By David Monti, @d9monti
(c) 2022 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved
EUGENE, Oregon — Results and highlights from the first round heats of the men’s 800m at the World Athletics Championships on Day 6 on Wednesday (20), which saw defending world champion Donavan Brazier crashing out and world leader Max Burgin of Great Britain pulling out of the event just before the start of his heat with an injury.
It was a tough day for the American team in the men’s 800m at Hayward Field as none of the four athletes entered —Brazier, Bryce Hoppel, Brandon Miller, or Jonah Koech— were able to advance to the semi-finals. Read more: Women’s 5000m heats results; Hassan, Gidey, and USA trio advance – World Athletics Championships
Is Donavan Brazier hurt?
Brazier, the reigning world champion who had battled injuries this year, was only able to finish sixth in the second of six heats in 1:46.72. He told reporters that he wasn’t yet healthy due to an Achilles issue, and tried to compete here on “cross training and some limited miles” because it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to run in a World Athletics Championships on home soil.
He revealed that he has a surgery scheduled for next week to fix an Achilles condition called Haglund’s deformity.
“I did the best I could with what I’ve got, I’d like to believe,” the 2019 world champion in Doha said. “I didn’t want to go out like this coming off of last year (meaning 2019). But, it is what it is for now. I’ll be back.”
He also gave an update about his injury and what is the next step as he looks forward to next year.
“I have a surgery schedule a week from now (to remove a small bone). Athletes have been through a lot worse. I have received a lot of encouragement from my teammates. Hopefully, I’ll be able to come back next year.
“In the last month, I was training like I was in high school. I really liked the process. It felt lovely. It’s a kind of adversity I had to get through. It’s been fun, but a lot of ups and downs in the last few weeks.”
Hoppel, who won the 2022 USA title and finished fourth at the 2019 World Athletics Championships, also did not advance out of heat three. In that race, there was a multi-athlete collision about 200 meters into the heat which saw Hoppel get shoved to the outside and Canada’s Brandon McBride fall hard to the track.
Hoppel was able to finish in fifth place, but his time of 1:46.98 wasn’t good enough to advance. He said the shoving incident caused him to lose all of his momentum and he burned a lot of energy getting back into the position he wanted to be in.
“It threw me out of my head space,” Hoppel told Race Results Weekly. “You see the race going a certain way. Once you get that kind of upsetness and a little anger it messes with you. I didn’t really know how to carry the race from there.”
Brandon Miller, third at the USA Championships, also did not advance after finishing fifth in the fourth heat. That left Jonah Koech as the last American with a chance to advance, and it seemed like he did when he finished second in heat five. But after the race, Koech was disqualified for jostling about 200 meters into the race.
Speaking before he was disqualified he said: “Contact is part of the game. We can’t complain about it. It is just like how to see how mentally strong you are. But, things like that will happen so you have to be ready mentally, that you can just handle it.”
Who are the top qualifiers in the men’s 800m?
Among those who did advance Kenya’s Emmanuel Korir, the reigning Olympic champion, seemed to have the easiest time. He won the first heat in a slow and energy-saving 1:49.05.
Also advancing with medal hopes were Morocco’s Moad Zahafi (the 2022 NCAA champion for Texas Tech), Algeria’s Djamel Sedjati, Canada’s Marco Arop, Mexico’s Jesus Tonatiu Lopez, and Kenya’s Wyclife Kinyamal. Poland’s Patryk Dobek, the 2021 Olympic bronze medalist, failed to advance.
Arop was the fastest among all the qualifiers with 1:44.56, while Tonatiu Lopez ran 1:44.67, Mark English of Ireland (1:44.76), Cătălin Tecuceanu (1:44.83 PB) of Italy and Algeria’s Slimane Maula (1:44.90) also breaking 1:45.00 in the heats.
MEN’S 800M HEATS RESULTS – DAY 6 AT WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS 2022
RESULT – HEAT 1
POS COUNTRY ATHLETE MARK DETAILS
1 KEN Emmanuel Kipkurui KORIR 1:49.05 Q
2 MAR Elhassane MOUJAHID 1:49.27 Q
3 ESP Álvaro DE ARRIBA 1:49.30 Q
4 ETH Ermias GIRMA 1:49.36
5 GER Marc REUTHER 1:50.75
6 TLS Manuel Belo Amaral ATAIDE 1:58.91 SB
GBR Max BURGIN DNS
RESULT – HEAT 2
POS COUNTRY ATHLETE MARK DETAILS
1 AUS Peter BOL 1:45.50 Q
2 GBR Kyle LANGFORD 1:45.68 Q
3 ESP Mariano GARCÍA 1:45.74 Q
4 FRA Benjamin ROBERT 1:45.94 q
5 BIH Abedin MUJEZINOVIĆ 1:46.26 SB
6 USA Donavan BRAZIER 1:46.72
7 POL Patryk SIERADZKI 1:48.78
GHA Alex AMANKWA DQ
RESULT – HEAT 3
POS COUNTRY ATHLETE MARK DETAILS
1 MAR Moad ZAHAFI 1:46.15 Q
2 FRA Gabriel TUAL 1:46.34 Q
3 KEN Emmanuel WANYONYI 1:46.45 Q
4 BEL Eliott CRESTAN 1:46.61
5 USA Bryce HOPPEL 1:46.98
6 POL Mateusz BORKOWSKI 1:47.61
7 JAM Navasky ANDERSON 1:48.37
8 CAN Brandon MCBRIDE 1:57.43
RESULT – HEAT 4
POS COUNTRY ATHLETE MARK DETAILS
1 ALG Djamel SEDJATI 1:46.39 Q
2 NED Tony VAN DIEPEN 1:46.59 Q
3 TUN Abdessalem AYOUNI 1:46.59 Q
4 ESP Adrián BEN 1:46.71
5 USA Brandon MILLER 1:47.29
6 RSA Tshepo TSHITE 1:47.61
7 NZL Brad MATHAS 1:47.70
RESULT – HEAT 5
POS COUNTRY ATHLETE MARK DETAILS
1 CAN Marco AROP 1:44.56 Q
2 MEX Jesus Tonatiu LOPEZ 1:44.67 SB Q
3 IRL Mark ENGLISH 1:44.76 SB Q
4 ITA Cătălin TECUCEANU 1:44.83 PB q
5 KEN Noah KIBET 1:45.41 q
6 SWE Andreas KRAMER 1:45.77 q
7 ALG Yassine HETHAT 1:46.05
USA Jonah KOECH DQ
RESULT – HEAT 6
POS COUNTRY ATHLETE MARK DETAILS
1 ALG Slimane MOULA 1:44.90 Q
2 KEN Wyclife Kinyamal KISASY 1:45.08 Q
3 MAR Abdelati EL GUESSE 1:45.25 =SB Q
4 GBR Daniel ROWDEN 1:45.53 =SB q
5 ETH Tolesa BODENA 1:45.81 q
6 POL Patryk DOBEK 1:46.80
7 SLO Žan RUDOLF 1:49.87
