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This analysis is based on my guidebook to 1500m tactics, available here on thcson.com. This time I will analyze women’s round 1 and heat 3 in the London Olympics.

Race video on YouTube

Women’s 1500m round 1 heat 3

Relative ability

Season bests (as reported in the start lists) give the following classification for this heat:

Favorites: Kostetskaya, Uceny, Mishchenko, Dibaba

Average contestants: Bulut, Kipyegon, Achola, Macias, Sifuentes, Weightman

Underdogs: Landaverde, Kareiva, Belete, Desalegn, Buckman

Pace

This race was on the border between fast and slow in the jog stage, 400m 1.10,71 and 800m 2.18,19. The end of the race was fast.

The start

The start looks a bit slow and nobody seems willing to take the lead. The only one who makes a tactical move is inside starter Kipyegon. She handily passes the entire field from the back. The other runners go slowly and settle in precisely where their starting position predicted they would.

The jog

Macias does a nice job of avoiding the lead position by simply running slow enough in the inside lane. Dibaba seems to be a bit reluctant to take the lead but eventually does so. The pace look slow as the runners complete the first lap, and Uceny makes a good tactical move from 300-500 as she runs a wider curve to pass the group and settles in the front position in the green queue, the ideal place for a favorite. Kipyegon and Dibaba then accelerate the pace from 600-700, which makes it hard for anyone else to move up from the back of the field.

The surge

Already at 800m the surge has clearly begun. In fact the third lap goes very fast, in 1.01. At this pace the runners don’t really have to think about tactics at all. However, it’s important, especially for favorites, to remember that six runners qualify for the next round. Some runners close to the front are bound to get more tired than the favorites themselves. A favorite does not need to be in a hurry when the surge is long and fast.

Pre-race favorite Kostetskaya takes on some unnecessary distance in the 1100-1200 curve by running outside of Uceny. Kostetskaya does not seem to realize that she is seventh, so she only has to pass one opponent in the sprint to qualify.

The sprint

Dibaba pays the price for leading the race when she fades in the sprint. If her strategy was to lead and make a long surge, it failed badly. Kipyegon, who shared pacemaking duties with Dibaba, also gets beaten in the sprint. The sprint doesn’t contain any tactics this time, but it’s good to note how far from the front some qualifiers were with one lap to go. Bulut, Belete, Kaireva, Uceny, Kostetskaya were in positions 3-7, respectively, and Weightman was 9th. Sifuentes and Buckman, who qualified by time, were 11th and 12th. Buckman was probably 12 meters behind the leader Kipyegon at 1100m. So runners at the back of the field in a fast race should not give up hope. Qualification can be much closer than it seems.

This analysis is based on my guidebook to 1500m tactics, available here on thcson.com. This time I will analyze men’s round 1 and heat 3 in the London Olympics.

Race video on YouTube

Men’s 1500m round 1 heat 3

Relative ability

Season bests (as reported in the start lists) give the following classification for this heat:

Favorites: Willis, Chepseba, Schlangen

Average contestants: Iguider, Ruiz, Noor, Centrowitz, Kowal, Ingebrigtsen

Underdogs: Villanueva, Vojta, O’Lionaird, Vazquez

One contestant, Aman Wote, could not be found on my start list.

Pace

A relatively slow race: 400m 59,51 and 800m 2.03,50

The start

In the later races Ingebrigtsen turned out to be the most succesful 1500m tactician in London. In this race he utilizes his lucky starting position on the outside of the field. He starts fast to get ahead of the field, stays on the outside and starts looking to his left at 80m, ready to slow down and settle in behind the fastest starter on the inside. Noor takes the lead and Ingebrigtsen moves in behind him by pushing him gently forward. It’s hard to imagine a more successfully executed started from the outside.

Pre-race favorite Willis also does well despite an unlucky starting position on the inside. He goes out slowly enough to be left behind the group, moves out when he gets the chance and then passes most of the field in the first curve even though the pace does not slow down. This much extra distance in the first curve might not be a good tactical decision for an underdog or an average contestant, but a favorite can probably afford to expend a bit more energy early on. Willis now has a green position, which suits favorites well.

The jog

It’s hard to understand why Chepseba takes the lead in the jog. His season best is more than 5 second faster than that of an average contestant in this field. A favorite leading the race slowly is inexplicable from a tactical standpoint.

With a favorite in the lead, the other runners more or less stay put during the beginning of the jog. The first one who makes a move on the outside is Kowal, who executes a great overtaking between 600-700m. Kowal is actually the last runner in the field at 500 and is even boxed in a bit by Vasquez in the curve, but he steps outward just when the curve ends and easily passes the entire field on the straight. The important thing to notice is that he makes this tactical decision at an early stage of the race when no other runners are active. The same move would have required a lot more energy on the next straight, 800-900m, when the jog is just about to end. It might even have been impossible.

Vojta and O’Lionard also accelerate after Kowal passes them, but they are a bit late and end up doing a lot of work on the outside without much to show for it. The fight for good positions is a lot more intense on the back straight 800-900, so Vojta and O’Lionard only manage to maintain their positions. This is the risk that underdogs always face in the green positions. If they fail to move forward and/or move closer to the inside early in the race, they end up wasting far too much energy on running wide curves.

Chepseba seems to accelerate at 800m and Willis immediately takes advantage of this opportunity to move out of the box. His position in second place behind a favorite is obviously the ideal place to be when the surge begins.

The surge

Willis makes another astute tactical move at 1000m. He initially follows Chepseba but takes a look to his right in the middle of the 1000-1100 straight. He sees the pressure building up on his outside and realizes that he’s running too slowly and may get boxed in soon. He therefore passes Chepseba and takes the lead with the clear intent to lead all the way to the finish. For a pre-race favorite this is a good decision.

Chepseba should now only follow Willis in the inside lane – it’s clearly a good assumption that he won’t get boxed in when he follows a leading favorite through the end of the surge and the sprint. But Chepseba makes a horrible tactical decision as he forces his way outward in the middle of the 1100-1200 curve. Kowal and Ingebrigtsen both take advantage of the space vacated by Chepseba as they latch on to Willis, Iguider and Schlangen.

The sprint

It’s interesting to compare Kowal’s and Ingebrigtsen’s sprint on the inside to Chepseba’s sprint on the outside. From 1150m to the finish Chepseba runs a distance which is at least 5m longer, if not 10m longer than Kowal’s and Ingebrigtsen’s inside route. If Chepseba had followed the leading favorite on the inside he would have qualified easily.

Ruiz puts a good effort into the first sprint 1200-1300 as he rises from the back of the field to third place. This is a good tactical move, but in the end Schlangen beats Ruiz with a more even sprint by one hundredth of a second.

Centrowitz sets himself up nicely for the first sprint behind Chepseba. He has to jump outside as Chepseba stumbles, but he clearly aims for 6th position and trusts his sprint on the home straight. Ingebrigtsen gives Kowal a slight push in the back just before the finish line when he has nowhere to go and fears that someone might pass him on the outside. Perhaps I should include the push move in my tactical guide as well.

This analysis is based on my guidebook to 1500m tactics, available here on thcson.com. This time I will analyze women’s round 1 and heat 2 at the London Olympics.

Race video on YouTube

Women’s 1500m round 1 heat 2

Relative ability

Season bests (as reported in the start lists) give the following classification for this heat:

Favorites: Martynova, Alptekin, Dobriskey, Hilali

Average contestants: Plis, Assefa, McKnight, Shumi, Sum, Simpson

Underdogs: Saholinirina, Fernandez, Sankuru, Roman

Pace

A slow heat at last, with intermediate times 1.10,78 and 2.23,47.

The start

Martynova and Assefa might be the most interesting contestants in the start from a tactical perspective. Martynova starts second from the inside. As I mentioned in my guidebook, an inside starter who prefers to be in the green queue has to start slowly and move up from the back of the field. This is what Martynova does in heat 2 as she deliberately avoids the pack in front of her.

Martynova settles in at the back of the field and clearly recognizes in the first curve that the pace is very slow. She immediately takes advantage of this by passing Sum on the outside, improving her position quite a lot without expending almost any extra energy. That’s a good tactical move in any stage of the race.

Assefa, on the other hand, expends a lot of energy at the start without reaping any benefit at all. After a slow start she makes a full-speed sprint straight into the group, disrupting her (and others’) rhythm as she goes. She gains a few positions on the inside with her sprint, but it doesn’t seem worth the effort she put in.

The jog

The jog proceeds at a 1.12-1.13 / 400m pace, which is easy for all runners. When the jog is slow the surge can be expected to start early, so all athletes at the back of the field should at least consider a move to the outside as long as the pace is so slow that the field can be overtaken easily. Saholinirina, Shumi and Sum take advantage of this from 400 to 600. In contrast, pre-race favorite Martynova runs very passively on the outside as she falls back in the green queue in the same interval. This is not a fatal tactical error, but it means that she will have to work her way past the whole field again, with little to go before the surge begins.

Simpson, who should perhaps also have been considered one of the pre-race favorites, initially seems to react (at 550) and move outward after Saholinirina passes her, but she then runs passively as Shumi and Sum pass by. She ends up at the back of the green queue just ahead of Martynova, with the same problem. Both Martynova and Simpson should have moved further out when they realized they were about to be overtaken, especially on the straights. Even in the curves they could easily afford to run a few extra meters at this pace. Their tactical plan should have been to discourage other runners from moving past them by making the field wider. It requires a lot more work to pass a field which is three runners wide than one which is two runners wide.

The other favorites perform better in terms of jog tactics. Alptekin calmly stays first in the red queue behind the leading Fernandez. Hilali is first in the green queue on Fernandez shoulder. Dobriskey wisely hooks onto Alptekin when Assefa moves outward at 600.

The surge

The surge begins around the 900m mark, with two favorites (Simpson and Martynova) at the back of the field and the other three close to the front. The leader, Fernandez, is perhaps the most interesting athlete in the surge. As an underdog who’s led the race from the start, she’s in a terrible position. As I’ve explained in my guide, Fernandez’ only choice now is to resist overtaking as long as possible. She does exactly this until 1050m. Then she gets lucky when one of the pre-race favorites, Hilali, takes the lead as the final lap begins. Fernandez snaps onto Hilali and avoids being boxed in. This allows her to expend all her strength effectively in the sprint while staying in the inside lane. If Fernandez had been stuck behind an average contestant or an underdog at 1100m, she probably would have been boxed in much worse in the sprint.

It’s also interesting to note how limited the tactical options are for Simpson and Martynova in the surge. As the field spreads out after the 1000m point, it’s four runners wide and the pace is fast. Simpson and Martynova have no chance of passing the entire field before the curve begins. Their only option is to wait at the back of the group until the sprint.

Sum and McKnight both make good moves outside on the 1000-1100 straight. Shumi realizes this but moves out a bit too late when they’ve both already gone past her. Pre-race favorite Dobriskey stays cool on the inside and escapes the box easily just before the sprint begins. Clearly she benefits from Fernandez’ lucky break. If Fernandez had been passed by many outside runners, Dobriskey would have fallen much further back. But the pace at the end of the surge is so fast that the group begins to spread out, leaving just enough room for Dobriskey to get out. So even though the jog was slow in this race, the fast surge compensated and the sprint won’t be very crowded.

The sprint

Since this has been a slow race, the athletes have to assume that the six direct qualifiers will be the only ones to go through. Not much changes on the final back straight 1200-1300. McKnight leads the field through the final curve at a quick pace. Martynova probably loses her qualification spot by slowing down slightly at the end, but no tactical decisions impact the outcome of this sprint.

Martynova and Simpson provided the best tactical lesson in this race. They were passive in the jog and fell behind. They did not seize their final opportunity on the 800-900 straight to move up before the surge. As a consequence, they were in a very disadvantageous positions when the sprint began. One of them managed to compensate for these tactical mistakes with a blazing sprint, the other did not.

In this tactical analysis I will be using the vocabulary I developed in my guidebook to middle-distance tactics, available here on thcson.com. This time I will analyze men’s round 1 and heat 2 at the London Olympics.

Race video on YouTube

Men’s 1500m round 1 heat 2

Relative ability

Determined by season bests as reported in the start lists.

Favorites: Kiplagat

Average contestants: Driouch, Brannen, Bustos, Özbilen, Baddeley, Aarrass, Wolde, Wheating

Underdogs: Sandells, Shaween (although his 3.31 record from 2011 might justify a move to the upper categories), Jurkevics, Mohamed

This heat also included one inferior runner who fell behind early.

Pace

This heat was somewhere between slow and fast, with split times 57,81 – 2.00,03 – 2.58,57.

The start

Two runners starting at opposite sides of the track are of interest in this start. Sandells starts on the inside and seems to make a deliberate acceleration to the front. He clearly would be very tightly boxed in had he allowed Bustos to take the lead. His pre-race strategy must be to avoid being boxed in and he carries it out successfully. Wheating, starting on the outside as number 14, wisely utilizes the space left open by runners 9-13 as they push inward too early. Wheating doesn’t start very fast but looks to his left, sees that the field is four runners wide there and decides to move up to second place as the curve begins. This illustrates how outside starters can make tactical decisions in the start while inside runners cannot.

The jog

The jog is uneventful in this race, as Sandells leads the field. It’s interesting to contrast the tactics employed by the underdogs Sandells, Shaween and Jurkevics in the jog. Sandells stays in front, keeps a steady, slow pace and makes no effort to get away from his position. For an underdog in the lead this is probably the worst possible tactic. Jurkevics on the other hand runs restlessly on the outside, often moving outward instead of inward. He spends a lot of extra energy particularly in the curves 500-600 and 700-800.  A favorite such as Kiplagat can afford this, but an underdog can not. Shaween ends up in third place in the red queue and stays there throughout the jog, exactly as an underdog should.

The surge

Sandells accelerates the pace in the surge to stay in front. At this point of the race this might be the only possibly tactic for him. If the runner beside him had been pre-race favorite Kiplagat from 1000-1100, then the right tactical move for Sandells would certainly have been to let Kiplagat take the lead and try to follow him. But Kiplagat stayed on the outside in third or fourth place in the surge, with no intention to take the lead.

The sprint

This heat is so fast that the sprint is not crowded. The top runners pass Sandells with ease and the qualifiers clearly separate themselves from the rest. Shaween’s patience is impressive from 1200-1300 as he remains in lane 1 behind Sandells to the end of the straight. He takes the risk that he might be stuck behind a former leader in the curve. This could have been costly since Sandells fades badly in the second sprint.

I would think that Shaween’s calm derives from the way he’s feeling – he’s clearly a capable sprinter with a lot of strength left. But also, this is a heat where the six first runners go through by right, and a heat which has been run at a reasonable pace, so the odds are good that he will have enough time and room to move into the top six even if he has to pass Sandells in the curve.

Wheating is not as calm as Shaween when he chooses to move out at 1150 instead of in, where a place behind Bustos is waiting for him. Wheating runs the entire lap in lanes 2 and 3 and actually qualifies for the next round with his time. He doesn’t seem to have the ability to switch pace quickly, since his closest opponents clearly accelerate away from him at 1200. But he does maintain his speed better through the long sprint. Runners whose strength is maintaining speed may indeed need to be on the outside in the sprint where there’s less chance of disturbance.