nick symmonds, the 21st century reincarnation of peter snell?

The similar body type and close race times are about as far as you'll go with this comparison. When the most important measure is made -- performance relative to the competition -- this comparison is, at least currently, not a very favourable one for Mr. Symmonds. But give him time, as his career is on the upswing, it seems. (Plus, the 800 currently lacks a superstar in the order of Coe and Kipketer).

Go Symmonds Go wrote:

Symmonds has won several Prefontaine's, defeated the 2004 Oly Champ on several occassions. He is still a runner on the rise.

You know, winning a WC or Oly G's, is literally great, there are tons of fine runners who never accomplish this in their lives. The "gold or your nothing" mentality is a pretty sick one.

Though Oly gold is not the only thing that makes good I have it as the mosst important thing-

Oly Gold

WC Gold

current WR

Oly silver

Former WR

WC silver

Oly Bronze

WC Bronze

Big stage victory's ie Golden league, super grand prix commonwealth games, euro champs etc.

PB

using this list is Snell>>>>Symonds

There are many runners from yesteryear who given the technology (shoes, tracks, competition) of today who would've been even better than they were. Snell is one. That grass track time is unreal.

I look at Henry Rono -- a guy who wasn't super serious about training -- as a guy who could've even been better.

Jim Ryan ran 3:51 on cinders. Lindgren was pretty unreal as a prep and collegiate who needed better direction. Guys like Peter Elliott, Ron Clark, even going back to Nurmi and Zatopek, you gotta wonder what they would do with today's technology.

I don't think Symmonds is in Snell's league because Snell is one of the greatest of all time. That said, I hope Symmonds becomes Snell. He's still young and has many medal opportunities in front of him.

track fann wrote:

Someone above said Symmond's future is in the 1500? That's retarded. Why is it once American runners reach world class level in 1 event everyone suggests that runner's future is in the next higher distance. People say that for Webb. Webb is obviously best as a miler (3:30, 3:46 top 10 all time). Symmonds is obviously best as an 800 guy running 1:43 which has to be one of the best in the world right now. Stupid comment. Moving up in distance is not always the way to go especially for someone who is a medal contender at his current event.

I agree with you about Symmonds (and people's attitudes in general). He hasn't done much to suggest that he'd be a top miler. However, I disagree about Webb. Yes, he's a great miler. But he's also shown that he can run a fast 10k. So I think suggesting that he get into a fast 3k/5k is a legitimate opinion.

Who measured Snell's grass 880 anyway?

is it wrong that I think Peter Snell is hotter?

xxx wrote:

it is worth at least 1.5sec per lap, i.e. he would be close

to WK's WR.

While I don't doubt Snell is one of the 3 greatest 800m runners of all tme, it is ridiculous to suggest that his run would be worth 3 seconds faster on todays tracks. To do that, he'd still have to cover 12m more each lap than he did.

The grass track he run on wouldn't have been some turfed up rugby pitch, it was a perfectly kept (think Wimbledon Centre court) flat 400m (I don't know where an other poster got the idea it was 5 curves from!?) track in warm, sunny conditions.

If we believe what some posters on here say about grass and cinder tracks, then all the best runners were from the '60's. Tennis players have improved, swimmers have improved, but athletes!, there not as good now as they were in the '60's!

Get some perspective. Take Snell from 1962 and put him on a modern track and he would run perhaps 0.5 faster per lap max. That gives him low 1:43 ability. Which is not to say that would be the case if you took a 16 year old Snell into 2000 and trained him using today's techniques. How fast he could then run is impossible to say.

I am a big fan of Nick's

however - this is a totally unfair comparison

based on current and past accomplishments.

would suggest reading

"No bugles No Drums" which you can still find some copies of ...to get a sense of how good

Snell was and how hard he worked.

Snell was a winner. Symonds can only beat other Americans...at Hayward Field.

Not sure today's coaching techniques are that great, to be honest. I'd stack some old coaches like Lydiard and Bowerman up with today's coaches, who over-analyze everything.

Heck, Seb Coe's dad was his coach, and he wasn't that experienced. (Who was Ovett's coach?)

Snell probably got the best coaching possible. What would've helped him was today's shoe and track technology and deeper, competitive fields.

The coaches today are no great shakes, IMO, especially the American ones, who rarely produce distance medalists in the Worlds or Olympics.

Salazar, Hudson, Schumaker, Vigil, all are very good and well-respected. Start putting some guys on that medal stand and I'll be even more impressed.