Why has the 800m suddenly improved?

Maybe it's cuz this is the first real Olympic year we've had since 2016 (not counting that covid year BS) and people have been training for years for this very moment

NCAA guys had typical 2-5 guys that eventually ran 1:44-45. What's surprising is the dudes that usually slump out 1:45-1:47 year after year ran 1:44s today? Like Alvarado/Hoey/etc.

Maybe seeing someone run 1:41 has helped, maybe the weather, adequate rest, and good pacing helped. I'm not ready to hang the "new superPED" banner up until something crazy happens in Paris/Monaco.

As an 800m guy I can confirm that it just took us like 4 years to figure out how to use super shoes. I was heel striking in my AirZoom Victories to make sure I was using the ZoomX but then I started running on my forefoot and lopped 4 seconds off of my PB.

Probably the same idea for Hoppel that’s why he kinda got stuck in 1:44 purgatory for a while there.

I know what the new super PED is, except it's not new, and it's not banned. And I don't want it to be banned, so I'm not gonna say.

Weightlifters commonly use it in their "stack," is the only clue I'll offer.

What's interesting to me is that all the big players this year are adidas guys (Arop, Wanyonyi, Hoppel) and this is probably the only event at the trials where no one who made the team was wearing Nike. I know people had issues with the old Air Zoom Victories but it seems like Nike may not have the best pure 800 spike on the market. I don't know anything about the new adidas ambitions those guys are wearing but in a video about the new Victory, Elliot Heath talked about how they worked with athletes to help them "activate" to the air units in the forefoot and utilitze the plate. I have no idea if that was pure marketing speak but it did seem interesting, given more people seem to like the new Victory over the Dragonfly for mid distance races.

People learned about the pain cave, and how excavate space, set up tv's and have a bevvie or 2.

It's the new shoes this season!

1) Natural performance cycles of events (not every event globally is consistently strong season to season). The 800m had a dip post Rudisha and is now cycling back

2) This lifts the level of everyone starting at the top, right through to NCAA and even school level.

3) The understanding of how to execute races and train more optimally for the event has taken a radical positive shift in the last seasons. Best case in point Hobbs Kesslers masterclass on how to maximize potential in the event, especially evident in that trials semi-final

/thread

The fact that 1:42-1:43 times are considered so amazing is an indictment of the state of 800m racing after Rudisha's retirement, not an indicator of some freak improvement. I mean seriously, 1:42 guys were DOMINATING in 2017-2023, when really 1:42 should be the bare minimum to be in the medal hunt.

I think it's mostly coincidence really. Things come and go. That and it's an Olympic year and the last Olympics was kinda fake.

The reality is, we have 4 really good guys at the top of the game now: Hoppel, Sedjati, Arop, and Waynoni. 4 people. That's it. That's all it takes to go from a depression to hot times. Just 4 people reaching their primes at the same time. When you have a few really good people, they pull everyone else along too.

Yeah I agree. Pretty much any other time in history and you had a 1:41/low 1:42 guy running amok. That's been missing for a long time at this point.

Nigel Amos was on PED when he medaled in Olympics in 2012 but wasn't caught until 2023 and banned. He is 30 years old now. Shows you they have work to do on the testing front.

Hopefully we get more people running 1:43 regularly like Johnny Gray did, and then we will see more 1:42's a few 1:41's and occasaionally under 1:41 then The next barrier will be under 1:40 which will be like the Roger Bannister sub 4 Minute Mile making that person remembered Historically regardless of how many do it in the future

I disagree. I think he was an age cheat in 2012 but I don't think he was doping.

I think he started doping around 2022 when he suddenly stopped tightening up at the end of races. Go back and watch some of his races right before he was banned. I remember watching it at the time and thinking how great it was that he had stopped straining in the last 100 like that, which was basically his trademark at that point.

My guess: Amos realized his career was on the downturn. Desperate to maintain any of the momentum he still had and hang on for another Olympic cycle, he started doping, and got caught as a result.

I agree with this. That's what most people don't understand about doping. No one "wants" to dope, and most really talented athletes compete cleanly.......until something goes wrong. Either an athlete gets injured and starts taking PEDs to help them recover (and then some stay on them, some don't) or they hit a training plateau as they are approaching their mid-to-late 20s and get desperate. Amos' wasn't that hard to figure out. He dealt with a lot of injuries after 2012, and he was with a sponsor/training group that wasn't hesitant to introduce him to PEDs to help him get back on track.

Connections to known dopers or late career massive, unexplained improvement are typically what you want to look for in identifying dopers.

Agreed. This is actually back to being a relatively "normal" year for the 800. It really just sucked post-Rudisha.

The reality is the 2024 men's top 3 in the 800m was almost identical to 1992

Jonny Gray 1:42.80, Mark Everett 1:43.67, Tony Parrilla 1:43.97

Bryce Hoppel 1:42.66, Hobbs Kessler 1:43.64, Brandon Miller 1:43.97