Once Upon a Time in the Vest

Sunday, August 21, 2016

V. 6 N. 59 Rio 2016 More from our round the track observers




Well,  the games are all  but wrapped up and we can finally go back to the past and live the dreams that life is made of.  Here are some  final comments on the last two days.  Perhaps more will follow, and if they do, I'll add them to this post.

Here too is the next Jim Fixx question for the superintelligent.
Actually it is several questions.

1. What eight-letter word has only one vowel?
2. What word contains all five vowels in alphabetical order?
3. What word contains three sets of double letters in a row?
4. Punctuate the following so it makes sense:  John while James had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher.
5. What do the following words have in common?  deft, first, calmness, canopy, laughing, stupid, crabcake, hijack

Semenya Post Race
From a Sydney, Australia newspaper.   I found this a very interesting interview post race with Semenya and a pretty unbiased assessment of what everyone has been talking about regarding hyperandrogeny.
.
Fourth place Canadian  in 800 Melissa Bishop had a hard time holding in her frustrations on CBC interview last night but managed.

 I think the conclusion that you be allowed to play under the conditions that nature provided you is the fairest way to go.  If you're 7 feet tall you think basketball or volleyball,.  If you're a 5'4" male you wrestle.  If you're a failed gymnast , you polevault, and on and on.    If you're a genius you write a track blog  But excluding someone because of a DNA anomaly is not ethical.  In a completely different way the East Germans tried to chemically turn young girls into men with winning results and disastrous long term physiological consequences.  So making a hyperandrogenous person take drugs to diminish their testosterone levels would put us into the same boat as the East Germans.

The CBC interview with Mohammed Ahmed the Canadian Somali runner who got 4th in the 5000 was one of the most emotional of the games.  He bombed in the 10,000 but got himself back together during the week to run well in the 5000 heats and final, he but was seriously disappointed in not getting a medal.  At one point he was event temporarily DQ'd, but reinstated.

Matt Centrowitz was no suprise winning with a 50.9 last lap after a 66 sec. opening lap, followed by a 70,  the suprise was that Kiprop didn't win or even place.   Overall I'd say this was one of the better track meets in history for spectacle and performance.  

If you can believe this,  the CBC pre-empted the evening's events (women's 800, men's 1500 and 5000, the relays, men's javelin and women's high jump) last night for a farewell concert by the band  Tragically Hip.  The band lead singer has a terminal illness, and this performance was nationally more important than the last night of track and field.  The C BC broadcast crew seemed to think this was perfectly normal.   Oh well, each nation has its priorities.  I'll be interested in Bruce's comments on that one.  I must admit I've only heard the name of the band, never one of their songs or the names of the band members.  Crap I'm old.   By the way, the Spanish lady who won the High Jump, 37 years old Ruth Beitia, was a little spooky flicking her fingers from an extended hand before each jump.  I thought she might be putting a curse on the other jumpers.  She had that look about her.  Excuse my prejudice, but she scared me.

 Then this morning during the critical phase of the men's marathon, at about 30Km, CBC went to a press conference with a bunch of long winded delegation officials to announce who would carry the Maple Leaf at the closing ceremonies.  I don't care.  Only redeeming feature was that they had a split screen with half covering the marathon, so I could turn off the sound and cover the right side of the screen with my shirt and socks and focus on the race.  Multi-tasking is not my strong suit.   Jared Ward's sixth place was a bigger achievement even than Rupp's third.  We expected a medal from Galen, but not this high of a finish from Ward.  Nice work.

Other interesting thing this AM was a contested ruling in a bronze medal wrestling match between a Mongolian and an Kyrgestani.  The   Mongolian started leaping around celebrating with about 5 seconds to go and was penalized two points for not trying to wrestle, which cost him the match.  Mongolian coaches protested and stripped down to their skivvies on the mat while throwing their clothes at the judges.  I could see our friend Steve doing this on a dq protest for 9 and under 50 meters race in suburban Kettering, OH and being mobbed by Kettering matrons.  So much for this.

George

Richard Trace

to me
I also was flabbergasted by the rock concert preemption.  Fortunately, living on the shores of Lake Erie, I could bounce back and forth between Canadian and U.S. TV.  Worked amazingly well for ads too.  I don't know what to do with myself now that I can no longer stomp about the house screaming, "Shut the f--- up!" at the 'color' people, but at least the neighbors are talking less about having me exiled now.

George Brose 

to Richard
Hey,  you've still got besebol, Canadian Football League,  NFL preseason,
and the Tour of Spain started yesterday.

Bruce Kritzler

to me
George,
Have only seen Tragically Hip once (on tv) and didn't understand the Canadian fascination with them. They appear to be a good (not great) band that always  were anti-(mainstream, popular, publicity seeking, radio, financially motivated) so endeared themselves to a segment of the Canadian populous. Believe they had a large number of rotating members to the group.
Just don't think women with two balls (even one) should be racing with women with none.
Kiprop did everything possible to lose that 1500, and suceeded. When you've jogged 3 laps, then run 50.2 or .9, not many people are going to be able to pass you. Reminded me of 1988, with unknown Rono winning 1500 from the front.
Rupp gets bronze in second marathon. Kipchoge with a brilliant win.Kipchoge shows he can win paced/big city or Championship type race!
Bruce



From: George Brose 

George Brose irathermediate@gmail.com


to Bruce
A 2;16   800 takes the joy out of watching a 1500.   Maybe they should just qualifiy for the final and then run a 400 in lanes to see who is the winner.   It was sort of like watching NASCAR, the last lap, except NASCAR allows you to knock the crap out of each other when passing.   

Bruce Kritzler


to me
And what was the deal with the Officials dq'ing so many people. It was like the Ohio HS State meet, where the officials think they have to dq anyone touching someone else. (or touching a line).


At first there  were three DQ's in 5000 then only one.


From: George Brose 

Phil Scott


George: You're killing me man, just finished watching USA destroy Serbia....looked like a repeat of the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Rupp is tough cat, what a last 5k.

I found out Ryan Lochte actually has a patent on starting pistols, they are not on the market yet, and patent pending cause his mind went BLANK!

Phil in sweet Downtown Clayton,Ohio ......I just saw a dude come out the corn field behind my house looking like Glenn Cunningham saying BUILD A TRACK AND WE WILL RUN. ........got to go got work to do.......

Phil ,
Was Serbia in the Ottoman Empire or the Austro Hungarian Empire?
George


Here is a conversation between Jim Metcalf, John 
Perryand Preston Davis regarding the 1500 and 
5000.
Metcalf has broken down and analyzed the last 400
meters of the 1500, with that blazing 50+ lap.  He 
wishes
to put out a disclaimer on this data, because he measured distances and times from his viewing 
screen.
He feels they are pretty accurate, but you shouldn't 
be
betting your second mortgage on them.

This is something I made for my group...John, Dave, Preston..we had  a thread going on the olympic's 1500 and 5000
OK....here is the story of the 1500m.  You know how 
several people at a crime scene give different stories.  And what I remembered was not exactly what happened.
I recorded the 1500 and just spent 20 minutes in frame by frame analysis of the last 400m  using the clock on the 
screen that measures .1 instead of .10.  And i measured 
each runner on the various 100m lines. There are lines at 
the 100m points and these are taken from the time when 
each runner's foot touched the line and his body was 
straight up.
This is what happened.
At the bell Centro was side by side by a guy, I think from Morroco.
The algerian (Makhloufi)was right there and in the next 20 meters was
 on the shoulder of the guy who was on Centro's shoulder 
so he was no more than .05 back. they were almost all 3 touching shoulders.
Then, inexplicably Makhloufi slowed, and when they came
 off the turn he was .3 back at the 100m.  Centro ran the 
turn in 11.4 seconds, so an accelerated sprint had started.
Down the back stretch Kiprop came by the Makhloufi and 
he went with Kiproc but Kiprop did not keep going.  He slowed when he got to Centro and stayed a stride behind him. 
 I think the Algerian was racing Kiprop because he stayed
 on his shoulder. (If Kiprop and the Algerian had gone right on by Centro, the race might have ended differently)
The 2nd 100m was run in 12.5.  So they were floating to
the max. at 200m the Algerian was about .2 behind Centro and .1 behind Kiproc
On the turn, it tightened but the Algerian stayed on Kiprop's shoulder.  I think he was racing Kiproc and had discounted Centro.
They coasted the turn in 15.3.  at the end of the turn the Algerian moved by Kiprop.
With 100m to go  Centro had a 0.1 lead on the Algerian. I 
Centro may have pulled a little in the straight but the  
Algerian came back and was closing at the finish.   They ran the last 100m in 11.5. (That's 46.0 for 400) ed.
Those are close,  as the four 100m times add up to 50.7
But that is a clock count .1 by .1  of how the last 400m was run.
Jim
 From John

I think Centrowitz's coach knows how to give speed work. Maybe Rupp needs to borrow him for a month.

John

 Jim replies:


That is really great...but it is obvious he has not had much speed work, given his performances in recent 5K and 10K.  That is why he has gotten badly outkicked.
I don't know how much in endorsements he can get in marathon vs 5K and 10K but you cannot compete in diamond league in marathon and can only run one ever 4 -6 months and can run a 5K or 10K once a week.  So It might cost him a lot of endorsement money to become a marathoner.... 
I would like to see what he could do at 5K or 10K if he had a month of Perry-Metcalf speed work to go with that tremendous base...
J

I think it is obvious now that Rupp's marathon training hurt his 5K and 10K performances.
He ran an incredible race today and showed incredible courage.
Between miles 22 and 23 Kipchoge ran a 9:11 2 mile and before that a 4:46 mile..
They had 4:46, 4:41, 4:35, from 21 thru 23 miles,   so Rupp , at 21 miles ran 9:27 2 mile and then weathered part of the 9:35  before breaking.
Kipchoge ran 29:10 or some such seconds, I can't remember exactly, but the last 10K was incredible.  and they ran in 94% humidity...
J

George Brose irathermediate@gmail.com

7:07 PM (17 minutes ago)
to Jim
Jim,
Do you mind if I use this thread on the blog?  I think the technical people will enjoy it.  Nice work on the analysis.  
11.5 last hundred is pretty good.  That 2:16 half made all 
that speed possible.    I think if they had all run 50-51
opening 400 and then gutted it out the next 1100, they
would have ended up with about the same time.  3:50.



sure...
Be my guest....just put in the disclaimer that they are just 
my calculations and could be wrong but I spent a long time and ran it by over and over again...forward and backward.  and the 110 splits seemed to fit with how they looked...
enjoy the blog..keep up the good work
 

George





Answers to Jim Fixx questions for the superintelligent

1. Strength   Geoff Williams has also given us 'rhythmic' as an answer.
2. Facetious
3. Bookkeeper
4. John, while James had had "had," had had  "had had."  "Had had" had had a better effect on the teacher.
5. All of them contain three consecutive letters of the alphabet.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

we, the super dull thank you for the answers.

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