David Rudisha is the Usain Bolt of 800-meter dashes, but sharing the 2012 Olympics stage with a track and field legend hasn’t stopped Nick Symmonds from making noise.

After winning their respective heats in Round 1 of the event on Monday, the two runners will face off in the same heat in the semifinals on Tuesday at 2:55 p.m. ET.

Rudisha is the heavy favorite to win the 800—pegged at 1/10 odds to win gold, according to Bovada—while Symmonds was dealt just 33/1 odds. But Las Vegas didn’t stop Symmonds from competing on Monday.

The Team USA star ran the 800 in a time of 1:45.91 seconds—the fifth fastest performance of the morning and only 0.01 seconds behind Rudisha’s time. Of course, hopefully for Symmonds’ sake, he didn’t give 110 percent because Rudisha sure didn’t.

Hi-res-146065062_crop_exact Mike Stobe/Getty Images

Jeff Zillgitt of The USA Today reported that the Kenyan runner doesn’t plan on recording close to a 1:45 in the final. Rudisha said of an attempt to run a 1:40:

1:40 is too far because now we are still at 1:41. I've been working hard in my training with my coach to see if we can improve my time into 1:40. That's our target. That's what we are looking for. Who knows, maybe before the end of the season, I'm going to try (to) lower it (to) 1:40. But below 1:40 I think is very difficult because I know how 1:41 feels.

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Rudisha set the world record at 1:41.01 two summers ago. If he approaches that time again in London, Symmonds doesn’t have a shot to catch him. The American’s personal best in the 800 is over two seconds slower than Rudisha’s—1:43.76.

Symmonds will garner plenty of hype going into the race—he’s a two-time national champ, he’s dating Paris Hilton—but while he’s a talented competitor, he’s no match for the dominant Rudisha.

 

David Daniels is a featured columnist at Bleacher Report and a syndicated writer.