Viren showing his intelligence here--doing no more than necessary to qualify. He would later beat Quax by .4 seconds; one wonders if Quax might have won had he trailed in 4th in this heat.
I totally agree. Quax probably wanted to test himself after being ill and being knocked out in the 10,000m heats. However, Viren did the wise thing to qualify with least effort. Meanwhile Quax had shown his cards and with Dixon and Foster running an Olympic Record in their heat, ensured they had tired legs for the final. Viren therefore had a plan to drain the kick from these guys to win.
MET PAUL GEIS 4 MONTHS AFTER PRE'S ACCIDENT...PRE'S TEAMMATE...WELL TRAINED...IN THIS HEAT PAUL GEIS RUNS LIKE LASSE VIREN.. IN THE 5000 FINAL PAUL GIES REPRESENTED THE USA...WELL...THANKS PAUL...
As the top four come down the home stretch we get a look at a Haitian runner being lapped for, what, probably the fourth time? (He finished in 18:50). Back in this era the Haiti track team was picked from among the dictator’s buddies, and would commonly finish last in any event they were in. This guy did eventually run a 2:16 marathon so he wasn’t completely untalented.
