Does Nico Young have the best range of any US runner ever?

Most likely he had an half dozen of drug tests in like 5 years of running career...so he may be clean or not, but we have no evidence to say he is.

I think Lomong is the answer here. His 800 and 1500 are a considerable level better than Nico and his 5k/10k almost as good.

lol. as if everyone else mentioned there isn't a drug cheat as well.

For Armstronglivs, evidence is irrelevant.

Galen Rupp didn't live in the Nike Altitude house and sleep in a f*cking tent every night for years to be disrespected like this

Rupp was on the juicey juice!

Nonsense.

Rupp as a fresh 21 year old was 11th at the world championship 10,000m race. And then right after turning 22 he made the Beijing olympics where he was 13th. Then the next year at age 23 he was 8th at the world championships. Nico turns 22 this summer, so he needs to make the olympic team and be roughly 10th at the olympics to be doing what Rupp was doing at that age. And Rupp's PRs are better than Nico's and also showed he could run a good half and marathon. So Nico still has some work ahead of him, but he's off to a pretty good start.

Webb for sure. His 5 and 10K's were very very good for Americans when he ran them and beat Ritz in that 10K I thought in 27:33 -34?

1:43.86 to that 10K mark, kind of absurd, today with super shoes, and real pacing? He runs 27 low at worst

The relay splits are not relevant really.

Lomong was such a beast. While still agreeing that Lomong's range is exceptionally impressive, what I think is impressive about Nico's range is that he's run all of his best times from 800m to 10k within the span of 4-5 months. Some other athletes have years, even nearly a decade, between their best mid-distance times and their best long distance times (like Lomong's 800m and 1500m versus his 5,000m or 10,000m outdoor PRs). I'm not saying Nico has (or will have) better range than Lomong, just wanted to point out what a beast Nico is for having run 1:47 in the 800m and sub-26 10k in the same season – especially as a college kid.

This guy's range was mainly limited between 800 and mile Bests of 1:44.2 (y), and 3:33.1, 3:51.1, but also ran 8:25.2 two miles and 13:38.2 5K. Many of us wonder what his marks would be like with today's training. Yep, JRR.

True, but you're just giving reasons that Young has better range. Like, yeah, he gets the benefit of living at 7k' altitude, but that's just part of why his range is better at such a young age. Rupp ran the 800 once in 2010, the year he went pro, and ran 1:50. He ran 1:49 the year before (the year everyone says he magically got a kick btw). He did make a big jump in fitness in 2011, and a big jump in speed in 2012, but at his peak, while training specifically for the mile, he was a 3:34 guy, which Nico already is at age 21.

On this note, should also acknowledge that we are talking about *range* not about most impressive set of times. So, even with super shoes playing a factor, we can still somewhat compare shorter vs. longer distance times to see how spread apart they are.

The answer is and has been Webb for 15 years.

1:43 and, with today’s shoes his 10000m would be 27:15+/-. Nobody comes close

+1

While there aren’t many, there’s still far more 27 minute 10K guys in the world that can run a 146 or 147 800, than there are 143 800 guys that can run 27 minutes.

Unfortunately, as Fisher can attest, range doesn't win medals or major races.

I'd like to amend my predictions back to 12:50/26:35. The 5k was from January, and I don't think 12:57 is representative of where he is now. I think he was in better shape for NCAAs and the 10 than he was for that 12:57.

I'm really basing the 26:35 off of other guys in the field. I think Fisher was in the same shape (or slightly better) than 2022. Indoors, he almost broke the 2-mile WR leading the 2nd half, and he almost broke the 5k WR, running most of it completely solo.

IIRC, in 2022, Kincaid took Fisher and Ahmed through 8k on 26:44 pace, then they sped up once Kincaid dropped out and pulled out 26:33/4. This year, they went 5k at 27:00 pace, fell off the pace constantly, and didn't even catch the lights until 600 to go. Plus Nico spent a decent bit of time in lane 2 during the last k. If Nico was in a race like Fisher's 26:33, I think he'd be right behind him again. The 5k time just comes from interpolating that and his 1500.

I just want to bring up a star of the distant past: Marty Liquori

World Ranked #1 in mile/1500 a couple of times, and also at 5000. He had #2 US mile time and US 5000 record. He ran pretty good at XC in both HS (Van Cortlandt 2.5 mile record that stood for a while) and he also ran the 6 mile/ 10 k XC during and after college. Admittedly, his times don't hold up today, but that was 50 years ago on dirt tracks, rocks and big hills on the XC courses, and so on. He made the Olympic final at 1500 as a 19-year old college freshman, and ran on a broken foot or stress fracture (I recall) in the final. He was injured in 72 and 76, missing the Olympics then.

Determining who has the best range always confuses me. Does "better range" mean faster over a variety of distances, or does it mean having a larger range that's close to your own best.

This matters because Lagat was simply better than everyone else on this list (with the possible exception of Rupp). Anyone who runs 3:26 could with serious focus have run a very fast 800, probably sub-1:44, and with an outside chance at sub-1:43. But if Lagat "merely" ran the same 800 time as Webb, would that be considered lesser range since Webb's 800 ability was closer to his 1500 ability than Lagat's was?

Same with the 10k. Lagat's 5k best was 12:53, but that was in a race where he was second to Farah, who also ran 12:53. Farah's lifetime best in the 10k is 26:46, and could have been faster. Lagat also beat Bekele in a 12:59 race where Lagat closed in 51.9. Bekele's lifetime best is (of course) 26:17. Plus, Lagat was the 5k World Champ in 2007, and second in 2011. It's very likely he could have run well under 27:00 in the 10k, perhaps even 26:40.

Now maybe you think I'm overestimating Lagat, but he was the best American runner of recent vintage (again, with an argument for Rupp). If you're asking who could have won at the largest range of distances, I'm betting on Lagat. If you're asking who has the most similar ability across all events, it's probably someone we've never heard of.