in a DL 400, and Warholm in a 400H -- excited to see what both of them can do. Also, I expect this 1500 to be the first of the year that goes sub-3:30.
Also, for the early birds you can join the Fantasy DL for it here (I'll make a separate thread later):
Hope Nic Bideau's boys pacing the 5k do a better job that last time! At least that's how I assume guys with 13:45 PBs got into that field.
They both recently ran 3000s in Norwary in 7:55 and 8:03. 8:00 is 13:20 pace - it's concerning if they are the 2 pace makers in Oslo and the field wants to run around the 13:00 mark. Honestly seems bizarre they are getting this payday, especially when Norway probably have a handful of runners that are more capable of doing the job.
Stewy running the 1500 is an interesting move from Bidders - Doha DNF, Florence 13:23, Paris DNF. Something obviously isn't right with him and it's tough to watch him go straight to the back of the field and not run like himself. Not sure racing DL after DL is the way to get things back on track...
Rayner seemed to struggle pacing in Florence. Hopefully that was just a blip and he will look better in this race.
If Bideau keeps on sending guys obviously out of shape to take a lane just to DNF and offers pacers not up to the job, you have to wonder how long meet directors take him seriously.
Hope Nic Bideau's boys pacing the 5k do a better job that last time! At least that's how I assume guys with 13:45 PBs got into that field.
They both recently ran 3000s in Norwary in 7:55 and 8:03. 8:00 is 13:20 pace - it's concerning if they are the 2 pace makers in Oslo and the field wants to run around the 13:00 mark. Honestly seems bizarre they are getting this payday, especially when Norway probably have a handful of runners that are more capable of doing the job.
Stewy running the 1500 is an interesting move from Bidders - Doha DNF, Florence 13:23, Paris DNF. Something obviously isn't right with him and it's tough to watch him go straight to the back of the field and not run like himself. Not sure racing DL after DL is the way to get things back on track...
Rayner seemed to struggle pacing in Florence. Hopefully that was just a blip and he will look better in this race.
If Bideau keeps on sending guys obviously out of shape to take a lane just to DNF and offers pacers not up to the job, you have to wonder how long meet directors take him seriously.
To be fair - outside of Stewy that’s consistent with how MTC athletes have been performing for the last few years. NB surely must be running out of favours
Why do they hold the event on a Thursday? Is it a bank holiday in Oslo or something... Now have to try to rearrange work schedule to try to catch it live.
In 2011 they moved it from Friday to Thursday because it coincided with the Whitsunday-weekend which is a public holiday in Norway. With the exception of 2014 (Wednesday) it has been arranged on a Thursday ever since.
Did TrackBot create the artwork too? They look cool, like a digital representation.
Thanks! And the answer is yes -- the avatars are 100% auto-generated with a face recognition AI that pulls photos from World Athletics and a few other sources and pixelates them in a way that is aware of facial features like eyes, nose, and mouth, so that's why there are nice lines around those areas. The code for that is here (most of it is me fetching the photos, the processing is outsourced):
Femke Bol maybe sub-52.00 for a new nice European record?
It's not considered a fast track but she might have a chance. Last year Bol ran 52.6 in Oslo despite chopping to 16 steps on hurdle 10. This year if she executes the stride pattern all the way around she would take 4 fewer steps than during the 52.6. The reductions would be on 2, 4, 6 and 10.
Bol has nothing on her resume between 52.03 and 52.27. I still think she'll plug that gap at least once before finding sub 52.
tbf rayner seems to have been training (or maybe excelling is a better way to put it) on the roads more (61:30 half from feb) so i dont think i was necessarily surprised to see him struggle at that pace job. more surprised to see him as a pacer and i would have expected poor pacing than him to succeed rolling 62s.
maybe just taking some track races to get his legs back under him? probably trying for australia 10k team - not sure he has the standard, his best is 27:15 from sound running last year.