Olympics TRACK & FIELD

[BodieB]

Yeah Bol would have got smoked regardless. Silver at best.

[Loaded_Hollows]

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/08/08/sport/noah-lyles-covid-200m-spt

[Frank Dux]

I don't know who's training the US middle and long distance teams but it's ridiculous at this point.

Rooks getting silver in the steeplechase. That's even more surprising than Hocker winning gold in the 1500 m.

I mean wtf. You had a Grant Fisher or Galen Rupp type of an upset from time to time, but the steeplechase? No non african ever did **** there ever.

Pretty sure the US is doping hard in distance. Alberto Salazar in the not so distant past was running a coordinated doping program where many athletes didn't even know they were drug cheats until one of the assistant coaches blew the whistle. It wouldn't shock me if something similar was happening with the whole WADA/USADA thing that just came out. Likely some mid tier athlete got caught, but that athlete is coached by someone who has a ton of elite, better athletes that they also coach and are hoping to expose a whole doping ring.

It's not like Americans suddenly discovered how Africans were training and drastically adjusted their methods. Now we just have a bunch of 19-24 year old white breads throwing down all time times and dominating on the international level which does raise eyebrows in distance events.

What a terrible post. Awful assumption and it’s completely baseless. Way to smear and dismiss an entire nation of athletes.

By the way, there’s no central U.S. training group. All these athletes have their own training groups and coaches.

You’re making it seem like this is a state sponsored doping program like the USSR back in the day.

[Frank Dux]

Sydney is the Michael Jordan of track and field. She’s a stone cold killer. Femke looked rattled.

[Lalouie]

Sydney is the Michael Jordan of track and field. She’s a stone cold killer. Femke looked rattled.

she made femke cry

made lebron and curry cry too

[Frank Dux]

Sydney is going to be running sub 50 in the 400m hurdles.

If she attacks the back stretch more today she would’ve dipped under. I totally understand why she took it a bit more conservatively because the gold was more important.

[mattg]

I don't know who's training the US middle and long distance teams but it's ridiculous at this point.

Rooks getting silver in the steeplechase. That's even more surprising than Hocker winning gold in the 1500 m.

I mean wtf. You had a Grant Fisher or Galen Rupp type of an upset from time to time, but the steeplechase? No non african ever did **** there ever.

Pretty sure the US is doping hard in distance. Alberto Salazar in the not so distant past was running a coordinated doping program where many athletes didn't even know they were drug cheats until one of the assistant coaches blew the whistle. It wouldn't shock me if something similar was happening with the whole WADA/USADA thing that just came out. Likely some mid tier athlete got caught, but that athlete is coached by someone who has a ton of elite, better athletes that they also coach and are hoping to expose a whole doping ring.

It's not like Americans suddenly discovered how Africans were training and drastically adjusted their methods. Now we just have a bunch of 19-24 year old white breads throwing down all time times and dominating on the international level which does raise eyebrows in distance events.

What a terrible post. Awful assumption and it’s completely baseless. Way to smear and dismiss an entire nation of athletes.

By the way, there’s no central U.S. training group. All these athletes have their own training groups and coaches.

You’re making it seem like this is a state sponsored doping program like the USSR back in the day.

Get out of your feelings. Nike and The University of Oregon ran a coordinated effort to dope Americans with the explicit goal of competing with Africans in distance for 15 years before insiders blew the whistle and they got banned. This was an open secret in the world of competitive running all the way back in the mid 2000s. Oregon was paying college runners/elite HS recruits under the table and among the elite running scene people definitely knew that there was shady happenings going on doping wise.

Obviously there's not one central training group, which isn't what I said, I said USADA likely caught a mid tier pro doping, who has a coach who has a number of way more elite athletes under them who USADA likely suspects of doping who they want to catch.

Like it or not, Track and Field is a dirty sport and always has been. There are still WRs that are obviously chemically aided. So you can say it's smearing and dismissive towards an entire nation, but I didn't throw any singular athlete under the bus. You'd have to be beyond naive and also incredibly ignorant of T&F in general to see how many young Americans are throwing down obscene all time great times before they even are reaching their physical primes. And not all of these athletes are some next level genetic talent either, we can compare their times as youth/HS runners to people from not that long ago. In some of them you see this absolutely unfathomable improvement that also often doesn't line up with their abilities/equivalencies in other events. Sometimes that is indeed legit and athletes hit a big improvement...but other times it's a possible indication of doping.

For what it's worth, it's not like America is the only country doping in distance/mid distance events. I think all nations dope too, no one is above it. I'll throw this out there that is smearing someone, I think the favorite in the men's 800m Djamel Sedjati is 100% juiced to the gills with how he has improved. To go from a 22 year old who is barely sub 1:46 in the 800m to now being a 1:41 guy like 2.5 years later is unheard of and I would be absolutely 100% shocked if he didn't test positive in the next year or two for something. Especially since it's not like he's some blazing 400m runner who moved up and had to build his endurance base up. To show that level of improvement out of nowhere is crazy and I have no problem suggesting he's a drug cheat.

[mhd]

Pretty sure the US is doping hard in distance. Alberto Salazar in the not so distant past was running a coordinated doping program where many athletes didn't even know they were drug cheats until one of the assistant coaches blew the whistle. It wouldn't shock me if something similar was happening with the whole WADA/USADA thing that just came out. Likely some mid tier athlete got caught, but that athlete is coached by someone who has a ton of elite, better athletes that they also coach and are hoping to expose a whole doping ring.

It's not like Americans suddenly discovered how Africans were training and drastically adjusted their methods. Now we just have a bunch of 19-24 year old white breads throwing down all time times and dominating on the international level which does raise eyebrows in distance events.

What a terrible post. Awful assumption and it’s completely baseless. Way to smear and dismiss an entire nation of athletes.

By the way, there’s no central U.S. training group. All these athletes have their own training groups and coaches.

You’re making it seem like this is a state sponsored doping program like the USSR back in the day.

Get out of your feelings. Nike and The University of Oregon ran a coordinated effort to dope Americans with the explicit goal of competing with Africans in distance for 15 years before insiders blew the whistle and they got banned. This was an open secret in the world of competitive running all the way back in the mid 2000s. Oregon was paying college runners/elite HS recruits under the table and among the elite running scene people definitely knew that there was shady happenings going on doping wise.

Obviously there's not one central training group, which isn't what I said, I said USADA likely caught a mid tier pro doping, who has a coach who has a number of way more elite athletes under them who USADA likely suspects of doping who they want to catch.

Like it or not, Track and Field is a dirty sport and always has been. There are still WRs that are obviously chemically aided. So you can say it's smearing and dismissive towards an entire nation, but I didn't throw any singular athlete under the bus. You'd have to be beyond naive and also incredibly ignorant of T&F in general to see how many young Americans are throwing down obscene all time great times before they even are reaching their physical primes. And not all of these athletes are some next level genetic talent either, we can compare their times as youth/HS runners to people from not that long ago. In some of them you see this absolutely unfathomable improvement that also often doesn't line up with their abilities/equivalencies in other events. Sometimes that is indeed legit and athletes hit a big improvement...but other times it's a possible indication of doping.

For what it's worth, it's not like America is the only country doping in distance/mid distance events. I think all nations dope too, no one is above it. I'll throw this out there that is smearing someone, I think the favorite in the men's 800m Djamel Sedjati is 100% juiced to the gills with how he has improved. To go from a 22 year old who is barely sub 1:46 in the 800m to now being a 1:41 guy like 2.5 years later is unheard of and I would be absolutely 100% shocked if he didn't test positive in the next year or two for something. Especially since it's not like he's some blazing 400m runner who moved up and had to build his endurance base up. To show that level of improvement out of nowhere is crazy and I have no problem suggesting he's a drug cheat.

I think the only track event that really can't be "doped" are the jumping events. Mike Powell's long jump, Sotomayer's high jump, and Edward's triple jump world records are once in a lifetime moments. Even the pole-vaulting dude Mondo has been doing that since he was 3 years old and was coached by both of his track parents.

[California Gold]

What a demolition by Sydney. Bol isn't on her level after that finish on this stage.

[K N U C K L E S]

I don't know who's training the US middle and long distance teams but it's ridiculous at this point.

Rooks getting silver in the steeplechase. That's even more surprising than Hocker winning gold in the 1500 m.

I mean wtf. You had a Grant Fisher or Galen Rupp type of an upset from time to time, but the steeplechase? No non african ever did **** there ever.

Pretty sure the US is doping hard in distance. Alberto Salazar in the not so distant past was running a coordinated doping program where many athletes didn't even know they were drug cheats until one of the assistant coaches blew the whistle. It wouldn't shock me if something similar was happening with the whole WADA/USADA thing that just came out. Likely some mid tier athlete got caught, but that athlete is coached by someone who has a ton of elite, better athletes that they also coach and are hoping to expose a whole doping ring.

It's not like Americans suddenly discovered how Africans were training and drastically adjusted their methods. Now we just have a bunch of 19-24 year old white breads throwing down all time times and dominating on the international level which does raise eyebrows in distance events.

What a terrible post. Awful assumption and it’s completely baseless. Way to smear and dismiss an entire nation of athletes.

By the way, there’s no central U.S. training group. All these athletes have their own training groups and coaches.

You’re making it seem like this is a state sponsored doping program like the USSR back in the day.

Or the East German swimmers in the 80's.

My theory on world and Olympic records being broken so frequently in track and swimming is the tracks and pools are being built a hair shorter than they should be year after year, a hair shorter each time, because the powers that be think records being broken frequently is good for publicity. You don't think records are being broken more frequently than they realisticly should be? You really just chalk it up to athletes getting better and better as the years go by? I don't know about that, maybe. I really don't wanna believe steroids.

Having said all that, Mike Powell has held the men's long jump record for 31 years(the longest anyone has held it).

[Frank Dux]

Pretty sure the US is doping hard in distance. Alberto Salazar in the not so distant past was running a coordinated doping program where many athletes didn't even know they were drug cheats until one of the assistant coaches blew the whistle. It wouldn't shock me if something similar was happening with the whole WADA/USADA thing that just came out. Likely some mid tier athlete got caught, but that athlete is coached by someone who has a ton of elite, better athletes that they also coach and are hoping to expose a whole doping ring.

It's not like Americans suddenly discovered how Africans were training and drastically adjusted their methods. Now we just have a bunch of 19-24 year old white breads throwing down all time times and dominating on the international level which does raise eyebrows in distance events.

What a terrible post. Awful assumption and it’s completely baseless. Way to smear and dismiss an entire nation of athletes.

By the way, there’s no central U.S. training group. All these athletes have their own training groups and coaches.

You’re making it seem like this is a state sponsored doping program like the USSR back in the day.

Or the East German swimmers in the 80's.

My theory on world and Olympic records being broken so frequently in track and swimming is the tracks and pools are being built a hair shorter than they should be year after year, a hair shorter each time, because the powers that be think records being broken frequently is good for publicity. You don't think records are being broken more frequently than they realisticly should be? You really just chalk it up to athletes getting better and better as the years go by? I don't know about that, maybe. I really don't wanna believe steroids.

Having said all that, Mike Powell has held the men's long jump record for 31 years(the longest anyone has held it).

One of the biggest reasons for the explosion of world records being broken is due to carbon plate super shoes everyone wears these days.

There’s totally cheaters out there, maybe even in the U.S. but I just think it’s so disrespectful when someone claims all these performances are by dopers and cheaters.

[bisme37]

Sydney is a machine. Incredible race by her and she even gave us a few smiles afterward haha. I was so happy for Anna Cockrell too.

[Sofia]

I know this isn't the exact space but had an Aussie friend dive in the Olympics in 2012 so followed it a lot more since.

It's wild how much of a Monopoly China have. To the point where the Wife and I with our untrained eye start asking how they get 100+ and everyone else hits an 80 for what we see as the same dive

They are so far beyond its a gap I find hard to fathom at times. (Tabletennis is pretty wild too)

It’s all about the higher difficulty multiplier that the Chinese divers have for more complex dives. Scoring is based on the 3 middle judge scores added together than multiples by the difficulty score, i.e a dive of 8.0 across the board with a difficulty of 3.0 is 72.0 [8+8+8)*3.0]

It must have been the London Olympics, but I had seen enough of the diving to start to figure out roughly what scores dives would be given, so as a bit of a mental exercise, I tried to guess the dive scores before they were shown on screen.

Was a neat little party trick when I correctly guessed the first 3 dives of a session while watching with the in-laws.

[ReginaldDwight]

I don't know who's training the US middle and long distance teams but it's ridiculous at this point.

Rooks getting silver in the steeplechase. That's even more surprising than Hocker winning gold in the 1500 m.

I mean wtf. You had a Grant Fisher or Galen Rupp type of an upset from time to time, but the steeplechase? No non african ever did **** there ever.

Pretty sure the US is doping hard in distance. Alberto Salazar in the not so distant past was running a coordinated doping program where many athletes didn't even know they were drug cheats until one of the assistant coaches blew the whistle. It wouldn't shock me if something similar was happening with the whole WADA/USADA thing that just came out. Likely some mid tier athlete got caught, but that athlete is coached by someone who has a ton of elite, better athletes that they also coach and are hoping to expose a whole doping ring.

It's not like Americans suddenly discovered how Africans were training and drastically adjusted their methods. Now we just have a bunch of 19-24 year old white breads throwing down all time times and dominating on the international level which does raise eyebrows in distance events.

What a terrible post. Awful assumption and it’s completely baseless. Way to smear and dismiss an entire nation of athletes.

By the way, there’s no central U.S. training group. All these athletes have their own training groups and coaches.

You’re making it seem like this is a state sponsored doping program like the USSR back in the day.

Tell that to Steve Magness

[bwgood77]

Heptathlon finally starting.

It listed that the 100M hurdles were already done for this, but I can't find it on Peacock. The high jump finished later so watching now. Shot Put later today and Long Jump first thing tomorrow.

Lets go USA!

It's weird, I only remember them focusing on Anna Hall in the trials. I don't remember the other two at all. They spent A LOT of time on Anna Hall.

Looks like one of the three is eliminated from any kind of medal chance after just 2 events. Chari Hawkins failed to make the minimum height on the high jump and ends up with 0 points on the event.

I just saw that. I couldn't watch any today until I got home and just watched it all. She looked devastated, Felt bad for her. They said it was one of her best events too so I'm not sure what happened.

[bwgood77]

Lol, Tebogo ftw.

Always there, finally put everything together.

Didn't think it was gonna be now but kudos to him. First one to break the USA monopoly for the men.

I was actually hoping Kenny beat Noah, but wasn't hoping he got Silver obviously. But good for Tebogo and Botswana. Isn't that the guy that beat Lyles in the semifinals? Lyles didn't really look that good in the semis. He didn't in the 100 either but it concerned me more here because once he gets going he can usually catch up, and he has more time to do that in the 200. I think focusing more on the 100 might have hurt him a bit in the 200.

But Kenny Bednarek has been right next to him in just about every race I've seen them in. Noah always edges him at the end.

[bwgood77]

Lyles having a panic attack I think. He's known for his troubles with anxiety.


This one hurts the most for him. He's gonna be 31 in LA in 2028 and never won a gold in his favorite event.

Multiple time world champion but never olympic.

Yeah, but he took the gold in the 100 in probably the most overall stacked field ever in an epic race and everyone remembers the 100 more than the 200. I don't feel too bad for him. It's not like many do it. Bolt did it. I can't remember who did it before that, but it had been a while I think.

[bwgood77]

ESPN has a story that 16 year old Quincy Wilson will be part of the men's 4x400 opening heat.
https://www.espn.com/olympics/story/_/id/40774051/quincy-wilson-16-make-history-4x400-relay-participation

Was to be expected. I'd use him in the finals as well but they probably won't.

Quincy
Norwood(ol' reliable)
Rai
Hall

Would be my finals lineup.

They will probably go with Norman instead.

Bailey beat Norwood in the 400 final. He looked awful. Who will run in the women's?

I don't know if I would have Wilson start. He always starts slow and builds steam. If he got off to a running start it would be better. Every time I've watched him in the trials he would start slow and surge at the end to get to the middle of the pack.

[bwgood77]

Sydney did it again. Broke her own world record with a 50.37, she ran a 50.65 in the US time trials in June.

Femke Bol just didn't seem to have anything. She faded a lot at the end and ended up in third at 52.15

It really is unbelievable. For context on how incredible she's been over the last 3 years to get where she is now, look at the world record progression.

It took 9 years from it to go from 55.6 to 53.3. Then 17 years to shave off another second to get it to 52.3. It then took another 16 years for that to get beat..when Dalilah Muhammad beat it with a couple of times with a 52.2 and 52.16...in 2019.

Then in June of 2021 McLaughlin blew it away considering it was barely moving for 35 years....hitting 51.9. A couple months later blows it away again with 51.46. A year later she barely beat that time, hitting 51.41. But then a couple months later CRUSHED it with a 50.68. Then at the trials this year beat that...and now just CRUSHED that time again.

Before today there were still only 3 people ever to run it under 52.3...but now Anna Cockrell has too with a 51.87....a time around the first time Sydney broke Dalilah's record. Dalilah later ran a lower time of 51.58. But they are the only 4 ever under that 52.3 run in 2003.

She has moved it from where it was before she broke it about as much as it moved the 40 years before that.

It just sucks for Femke Bol that she is such a historically great athlete in this event but just happens to be up against probably the most historically amazing athlete the US has seen in years at what she does. In a way it's like Rai Benjamin being so good historically way better than anyone else, but still hasn't beat Karsten Warholm. Hopefully that changes tomorrow.

Spoiler:

World Record Progression

[bwgood77]

Sydney did it again. Broke her own world record with a 50.37, she ran a 50.65 in the US time trials in June.

Femke Bol just didn't seem to have anything. She faded a lot at the end and ended up in third at 52.15

Bol was obviously completely cashed out. That's the issue with her doing the mixed relay, didnt have the legs for this event. 52.15 is legitimately an awful result for Bol considering she also recently went sub 51 and obviously threw down sub 48 400m split so we know she is in form.

Still think Syd would have beat Bol by a half second if Bol ran her best race though.

I kind of think she was shocked and it just really impacted her...they really haven't raced against each other and she had won 40 races in a row. So to have someone pass you when you are as good as she is, was probably shocking..kind of a shock to her system. I mean remember how she ran down our person in the last leg of that mixed relay? It's amazing thinking that Sydney is just that much faster than what we watched.