This has been hashed out too many times and is like comparing apples and oranges, track/XC vs road. Nobody even comes remotely close to Kipchoge’s marathon dominance, at least as dominant if not more compared to Bekele in XC or 5K/10K.
those guys all competed in the same events. kipchoge not in the same universe. he has his own thing. it's not the same as what they have.
we are talking about guys with world record ability from 3k to marathon vs a guy with world record ability in ONE event.
Not in the same universe...except when he beat Bekele and El G at 5000 for gold at the WC in the early 2000s....
He didn't take up the marathon until he was well past his prime. He ran a what 2:04:XX at age 35+. Imagine if he had run it 10 years earlier, that's gotta be worth 2 min easy. And now add in that he didn't have the cheat shoe "technology" that is prevalent today which is probably worth another 1:30. He could easily have the current WR and maybe gone sub-2:01 on a record eligible course.
At the start of the 2010 season, things looked good for Bekele coming off double gold 5/10 at the Berlin WC meet. But he tried to start his season with a 1500 dustbuster and dropped out. That was the end for Bekele as a dominant track athlete. His "focus" was not the problem, it was injury. He ran good races after that, but never dominated again. Also note, Kipchoge handily beat Mo Farah on a 2-mile on the track in winter 2012--but he could not make the Kenyan 10K Olympic team (raced in Eugene at Pre) a few months later. Until 2010-2012, Bekele had the better career. After that, Kipchoge for sure. But in very different disciplines. Sure, Bekele has a great marathon PR, but he ain't no Kipchoge in the marathon.
AND Bekele is only 2 seconds slower in the marathon...
You mean he once came within 2 seconds of Kipchoge’s WR on the same course, the man who also holds 3 of the four fastest marathon times and 4 of the 6 marathon major titles, some several times over? Is your point that that makes Bekele comparable to Kipchoge on road as well? It doesn’t. Kipchoge beat Bekele on track a few times, but the opposite has never happened on road, not once and not even close even though they raced each other on road at least 4 times.
Their rivalry spanning almost two decades is legendary and to be celebrated, but picking a winner between the two is silly. Kipchoge is frighteningly dominant in marathons. When he runs, he controls the pace from the front, and when he takes off after mile 18, 20, or 24 or whatever, it’s a clear challenge thrown to the others in the lead pack and they consistently defer to him and let him go with hardly a chase. It’s the same kind of devastating dominance Bekele demonstrated in many XC and 5K/10K track races, but doing it over the marathon distance with as much consistency as Kipchoge for like a decade is also unprecedented.
I never said Kipchoge hasn't been dominant in the marathon. He's been an absolute beast. He's the best marathoner ever. Not a debate.
but in 50-75 years when all of us are gone to tell the tales of his dominance, the times they ran and the medals they won is how they will be considered. (I've read about many amazing dominant athletes that competed before i was born, but never experienced it. That's why the hypothetical comparison threads on this board are meaningless - its impossible to put runners from different eras against each other in a race)
Kipchoge and Bekele raced each other in the same era though, so its easy to compare. Bekele is a much better track runner, Kipchoge, marathoner despite being only 2 seconds faster.
He didn't take up the marathon until he was well past his prime. He ran a what 2:04:XX at age 35+. Imagine if he had run it 10 years earlier, that's gotta be worth 2 min easy. And now add in that he didn't have the cheat shoe "technology" that is prevalent today which is probably worth another 1:30. He could easily have the current WR and maybe gone sub-2:01 on a record eligible course.
He ran 2:03:59 in Berlin 2008 marathon at age 35. First sub 2:04 ever. He also pooped a sub 27 minute 10k that year too. Simply insane
He didn't take up the marathon until he was well past his prime. He ran a what 2:04:XX at age 35+. Imagine if he had run it 10 years earlier, that's gotta be worth 2 min easy. And now add in that he didn't have the cheat shoe "technology" that is prevalent today which is probably worth another 1:30. He could easily have the current WR and maybe gone sub-2:01 on a record eligible course.
He ran 2:03:59 in Berlin 2008 marathon at age 35. First sub 2:04 ever. He also pooped a sub 27 minute 10k that year too. Simply insane
They're the ideal of human subsisting on a diet and culture that has been used since ancient days. What we see as remarkable is only remarkable and impossible is because we're looking at it from the perspective of Westernized culture. Western culture is fairly modern and is typified by a less natural diet and a less active lifestyle than Ethiopian culture and Kenyan tribal culture.
Basically, they're eating and living largely in ways humans were meant to live for millennia. Western culture is largely based on industrialization and with it the less healthy lifestyles and diets that came along.
This has been hashed out too many times and is like comparing apples and oranges, track/XC vs road. Nobody even comes remotely close to Kipchoge’s marathon dominance, at least as dominant if not more compared to Bekele in XC or 5K/10K.
those guys all competed in the same events. kipchoge not in the same universe. he has his own thing. it's not the same as what they have.
we are talking about guys with world record ability from 3k to marathon vs a guy with world record ability in ONE event.
I'm not sure how long you've been in this sport, but to me, eighteen-year-old Kipchoge's 2003 5,000m world championship over El G. (who would win the Olympic gold medal in the event the following year) and K. Bekele (the then-current world record holder in the event) may have been the highlight of Kipchoge's career. I don't have any real doubt that he was "in the same universe" as Geb and Bekele in the longer track distances. (I somewhat discount most of his marathon victories because they occurred in rabbited time-trials or races in which Kipchoge had superior shoe technology unavailable to the majority of his competitors. But I was very impressed by his 2021 Olympic victory, in which he gapped the entire lead pack by about eighty seconds over the last 10k or so. Bekele's success in cross-country tilt in his favor over Kipchoge and Geb, but I'm unwilling to say that any of the three is the GOAT of distance-running, though I am perhaps a bit inclined toward Kipchoge in light of (1) his relative consistency at or near the top for close to two decades and (2) my general bias in favor of anyone who can be so dominant in the marathon for such a long time.)
He didn't take up the marathon until he was well past his prime. He ran a what 2:04:XX at age 35+. Imagine if he had run it 10 years earlier, that's gotta be worth 2 min easy.
I think that’s clearly a faulty assumption. There are numerous key examples of marathoners performing well into their mid-late thirties. It’s not like the 800 when most people peak in their early-mid twenties. Why didn’t Carlos Lopes run 2:05 in his twenties? Why didn’t Keira D’Amato run 2:17 in her twenties? Why was Geb 3rd in his 2002 marathon debut and didn’t run his lifetime best until 2008? Why did it take Kipchoge 6 years of marathoning to run the WR? The answer is probably that any decrease in speed or anaerobic power is more than offset by the adaptations from 2 decades+ of endurance training.
There is the name of Abebe Bekila but no place for Haile Genreselassie.
For some reason Haile Gebreselassie is not too much trusted as consistency.
There was a name of a Chinese 5000 women recorder (1996) and they removed it.
It's a pity Aouita could have a place there (any way he is more "autentic" champion than someone like Moceli who profited from the context of that time) but there a lot of circumstances that played against him among them the to use a brain in a optimized way.
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