AAA 800m Revisited

So an excellent commenter on here pointed this out and I thought I should address it. With James Smith's injury being bad enough to hold him out from the state championships, they have completed reseeded the heats for the 800m trials. Which means the heat of death no longer exists and Jeff Wiseman, Zach Brehm etc. can breath a sigh of relief. This is a huge turn of events for guys like Brett Foster who had, in my opinion, a pretty good shot to sneak a spot to the finals, although now that the heats have been reordered he is in a bit more difficult of a spot. Joe Logue was looking real good for a second there when Smith exited his heat, which was arguably already the slower heat, but now he is in a completely different boat and probably a little disappointed. Here is a link to the PIAA website that will provide live results and has the updated heat sheets for the AAA 800m: http://www.piaa.org/news/details.aspx?ID=3109

So I figured considering the new conditions, I probably owed you guys a new bit of analysis. If you want to read a more indepth analysis of some of the individual runners in this race, please feel free to scroll down the page to my original 800m predictions. But as for how the reseeding will affect the final, here is what I see happening now ....

Heat 1
This heat is pretty tough now. I mean the event is loaded in general so you know the heats were going to be brutal, but this is a tough turn for the guys originally in Heat 1. I think there are a solid 8 dudes in this heat who could make the finals. The 4 I see getting the Q are Smart, Cooper, Logue, and Francis. Then I have Wilhoite, Garton, Adams and Cruise being the next 4 with Andy Stewart as a sleeper to drop some time for UD (total bias here going on). This is going to be a tough road to the finals for all these gents.

Heat 2
I got Brehm, Wiseman, Cather and Graca going through with a capital Q. After that I thing the next 4 will probably be Sauer, Mercado, Foster, and Becich with Dougherty right there as well if Becich isn't quite healthy. So now we are looking at a bit of a different final then originally expected.

I think it's going to be Smart, Cooper, Logue, Francis, Wilhoite, Garton, Brehm, Wiseman, Cather, Graca, Sauer and Mercado. But with the depth and quality of runners in here that could easily fluctuate.

Based on the reasoning previously outlined by me in my other posts, here is what I have being the outcome of the new final (times and places are adjusted to account for the absence of James Smith but the outcome I expect to be roughly the same.

1. Wiseman 1:52.12
2. Smart 1:53.05
3. Francis 1:53.44
4. Logue 1:53.79
5. Cooper 1:53.82
6. Wilhoite 1:54.01
7. Brehm 1:54.14
8. Garton 1:54.53

2 comments:

  1. Logue would be my state champion, but I have to assume he'll be tired from the 4x8.

    1. Wiseman - 1:51.45
    2. Smart - 1:52.38
    3. Logue - 1:52.49
    4. Francis - 1:53.12
    5. Wilhoite - 1:53.65
    6. Graca - 1:53.71
    7. Brehm - 1:54.15
    8. Cather - 1:54.24
    9. Dougherty - 1:54.68
    10. Foster - 1:54.89
    11. Sauer - 1:55.12
    12. Garton - 1:55.16

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  2. The interior barrier is/has been a killer for some 800 runners. I saw Graca get caught up in it and had to recover.

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