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“It was all pretty consistent, finishing top two or three. I think the difference is with the championships in the 800, you have 48 people in the world, and it gets knocked down to eight people. Everyone else in that final has a kick, everyone has been working on the same thing.
“I am not disappointed in any way of how we performed or anything like that, I just think those guys were better.”
Bol has not raced in the Commonwealth Games before and is keen for it, given that the Commonwealth countries provide most of the best 800m runners in the world. At the world championships in Eugene, five of the eight finalists were from Commonwealth countries.
World and Olympic champion Emmanuel Korir is expected to focus only on the 400m, while the bronze medalists in Eugene Marco Arop from Canada is to miss.
That still leaves Bol, Kenya’s Emmanuel Wanyonyi and defending champion Wycliffe Kinyamal and a handful of other sub-1:45 runners.
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“You have still got the Kenyans, you can’t escape those guys. It’s still tough. Korir is not running and the Algerian is not running, the Canadian is not running, so you have got the top three [from the world championships] not running Comm Games, but it doesn’t mean it’s any easier.
“That’s what makes the 800 super competitive and interesting. Put it this way: if I ever had to bet on any event, it wouldn’t be the 800. It would be the last event I would bet on.”
Bol has worked on his endurance and tactics in the last year but is shifting up to focus on speed. Next year he will look at running the 400m to build his speed from him.
“Korir, the guy who won it, runs 44 seconds in the 400 so that’s the fastest guy in the field. He is just tough to beat, and with a kick down.
“Endurance, I improved on that. I ran a seven-second PB in the 1500, but I think the 800 is a raw speed event these days. It’s just two 400s. It’s just go! So to be better you have to be better at the speed more than endurance.”
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