Hear me out: If Hoppel runs an 800 with optimal TT splits, he can break the AR or WR

crisscrosscountry wrote:

I'll agree with you that with better splits, Hoppel can definitely threaten the AR and even get close to a WR. The thing I'll disagree with you about is that the WR is in the 800, as you suggest. He can definitely nab himself the Brazier's AR if he gets in a fast race or if the Olympic final is just a straight drag race between him, Arop, and Wanyonyi. But the only way he gets any sort of WR is if he gets in a randomly fast 1k race and busts his ass to break Noah Ngeny's WR. That would be tough but he's got to be as strong as he's ever been training up in Flag so maybe he can hit 2:11 and nab himself a WR. And hey, if he finds a race before July 30th, he'd also be able to knock Rick Wohlhuter off just before his record turns 50!

John Wesley Harding wrote:

crisscrosscountry wrote:

I'll agree with you that with better splits, Hoppel can definitely threaten the AR and even get close to a WR. The thing I'll disagree with you about is that the WR is in the 800, as you suggest. He can definitely nab himself the Brazier's AR if he gets in a fast race or if the Olympic final is just a straight drag race between him, Arop, and Wanyonyi. But the only way he gets any sort of WR is if he gets in a randomly fast 1k race and busts his ass to break Noah Ngeny's WR. That would be tough but he's got to be as strong as he's ever been training up in Flag so maybe he can hit 2:11 and nab himself a WR. And hey, if he finds a race before July 30th, he'd also be able to knock Rick Wohlhuter off just before his record turns 50!

Heh, I don’t think Bryce Hoppel is sniffing 2:11/1K. He’s no stranger to that distance and has shown he’s solid but weaker than he is at 800, getting trounced by Wightman and Arop. To break Ngeny’s WR he’d probably need to be in 3:29 1500 form. Ngeny was a 3:43.40 miler, Coe (2:12.18, #2 all time) was 1:41.73/3:29, Cram (2:12.88, #3 all time) was 1:42.88/3:29. Hoppel’s never hinted at world class 1500 ability.

Wohlhuter’s 2:13.9 is way more feasible but not a given. I think Kessler’s likely better than Hoppel at that distance and I would freaking love to see those two face off in chasing the AR.

Salvitore Stitchmo wrote:

Yes there is room to go with Hoppel, no doubt about that.

And I do still believe that a career pinnacle performance in the 800m comes from positive splits but not to the degree or fashion we have seen from guys in the past like Rudisha/Kipketer. My personal belief is that a pos. split in the 0.5-1.0 second range is the sweet spot but it's all about how you execute each phase of the race vs just a pure split time. You can run 50.0 seconds many ways - how you do it in the 800m is what matters.

One thing we have seen happen with almost unwavering consistency when 800m races are planned to go out in under 50 seconds, is the first 100 and 200 meters are run way over-speed. I think there is some psychology to running 49.X with pacers and racers that see these absurd opening quarters. Look at both Kipketer and Rudisha in their WR/PR's. Kipketer opens up that wild Zurich race in 23.1 then following that with 25.2 to split 48.3 and Rudisha 23.4 en route to 49.28 (25.9). Even a typical DL race planned to go out in under 50 suffers from this - take Eugene last year when Wanyoni ran 1.42. He ran 23.9, 25.6 to hit 49.5. It is crazy how when you break down each 100m split, the biggest split differential happens from the first to the second 100m and it's a massive difference when you compare to the rest of the race.

Historically it is really hard to run under 26.0 seconds for the final 200m once you start running in 1.41's no matter how you run it. Like we have seen guys run in the 1.42's with big finishes (Brazier, Hoppel, Borzakovskiy) but this doesn't really happen below that threshold. The only guy in history I have seen do it is Kipketer who ran 25.4 in the final 200m at the 1997 DN Galan in Stockholm when he tied Coes WR of 1.41.73 to the 100th.

You are right, the way Hoppel finishes this race points to a lot more and I don't believe the WR is in play but the AR definitely is. Look at the current AR holder Brazier. He had that epic run in Zurich where he first broke 1.43 and it's hard to get splits off the video because he is so far behind hilarious doper/refrigerator carrier Amos in it but he runs 1.42.70 off a 25.1 first 200 and a 50.7 first lap, closing in 12.8 (so we can guess the final 200 was high 25 ish). When he broke the AR with 1.42.34 he was 23.6 and 49.1 at the bell and believe this or not, closed in 14.0 seconds (he was 1.15.1 at 600 though). Somewhere in the middle of that is a 50.5, 51.0 run for 1.41.5. I think Hoppel could do the same - after seeing the strength he had in that final 80m I see no reason why not. If Hoppel can get a race where he can run a smart 50.5 opening lap, not being forced to sprint for position to the 200m point, he can do that. But this is always the tough part in a top quality 800 race because you have to weigh up your pace judgement vs the bodies you have to out manoeuvre in the final 300. It's stating the obvious but it's why hardly any 800m runner will ever reach their true ceiling of performance unless it's done in a time-trial environment, but then of course the performance technically doesn't count. But yes, Hoppel can smash the AR from a pure physical potential standpoint.

Salvitore Stitchmo wrote:

Yeah the tough thing for Hoppel is that his path to lets say for arguments sake 1.42.0, is not the "traditional" blazing first 400. It's going to be a 50.5/51.5 sort of effort but this type of pace+competitive race combo is going to be tough to find - especially in the DL where due to the sheer volume of guys in the race who can and want to run 50.0, they need to have the pace going out well under 50, and then guys are just going to follow. So even if he wanted to follow roughly Braziers race structure from Zurich but instead of being 50.8, be say 50.4, then low 1.16's and try and close out similar to trials in under 26, it's such a crapshoot with respect to how he navigates passing the field. I mean that 2019 Zurich race from Brazier is incredible on so many fronts, from the absurdly stupid pace Amos goes out in, to how far Brazier is back and how incident-free his run through the entire field is. You could never bank on that happening with frequency.

Maybe a late season post Paris race in a smaller but traditionally fast race like Rovereto, Lignano maybe even ISTAF etc (just straight off the top of my head) is the best kind of race for him to have a real tilt at a time.

THOUGHTSLEADER wrote:

Salvitore Stitchmo wrote:

Yes there is room to go with Hoppel, no doubt about that.

And I do still believe that a career pinnacle performance in the 800m comes from positive splits but not to the degree or fashion we have seen from guys in the past like Rudisha/Kipketer. My personal belief is that a pos. split in the 0.5-1.0 second range is the sweet spot but it's all about how you execute each phase of the race vs just a pure split time. You can run 50.0 seconds many ways - how you do it in the 800m is what matters.

One thing we have seen happen with almost unwavering consistency when 800m races are planned to go out in under 50 seconds, is the first 100 and 200 meters are run way over-speed. I think there is some psychology to running 49.X with pacers and racers that see these absurd opening quarters. Look at both Kipketer and Rudisha in their WR/PR's. Kipketer opens up that wild Zurich race in 23.1 then following that with 25.2 to split 48.3 and Rudisha 23.4 en route to 49.28 (25.9). Even a typical DL race planned to go out in under 50 suffers from this - take Eugene last year when Wanyoni ran 1.42. He ran 23.9, 25.6 to hit 49.5. It is crazy how when you break down each 100m split, the biggest split differential happens from the first to the second 100m and it's a massive difference when you compare to the rest of the race.

Historically it is really hard to run under 26.0 seconds for the final 200m once you start running in 1.41's no matter how you run it. Like we have seen guys run in the 1.42's with big finishes (Brazier, Hoppel, Borzakovskiy) but this doesn't really happen below that threshold. The only guy in history I have seen do it is Kipketer who ran 25.4 in the final 200m at the 1997 DN Galan in Stockholm when he tied Coes WR of 1.41.73 to the 100th.

You are right, the way Hoppel finishes this race points to a lot more and I don't believe the WR is in play but the AR definitely is. Look at the current AR holder Brazier. He had that epic run in Zurich where he first broke 1.43 and it's hard to get splits off the video because he is so far behind hilarious doper/refrigerator carrier Amos in it but he runs 1.42.70 off a 25.1 first 200 and a 50.7 first lap, closing in 12.8 (so we can guess the final 200 was high 25 ish). When he broke the AR with 1.42.34 he was 23.6 and 49.1 at the bell and believe this or not, closed in 14.0 seconds (he was 1.15.1 at 600 though). Somewhere in the middle of that is a 50.5, 51.0 run for 1.41.5. I think Hoppel could do the same - after seeing the strength he had in that final 80m I see no reason why not. If Hoppel can get a race where he can run a smart 50.5 opening lap, not being forced to sprint for position to the 200m point, he can do that. But this is always the tough part in a top quality 800 race because you have to weigh up your pace judgement vs the bodies you have to out manoeuvre in the final 300. It's stating the obvious but it's why hardly any 800m runner will ever reach their true ceiling of performance unless it's done in a time-trial environment, but then of course the performance technically doesn't count. But yes, Hoppel can smash the AR from a pure physical potential standpoint.

Brazier official splits (Zurich):
13.0/12.2 (25.2); 12.4/13.2 (50.8); 13.3/12.9 (1:17.0); 13.0/12.7 (1:42.7)

So yeah not really optimally run as he ran overly hard from 100-300, and then not hard enough the first 100 or from 300-500.

Brazier official splits (Doha):
23.84 (no 100m split); 12.46/12.91 (49.21); 13.14/12.83 (1:15.18); 13.23/13.92 (1:42.34)

It's not surprising he chopped off time at Worlds even if he ran the first 200 (23.84) and penultimate straightaway from 500-600m (12.83) too hard. His last 100 was 13.93, which is obviously not ideal. If you were engineering this race perfectly you'd probably go to 24.2/49.6 (25.4)/1:15.5(25.9)/1:42.0(26.5) given Brazier's sprint background.

But it does show you that the perfectly paced 800m is very elusive. That is why Wanyonyi's 1:41.7 was so unique. Kinyamal nor anyone else fought him super-hard to hit that first 200, even though it wasn't crazy fast. They knew since he'd fallen the day before he was going to lead this thing out and make it really fast. He didn't have to make any surges from there and Kinyamal didn't launch a major attack at 300m to go pushing Wanyonyi to get out of his rhythm (like Miller on Hoppel). He just tried to go with him which was enough and you know Wanyonyi will close any race he controls well just like Hoppel right now.

So as far as Hoppel I think yes low 1:42s is possible. There are definitely some areas where he can gain some time. But he is unlikely to be at the front for it, so it will be imperative that he gets good position and paces himself well behind a Wanyonyi or Arop.

Splits:

Link:zurich.diamondleague.com/archive/2019/...

Link:media.aws.iaaf.org/competitiondocument...