OMFG THAT DIVE.. amazing women's 400m final.
Aghh, I wish she hadn't fallen and won it running through....she might have got it anyway but I've seen it happen where a dive at the finish probably makes the difference.
ya after watching the replay, it looked like she didn't need to dive. when I saw it live, it looked like the dive won it for her. When Felix was coming back to (almost?) take the lead, it was nuts - i was freaking out.
Yeah... Hard to say about the dive... Personally not a fan of diving... It can win a race in hurdles or slower races - women's 400m is certainly borderline... I mean Felix is running a probably around 13 sec hundred pace at the end of the race... Between 7-8 meters a second, does diving really make a difference then? I dunno if it actually does BUT it is probably better than a mistimed lean!
Funny that Felix is brought up in a thread where the side conversation is athletic potential...
I'm sorry but her race strategy and training is terrible. Felix jogged 48.x in the semi. She is a 21.x 200m runner. With the right training she could easily go 47.9. Her coach Bobby Kersee really isn't getting the most out of her IMO. I've done a ton of training with the members of the group and his basic strategy to making athletes is to get fast athletes and make them run around and around and around the track. It's speed endurance to death. Then he gives them the same failed race strategy lashawn Merrit used - just wait and rely on the fact that you have more endurance and will be fresh in the end... Well it doesn't work in the 200 and it doesn't always work anymore in the 400m... Merritt's case is excusable cause he lost to a WR - but Felix lost to a 49.5 which is nothing for her... She waited, sized her up and looked far better finishing... But that didn't win her the race... I'm not surprised because she did hardly any speed work leading up to the olympics. What is sad is I know her coach convinced her not to double 200/400 and focus on the 400 for a guarenteed medal... How ironic that had she kept the 200 she probably wouldn't have neglected the speed work she needed to win the 400...
crazy.
would like to see the difference between Felix & Niekerk's training.
Sorry, correction. Just talked to the training group today... Last year was when her coach had her drop the 200m for the 400m for world championships. She did basically all speed endurance... This year she had an ankle injury in the weight room and basically missed out on what was going to be an abbreviated amount of speed work for the 200m (still a mistake imo). She did try to qualify for the 200m and 400m at USA trials...
Here is the most tragic thing about it. Felix missed out on the 200m spot and got 4th by 100th of a second. The girl who got third and "beat" her... SHE DOVE across the line...
<![CDATA[<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIZV3-nIR2Y" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIZV3-nIR2Y</a>]]>Wow... In the opinion of many including myself Prandini didn't even get her torso in front of the line before Felix... Basically she was robbed by a dive that wasn't even legit...
Truly a gracious loser by how she doesn't mention how frustrating it must be...
would like to see the difference between Felix & Niekerk's training.
I don't know much about WVN training but I know exactly what Felix does and it's a ridiculous amount of speed endurance work. The attitude is that "she already has speed - let's make her strong" and I think it's a poor strategy...
I think WVN might cause another revolution in 400m training. I'm not sure if your aware of the history of the event but the race has evolved a lot. In the 1920's the 400m was run in around 50 seconds by men. Sure the 1920's were slow for all events, but the guys ran the hundred in about 10.5 so relatively the 400m was very slow...
This is because in the 1920s the 400m was thought to be a "long race" - similar to the mile or the 800m. Ideal race strategy was thought to be slow gamesmanship for the first 250m while holding back and allowing a sprint finish. Athletes routinely negative split the race (second half faster). Then in 1924 an athlete threw caution to the wind and sprinted the first 200m and set the new WR at 47.x. Athletes then realized the 400m was a sprint of sorts and everyone's times got faster...
IMO there is still a hangover to this old thinking in the 400m. If you watch Merrit and James run the 400m behind WVN you notice some troubling things... He runs 10.7, 9.8 for the first 200m and 10.5, 12.0 to finish. I don't have their exact splits but they are pretty consistent at running about 21 low, so I would imagine they are running about 10.7, 10.2 or so and are about 5 meters behind him (0.4 seconds)....
However, if you watch the race they come off the turn EVEN with him. This means that they ran pretty close SUB 10 for the back curve. This is unheard of and it makes no sense to waste that much energy on a turn... Then in the last hundred WVN is dead but they are completely unable to keep up and run probably the slowest last 100m even for a sub 44 race (has to be around 12.7). Why do they do this?
Because they follow the classic coaching (that Allyson Felix also follows). That is push hard at the start, relax off the curve, float down the back straight, push into the turn and make your move on the last 150m - catch whoever you need to catch by the straight and rely on your superior strength to carry you through...
WVN on the other hand doesn't float down the back straight - he flys down the back straight. He runs the first 200m in only 0.5 worse than his 200m PR and then the "easiest' part of race is the back curve where he dials back ever so slightly so he can finish the last hundred without being completely out of gas...
Not surprising that WVN started running these times when he actually started running 100m and 200m seriously. Speed is the dominant force in even the 400m - athletes are fit enough to run much faster initial 200m splits than they realize. I think this is something that needs to be looked at... IMO more proof of this comes from the fact that athletes occasionally run out of their mind 400m splits in the 4x400. Sure you don't have to start but a walking handoff doesn't explain how a 48 second guy splits 46. What does explain it is that he runs faster than usual in the first 200m to get in front of the guy he has to catch - then surprisingly he is able to hold on far more than he thought...
