Kip Keino's 3:34.9 in Mex-City maybe best 1500 Ever

The best ever?

The world record is 3:26.0 by the way!!

So no its not the best ever 1500.

Probably one of the best championship performances ever for 1500 m. But it's always been poo poo'd by the Ryun lovers (who by the way also ran a great race that day), or just down played.

it was a 3:34.9 at 2241m

http://www.runworks.com/calculator.html

says 3:18:53.7 at sea level...

I don't know about that but it was certainly damn fast.

And this was in 1969!

and he was sick

and it was hot

and he raced a few times before this.

1968*

Keino's run was certainly the finest 1500 *to that time*. Ryun's run for silver was possibly the second-best ever (again, to that time), and certainly one of the top four or five. He ran it precisely the way that he and his coach had planned, and it should have beaten anybody but a superman--which, that day, Keino certainly was.

Via a link on this board, I finally saw that race in its entirety a few weeks ago. What struck me was how "modern" Keino looked: no, not because he was an African running fast, but because there was less of the "fast-gather-kick" pattern that we were so used to then. He kicked, but off a strong pace.

PS: I remember reading an account of the race from Ryun. Don't remember most of it, beyond a) when he finished, he was certain that he was going to die, and b) when he passed Tuemmler (eventual bronze medalist for W. Germany), he saw that the man's eyes had rolled up in his head. My one race at altitude (an 880 in Flagstaff) was the worst oxygen debt I've ever experienced; I literally can't imagine what these guys, who pushed so much deeper into it, must have experienced.

If it was actually equivalent to that time, how come Keino never came close to that equivalent when racing at sea level.

More likely, simple calculations such as that are bogus. The performance, while great, was no where near the equivalent of 3:26

yeah, again i dont know if these calculators are good but:

http://runningtimes.com/rt/articles/?id=6765

if that altitude calculator was right about it being a 3:18.5 that converted is a 3:34 1600 meters!!?

what the hell, i dont know about Kipchoge being 9 seconds faster than El Guerrouj.

31 years before

Keino at Mexico City

13Oct 10k DNF

15 Oct 5K heat winner in 14:28

17 Oct 5k 2nd in 14:05.2 (14:05.0 won it)

18 Oct 1500 1st in heat 1 (3:46.9)

19 Oct 1500 2nd in semi (3:51.4)

20 Oct 1500 1st in final (3:34.9 Olympic record)

56.0(Jipcho) 1:55.3 (Keino) 2:53.4 (Keino)

not bad 8 days of work

Yes, though it is hard to believe, this sort of thing has happened before in sports

Even in the same 1968 olympics when Beamonesque came into our vocabulary

remember:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGlwOP2Jkpk

He never came close to that again, anywhere, sea level or at altitude. His WR jump was a 29 ft. 2-1/2 in but he never jumped over 27 ft again.

It is the greatest 1500 ever, not the fastest obviously. It makes you wonder what Kip would have ran if he ran when he wasn't ill, in perfect weather, on fresh legs, and in Calipatria, CA or some other place with air full of oxygen.

I saw it! It was a fantastic race!

The fastest time in the heats had been 3:45.7 by Ryun who was the world record holder at the time. The next day Ryun had the fastest semi-final time running 3:51.2.

Before the final the following day, I assumed that Keino would be out of it after having run the 5K (2nd in 14:05.2), 10K and then 1500s each of the previous two days.

In addition, Keino, although from altitude, had had gall bladder trouble in the weeks before. Ryun had mononucleosis in those previous weeks. Here are the splits according to Track and Field News:

Kenyan Ben Jipcho led the first 400 in 56.0

Keino's splits were 56.6, 58.7, 58.1 with a last 300 in 41.5. Ryun's splits were 58.5, 60.0, 57.5 with a last 300 of 41.8 (easing up). Keino's 3:34.9 was an Olympic Record.

langat wrote:

Yes, though it is hard to believe, this sort of thing has happened before in sports

He never came close to that again, anywhere, sea level or at altitude. His WR jump was a 29 ft. 2-1/2 in but he never jumped over 27 ft again.

Not the best comparison. The long jump is tremendously dependent upon technique - a single moment or two of technique can make dramatic differences in the result. Beamon's jump that day wasn't so great because he was so much stronger or faster for a single day. It was great because he managed to hit all the points just right, because his posture was perfect, because his takeoff was spot on, his motion in the air just so. All of thse compressed into the space of a couple of seconds.

In field events like the long jump, hammer throw, javelin, etc, a single "Beamoneseque" day is a lot more likely than in a running event. Technique in a running event occurs countless of times PER event. You can't just get one perfect takeoff for a world record. You need thousands.

Incidentally, Beamon's jump has long been recognized to have been aided by the thin air of the altitude, as was Lee Evans 400 meter. Who is to say that Keino's 1500, though longer, was not also likewise aided.

Keino had a great day no doubt but he did not run the equivalent of a 3:26 or anything remotely close to it. Please, I don't want to take away from his performance but let's at least stick to the times they actually ran not the ones we kinda sorta think they MIGHT have run in a different place. At least Evans and Beamon actually did their record performances there, those Olympics

No doubt the thin air at altitude does aid running performance, but not as much as does the loss of VO2max hurt endurance performance. In faster events (shorter runs and horizontal jumps, and particularly in cycling and speed skating) the thinner air is a benefit, and even in the endurance, high-speed, events the gain in reduced air resistance is a real benefit to performance, but distance runs are not fast enough to make up for the loss in partial pressure of oxygen. The 800 is just about the break even distance, as Ralph Dubell showed in tying the Olympic record in Mexico City. Clearly the 1500 is a different animal as was demonstrated by all those who ran the final in 68 (and they certainly had a fast enough pace to chase)

you are wrong...if you ever talked to a competitive runner there are only a few races in their careers when everything clicks and run a perfect race....

talk to Lasse Viren (happened to do it very well every 4 years)or Mark Nenow...

altitude doesnt affect everyone equally, it may have ben kieno was only able to have gone 1 second faster at sea level, a large white male, with low VO2 and who had never run at altitude might have gone 8 seconds faster. personal variablity counts for soooo much.

I personally think it is the best ever. Mexico City is about 7400ft above sea level. Kip's 3:34.9 would be somewhere about 3:27 or 3:28 at sea level. Factor in the quality of track and spikes and that takes off another 2 seconds or so. For those of you who don't know, Keino "kicked" on his second lap, which was much faster than the others (53 if I recall correctly). I honestly think if Kip Keino could have raced under ideal conditions (sea level, perfect rabbit, modern track/spikes etc) that day, he would have run 3:24 or maybe even faster. Everyone dismisses this because it seems to hellaciously fast, but that's my estimate nonetheless.

Guppy wrote:

For those of you who don't know, Keino "kicked" on his second lap, which was much faster than the others (53 if I recall correctly).

If Orville's splits, posted above, are right, then the second lap was Keino's slowest of the race.

He would've run more than 10 SECONDS faster at sea-level with better conditions? 10 SECONDS! PLAYOFFS?! We're talking about PLAYOFFS?!?

follow through wrote:

If it was actually equivalent to that time, how come Keino never came close to that equivalent when racing at sea level.

More likely, simple calculations such as that are bogus. The performance, while great, was no where near the equivalent of 3:26

Correct. All this "conversion" of his 3:34.9 to something else is pure nonsense. In fact, Keino had many opportunities to run faster at sea level and he never came close. He had his day of days on the absolute best day...that's the beginning and the end of the story. Otherwise, Ryun trounced him the three other times they met--at 2 miles, 1500, and the mile.

Keino was a brilliant but erratic talent; he lost a good many races, including many that he should have won. He also had a clear history of running extremely well at altitude--far better, in fact, than anyone else of the day. This history "proves" that he was almost certainly less affected by altitude than most of his countrymen, and certainly less affected than every flat-lander.

At the end of the day, Keino's 3:34.9 at Mexico City probably "proves" that he was ultimately capable of 3:34.5 or 3:34.0...that's about it. Once again: there's nothing in his performance history to suggest that he was affected at all at the 1500/mile distance by altitude. That may sound crazy, impossible, or whatever--but you really need to examine his career stats closely. So, any formula that claims he was "really" capable of 3:26, or 3:29, or 3:31, or whatever, is meaningless.