Examples of late bloomers that made Olympics/WC

I know Noah Ngeny (2000 olympic 1500m winner, 2nd fastest mile of all time, world record holder for 1000m) didn't start running until after high school. There have been other Kenyan runners(just can't think of right off of the top of my head) who didn't start running till later on. Jack Foster(new Zealand runner who held the master record for the marathon back in the 70s) didn't start running until his early 30s. Bill Rodgers, although he ran college. He did quit for a few years after college. Than started running again to become one of the greatest US marathon runners. Mark Nenow did not start running until his senior year of high school. Just did wrestling till than. Just in that year he ran a sub 4:20 mile, close to 9 minutes for two miles and won the Minnesota state championship for xc. He went on to become the American record holder for 10000m and still holds the US road 10k record.

Abdi didn’t start running until college, but he did play soccer for a while.

Kimetto had the marathon WR even though he didnt start training professionally until he was 26...

Not sure whether he ever made the olympics though ?

Letsrun is not the cool wrote:

Kimetto had the marathon WR even though he didnt start training professionally until he was 26...

Not sure whether he ever made the olympics though ?

All good and well, but I'm realistic that I'm probably not going to break the marathon world record, and these "random" (Yes, I know Kimetto, but you know what I mean), Kenyans that pop up aren't exactly relateable to me.

Similarly, other world beaters are great but I'm more curious about guys that hit 1:45, or 3:34 in their late 20s for the first time. Guys that I can more realistically aspire to be like

You really call a guy who starts after high school and runs the second fastest mile ever a year or so later a "late bloomer"?

The best example is Hamou Boutayeb. He started running in his early thirties and just a couple of years later made a WR attempt and then caused all kinds of problems in the Olympic final.

late comer wrote:

I'm asking for examples of athletes that bloomed late to make their first team in their late 20s.

Dick Burkle, former indoor mile world record holder (1978) and two-time US Olympic Team member (1976 and 1980), only ran a 4:28 mile in high school. He was 29 in 1976. (By junior year at Villanova he had improved to 8:46 in the 2-mile, so maybe he doesn't qualify as a "late bloomer"?)

Pfitzinger was solid but unspectacular before winning the trials. Ruth Wysocki, same story.

Bill Rogers

/EOT/

Guys like Nick Symonds and CLayton Murphy took a bit more time to develop, they were good but not quite great in high school. Then in college they got really good.

Jaouad Gharib had no interest in distance running until he was 20. His first international competition was when he was 29. He was 36 when he famously dueled with Sammy Wanjiru at the 2008 Olympic Marathon.

latebloomer wrote:

Guys like Nick Symonds and CLayton Murphy took a bit more time to develop, they were good but not quite great in high school. Then in college they got really good.

Murphy was an Olympic medalist at age 21. A late bloomer? LOL!

Krista Duchene

Look up Kerri Gallagher - ran at Fordham, by no means great, don’t think she was ever close to AA.

A couple of years post college, made the WC team for 1500, in 2015 I believe. I think advanced one or two rounds at worlds.

She got sick or injured or something so 2016 was a bust unfortunately. Not sure if she still trains.

Sara Vaughn spent most of her 20s just trying to make finals, and finally made a WC team in '17 at age 31.

Paul Evans - was a soccer player until the age of 25. He made the Barcelona Olympic 10000m final, had a best of 27:47.79, , also ran a 1:01:55 half and a 2:08.52 marathon to win in Chicago in 1996 at the age of 35.

Steve Jones didn't start seriously until he was in the RAF and about 20.

You are asking about two very different features of a runner's career. First, you want someone who is a late bloomer, who runs PBs later in life. Second, you want someone who improves incrementally, but steadily. As you put it, you want "a gradual progression of 1-2 seconds for several years."

As people have pointed out, there are plenty of examples of late bloomers. It's harder to find examples of runners who improve gradually and steadily. Most runners are like Gallagher and Vaughn, who were both stuck and then dropped big (4/5 second) PBs. Those who don't have big jumps in their PBs tend to be inconsistent, with season's bests that jump around quite a bit. For the 1500, two examples are Ben Blankenship and Garrett Heath. Both took 5+ years to go from 3:40 to 3:34, and neither dropped their PB by more than 2 1/2 seconds. But neither ran consistently faster every year.

(You can look at their progressions on their IAAF Athlete Profile pages, which have a tab showing progressions by event. It makes for fascinating reading.)

latecomer asked: I'm asking for examples of athletes that bloomed late to make their first team in their late 20s.

I don't have data on "making their first team," but I do have data on medalists.

the average age at which male athletes earn their FIRST medal in international tournaments is in their mid to late twenties. the precise figures are shown in the following table:

average age at first medal - men

event / mean / values

400m 23.44 (n = 177, sd = 1.84)

800m 23.78 (n = 166, sd = 2.33)

1500m 24.42 (n = 153, sd = 2.23)

5000m 25.01 (n = 116, sd = 2.73)

10,000m 25.83 (n = 145, sd = 3.02)

this table says that of 153 medalists surveyed at the 1500m, their average age at first medal was 24.42 years, and the standard deviation was 2.23 years, which means that the "normal" range is 22.19 - 26.65 years.

the oldest medalist at each of the middle distance events is as follows:

400m Mark Kiprotich Mutai (KEN) 32 years, 200 days

800m Osmar Barbosa dos Santos (BRA) 35 years, 138 days

1500m Mike Boit (KEN) 33 years, 276 days

3000m Bernard Lagat (USA) 35 years, 92 days

5000m Miruts Yifter (ETH) 36 years, 78 days

10,000m Dieter Baumann (GER) 37 years, 179 days

examples of athletes who won their first medal at greater than average age:

(note: I have excluded sub-saharan Africans, so that you have something to "relate" to)

800m - age limit 25 years

fname / sname / code / age

Johnny Gray USA 32.1288

Albert Hill ENG 31.4000

Erik Byléhn SWE 30.5425

Roger Moens BEL 30.3534

Nick Symmonds USA 29.6192

Marcel Hansenne FRA 29.5808

Noel Clough AUS 29.2877

Willi Wülbeck FRG 28.6411

Arthur Wint JAM 28.1890

Rick Wohlhuter USA 27.5863

Frank Handley ENG 27.2849

Paul Schmidt FRG 27.0329

Rich Kenah USA 27.0110

Philip Edwards BGU 26.8822

Tony Blue AUS 26.8082

Rune Gustafsson SWE 26.7288

Heinz Ulzheimer FRG 26.5671

Bram Som NED 26.4767

Piotr Piekarski POL 26.3863

Ben Cayenne TRI 26.3425

Alfred Tysoe ENG 26.3205

Jorma Harkonen FIN 26.3123

José Luíz Barbosa BRA 26.2658

Hans-Peter Ferner FRG 26.2575

Tomás de Teresa ESP 25.9397

Bevil Rudd RSA 25.8658

Gary Reed CAN 25.8548

Luciano Sušanj YUG 25.8164

Earl Eby USA 25.7452

Achraf Tadili CAN 25.7041

Alberto Juantorena CUB 25.6411

Audun Boysen NOR 25.3014

Seymour Newman JAM 25.2384

David Hall USA 25.2082

Hermann Engelhard GER 25.1096

Lukáš Vydra CZE 25.0000

1500m - age limit 25 years

fname / sname / code / age

Driss Maazouzi FRA 31.8247

István Rózsavölgyi HUN 31.4384

Johan Cronje RSA 31.3479

Philip Noel-Baker ENG 30.7973

José Luis González ESP 29.7452

Carsten Schlangen GER 29.5781

Charles Bennett ENG 29.5452

Mahiédine Mekhissi-Benabbad FRA 29.4247

Mário Silva POR 29.1096

Eino Purje FIN 28.4493

Peter O'Donoghue NZL 28.3425

John Whetton ENG 28.0384

Juan Carlos Higuero ESP 28.0164

Leonel Manzano USA 27.9014

Arturo Casado ESP 27.5068

Jim Spivey USA 27.5014

Francesco Arese ITA 27.3397

Steve Scott USA 27.2767

Terence Sullivan RHO 27.2329

Manuel Olmedo ESP 27.2027

Branko Zorko CRO 27.1068

Han Kulker NED 27.0438

William Whyte AUS 27.0192

Glenn Cunningham USA 27.0055

Anthony Whiteman ENG 26.8548

Jürgen Straub GDR 26.7425

Adil Kaouch MAR 26.6055

Henry Eriksson SWE 26.5863

Tom Birger Hansen DEN 26.5342

Gunnar Nielsen DEN 26.4301

Youssef Saad Kamel BRN 26.3918

Erik Jørgensen DEN 26.3452

Alan Simpson ENG 26.2274

Alan Simpson ENG 26.2274

Joseph Mostert BEL 26.1123

Josef Odložil TCH 25.9425

David Campbell CAN 25.9205

Eamonn Coghlan IRL 25.7836

Miklós Szabó (1908) HUN 25.7534

Henri Deloge FRA 25.6466

Dan Waern SWE 25.6000

Lawrence Shields USA 25.4575

Hauke Fuhlbrügge GER 25.4493

William Nankeville ENG 25.4274

Abdelaati Iguider MAR 25.3699

David Moorcroft ENG 25.3397

Henryk Szordykowski POL 25.2986

Josy Barthel LUX 25.2548

Jens-Peter Herold GER 25.2493

Lennart Strand SWE 25.2000

Gerald Backhouse AUS 25.1863

Rashid Ramzi BRN 25.0658

cheers

Trained with this guy he was always good but ran 1:45 mid twenties and made world champs team. He'd done more 1500's and longer distance when younger

Never saw anyone finish ahead of him on any rep!

https://www.thepowerof10.info/athletes/profile.aspx?athleteid=949