VaporBoi wrote:
rojo wrote:
OP. First of all, I just want to say this is a GREAT question. When I first saw it, before I had time to think about it and do some research, I was like, "Could that possibly be true? I know Ryan was never 2nd in a major."
But then I did some research and it's not even close. Ryans marathon career is WAY, WAY better. Yes, Ryan Hall never was 2nd in a WMM. But comparing men's and women's marathoning isn't really fair at all as the depth is TOTALLY diifferent.
I guess you could say that Sara almost won today as she was second but she was 3:03 behind the winner. Guess how many times Ryan finished closer than that to the win at a major. 7. Yes, 7 times in Ryan's career he was closer than 3:03 to the win of a major. And then there were two other marathons where he made an Olympic team. So one could argue that Hall had 9 career marathons better than Sara's today.
Now I don't think it's quite that high but look at some of Ryan's best marathons below.
2007. Ryan runs 2:08;24 in London for 7th (had lead in at 30k). 43 seconds behind win
2007 - Hall DOMINATES US Trials.
2008 - Hall runs 2:06:17 in London for 5th but only 62 seconds off win.
2008 - 10th in Olympics (6:01 off win)
2009 - 3rd in Boston in 2:09:40 (58 seconds off win).
2009 - 4th in NY in 2:10:36. 81 seconds off win.
2010- 4th in Boston in 2:08:41. 2:49 off win.
2011 - 4th in Boston in 2:04:58 - 1:56 off win.
2011 - 5th in Chicago in 2:08:04 - 2:27 off win)
2012 - 2nd in Olympic Trials - 2:09:30
Rojo, this may be a difficult concept to grasp but 3 minutes when the winner is running almost 2:19 is very different than 3 minutes when they are running 2:05ish.
There are other people saying this so let's address it. First of all 3 minutes is not very different in a 2:19 versus a 2:05 race. Lets equalize the comparisons here. 3 minutes in a 139 minute race is 2.16% of the race, so instead of listing times that Ryan has been within 3 minutes of the winner, we should be listing times where he is within 2.16% of the total race time behind the winner, (being generous here and using his absolute shortest race time, 2:05) or 2 minutes and 42 seconds behind the winner, which only invalidates one race on there, Boston in 2010. So in conclusion, the very big difference that you allege Rojo couldn't grasp, was a whopping 18 seconds, and his argument and evidence is very much still intact.