Interview with Daniel Komen

He also had some great races.

Zurich 1996 against Haile
Zurich 1997 against Haile
Berlin 1997 against El G
World Champs 1997 -- split a nasty quarter mile in the middle of the race to bust the race open.

Over which distance?

Over 3000m it's a tall order for him. He was a very good 1500m/mile guy for the era at 3.29.46 and 3.46.38 - but that's no J.I. That's just a speed issue - I think Jakob is still the best (and now greatest) 3000m runner the world has ever seen. Elite threshold and endurance packaged with sub 3.27 1500m/sub 3.44 mile speed? Komen can't match that.

5000m might be different. These guys who ran sub 12.40 - especially back in the 90's (Geb, Komen) well before even Bekele - these are the super interesting cases to think about.

These were Komens splits from the 97 500m WR.

2.32.05, 2.30.26, 2.34.91, 2.31.31, 2.31.22.

Clearly that opening 3000m is a wild one with the 2nd and 3rd km split varying by 4.65 seconds which is in terms of distance on the track almost 30m. Hard to make a case that was the most efficient way to run that race - especially when you compare to the WR of Cheptegei which went 2.32.7, 2.32.0, 2.31.0, 2.30.6 and 2.29.1 thanks of course to wavelight.

I don't think it's a crazy statement to say Komen might have been a better talent and 5000m runner than Cheptegei. Given access to the same technology which again also suits his physiology? I think it's reasonable to think that Komen may have run well under 12.35 and probably closer to the 12.33's. Can Jakob match that? Given that we are just speculating based on his 7.17 and the multiple 13.10'ish global titles he's won well, I just don't know. I like Komens chances over 5000m vs Jakob more than I do over 3000m, let's put it that way.

Obviously you'd back Jakob, but Komen certainly ran in a fashion that is more challenging than the current Ethiopian playbook at 5,000 of...doing nothing until the last 3 laps?

I mean this is a great race to pull up - it's another potential "how you might beat Jakob in a championship 5" blueprint race (along with the Bekele 2008 OG).

They hit 3000m in 8.05.15 with Komen back in maybe 8.05.8 but the move he makes with 1950m to go is just out of this world. That lap ends up being 56.5, the next lap is 60.2 (a 1.56.7 800m in the middle of a 5000m) and his 4th kilometer is 2.27.7. Final km is 2.33.89 but he's so far ahead it's hard to put that in context and he's clearly just ambling along in that final 600m no impetus at all. And despite all this - the final 2000m is still 5.01.6. Wow.

So the difference between this and the 08 race is obviously when Bekele starts that drive, it's the drive for home. Like when he goes it's just a slow turning of the screws which builds into the final 400m which is under 54 and if you are Jakob you have no choice but to go. This is completely different because the initial acceleration is so savage it puts you in a tough spot of "do I actually cover this" or "do I try and run my own race and hope I can pull him back in the final 600m"? How brave are you to let Daniel Komen go maybe 40m up the track on you - even if you have the power to possibly close that down eventually.

So I dunno if I default back Jakob here - this actually is a way better hypothetical race than the 08 one - nice work TL.

Salvatore. I love your posts but I have to disagree here.

We are failing to accept advantages runners have nowadays.

Tracks were not "bad" per se 25-30 years ago but they are definitely faster now.

Had a peak Komen been running in this Era he can take the record from Jakob when he wants. No disrespect to Jakob but unless he runs 7:14, Komen gets my nod with today's tech.

You should watch some races from the 2010s and get back to us. I think you’ll be amazed at how awful pacing typically was back then. Even an historically incredible race like the Brussels 5k in 2018 was run terribly. Those guys opened in 59 and ran close to 2:40 for their second kilometer yet still finished in 12:43, 12:45, 12:46. That easily could’ve been a sub 12:40 race (without super spikes) if those guys had lights to follow. And you can find countless other examples.

You know I thought about investing some time to respond with some actual evidence/logic instead of just "it's not that hard to know what pace you're going at" but you know what, I really feel in this instance it would be a complete and utter waste of time. So whatever dude, tell yourself what you need to.

That's cool - we can agree to disagree, but we aren't really are we?

My narrative isn't that runners don't have advantages these days at all - I literally wrote in my post that wavelight is a quote "massive" advantage which I think it is. With respect to tracks and track tech you can choose to believe me or not, but I have some knowledge on surfaces throughout the last 25+ years and that mondo surface that Rieti had installed in the mid to late 90's was as fast as any track surface we have today. Less cushion but over 3000m that is probably still a benefit when you look at all offsetting parameters.

So correct me if I'm wrong but you think Komen is a 7.14 (sub 7.14?) performer with todays track, shoes, tech? I mean that's quite a bold statement there - I think saying he could run low 7.18's is pretty bold, but you're also entitled to your opinion. Peace.

I have Komen with shoes and wavelength right with Jacob.

and maybe better with a couple seconds with bicarb

then again I have Komen on PEDs

the Rieti track, don't know anything about it, except the stats are way strange, and you conclude it's much faster than average.

and Jacob has medical backing that i think is legal for several seconds advantage.

who's better all said?

no clue.

but if Jacob throws down 324 and breaks 1230 by many seconds, that I think is possible, I hand off the GOAT middle distance crown him.

i am considering 10k to marathon, cross as another category. where I have Bekele as GOAT.

Interview was great - I honestly thought Komen was dead for some reason.

His training was just wild - 3 a days, 30KM per day, like 18 miles per day, 120+ miles per week.

Very humble and I believe him discipline and hard work is what matters. He seems to respect Jakob a lot as well.

another thread of people comparing people from different era. it ultimately doesn't matter what advantages you had in your era. whoever wins the most championship races in any given era is the best runner of that era. lots of people talking about how komen didn't have access to super shoes, superior tracks, and wave lights, but we can't pretend like komen wasn't in an era when EPO couldn't be detected. komen was the best 2 miler in his era and jakob was the best 2 miler in his era. whoever had higher win ratio in championship races in the 3000/2mile is the better runner. end of discussion. close this thread. thanks.

Kenyan museums are not very good.

my claim to fame is running against komen at the junior world cross country championship in 1994. he obviously smoked me (he finished 2nd) but just being able to say i have traced him is pretty cool

3,000 on up.

The modern spikes are worth roughly a second per lap. That puts Komen at 7:14. And that's ignoring the other modern advantages benefiting Jakob.

Where did you pull that stat? Your butt?

That is still the coolest part of this to me. Splitting the same time as the first sub 4 and then doing it again for the first sub 8. That's poetry. I remember in the live thread during Jakob's attempt it was pointed out that he split like 4:00/3:54 or something like that. An incredible run but I personally love that Komen broke the world record with true back to back sub fours and is still alone in that. The fact that it matched Bannister's time so perfectly is just gravy. What a runner!

You know this could have been on the running conspiracy theory thread because I know/knew more than one person that swears there was something weird with the track or in the very least it's markings (this was the old surface prior to when they resurfaced it in the early 2000's).

I knew a Swedish agent called Kenth Andersson (RIP big Ken) - he was the agent of Wilson Kipketer when he had just moved to Denmark in the early 90's and was rising to prominence and he told me that he was convinced that Rieti track had something up with it. He said two guys from Sweden once took a measuring wheel to the track at some random time to try and get some intel and had the police called on them and were asked to leave.

Either way Rieti was just an awesome place to run. The track was hard and very fast irrespective and at 1300 ft it was this sort of perfect altitude where the air was slightly less dense than sea level but basically no difference in effective oxygen %. The meet was strategically placed in the calendar usually within a week of Van Damme which was usually a week or so after the world champs so by the time it rolled around a lot of the athletes were still operated on their world champ fitness but at the same time had started to really shut down any sort of training so were just really race sharp. It was also a super low stress meet because of it's location and the stadium wasn't a big like Zurich, Berlin or Brussels which were the traditional post WC meets so the athletes were usually super relaxed. No wind there in early September - it was known as the "temple of middle distance running" for a reason.

The 3000 and 2 mile are not really championship events, so...

How many of these were legit record attempts from the gun? And it doesn't matter if tons of races were badly paced. Your best time would be in a race where things gets paced better. As long as there were some well paced races, the opportunity to set the quick times existed.