Who's the GOAT: Sifan Hassan or Faith Kipyegon?

Agree, advantage Kipyegon, like Bekele > Kipchoge at that age. Could we see them both transition to the marathon permanently and see Hassan start dominating and Kipyegon slip, like Kipchoge > Bekele?

If you are not sure if a WR + OG + WC at 10000m from Hassan have a great relevance, than your posts are not worth reading.
1:56.81 + 2:18:33 for sure are also important for the subject.

No obvious decision, but for me Hassan at the moment is the greatest in the history of women's distance running.

I agree that the GOAT conversation is between these three, but I think Dibaba's legacy might be slightly overrated just because the depth in women's running has gotten so much stronger in the last decade. No disrespect to Kara Goucher, but she wouldn't be sniffing any global medals nowadays.

I would've put Hassan first going into this year, but now it's Kipyegon by a hair after 3 WRs. I suspect the gap will only grow as Kipyegon moves up to longer distances.

I thought dibaba was pinched? Or is there another dibaba?

I don't think this is fair. The majority of Faith's fast times came in wavelight-paced time trials. Sifan has run extraordinarily fast in actual races, and many of her most extraordinary times are actually splits rather than overall finishing time. Additionally, Sifan is far more exciting than Kipyegon, who has mostly played it safe throughout her career. While I agree that it's advantage Kipyegon, it's much closer than this summary suggests imo

Edit: And let's not forget that Kipyegon has yet to run a 10k, let alone run, and win, a major marathon.

In conclusion: Kipyegon by a HAIR

Edit 2: Head to head record is misleading as well, since all of (or most) of their head to heads have been at Faith's signature distance.

I've long believed that Kipyegon is the best female in world athletics and until this year she was the most underrated track and field athlete of all time.

Her duels with Hassan were always a huge part of the equation. Going back a full decade they've had some incredible sprint finishes. It was obvious both were all time greats and capable of significantly faster final times than were being required at the time. In those days it was always tense jockeying for position before somebody went and the other immediately followed.

For all the cynics who observe final times alone, I'm not surprised at all that they were totally incapable of looking at those early Kipyegon/Hassan encounters with any clue toward the caliber, or what it meant long term.

Doping cynics are dependably baffled and oblivious and overmatched. They carry that throughout life, in every realm. Every year they settle for a name here or a name there, while desperately hoping for the big score. It's like stoopers at the race track.

I'd place Kipyegon first. But I don't have any complaint with anyone who prefers Hassan and greater versatility. Kipyegon chose to specialize. That carries positives and negatives.

Sifan is like Geb, Kipyegon like El G.

Each better than the other for different reasons.

I would have loved to see Sifan just be a thoroughbred 1,500m runner and battle it out for the WR. I think she has it in her.

Neither: Tirunesh Dibaba 100%

Please kindly remove yourself from the discussion.

How can you not mention Hassan's world record in the 10k? She has the world record for the 1 hour run and had the road 5k world record.

Hassan ran 3:51.95 in the 1500 at the 2019 World Championships. This was AFTER she won the 10k and ran prelim rounds of the 1500. This is is INIFINITELY more impressive than Kipyegon's 1500 and 1 mile world record with rabbits, wavelight, and super spikes. There were no superspikes in 2019.

If you rewatch that 1500 you'll agree it was more impressive. She led the whole way, didn't start trying until the last 200 and ran a sub 60 last lap while looking back every 10 meters like an idiot.

Rre-read my post a bit closer. I literally start by Faith's times are better but beyond that "it is quite close." We are coming to the same conclusion of "Kipyegon by a hair." I spend more time talking about Kipyegon to explain why I come down giving her the edge.

"the majority of Faith's fast times came in wavelight-paced time trials" is a bit unfair as if she didn't go 3:56/3:53 in 48 hours in Tokyo, 3:52 FTW in Eugene, and 3:54 in Doha, and also misses that the same is true for Sifan.

Sifan:

800m PB - Rabbited in Monaco.

1500m PB - Yeah that Doha race was nuts - seeing that live in the stadium is an experience I'll never forget

Mile PB - Rabbited in Monaco

5000m PB - Rabbited, wavelight-paced

10000m PB - Rabbited wavelight-paced

So all but her Doha PB are either Monaco or wavelight.

If you take both athletes and their all time top 10 marks by point score on their WA profiles, for Sifan 8 are rabbited Diamond Leagues with at least four being wavelight races, and for Faith it is also 8 rabbited DL races with four or five wavelight. It's just the nature of the sport.

That's the thing. Maybe if Sifan hadn't doubled she would have done better head to head vs. Kipyegon if she hadn't doubled or tripled so much. But the key word there is *if*. We don't know and we will never know. All we know is that on the day Kipyegon has won in world finals 4/5 times. That's a hard fact.

I'd say head-to-head definitely matters here. Being pretty comprehensively beaten in championship finals by a fellow GOAT competitor matters. It's not the only thing - again I think Hassan is well rounded enough that it is still extremely tight (I made my username "pretty toight" for a reason!), but it definitely should be in consideration. Like c'mon, imagine walking into the Kipchoge vs Bekele debate and trying to pretend it's redundant that Bekele absolutely walked all over Kipchoge on the track and not crucial that Kipchoge counters that by being undefeated vs Bekele on the roads.

If you see the post I just made - I was watched the 2019 race live in Doha. Also sorry no, she was in the prototype superspike Victories that day. Almost all top Nike and NB athletes at that champs had some version of superspikes already.

You can clearly see the cut outs and air pockets under the front foot:

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Sifan Hassan (Netherlands). 1500 metres women Gold Medal. IAAF World Athletics Championships, Doha 2019 Stock Photo - Alamy

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Download this stock image: Sifan Hassan (Netherlands). 1500 metres women Gold Medal. IAAF World Athletics Championships, Doha 2019 - 2A36K12 from Alamy's library of millions of high resolution stock photos, illustrations and...

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And because Sifan doesn't have the WR in the 10k anymore - she held it for 2 days. Since she isn't the holder I didn't include it just like how she doesn't have the mile WR. If Sifan goes out at world's and breaks Faith's 5000m WR, I'm not going to count it that Faith still has a WR am I? I referenced the hour on the track but c'mon that's not a serious record.

She held the 5k road WR only after WA scrapped the prior world bests which included faster times and that mark (14:44) is barely be top 20 all time now so seems a bit redundant to the conversation.

one of the most impressive race performances of all time. idk if I agree that it's that its more impressive than 3:49, but it's close

It’s close enough that a race or two would reasonably change how they stack up against each other. I think Faith is in the lead after this summer, but I might have said something different right after London but before Faith popped off, especially her 5000 wr. However, if by some chance Hassan were to beat Faith in the 5000 in Budapest and win Chicago? Now, it’s Hassan even if Faith crushes everybody again in the 1500. Next year it could all change again based on Paris and another marathon major. I think they are both fantastic and worthy of nothing but praise, but as somebody else mentioned, I’ve preferred Hassan because of her penchant for doing crazy things. Faith has smashed wrs, but even her 3:49 was not as thrilling as Hassan’s Doha win or the London marathon. That was truly one of the most insane things I’ve seen in all my long years watching the sport. Hassan was dropped and fully destined to DNF, and then she wins?!?

Neither since they're both likely dopers. Hassan listed as "Passport suspicious" in the leaked USADA report. Kipyegon doing things no male runner can do.

The elephant in the room that none here will acknowledge. I trust their performances as much as I trust Kratochvilova, Flojo and "Ma's Army". I haven't seen doping as obvious since then and the Cold War era.

Kipyegon has done precisely one thing that no male runner can do.

This is the environment she comes from.

'In Kenya, there’s “a temptation to dope that’s like no other part of our sport, not even close,” said Brett Clothier, the head of the Athletics Integrity Unit, the independent body set up in 2017 to oversee international track and field’s anti-doping operations and which has been kept very busy by Kenya.'

Kenya has seen over 180 doping violations since 2017. So why would we trust Kipyegon's "superhuman" performances?

Benefited from postpartum Faith who's dusted her in every other championship final.