American high school JUNIOR runs 3:39.0!

Wankantanka wrote:

Well gee...Ryun made the US Olympic Team during a time when only AMATEUR athletes were allowed to compete, and most East Africans still didn't have a clue that they could dominate the running scene? That's just staggeringly fantastic isn't it?

You'll have to forgive me - my VCR recorded the wrong channel during the Trials. Which East Africans were it that ousted Webb from the 2000 US Olympic Trials? My memory is escaping me.

Ryun was better. Why? Because he ran 3:55 while beating Peter Snell, who'd just won the Olympic 1500 gold less than a year earlier in Tokyo.

Webb would have had to beat Noah Ngeny, or El G, to match Ryun's achievement.

Certainly Webb is a solid #2 best high school miler. And, his 3:46 is better than Ryun's 3:51, cinder track or not.

trolololololololololol wrote:

3:55 is no 3:53.

Ryun ran the 3:55 in focking leather boots on a crap dirt track without the benefit of any modern day training technology.

IIRC Ryun's 3:39 (again: just past his 17th birthday) made him something like the twelfth-fastest 1500 runner ever.

How fast is history's twelfth-fastest man now? Imagine an American high school kid doing that...

I agree with other posts: it's hard to convey how much people were in awe of Ryun's talent and ability. Peter Snell, who would go on to be named T&FN's Athlete of the 1960s, had been stunningly dominant--otherworldly--in Tokyo in 1964. Granted, he was not at his best in his 1965 North American tour, but still ran 3:55.x (he never broke 3:54 in his career), and an 18-year-old Ryun beat him.

Imagine El G running within two seconds of his mile record, and an American teenager beating him in the process, and you can get a sense of how American fans regarded Ryun back then.

kibitzer wrote:

IIRC Ryun's 3:39 (again: just past his 17th birthday) made him something like the twelfth-fastest 1500 runner ever.

Basically 12th fastest white dude in a sport that didn't pay anything at the time.

Ryun was absolutely amazing but the high school kids of today can't be compared against him in ways like this. It's not fair. It's also not fair to compare strictly on times.

Dennis Reynolds wrote:

kibitzer wrote:

IIRC Ryun's 3:39 (again: just past his 17th birthday) made him something like the twelfth-fastest 1500 runner ever.

Basically 12th fastest white dude in a sport that didn't pay anything at the time.

Ryun was absolutely amazing but the high school kids of today can't be compared against him in ways like this. It's not fair. It's also not fair to compare strictly on times.

Point taken. The idea, though poorly expressed, was not to compare HS performances then and now--you're right, conditions have changed tremendously and comparing teenagers in the 1960s and now if unfair--but simply to try to convey how shocking (to fans at the time) Ryun's performances were.

if a rider from the 18th century rode 53 miles for the hour record and was 10% better than anyone else in the history of cycling and Lance Armstrong rode 54 miles for the same duration, who was the more impressive athlete?

Ryun broke 4 min on a dirt track at the Kansas state meet when he was hs. When he ran 3:55 as a senior, I believe he was ranked in the top few in the world.

Alan Webb was unreal. However.....

Comparing Ryun to Webb is tricky, but some clarity needs to be had here.

Points:

1) Track surfaces ARE better now...there is no question about that, and those surfaces AND better shoes too do make a difference. Point in Ryun's favor. Enough to make him 2 seconds faster? Not sure and no way to tell.

2) I don't care really AT ALL how Ryun fared against the rest of the world...not as a comparison point to Webb anyway. Ryun did NOT run against all of the rest of the world. The area where all the best runners come from today had not yet exploded onto the world scene, so this can't be a point in Ryun's favor.

That's it pretty much.

kibitzer wrote:

Point taken. The idea, though poorly expressed, was not to compare HS performances then and now--you're right, conditions have changed tremendously and comparing teenagers in the 1960s and now if unfair--but simply to try to convey how shocking (to fans at the time) Ryun's performances were.

Definitly agree. Were you not just as shocked at Alan Webb in that Pre race? He almost beat Lagat. I tend to view them as equals in high school, it's tough for me to find one superior to the other. Post high school Ryun > Webb for me, tough to argue against an Olympic silver in one of the most shocking and unexpected 1500s run in history.

Dennis Reynolds wrote:

Definitly agree. Were you not just as shocked at Alan Webb in that Pre race? He almost beat Lagat. I tend to view them as equals in high school, it's tough for me to find one superior to the other. Post high school Ryun > Webb for me, tough to argue against an Olympic silver in one of the most shocking and unexpected 1500s run in history.

Ryun ran 3:59 as a 17 year old on a cinder track after getting bumped off of the track, becoming history's first sub 4 high school miler. He made the olympic team after his junior year in high school. He ran 3:58 on a cinder track completely solo in a high school only race. He beat the olympic gold and silver medalist from the previous year when he didn't even make it out of the semis. He ran within 2 seconds of the world record as an 18 year old high school boy and set an american record in the process.

Webb ran sub 4 indoors and bettered Ryun's outdoor record by less than 2 seconds.

It's really not that hard to compare.

Dennis Reynolds wrote:

[Definitely] agree. Were you not just as shocked at Alan Webb in that Pre race? He almost beat Lagat. I tend to view them as equals in high school, it's tough for me to find one superior to the other. Post high school Ryun > Webb for me, tough to argue against an Olympic silver in one of the most shocking and unexpected 1500s run in history.

I was indeed shocked by Webb's 3:53.

But "equals in high school"? Well, if we're going to compare Webb, whose big year was his senior year, and Ryun, then I think we have to look at Ryun's senior year, too.

*Ryun won the *national* championship (so we don't have to worry about EAfrican influence in the comparison)--he was the USA's best, beating the previous AR holder (Jim Grelle) in the process.

*Ryun was the country's best HS miler at a time when most states did not contest the two-mile, so the mile talent was not diluted by specialization at the longer distance.

*Ryun, running against strictly HS competition--not just HS competition but *in-state* HS competition--on a cinders track, and with no company at all for the last 600m or so, ran 3:58 in a race where second place finished 20+ seconds later.

*In the fall, Ryun also won the national postal two-mile--the closest thing that the country had to a national xc contest, and a competition that had a *lot* of participation by the US's best HS xc guys.

*As a senior, Ryun plausibly established himself as the US's best HS xc guy and, by a *wide* margin, its best HS miler. I would trade a HS career like his, compared to Webb's, in a heartbeat.

And Webb was a *GREAT* high school runner.

y7oi wrote:

I would choose a HS career like his, compared to Webb's, in a heartbeat.

Whoops. Fixed.

What exactly are you trying to say?? Because I don't get it.

Neubonics? wrote:

What exactly are you trying to say?? Because I don't get it.

What do you not get, Ryun had a much better high school career. I made that pretty clear.

speaker of truth wrote:

Neubonics? wrote:

What exactly are you trying to say?? Because I don't get it.

What do you not get, Ryun had a much better high school career. I made that pretty clear.

Ok - fair enough. Wasn't sure what conclusion you were trying to make.

Flagpole, I disagree about your assessment regarding the competition. Africans were on the world scene by then, it's simply that the modern training methods at that time hadn't been adapted in those countries. Kip Keino competed at Tokyo.

Ryun competed against the world's best at that time.

Webb was a great high school runner. Ryun was a world class runner in high school. Also put that 3:51.1 on a synthetic track and we're talking low 3:47's.

1500m:

13yrs: 4:13.40

14yrs: 3:54.1

17yrs: 3:46.52

18yrs: 3:39.11

yeppppp wrote:

webb was better.

Funny. Thanks I needed a smile today.

Kevin Sullivan high school wrote:

1500m:

13yrs: 4:13.40

14yrs: 3:54.1

17yrs: 3:46.52

18yrs: 3:39.11

Yea, but that was pretty much it for his career.