Is Kejelcha de biggest choker ever?

How do you know he choked? What if he just couldn't hold on anymore or wanted to sit on someone and then kick?

You do know running Sub 58 pace even as a 12:41 5K guy isn't as easy as we could comprehend.

Jacob Kiplimo back in 2021 surged powerfully up until the 15K (40:27 - 56:54 HM Pace) but then faded to barely knocking off 1 second of Kandie's Previous WR.

It's easy to surge, another struggle to hold on to that surge. Kejelcha probably knew that.

I wont be surprised if Kechelja get the Gold medal 5000m Paris 2024.

There was a gap of 1/100 sec here:

Exactly. Kejelcha likely felt he could not hold them off from the front and decided to hold his energy for the final mile.

A career highlight outdoor WC silver in the 10,000 against Cheptegei. Is that choking? Two WC indoor golds. Not bad. Beating Chelimo last summer in a crazy fast 5000.

I will say, Kejelcha has a tendency to attack on the track with 200 to go, where he runs extra meters trying to pass in lane 2. Maybe better to wait and attack coming off the last turn.

Placing 5th in the 5000 at the WC this summer had to be a disappointment to Yomif. A faster pace in the final might have helped him. I would not call it a choke.

Here are things Kejelcha did today in no particular order of importance that you refer to as choking.

1. Running well under 58:00 for a half
2. 2nd place to a former world record holder by 1 second
3. 3rd fastest performer in history
4. 10 seconds off the world record
5. PB
6. National record

He didn't fail.

For anyone who hasn’t seen the race, you can see the stretch that OP is referring to from 72.5 to 74.5 minutes in this video:

I don’t think Kejelcha is a big choker, and he ran an incredible race today no matter how you cut it. With that said, it really does look like he may have made a tactical error by not putting his head down and running as fast as he could from 19k to the finish. He looks remarkably composed for that stage in such a fast half, looking around at his competitors and seemingly ready to respond to any move. Of course, his form/face/body language could belie how much he’s hurting, I don’t know.

Some might call Jakob the worlds biggest choker as he lost three global finals he was heavily favored for

Biggest choker? Dude has won his fair share of major races. And he is fearless. Imagine if El Guerrouj or Seb Coe or Jakob Ing would have lined up for a world class half marathon. He’s a world record holder in the Mile and thankfully inspired by World Indoor 1500m Champion Haile Gebrselassie to move up in distance.

The Praying Mantis is one of my all-time favorite runners.

I wouldn't be surprised if Jakob won gold by a far bigger margin than 1/100 in Paris. It's more than likely be over 2 seconds vs Kejelcha. Jakob won this 3000 after a near world record mile the day before and he wasn't even 100%.

My brain is more worried about the alike 1 meter distance he shortened in the last 10 meters of the race.

Edit.

Also notice the distance between the two first and the runner that ranked 3rth. It was 10 meters. That's usually the gap that do Jakob in the finals WC 5000m.

Which mean that Jakob was at his full strengh that day.

Nobody is at full strength less than 24 hours after running a near WR in the mile, are you joking? The gap between 2nd and 3rd is absolutely irrelevant to that. If Kejelcha can't beat Jakob on tired legs and while leading huge chunks of the race, he never will.

And Kejelcha needs to worry about fighting for a medal first before he worries about the win.

Fearless? This dude lets every championship final turn into a jog fest despite being in superior fitness to probably everyone but Jakob. He is fearless in races that don’t matter and then turns timid whenever it comes to championships

lol you never fail to show up

Kejelcha didn't even manage to beat Luis Grijalva at this year WC's. He also didn't medal at all of his prior WC 5000m appearances. So even if Jakob gets beaten for some reason in Paris next year, it's definitely not gonna be Yomif who does it, sorry for breaking it to you. Dude is a great and mostly consistent runner, but simply not a winner, this was on display once again today (he looked fantastic throughout the whole race while Kandie and Gebrhiwet were grimacing pretty early on, and still he wasn't able to follow both when it mattered)

Correction: Kejelcha obviously finished in front of Gebrhiwet, still the point stands.

You are not aware of Kelejha's resume -

2 x World Indoor Gold Medal, 3000m

World U20 Gold Medal, 5000m

World U18 Gold Medal, 3000m

Youth Olympic Games Gold Medal, 3000m

Diamond League Champion, 5000m

10 x Diamond League Race Winner

Certainly way less often than a thread with 26 pages during a night for a Norwegian family drama.

If we count what Kechelja has done and didn't do during the season .. we can ask the same question about other runners.

God, I wish the US had a "choker" like this.