World 1500 Power Rankings Edition 2 (Early Outdoors)

Thank you for this. I’d be interested in your impression of the “distance” between those on the list from one another. To me, the gap between #1 and #2 is far larger than #2-4. These three are bunched and barely distinguishable, while there’s a fairly large drop off to #5. Also, I think you are correct that Katir is #2 now, but in the end #3 and #4 likely have a better chance of beating Jakob when it counts because of their particular skill sets. I don’t think #5 and below have any chance unless we find that Wightman or somebody like Hocker (just a fantasy, I know) ended up in 3:29 shape by August.

I think I'd put it visually like so:
1

2-4
5-8

9-10

11-12

13-15

So Jakob is as close to Katir, Tim and Nuguse as they are to Kerr or Reynold Cheruiyot.

Thanks!

No problem the questions that will loom are:

1) Can anyone close that gap enough by Budapest?

2) How big a gap does he need to front-run to victory?

Great ranking. Honestly the top-15 and probably the “next 5” look perfect to me. Only when you get to the long-shots does it get a little sketchy. Certainly NCAA 1500 champs have a pattern of becoming international players, but I’m not sure I’d mention Green and Waskom before Andrew Coscoran, Ryan Mphahlele and a number of other 3:32-3:34 guys.

Not saying he deserves mention in your post necessarily, but I wonder if there’s ever been an American or European who ran 3:32 at age 20 and received less hype than Matt Stonier. He’s yet to really impress this year (two 3:34s) but he’s one to keep an eye on.

No Sam Tanner huh? Interesting snub. And against one of the biggest young talents in a while...

He could probably be in the Long Shot Watchlist along with Stonier (who similarly has an outlier PB). As JWH noted, there's a larger tier of guys in the 3:32.9-3:34 range of SBs/PBs (yes I know Tanner ran 3:31.34 once) who could be included here. I did long shot to indicate runners that may come out of nowhere a la 2021 Cole Hocker. That wouldn't really fit Tanner. The biggest thing about Tanner is he hasn't finished a race since March 6. His indoor/NZ season were good, but not in the top 15 ballpark here (all guys with sub 3:33 SBs). Tanner will certainly merit inclusion if he runs under 3:32.5 or wins a Gold-level race.

Given Nordas trajectory with big improvments in every race, and the fact that he was blocked in the last 100, I would put him 5th. I wouldn't be shocked if he is in the race for bronze in Budapest.

Otherwise seems good.

I don't think Nordas was really blocked to be honest. I've seen that a couple places here, but it's hard to make the argument for me because both Tim and Habz were kicking faster than him. There looks to be room between Habz and Hoare, and it was the fact that he was full out as opposed to blocked that led to him finishing where he did. Certainly he had enough room to outlean Hoare and get some extra prize money or DL points even if you want to argue Habz took away his space IMO.

Completely disagree. You don’t rank someone higher based on trajectory, especially when Garcia, Hoare, and Habz all beat him yesterday. 8th yesterday in what at this point is an outlier performance = ranked 5th? Makes no sense.

He might contend for a medal in Budapest but he needs to back up yesterday’s result and beat those ranked ahead of him before he’s ranked 5th.

Coscoran from Laros in 3:32- just now in Meeting Nikaia in Nice. Tanner 3rd. That's incredible from Laros, this event just seems to keep getting more exciting right now. I guess Laros will be in Budapest then, wow

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Pretty amazing, and nice trajectory Coscoran is on. Worldwide depth in the 1500 is at an all-time high.

Yep, when you consider Coscoran’s body of work so far this season I think he has to be ranked top-20.

Great annotated list. The absence of even a single miler from Ethiopia in the top 15 is probably accurate yet uncanny all the same, especially considering a similar list for the women would contain 4-6 Ethiopian runners.

I'd change a few things, Nuguse swapped with Tim as I think Nuguse's 2nd and 3rd were over much better opposition than Tim had in LA. And I'm not consigning Nuguse's Millrose and Madrid victories to history, those indoor results have some relevance.

I'd drop Garcia Romo a lot as I don't trust him to run sub-3:33 again. His lack of consistency and a decent 2nd result means I'd have him 11th with everyone else moving up. Gourley moves above Kerr as I think his 13:11 in LA was a better 2nd result than Kerr's 1:46, and Gourley had a great indoor season, probably the 4th best indoor season of all the people in the list.

For the near future, there's a decent 1500 in Nancy this evening with Reynauld, Stonier, and Elliot Giles. And according to the Lausanne DL website, Wightman will be back to face Jakob and Tim in 12 days time.

First paragraph, sure. I disagree by a narrow margin considering Cheruiyot’s pedigree but sure.

Second paragraph I definitely disagree on both counts.

Very harsh on MGR for not only having just run 3:29.18 (he’s now tied for #21 all time) but being the world championship 4th placer last year. I mean this isn’t a guy who’s disappeared when it counts—instead he’s run the two best races of his life in the two most competitive races he’s ever been in. He just beat 5 of the guys you want to rank ahead of him, his indoor/early season results weren’t that bad (7:34 3k shows nice improvement in strength), and it’s still 2 months until he wants to peak for the year.

Gourley above Kerr also makes no logical sense to me. Gourley just ran a big PR and Kerr beat him by .81 seconds, head-to-head, 3 days ago. The 1:46 vs. 13:11 argument is meaningless because a) they’re virtually indistinguishable as predictors of 1500 fitness and b) Kerr won his race while Gourley did not; as for indoors, Kerr’s 3k win at Millrose was plenty impressive. Kerr has run faster than Gourley’s new 1500 PR three times including once by 1.83 seconds. Kerr has finished 5th, 3rd and 6th in the last three global championships while Gourley failed to qualify for the last two finals and finished 11th in Doha. Kerr holds a 12-4 lifetime advantage over Gourley at 1500.

In my opinion these rankings should look kind of boring. Rankings like these are not predictions, not places for hot takes or attempts to extrapolate trends. You weigh the results as they stand and list accordingly.

I agree! We are seeing pretty eye-to-eye on this. We have more intrigue today with the unheralded Brian Komen running 3:33.8 for a big PB off a pedestrian first 1200 in his first race in Europe. Munguti ran 3:34.0 yesterday apparently with 54/1:54 splits. Coscoran and Laros in the 3:32s yesterday. Reynold and Stonier go in France later and the 800s indicate conditions are good for quick times.

These weren't hot takes. I was discounting Garcia Romo's world champs result because it was a long time ago. Since then, he's looked solid but unspectacular over 1500 until Oslo which is certainly an outlying performance in his 2023 results. Maybe it's a portent of things to come, maybe not. I think he's an up and down kind of runner and it would not surprise me if he ran 3:34 next time out.

On Kerr Vs Gourley my reasoning is that on the year to date, Gourley has been better over 1500/mile. He beat Kerr head to head in Birmingham, ran 3:49 for 2nd at Millrose, took a decent 2nd at Euro indoors, won the NB Indoor GP, and was only 8 tenths behind Kerr in Oslo. Kerr has the better championship pedigree but on results to date, Gourley has had a better year. I also don't think it's fair to just say Gourley's 5k doesn't count because he didn't win. Of course he didn't, there were strong 5k guys in that field like Nur, Kerr was basically up against Isaiah Harris. WA also rate Gourley's 5k as better than Kerr's 800 by around 40 points.

Also, you start by saying you take Tim's pedigree into account by placing him above Nuguse, but then say the rankings should be about results to date which doesn't make a lot of sense.

Reynold Cheruiyot wins a topsy-turvy 1500. 55/57pt/58hi/40.9. Holds off Nader who ran a huge PB. Destroyed CPT/Tshi te who had come into the race. 3:31.60 winner doing the work from 550 out. This was a gutsy effort.