Salazar: Mo Farah's double gold at London 2012 was the greatest distance running achievement in history

Baron Von Von wrote:

Alberto has always done and said things which manifested a tremendous amount of vanity. When Alberto opens his mouth, expect comments which will make him look good, and as he praises his god, as he praises Mo Farah, it is nothing but an exercise in narcissism.

Alberto touts Farah's London double as being the greatest in history because he feels it reflects well upon himself. The truth is that Farah's London double was symptomatic of a drop in quality in distance track racing. ElG or Lagat in their primes would have beaten Farah in the 5000m, and Kenenisa in his prime would have toyed with Farah in the 10,000m.

God this is so stupid a statement. As someone who, again, has broken bread and spent a lot of time with Salazar, this is not how he is at all.

When he was younger, he was confident to the point of sounding brash. Part of that was immaturity/naivete, and part was being competitive, part was being really knowledgeable about his training.

Older Salazar is a truly religious man (almost creep for my taste) and it has made him a humble and kind person.

Don't mistake that for him not being an incredible focused and competitive guy.

Salazar looks at track history...the way a fantasy baseball geek would have. He knows what he is talking about.

There were tons of great talents in that race who all had 4 years to get ready.

Salazar's team out prepared the rest of the world, and the key to that was...keeping his guys healthy...while developing them as more well rounded athletes.

ventolin^3 wrote:

well

he did beat a 10k field who were capable of running 26'30 for top africans, but combo of injury ( kiprop ), lack of team tactics & what one coud almost describe as a palpable "paralysis thru fear" stopped them running a true run race

it's not mo's fault the opposition "collapsed"

in the 5k he beat a "fresh" ( no 10k in his legs ) ethiopian who had recently run 12'46 with a 54 finish ( propbaly worth ~ 12'40 - 12'42.5 at even pace for whole race ) who presumably was better in london

the double was a superb achievement & probably best to leave it at that

ding ding ding.

jaxduke wrote:

Farah's 5,000 olympic winning time was the slowest olympic winning time ,relative to existing WR, in Olympic history--13:41 /12:37 = 1:04. The next closest is Mexico at altitude 14:05/13:16= 49sec.

Farah's 10,000 was second slowest olympic time ,relative to existing WR, in Olympic history --- 27:30/ 26:17= 1:13, the slowest being Mexico 29:27/37:39 =1:48.

One could point to numerous Olympic 5,000 & 10,000 that were far superior to London's . For example Munich 10,000 Viren beats stellar field in WR 27:38.

Montreal 5,000 Viren defeats two athletes who earlier in 76 season had come close to WR.

As has been mentioned, Farah was exhausted by family and friends and lack of sleep before the 5k, so he just let the race develop as it did, not his fault they played into his hands.

Bekele's double in 2008. Times don't really matter in the Olympics, but he still ran 12:57 in a race where times don't matter. And would have been sub-27 had he ran through the line in the 10k. A 10k-5k double is two golds no matter how fast or slow you run, but the way Bekele hammered everyone in '08 ought to trump Farah's sit-and-kick style in '12. I even tend to think he would not have won the 5k if the winning time were 12:57. The 10k he could have won at just about any realistic time.

Lets not forget that kenenisa did the double double.. olympics 2008 and world championships in 2009. Also, his 5000 in 2008 was probably the most amazing splits i have seen in a 5000.. utter domination. I think mo was a little fortunate in the olympics because 1 .. it was on home soil and 2 gebremeskel got boxed in and gebrehiwot was injured. The two runners have the ability to beat farah.. except he dodged them all year.

Exactly what this guy pointed out. The 10,000 field was INCREDIBLY strong. No other field in history has ever had so many sub 13:00/sub 26:50 runners in it. If that is not beating a strong field, you're off your rocker.

I said the same about the 1500 on a different thread. People love to belittle Manzano and Cento, saying it was a weak field, but that is the furthest from the truth.

If you look at the last 4 years, the best 1500 runners in the world, and virtually every finalist/medalist from 2008 and 2011 were in that final. And nearly all have PBs under 3:32 as I recall.

I agree with whoever said that the reason why people say the fields were weak is simply because Americans did well. I don't understand why its so hard to realize that we're back in the game.

Its as simple as that.

I think Zatopek's three golds in 1952 ranks as the greatest distance running achievement in history.

Who cares how good the people in the field had run 3-5 years ago. Yes if you go by PR it looks like the deepest field in history but a lot of the people with those PRs were no where near their PR shape. Kudos to Farah and Rupp for being in the best shape and having the best plan.

I know it's championship running but I tend to get a bit ticked when they come through with a lap to go slower than the world record, but it is what it is.

I'm ok with putting Farah and Bekeles 10000s on par with each other or maybe even giving a slight edge to Farah but that 5000m in Beijing, I mean did you guys watch that race? Farahs 5000m does not even compare.

trackcoach248 wrote:

I think Zatopek's three golds in 1952 ranks as the greatest distance running achievement in history.

This....the only way to accept Mo's was to argue that he had to run against the Kenyan running machine and Emil didnt have to do that.

Dominating the Kenyans in London ranks 2nd to Emil in my opinion.

For the US runners, Schul in 64 is the greatest race of all time. If Bob Schul were to do this today it would be the biggest story of the last 50 years.

So what defines a good field is when everyone is in PR shape? That never happens. And how do you know that none of those sub 26:50 guys were near PR shape?

Bottom line, anyone worth their salt knew going into the Olympics that Farah and Rupp were the best 2 10,000 meter runners in the field (note, I said they would go 1-2 well before the Olympics as is documented on these boards).

This was regardless of who was in shape and who wasn't in shape, who would race well and who wouldn't race well.

They were the fastest, best kickers and most confident of any runner in the field.

I always thought Salazar wanted to get down to the track to make sure Rupp and Farah did their cool downs immediately. I'm sure he was counting the seconds after the race ended stressing about them celebrating and giving interviews instead of following his post race plan.

Not to take away from Farah who was extremely impressive, but I think you have to say that Bekele's doubles in Beijing and Berlin, especially taken together, are at least comparable, if not better and done against competition that was as good as Farah's.

When you talk about Zatopek etc., you get into comparing people from different eras, which is essentially impossible so I don't think it's even very meaningful to say that Farah > Zatopek or Zatopek > Farah. What you can say is that Zatopek ended up with more medals against the best of his era than Farah against the best of his era.

perhaps salazar should stop doping his athletes

Funny the brojo's continue to delete posts they knowingly and openly discuss except on here regarding MO being busted with adrenaline, the various publications in eugene sniffing around doing research and the true doping topics from alsal and his group.

Doped to the gills.

Running historian wrote:

Heats were dropped in the 10k in 2004. This makes the doubles of Bekele and Farah very different from the doubles of Viren and Yifter who had to run 10 k heats, then 10k final, then 5 k qualifying rounds, then 5 k final. After running the 10k heats and final in Atlanta, Geb's legs and feet were so badly trashed that he could not line up for the 5K heats. That extra 10k of running on the track really does take it out of even the best athletes.

Yifter's victories in Moscow were BOTH aided by the Ethiopian team tactics, particularly those of Mohammed Kedir. Rewatch the video.

Viren's performances in Montreal were most superior in modern times IMHO.

Did you ALL not see this?11 sub 13 guys ; 6 who have gone 12:53 or better. This field included many of the best distance runners in history. You guys are just using the recursive logic of 'oh if rupp people them then they aren't good so nobody was good'. Does the fact that Farah cratered tons of ~12:50 and ~26:30 dudes mean nothing to you??

messenger wrote:

Did you ALL not see this?

11 sub 13 guys ; 6 who have gone 12:53 or better. This field included many of the best distance runners in history. You guys are just using the recursive logic of 'oh if rupp people them then they aren't good so nobody was good'. Does the fact that Farah cratered tons of ~12:50 and ~26:30 dudes mean nothing to you??

2008 Olympic 10000m final had both Sihine and Geb in addition to Bekele, 3 of the best 10000m runners of all time. As I said though, I put both of those races on par with even the slightest edge to Farah because of overall depth. But when you are talking about a double you gotta look at the 5000m as well and what Bekele did in that race to a ridiculously good field trumps Farah by a lot.

Also, anyone who discounts 2012 final because of Rupp is a fool.