Who we should be talking about is Anna Gibson, former UW miler who graduated in 2023 and moved back home to Jackson Hole. She’s been crushing the trail scene, while still running on the track and improving (4:08 last year). She absolutely smoked the women’s ascent race yesterday. Great runner, athlete, skier, apparently gravel biker soon(?).
I'd say a 41 year old with elite marks across ceoss country, track and mountain running has more wear than a 37 yr old who does low impact skimo and Trail events. Kilian has no elite marks in anything outside of trail and skimo. Gray has excelled at every genre. Respect that man!
Gray barely has done any ultra distance races. His niche is great at shorter distance mountain running and xc, but let's be real his range is more limited to just 10km-half marathon.
How many times did Gray win Sierre-Zinal or UTMB or Western States or Zegama?
If there is "wear and tear" it's from doing all those longer distance mountain ultras that Kilian has crushed for the past 20 years.
I disagree. Gray has done well at sierre zinal btw. Also I think it takes more out of you and it's tougher to be great at shorter events such as events Gray has done. Look at elite track guys and road guys, they dont do it long because of the pure output and level of competition. Kilian had a lot of ultra victories which were nothing more than a moderate long run. Every time Kilian tried to be elite at anything like road racing, he got hurt immediately and wasn't able to sustain. Gray has done it all for 20 plus years. Kilian couldn't handle training for a 29:50 10k. Come on now
I disagree. Gray has done well at sierre zinal btw. Also I think it takes more out of you and it's tougher to be great at shorter events such as events Gray has done. Look at elite track guys and road guys, they dont do it long because of the pure output and level of competition. Kilian had a lot of ultra victories which were nothing more than a moderate long run. Every time Kilian tried to be elite at anything like road racing, he got hurt immediately and wasn't able to sustain. Gray has done it all for 20 plus years. Kilian couldn't handle training for a 29:50 10k. Come on now
You guys are idiots since you are not understanding our sport of running with different specialties.
Joe Gray is the best mountain runner the US had and very consistent too.
The Spaniard Kilian Jornet is one of the best mountain ultrarunner the world has seen. Something like Sierre Zinal might be the only overlap these two excellent runners have.
I disagree. Gray has done well at sierre zinal btw. Also I think it takes more out of you and it's tougher to be great at shorter events such as events Gray has done. Look at elite track guys and road guys, they dont do it long because of the pure output and level of competition. Kilian had a lot of ultra victories which were nothing more than a moderate long run. Every time Kilian tried to be elite at anything like road racing, he got hurt immediately and wasn't able to sustain. Gray has done it all for 20 plus years. Kilian couldn't handle training for a 29:50 10k. Come on now
You guys are idiots since you are not understanding our sport of running with different specialties.
Joe Gray is the best mountain runner the US had and very consistent too.
The Spaniard Kilian Jornet is one of the best mountain ultrarunner the world has seen. Something like Sierre Zinal might be the only overlap these two excellent runners have.
Fine. We can just look at Sierre Zinal then. Yes, it's a bit on the shorter side for Kilian (although remember he's won plenty of VKs and sub ultra SkyRaces in his day).
Kilian has won Sierre Zinal a record of 10 times and has the CR of 2:25 that he just set last year.
Again, how many times has Joe Gray won that race (Zero) and what's his best time there?
And you say "Kilian is one of the best mountain ultra runners"....lol, he's the GOAT. No comparison.
I'm talking about all around running. How many times has Kilian won high level cross country events, broken 29 mins for 10k, World titles (drug testing) unlike sierre zinal.... SZ has barely used real drug testing for most of kilians wins. They used "health program". Gray has been tried and tested at events with actual anti doping. Don't get me wrong, mountains only, it's hard to bet against kili but overall, Gray is by far ahead.
Kilian won everything there is to win in mountain and trail running, from 30 minutes to 24 hours long efforts. The idea that any currently active athlete could even approach his greatness is absolutely laughable.
Maybe there will be one in the future, but for now please join a Circus if you're actually entertaining it seriously.
He's in his late 30s, seems to be straying away from competitive running (he already quit competitive skimo afaik) and had a bad day, give him a break.
I'd say a 41 year old with elite marks across ceoss country, track and mountain running has more wear than a 37 yr old who does low impact skimo and Trail events. Kilian has no elite marks in anything outside of trail and skimo. Gray has excelled at every genre. Respect that man!
Ok, I agree to a certain extent but not across every genre as he has not competed at ultra distance (maybe a 50k but not many of those). He has specialized in shortish ascent races as that's his bread & butter.
I'm talking about all around running. How many times has Kilian won high level cross country events, broken 29 mins for 10k, World titles (drug testing) unlike sierre zinal.... SZ has barely used real drug testing for most of kilians wins. They used "health program". Gray has been tried and tested at events with actual anti doping. Don't get me wrong, mountains only, it's hard to bet against kili but overall, Gray is by far ahead.
Gray is a nobody on the international scene, come on now
He isn't known like Kili but to say a nobody is wild. Every elite knows him. He has beaten a lot of guys that dominate top 10 rankings at sierre zinal. Check world champs results the last few years. Kiriago has been top 3 at sierre zinal, Petro Mamu also. Both guys have been handily beaten by Gray over the years. The world and trail champs are more competitive events than the ultra scene for certain. If you dont know him, that's fair but it's not hard to respect someone's results from a neutral realm
When the camera man asks him what's in his bottle I literally laughed out loud thinking about David Roche's head imploding. If the dude wasn't so earnest I would think he was trolling.
