2016 Rio Olympics | ATHLETICS | Part II | August 12th thru August 21st | NBC/CBC | ‎

[Halladay]

Kenyans definitely seem to be blasting many of their athletes. Kiprop in particular. It was a disappointing Olympics for Kenyan athletes.

Yeah well, he lost a race where the winning time would have lost to the US Junior champion this year. Seemed like all of them were scarred to push the pace.

 

[Deficient Mode]

Yeah well, he lost a race where the winning time would have lost to the US Junior champion this year. Seemed like all of them were scarred to push the pace.

That often happens in the distance races. Doesn't mean the US junior champion would have finished anywhere other than last place, or he would have been the rabbit for everyone else. Kiprop was too far behind and burned out down the stretch after using his kick so early in the last lap. Pretty poorly run race from him even if that has worked for him before.

 

[Halladay]

That often happens in the distance races. Doesn't mean the US junior champion would have finished anywhere other than last place, or he would have been the rabbit for everyone else. Kiprop was too far behind and burned out down the stretch after using his kick so early in the last lap. Pretty poorly run race from him even if that has worked for him before.

I understand, but it was slowest race in the last 84 years for that event. Good tactics by Centrowitz.

 

[Kyle McMahon]

It's amazing that the top marathon runners maintain a 20 km/h pace for 42 kilometres. I don't think I could run that fast for one lap of the track.

Indeed, the importance of sheer speed in distance races is greatly underappreciated. The speeds casually maintained by racers in the 5000m and upwards would be a full-out sprint for most typical healthy people. That as you say, could not be maintained for a single lap by your average person. The world record in the 5000m requires a pace of just over 15 seconds per 100m. A lot of people couldn't run a single 100m dash in less than 15 seconds.

 

[Tasty Biscuits]

Not sure how you make that mistake though, the runner handing the baton off can see the lines directly in front of him, you can't give the baton to the guy in front of you too early, that's just an avoidable mistake

The guy who ran lead for the US did a horrendous job and probably couldn't wait to be finished so I could see why he tried to hand off to Gatlin. Gatlin was basically the only American who ran a strong leg. Brommell did a horrendous job especially. What a bad Olympics for him.

Completely incorrect. The bad exchange is 100% on Gatlin. He started running too late, and as a result, Brommell ran up onto him. Look how slow Gatlin is running when he gets the baton. Brommell can't slow down and wait until they're in the zone, or else Gatlin will have run too far ahead of him by that time. It's completely Gatlin's fault for starting late.

And if it was the US strategy was to plan an early hand-off to give Gatlin a slightly longer leg, that's a very risky thing to do, and it clearly didn't pay off.

I would be interested in say a 1600m relay. With 2 legs of 200m, a leg of 400m, and a leg of 800m.

When I ran in college they had a distance medley relay during Indoor season. I think it's 1200m to 400m to 800m to 1600m. That might not be exact, but it was along those lines. All I know is it always looked weird seeing it go from slow to so fast when people passed the baton from the 1200 to the 400.

And yeah, swimming has the medley for the different strokes -- I'd love to see that for the Olympics just with different distances. It's not a very common thing though.

 

[Tasty Biscuits]

Cant believe an American won the 1500.

I understand, but it was slowest race in the last 84 years for that event. Good tactics by Centrowitz.

Yeah, I was, and still am, shocked at how slow that race was. The first lap in particular, my goodness. They took out the first 400m at 66.83 seconds. 66.83! (and the second lap was an absurd 69.76) For comparison's sake, the first lap for the 5000m final was around 62 seconds. And the guy who won gold for the MARATHON averaged around 73.7 seconds per 400m.

And yeah, Centrowitz has to feel like he pulled a fast one over everyone else in the field. His plan was to get in the lead, then slow it down to a glacial pace (relatively speaking), hope the other competitors got cold feet, then count on his great closing speed to put him through. A far cry from when he got 4th in London.... after running 3:35.

 

[Ivan13]

The only European country that finished above us in the medal rank in the athletics is GB, we have as many medals as Germany

 

[Vasilevskiy]

I didn't know where to post this but...

http://fancybear.net/pages/4.html

Guess who is on the list for the UK?

 

[Cloned]

I didn't know where to post this but...

http://fancybear.net/pages/4.html

Guess who is on the list for the UK?

I have a hard time believing most of the core vets on the Canadian soccer team were doping.

 

[Uncle Rotter]

I have a hard time believing most of the core vets on the Canadian soccer team were doping.

In 2008 (and only 2008). These Fancy Bear guys are a joke.

 

[spintheblackcircle]

The United States Anti-Doping Agency has determined that Alberto Salazar, the coach of several prominent Olympic track and field stars, may have skirted anti-doping rules by providing performance-enhancing substances to athletes, according to a leaked USADA report obtained by the London-based Sunday Times.

One of the athletes who allegedly received the substances is four-time Olympic champion Mo Farah, the British distance runner who has trained under Salazar. Farah maintained Sunday that he has always competed cleanly and never broken anti-doping rules, countering any association with "allegations of drug misuse."

http://www.espn.com/olympics/story/...-violated-usada-rules-according-leaked-report