Prime competition will come from perennial 800 powerhouse Khadevius Robinson, who was shockingly leaned out at the line by Christian Smith for the final spot on Olympic team last summer. "KD" is one of the classiest guys in the game, and one of the greatest competitors in American track today. He is getting up there in years, but he would not have decided to come back for another year if he was not sure he would be at the top of his game. The rest of the field should be very aware of him.
While he is certainly a favorite for a top 3 place and thus a position on the World team, University of Oregon junior phenom Andrew Wheating should also be considered a dark horse for the victory. Symmonds beat him handily in the Trials last year, but Wheating has been progressing well throughout the collegiate season, and is fresh off of two NCAA individual crowns in the 800 (indoor and outdoor) and two team titles (cross country and indoor). He ran 1:46.low last week to win NCAA's over a very quality field, but supposedly had stomach issues and a hamstring injury caused by dehydration. To me, these claims are usually not believable, but in this case it is, seeing as how easily Wheating made running 1:47 look in the preliminaries. When the final 100 comes, Symmonds better have a few steps on him at least, or Wheating could steal the title.
Battling Wheating down to the wire last week in Fayatteville was Texas standout Tevan Everett, also running a 1:46.low en-route to a second place finish. Everett is the real deal - teammate of 2008 NCAA 800 champion Jacob Hernandez, he has impeccable form and is able to go out in 23 seconds looking very contained and within himself.
Everett runs very much in the style of Robinson himself - hard out front from the gun, with a huge positive split. Symmonds and Wheating, on the other hand, start off more conservatively, and run closer to even splits, saving powerfully devastating kicks for the final 150 meters. In the video below, notice how 200 meters into the race, the three runners who wound up making the Olympic team by finishing 1-2-3 are in the last three places. That race was the ultimate demonstration of smart running - although Symmonds had to make an incredibly dangerous maneuver heading into the final turn to pull it off.
Of course you can never count out runners like Christian Smith, second to Symmonds at the Pre Classic and the surprise bronze medallist at the Trials last year (the one who dives to the finish with KD below); Jonathan Johnson and Duane Solomon, perennial contenders; Jacob Hernandez (if healthy); 2007 5k and 1500 world champ Bernard Lagat, who is entered in the 800; and perhaps most potently, the lost boy of Sudan-turned USA citizen, Lopez Lomong, who has potent speed. Tyler Mulder, the third place finisher at the NCAA meet, will also be in the mix.
I predict Everett taking the race out very hard, and giving KD a chance to draft a bit for once. KD will take over at 600, Symmonds will catch him with 50 to go and hold on for the narrow win. Wheating's move will be too late to catch Robinson but will get him the third place slot.
Predictions
1. Nick Symmonds 1:44.7
2. Khadevis Robinson 1:45.0
3. Andrew Wheating 1:45.2
4. Christian Smith 1:46.0
5. Tevan Everett 1:46.2
6. Lopez Lomong 1:46.2
7. Duane Solomon 1:46.4
8. Jonathan Johnson 1:46.8
2008 Olympic Trials Men's 800 Meter Final
Men's 1500 - The layout of the final will be largely determined by two college freshmen who have posted the best times in the NCAA this season. A healthy Matt Centrowitz (Oregon) and a competing German Fernandez (Okie State) could make this a very interesting race. Centrowitz, an 8:40 high school 2 miler, ran a 3:36 1500 earlier this season. Fernandez won the 1500 at the NCAA championships, and soloed a 3:55.0 mile (converts to 3:37-:38 for 1500) in the indoor season to set a national junior record. According to a flotrack.com interview, Fernandez and his coach Dave Smith were going to "talk it over" and decide how German felt before making a final decision. Likewise, Oregon coach Vin Lannana said he would see how Centrowitz's injury (caused him to jog in the last lap of the preliminary round at NCAA's) was progressing before making a decision.
Bernard Lagat, the 2007 world champion, has a recieved a bye into the world championships, so he will most likely not be racing. The favorite among the rest of the field then must be returning runner up from the Olympic Trials last year, U. of Texas graduate Leonel Manzano. Manzano has had an inconsistent year highlighted with a few great performances indicating his talent. The 2008 Olympian and two time NCAA outdoor 1500 champ ran 3:34 to win over a quality field at the Reebok NYC meet a few weeks ago at Randall's Island. Though the Prefontaine Classic did not go well for him, look for him to be on top of his form for nationals.
Another serious threat is Evan Jager, product of Jerry Schumacher and Alberto Salazar's Oregon group which includes many of the top distance runners in the nation, including Matt Tegenkamp, Chris Solinsky, Jonathan Riley, Kara Goucher, and Shalane Flanagan. Jager, a 20 year old who left the University of Wisconsin with Schumacher, has run 13:29 and 3:54 so far this year, and Schumacher knows a thing or two about peaking his runners at the right time.
Although the American record holder in the mile, Alan Webb, is also competing, he has been off form all season, not coming close to his 3:46 mark in 2007, managing only a 3:55 at the Prefontaine Classic.
If Fernandez runs, and makes it to the final, I predict he will keep it an honest race, and run out front from the gun, as he has done his whole career. Against a field of this caliber, however, that may not be the smartest move. In the end, I don't think Fernandez will run, but I do think Centrowitz will run, just based on the attitudes of their coaches.
Look for this race to play out a little faster than the 2008 Trials race. It's not the Olympics on the line this time around, only Worlds, and minus Lagat, the field will not be so conservative. The pace will be relatively slow for the first half, but it will not be 2:01, like it was at the Trials. Expect Manzano to have definitive control of this race with 300 remaining. The battle will then be on for the kick. Lomong may be tired from the 800. Webb does not have the wheels this year. Centro and Jager and young and fresh and coming off outstanding outdoor seasons. Look for them to drive past the field over the final lap to capture the other podium spots.
Predictions
1. Leonel Manzano 3:36.80
2. Matt Centrowitz 3:38.00
3. Evan Jager 3:38.00
4. Lopez Lomong 3:39.10
5. Alan Webb 3:39.20
6. Jon Rankin 3:39.30
7. Will Leer 3:39.60
8. Garrett Heath 3:43.50
2008 Olympic Trials Men's 1500 Meter Final
Song of the Day: A really neat video from Fleet Foxes, a Seattle based 'nature-rock' band that blends melodies and sounds from sources as diverse as The Beach Boys, Simon and Garfunkel, and The Mamas and the Papas. This video has two songs on it, the first 'Sun Giant', the second 'Blue Ridge Mountains'. It is hard to say what exactly Fleet Foxes has that is so unique, that no other band around today has - their sound is clearly evocative of a streamside bed of rocks in the enforested mountains, their lyrics as poetic as anything since Dylan. 'Blue Ridge Mountains' in particular bespeaks an adventure borne of the earth, recalls to mind the purity of nature on a snow day. The lyrics seem to tell of a man who is leaving his home to go traveling into the countryside, assuring his brother not to worry about him - and it is almost as if through the descriptions of his time in nature, all concern and preoccupation seems to float away. The 'answer' to the concerns of his brother seems to be the simple choral melody:
In the quivering forest,
Where the shivering dog rests,
I will do it grandfather,
Wilt to wood and end.
And the river got frozen,
And the hole got snowed in,
And near the moon glow ride,
Till the morning light.
The Fleet Foxes, in the words of Che Guevara from The Motorcycle Diaries, make you wonder: how is it possible to feel nostalgia for a world you never knew? Music can accomplish, just like the beautiful South American landscape accomplished for Guevara, a feat of deja vu, of memory, of creation, of reincarnation. Jack Kerouac wrote in The Dharma Bums:
But it seemed that I had seen the ancient afternoon of that trail, from meadow rocks and lupine posies, to sudden revisits with the roaring stream with its splashed snag bridges and undersea greennesses, there was something inexpressibly broken in my heart as though I'd lived before and walked this trail, under similar circumstances with a fellow Bodhisattva, but maybe on a more important journey, I felt like lying down by the side of the trail and remembering it all. The woods do that to you, they always look familiar, long lost, like the face of a long-dead relative, like an old dream, like a piece of forgotten song drifting across water, most of all like golden eternities of past childhood or past manhood and all the living and the dying and the heartbreak that went on a million years ago and the clouds as they pass overhead seem to testify (by their own lonesome familiarity) to this feeling.
That is what the Fleet Foxes attempt to capture, and at the very least, it is certainly what they have tapped into: the idea of nature as a spiritual reserve, holding mysteries as ancient as the universe, simple truths so fundamental and essential to our existence that we often forget they are even there, lying right before our eyes in the wild, untamed world. To recognize that emotion is one thing - to channel it is another:
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