‘Avinash Sable will take back serious lessons from a crazy race,’ says coach Scott Simmons
The 3000m men’s steeplechase final was the slowest in World Championships history. It was one of the strongest fields in a Worlds with two Olympic gold and silver medalists each in the 15-man field but nobody was ready to push the pace to turn it into a tactical battle. Avinash Sable finished 11th clocking 8:31.75s at Hayward Field. Olympic champion Soufiane El Bakkali of Morocco won gold with a timing of 8:25.13s and Tokyo silver medallist Lamecha Girma of Ethiopia took silver (8:26.01s). The slow, tactical race though took everyone by surprise.
"Craziest championships steeple ever,” reacted Sable coach’s Scott Simmons as he spoke from Eugene. “It was extremely slow and then got even slower. I have never seen anything like this before and likely will never again."
It reminded one of the 1,500m final at the 2016 Rio Olympics, which Matthew Centrowitz of the US won clocking a pedestrian 3:50, the slowest race going back to 1932.
Besides Tokyo Olympics gold medallist (El Bakkali) and silver medallist (Girma), the race also featured defending champion and Rio Olympics gold medallist Conseslus Kipruto of Kenya and Rio silver medallist Evan Jager (USA). Kipruto (8:29.92s) won the bronze.
El Bakkali has the world leading time this season (7:58.28s) but the way the race unfolded from start to finish it was tactics than timing. Sable is known to push his limit and he has bettered the national record a staggering eight times. In the heats, Sable led the charge by staying in the front till the halfway mark and finished third (8:18.75s) to qualify. In the final, he stayed behind and like the rest of the field waited for someone to break free of the pack. That never happened.
Watch: Overenthusiastic cameraperson causes chaos at World Championship steeplechase finals
“With two Olympic gold medallists and two silver medallists, no one decided to push. I think once Sable runs under 8:10 he will be confident to push the pace, like he did in the prelims. It is a serious learning experience for him and for all the others too,” said Simmons.
“66secs is slow but they were running 70secs and 72secs. We assumed Girma and the Ethiopians would push but it never happened. It is difficult to hurdle when going that slow,” says Simmons.
Under Simmons, Sable has been training at Colorado Springs and given good results in the last few months. Sable has broken his national record twice this season with a personal best of 8:12.48s set at the Diamond League in Rabat last month.
Simmons, who was a coach with the American Distance Project and trained many top distance runners in the USA at altitude in Colorado Springs, says Sable will be back at the Commonwealth Games.
“We are now looking forward to the Commonwealth Games and there is no way it will be slow.”
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