Ryan Hall=Joan Benoit Samuelson?

This is so true. But then Meb's amazing career would not fit the original assertion that a modern marathoner can run be amongst the world's best only for a shortish period of time, but then he tipped his hand by saying that Joanie had it a lot easier back in her day than Hall does now -- as any African and even Japanese competition was non-existent for her. So if one is to use an "=" sign as Wejo did, my advice is not to use it at all if you're going to subsequently change the equation with "yeah buts" and "but ifs". Maybe Wejo should've included the dreaded asterisk in his equation, as well?

bootsie wrote:

"Yes, you nailed it. Ryan Hall has had an INCREDIBLE career."

"Incredible" is not an accurate description of Hall's career. He set one American record. He's had a few top 5 finishes in major marathons. His Olympics have been mediocre (or awful). He has dnf'd more than any other elite I can think of in recent memory. Now MEB has had an incredible career. Let's reserve the accolade for those who truly fit the bill.

Rojo makes the point that Joan Samuelson faced virtually no African competition, but fails to appreciate that the non-African competition was much better then than it is now. Grete Waitz, Ingrid Kristiansen, and Rosa Mota, to name the 3 most obvious examples, were great competitors whose best performances still hold up well to this day.

I would grant that women's marathoning has gotten a lot deeper, but still, I believe that Samuelson in her prime would still be a favorite for a marathon medal in the current era. It's not like her 2:21 PR would put her at a disadvantage. Her 1984 Olympic victory in warm Los Angeles in 2:24:52, featuring a long solo breakaway, was a formidable performance that would still be difficult for today's top women to match.

No, the article wasn't "pretty clear". The point you make above, which is a good one, is in no way communicated by the equation that titled it.

We all slow down eventually. With the elites, the slow down is more dramatic (because they're falling from a higher peak) and more public than it is for the rest of us.

Rojo, you really seem to struggle in communicating your thoughts via the written word. In light of this, you've certainly made an odd career choice.

False Equivalence wrote:

Joan Samuelson won an Olympic Gold. Last I checked Ryan Hall DNFd in his last Olympics.

Apples and oranges.

Ryan Hall's AR is 2:04, when Joan Benoit won her Gold Medal, she ran 2:24. Yes, that is a difference of 20min, or 4 miles.

In other words - it's not even the same sport.

I never tried to say that Ryan Hall was equal to Joanie in terms of being a trailblazer in the sport and helping bring women's runnign to new heights.I just dont think Hall is some crazy headcase.Obviously Joanie lost much of her 30s as she had her first child in October of 1987 and another 3 years later. That's why I compared what they did before they were 30.I got a nice email from a LRC visitor who was very upset by the comparison and he said he agrees with us 9 out of 10 times. He wrote,

I just don't agree with that at all.

He acts like Joanie was super tough mentally and Hall some head case.

Hall has produced many times on a big stage. The problem is in 2015 when a non-African born male runner runs as fast as anyone not born in Africa has ever run no one notices as he's finishing 5th in a Major, not winning the Olympics.

Hall has come through with great performances time after time..He's got 8 sub-:210s to his name. That's twice as anyone else born in America..

Most sub-10s by Non-African Born Americans

Ryan Hall 8

Dathan Rizenhein 4

Alberto Salazar 4

Bill Rodgers 2

Dick Beardsley 2

Alan Culpepper 1

Benji Durden 1

Bob Kempainen 1

David Morris 1

Greg Meyer 1

Jerry Lawson 1

Ken Martin 1

Ron Tabb 1

Total 28

Hall's got nearly 1/3rd of all of those runs.

In terms of African born runners, Meb has 9, Khannouchi 5 (as an American) and Abdi 2.

Joanie was AMAZING. But she only broke 2:30 5 times in her career.

I enjoyed this aricle on Samuelson:

https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1917&dat=19881104&id=c3QhAAAAIBAJ&sjid=4IgFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1018,1382183&hl=en

She often ran like Hall does - on feel. "I will go out and run the way I feel", she said according to the NY Times. That's what Hall has always done.

rojo, i almost never agree with the stuff you write.

"So many people act like Hall's struggles are unprecendented or that he's some giant head case. We're just saying, "Stop with the nonsense" - Joanie struggled in many of the same ways after 1985."

Hall's struggles are not unprecedented - TRUE. Hall is a giant head case - TRUE. Maybe Joanie was a head case if she couldn't figure it out pyschologically? It's a huge huge part of being a successful athlete - the mind

If you cannot see this, you are blind. I'm sorry. I will never back down on this point. I am the same high school class as Hall and I remember saying how much of a head case he was when i was 17. As a pimply little kid I could tell that his mind was his weakest element of his talent, and he'd need to figure it out to succeed more than his freakish talent.

Ryan Hall is, and has always been, a head case. he is essentially the Bill Walton of distance running. just listen to him. he's a lost little puppy...the thing he needs most as an athlete is structure. he needs a coach who understands his body and reaction to training stimulus, but at the same time isn't afraid to call him out for being a little baby and make him work or stop whining or rest more or just get through a period of unknown. He needs someone to encourage him through times of doubt or discomfort or reinforce him when things are going well. i think Hall had that great race in Boston and then his own head had too much time to screw everything up. he needed a great coach.

many say john wooden's (ucla) greatest achievement as a coach was to keep walton from screwing things up for himself.

here's bill walton reflecting on his coach,

"But at practice, he was a tiger, always on edge, always barking at us, pacing, pacing. He was a masterful coach. By the time the game came around, we couldn't wait to play. He always had us psychologically ready to play. He was a masterful psychologist. He knew how to push all the right buttons, how to get people to play better than they could actually play. Some coaches tear people down. He built confidence in everybody."

So many people act like Hall's struggles are unprecendented or that he's some giant head case. We're just saying, "Stop with the nonsense" - Joanie struggled in many of the same ways after 1985.

Rojo, I'm not saying that Ryan Hall hasn't done great things. I'm not saying that I disagree with the original idea that marathoners at the top level have short-term careers. I'm not saying that they're both not "free spirited runners". But when you do the head-to-head career comparison, it's a huge edge to JBS:

Olympic Medals: 1-0 (Gold)

Pan-American Games Medals: 1-0 (Gold)

World Best Time for the Marathon: 1-0

Major Marathon Wins: 3-0

American (Road) Record Performances: 15-3 (see ARRS)

Olympic Trials Marathon Wins: 1-1

So are you saying that Joanie was all of those same things as well?

That's all i want people to admit. If you rip Hall, yoiu need to rip Joanie.

If not, then please explain why she only had 5 career sub-2:30s to her career? Hall has run 9 very good marathons in his career. 9. sub-:11.

Geoffrey Mutai - won of the all-time greats - has 11.

I'm not saying Hall is a trail blazer or icon like Samuelson. I'm just saying as a reader of Sports Gene, Hall did about as well as any marathoner has ever done.

yes. i think you have to rip joanie...a bit more mildly than hall, but rip away.in the end, i guess we agree on this

So are you saying that Joanie was all of those same things as well?

That's all i want people to admit. If you rip Hall, yoiu need to rip Joanie.

If not, then please explain why she only had 5 career sub-2:30s to her career? Hall has run 9 very good marathons in his career. 9. sub-:11.

Geoffrey Mutai - won of the all-time greats - has 11.

I'm not sure if you know this but professional running, as it is known now, was nonexistent when Samuelson ran. There were nowhere near the amount of marathons, especially to make money at, as there are now.

You seem to have this need to bring down not only one of the greatest, but one of the most inspirational, runners of all time. I have no personal issue with Ryan Hall, seems like a great guy, had great range, and ran some fast times. He had serious flaws in championship racing, however, and had a very hard time breaking the tape in his marathon career.

In defending that you cannot pretend that Samuelson had "equal issues." She not only won The Olympic Games, but did it under circumstances that if Hall had encountered, he would most likely not have made the team. The original "facts" of the article were contrived and you've already had to backpedal on that. Samuelson has an incredible non marathon resume. You can't hold that against her saying she didn't run enough fast marathons. Even so, I believe she has five more wins than Hall does.

As for longevity, she ran 2:26 for a very tightly contested 4th 12 years, I'll repeat, 12 years after winning her first Boston.

Defending Hall is fine; he is over criticized. trying to drag someone as prolific as Samuelson to make that point is just silly though.

Don't give us the racial talk about Kenyans and Ethiopians. The sport moves on and European and American runners for a long time ceded the podium to them without making any significant effort to get there out of either better things to do or an inferiority complex, which you only feed with all this sports gene talk and best white this and that. As for Hall, he ran 2:06:17 on a legit, very fast course with pacers the entire way, a great time, but let's not say he is a 2:04:58 marathoner when there was a huge wind at his back that day. In Joanie's era, the best American and European male runners were competing against African runners and sometimes losing to them, sometimes beating them, more often than not winning. The American and European performances got a lot worse from that time on. Steve Jones with his 1:01:xx first half at Chicago back around 1985 would have been competitive today. To this day, as you know, a white runner owns the top three times in the women's marathon. At 2:21:21, Joanie would be competitive in virtually every marathon today, and remember that the financial incentives weren't as spectacular back then and she stopped to have a family at the height of her career. In fall 1987 at my college convocation, she appeared alongside Roger Bannister and her family (all super nice) and it did appear as if she had retired already. My question to them was why American male distance runners weren't doing well.

Hall is an amazing Time Trial runner. The time seems more important to him than winning. Now that he is struggling to run fast times, he has no running fire at all. This is not a slam, it is just the way I see him as a runner.

In contrast, Joanie was a winner. Her fast times came from winning, not from chasing a time. Meb is also that kind of runner. Somehow with much slower times, he wins and places high much more often.

Look, the reason Hall gets so much criticism, seriously, is his failure to communicate. Up until Tuesday of last week, he had offered absolutely no valid explanation for his long list of disappointments of the past several years. If he had, his career could have been viewed more for its considerable achievements and less for its conspicuous failures.

Joan, by the way, didn't have those failures. I'm not sure why she's even brought into a discussion of Hall. This thread is not a proud moment.

Halleluja wrote:

False Equivalence wrote:

Joan Samuelson won an Olympic Gold. Last I checked Ryan Hall DNFd in his last Olympics.

Apples and oranges.

Ryan Hall's AR is 2:04, when Joan Benoit won her Gold Medal, she ran 2:24. Yes, that is a difference of 20min, or 4 miles.

In other words - it's not even the same sport.

I admire and respect Joanie and all but the insults directed at Hall are completely unjustified. People on this thread are trying to say that a 2h 21 min marathon runner is better than a 2h 04 min runner which is beyond ridiculous.

Hall has had to compete in athletic open competition (in an era with a greater talent pool i.e. numerous E Africans training like animals), not some sub category competition where the very best are excluded just to allow another competition to take place. As you say, it is not even the same sport and the two runners are of completely different statuses.

Thank goodness for sense wrote:

Halleluja wrote:

Apples and oranges.

Ryan Hall's AR is 2:04, when Joan Benoit won her Gold Medal, she ran 2:24. Yes, that is a difference of 20min, or 4 miles.

In other words - it's not even the same sport.

I admire and respect Joanie and all but the insults directed at Hall are completely unjustified. People on this thread are trying to say that a 2h 21 min marathon runner is better than a 2h 04 min runner which is beyond ridiculous.

Hall has had to compete in athletic open competition (in an era with a greater talent pool i.e. numerous E Africans training like animals), not some sub category competition where the very best are excluded just to allow another competition to take place. As you say, it is not even the same sport and the two runners are of completely different statuses.

"...numerous E Africans training like animals"? Wow, that may be one of the most racist clauses every written on the LR boards. And don't come back and change/water down the way you said what you did, because it's too late.

This kind of dehumanization is a hallmark of racism, and I find it/you sickening.

I agree with earlier comments that the comparison was made more to strike a nerve and elicit strong opinions as opposed to anyone truly believing they are equals. So now I am just feeding into this by responding but... Yes they had similarities in terms of when they peaked but the problem with going beyond that is the main reason a runner turns professional is to COMPETE and to WIN. Joanie was/ is a competitor and a winner. Ryan ran great times that never put him on the podium.

I think to say she had it easy because she was a pioneer is kind of insulting as her times still hold up today. Only 2 American women have ever run faster and one was by 7 seconds (Flanagan.) She still has 3 of the top 10 fastest finishes of all-time American women and only 22 women total in the past 30 years have run more than a minute faster than her (and that list includes convicted and suspected dopers.) Just think of the advances in technology and science that have occurred in the past 30 years and how much money Nike and others pour into runners to make them run faster. Who knows what Joanie would be like if she was in her prime now and able to benefit from this - maybe she would be running sub 2:20 or maybe not but the fact is her times are even more amazing because they did occur that long ago.

Also I haven't been a frequent visitor to these message boards in the past and hate to go there but the comparison just seemed a bit sexist. Why not make the comparison to other great male US marathoners in history. Recent posts have glorified Webb and Hall and now even a 2:10+ marathon time on a fast flat course for a fifth place finish yet if we want to have a critical opinion of Hall for ANY reason we also need to have one of Joanie. It really makes no logical sense.

But if we really want to compare it will be interesting to see the rest of Mr. Hall's pro career and then after. I wonder what sort of marathon times he'll be running when he is in his 50s. In terms of Joanie's male counterparts from the 80s it looks like Dick Beardsley last ran a marathon in 2008 at age 52 in 2:49:09. The next year at age 53 Joanie ran a 2:47:50.....

How old are you? Can we hold this post for 20 years and come back to it in 20 years.

In 20 years when the white American men still won't get competing with the top African talent, will you then admit that I'm right or David Epstein is right?

It's not racial. It's genetic. Blacks from West Africa suck at the marathon. It has nothing to do with race.

Yes, American men should be better than the were 20 years ago but that doesn't mean we'd be 2:04 good. They might be 2:06 good and that doesnt' really cut it at the very highest levels.

Why not just compare women to women and men to men?

I think just because both did something remarkable at roughly the same age doesn't mean they were equal.

Do not men and women develop at different rates?