Column: Generational Gap

American 1500m Running Primed to End Medal Drought
By Noah Jampol

Follow me along on a 24 year trip, virtually a generation, spanning from Tokyo, Japan to Beijing, China and finally culminating in Daegu, South Korea. The destinations may seem like they belong on a checklist of a Westerner visiting the continent of Asia for the first time. However, in the lore of American 1500 meter running, the cities represent a journey from competitiveness to irrelevance and perhaps all the way back in the contemporary middle distance landscape. Tokyo, Beijing, and Daegu are three hosts of global championships that represent the former heights American 1500 meter running reached, the depths to which it plunged, and where it might witness a rebirth.

Tokyo: A Bronze for Spivey Wraps up an Era of Competitiveness

In 1987, Jim Spivey’s bronze at the World Championships in Tokyo made him the last athlete who spent his formative years training in America to earn a medal at a major championship. The 1980s also saw Steve Scott make his mark with a silver medal in the 1983 World Championships and establish himself as a genuine contender in all of his races. Since then, American 1500m running has ranged from an afterthought to irrelevant. In the span from 1988-2004, European and African runners like Hicham El Guerrouj, Nourredine Morceli, Bernard Lagat and Fermin Cacho dominated the event and were commonly joined by their teammates on the podium. Speckled in the 1500 finals of this era were American athletes, led by Steve Holman, who frankly belonged more in the happy-to-be-there camp than in the medal-contender camp when they took their spot on the line.

Entering this dreary picture as a prolific high-school runner with world-class talent, Alan Webb’s emergence reawakened the waning hopes of American middle-distance fans. In 2005, Webb made the finals of the world championships and competed aggressively and in the view of his cynics, recklessly and foolishly. In 2007, he firmly established himself as a world-class competitor and medal threat with a signature win at the Paris Golden League meet over Frenchman Mehdi Baala and the top marks in the mile and 1500 meter distance for the year. Just as American fans’ hopes were at their highest point in years, Webb disappointed at the World Championships, as he faded from the medals in the last 100 meters. Fans turned for some consolation in a Kenyan-born wearing the American vest, Bernard Lagat, who won gold in the event. However, the drought of medals for an American-born or more loosely, American-trained athlete, had reached a sobering 20 years.

Beijing: American 1500 meter running hits a new low

If 2007 was a year of early triumphs overshadowed by ultimate disappointment, 2008 marked the nadir of the post-Spivey and Scott era. Not one American athlete- not even reigning world champion Lagat, advanced to the finals at the biggest stage of all, the Beijing Olympics. The ultimate ignominy might have been that the Olympics 1500 final wasn’t even shown in either of the available primetime slots on TV. The Americans had reached utter irrelevance in the 1500 event with Webb injured and unfit, and the rest of the green American supporting cast unequal to the task of making the final. Hardcore track fans lament the human-interest stories that networks force-feed them, saying they overshadow and misdirect the coverage of the compelling competition on the track. The sad truth of the matter was that Lopez Lomong’s story was the only appeal the event’s Americans, besides presumed medal contender Lagat, seemingly had for NBC.

Signs of hope in 2009 as Lomong and Manzano blossom

Just as the future looked its most dire, emerging American professionals Lomong and Leonel Manzano made tremendous jumps in their competitiveness in 2009. Both Lomong and Manzano had shown flashes of tactical prowess in their college careers as well as formidable kicks that instantly made them competitive in the last lap of slower races even as professionals. In 2009, they both made the requisite jumps in fitness to supplement their strengths. The Berlin world championships semi-finals were a watershed moment as the two joined Lagat in qualifying for the finals with ease. In the finals, Manzano struggled to find his bearings and ran out of gas in the back-of the-pack. Lomong was simply outclassed by some of the stronger athletes in the field, but competed admirably to finish in the middle-of-the-pack. Despite coming back empty-handed, the two young professionals’ showing was both unexpected and encouraging.

In 2010, Manzano and Lomong continued American 1500 meter running’s rise up into international relevance with improvements in their personal bests and high placings in competitive meets. Manzano, in particular, exhibited flashes of competitive brilliance. In a 1500m race against Augustine Choge and Asbel Kiprop, two men with imposing personal bests and achievements, he boldly pushed Kiprop to the line and had second place sewn up against Choge until letting up slightly before the line and finishing in a dead heat. In a windy 800 meter race, he improved to 1:45 flat and ran competitively with 1:43 men Amine Laalou and Boaz Lalang. He has struggled with consistency in the 2010 season, but at his best he showed the chops to take on all-comers.

Lomong, on the other hand, quietly won the USA Championship in the 1500 and lowered his personal bests in the 1500 and mile. His sheer consistency and assertiveness in placing himself in the top five of races is encouraging for navigating the rounds and perhaps medaling down the road.

A new phenom emerges

The continued development of Lomong and Manzano, that has been a constant the past two years, would be enough to excite most American middle-distance fans.

The materialization of a miling prospect in line with Alan Webb onto the global scene has simply electrified them.

Andrew Wheating first served notice that he was an extraordinary talent when he made the 2008 Olympic team and ran 1:45 barely three years into his running career. His exceptional talent, a long span of injury-free training, and a perfectly executed training plan concocted by coach Vin Lananna manifested itself in a sensational series of races. Wheating’s terrific run currently includes: two championships at the NCAA qualifying and Championship meets, significant personal bests in the 800 and mile, and the biggest jaw-dropper of all, a 3:30.9 1500.

Even if Wheating is unable to improve upon his marks this season, his strengths as an athlete make him the best medaling prospect America has had since 1987. He is renowned for a tremendous kick, which has seen him in his young career pass at least a dozen world-class athletes in the final 300 of his races without being passed by anyone. It only takes one Wheating race to realize that he can finish with anyone on the track and has the savvy to both place himself in the right spot and gauge how much is in the tank. As the competition has increased in Europe, his performance has followed suit as he realizes how good he is and how fast a pace he can maintain. Unlike Webb who lacked it in 2007, he possesses valuable stores of race experience running from the back and the middle of the field in unevenly-paced and unrabbited affairs.

Wheating’s key blemish appears to be his sheer size, which hampers his ability to run in the midst of the pack without getting tangled. Wheating will have to find a way to navigate the bunched athletes before the bell, or else he is fated to have a lot of races like Asbel Kiprop did last year in the World Championship’s 1500 meter final. Kiprop, a tall and lanky athlete himself, missed out on the medals in Berlin as he found himself at the back at the bell and his kick ran out of room. Another challenge Wheating faces is his lack of experience in world-class races and rounds. This can only be solved with more races and more championships.

It is also worth noting that Wheating’s personal bests have occurred in races where he was not competitive for the win. Grim as that might appear, championship racing is an entirely different ballgame where you can throw paced time-trial results out the window. New 3:29 man Silas Kiplagat found this all too true at this year’s African Championships, much as Webb did at the 2007 world championships. Major championships favor those who can kick, those who don’t panic, and those who have the savvy to place themselves in the right spot. 2008 Olympic silver medalist Nick Willis and 2009 World Champion Yusuf Saad Kamel can assert that the difference between a 3:31-3:32 guy and a 3:29-3:30 guy is simply window-dressing when the medals are decided.

A return to glory….?

The final man lurking somewhere in the evolving backdrop of American 1500 meter running is the man who may be the straw that breaks the camel’s back in an American resurgence next year. American mile record-holder Alan Webb wisely has employed the new maestro of reclamation projects, Alberto Salazar, to invigorate his career. Under Salazar’s watchful guidance, Webb has made alterations to his diet, running form, and body. Given Salazar’s track record, these changes bode well for his future. Injuries have conspired to perhaps forestall any significant results until next year. The return to form of a 3:30 man, by way of a proven coach that may be able to harness his excellent work ethic and restrict his harmful vices, would be symbolic of the rapid change in the prospects of American 1500 meter running since 2008.

In a year, American fans hope that the promise of the last two years is realized in the 1500 meter final of the World Championships in Daegu, South Korea. If it is, the journey of the last 24 years of American 1500 meter running that ranges from the success of Tokyo to the rock-bottom failure of Beijing will finally come full circle. While, a trip from Tokyo to Beijing to Daegu might be a wonderful journey for a world traveler, a trip from irrelevance to the podium would more than suffice for every American middle distance fan.