Who are some names of least known great distance runners?

Johnny Kelly!!! (Did I miss him in the 18 pages? NOT Johnny Kelly the Elder who won Boston in '35 and '45 - he's well known). "Young" Johnny Kelly was by far the greatest U.S. marathoner of the '50s and early '60s. Won Boston and also won the very tough Yonkers marathon several times when it was the A.A.U. (i.e. U.S.) National Championships.

I, too, love Nobby's Fukuoka accounts, but he may be unaware of why Bill Rodgers finished "only" 6th there in '78. He had the flu. Cost him the World #1 ranking that year since he didn't tell anyone. I learned of it from his wife when they were in Miami a few days after the race. I was writing a bi-monthly column on running for the old Miami News so I got to interview Bill by going for some easy 10 milers with him. He was clearly still a bit sick then and his wife told me it hit him before the race. Bill never mentioned it.

HRE, glad you mentioned Bjorklund (BJ), as he was THE MAN in Minnesota. When Pre beat him in some very close track and cross races, we really knew how tough Pre was!! Garry and Pre were both so tough and stubborn; neither would give an inch to each other. Both were in the same H.S. graduating year, 1969, and I read that it really rankled Pre that BJ rang up a quicker mile (4:05) than he did! BJ said that he almost had Pre beaten in a race (5K?), but Pre held him off on the final curve, forcing him out to about Lane 6 on the track. Legal, but never experienced by Garry up until then!! Although BJ is not as well-known outside of the Midwest, he is a legend in Minnesota. I really feel sorry for MIKE SLACK, another Minnesotan, who was faster than BJ (1:48 800m/3:5? Mile) but was overshadowed by him. But like someone said: "I may be running in Garry's shadow, but that must mean that I AM doing OK!!!"

One of the problems with a topic like this is that people have different definitions of what constitutes being little known. I never considered BJ unknown as I followed the sport pretty closely when he was in his heyday. I might have considered mentioning you or John Dimmick.

Another problem with a thread that's this long and has been gone this long is that you forget who's already been on it and it would take forever to go back and re-read it. Has Tony Benson been mentioned? How about Steve Stageberg?

Lydiard had some guys who ran pretty well but were overshadowed by the really succssful ones so those guys might make the list here or perhaps already have. Ray Puckett ran some very good races but had stomach problems when he raced outside of New Zealand and wasn't generally well known outside of NZ. Jeff Julian actually did win some international marathons but never did that well in an Olympics and probably is underappreciated.

There were some good South African runners who never got much international exposure in the apartheid era, I'm thinking of Fannie van Ziyl (I probably misspelled that) and Johann Halberstadt. Apologies for any double dipping.

Yeah, I mentioned Stageberg on page 3. I don't think Benson has been mentioned on this thread. (Remember Benson's 3:52 mile time trial?) I also mentioned the trio of great South African middle distance runners from the early 1970s: Fanie Van Zijl, Dickie Broberg, and Danie Malan. Halberstadt came onto the scene a bit later.

HRE, what about Steve Plasencia, a couple of Oly teams, great range: mile to Marathon. He had a very long career, though riddled with injuries, he prevailed to be one of the best. Maybe he's been listed already,that seems to happen!

If he's not already here, he should be. I've got a bunch of names that I'm thinking of but I kind of suspect a lot of them have been mentioned earlier.

Is Amby Burfoot mentioned here?

Jim Grelle...a great US miler who was the American record holder briefly in 1965. He had the unfortunate timing to be between Peter Snell, Jim Beatty and Jim Ryun. A fine runner and even better person.

How about Dave Merrick as obscure. In high school in Illinois in 1971, he was the first person to beat one of Gerry Lindgren's high school records. He ran 13:37.0 for an indoor 3-mile , just beating Lindgren's 13:37.8 from 1964. He also ran 8:43 on an oversized indoor track. He must have gotten injured because all his best marks were from that indoor season.

Merrick didn't do near enough in college at Penn. Then of course, he didn't go to Penn (no distance program to speak of), to advance his running career, either.

Merrick had to work during college didn't he? Wasn't he working at some factory job while at Penn? He ran well in cross country, even winning some championships, as I recall. But he didn't do much on the track.

What about Gordon Innes and Curtis Beck?

I just discovered this thread; what a fantastic walk down memory lane!

Someone had mentioned Doug Brown, and while the "second Doug Brown", the Tennessee grad, Olympic Steepler and former college coach is fairly well-known, I remember that there was an earlier Doug Brown from Montana, I believe. Sometime in the 1960s; I think he even might have made an Olympic team in the 5 or 10.

Another Michigan name that I don't believe has been mentioned: Lou Scott, an African-American from old Detroit Eastern High (now Detroit ML King). I went to the Michigan State Meet as a 9-year old along with my dad and remember seeing him destroy the field with a 4:13 mile on cinders, back before they ran the 2-mile in high school. He eventually went to Arizona State and ran in the 1968 Olympics in the 5000.

This thread started with Buddy Edelen. Frank Murphy's bio "A Cold Clear Day" is one of the most enjoyable reads I've ever been through; it mainly went through Edelen's time he teaching in England and slowly becoming one of the world's best in doing so.

One British runner prominently mentioned in "A Cold Clear Day" was Mel Batty. It seemed he ran some hellish performances in the intermediate distances between 10K and the marathon in the time between the 1960 and 1964 Olympics.

Didn't Mel Batty set a world record in the 10 mile run?

Gaston Roelants from belgium. Great steepler and XC runner from the 60\'s and 70\'s. There is a great anecdote about him in mark will-webbers quotable runner.

Roelants is a good choice. But he was mentioned on page 6.

if we're putting Roulants in the "least known" category our sport is in trouble. He's one of the true legends of the sport - especially in cross country.

malmo wrote:

if we're putting Roulants in the "least known" category our sport is in trouble. He's one of the true legends of the sport - especially in cross country.

I was thinking that as well. But somewhere along the way, past performers become lesser known and then barely known.

I recall once being introduced to Gene Venske at a college meet, shaking his hand and saying, "Nice to meet you." I had no clue who he was at the time and wish that I had said a bit more than I did.

Roelants was once well known enough that Sports Illustrated did an article about him. Can you imagine them doing an article on a Belgian distance runner now?

Ricky Wilde, European Indoor 3000m champ and WR time.

Ricky Wilde is a great name for this thread. He was phenomenally talented but somewhat inconsistent with his training. I recall reading in "Athletics Weekly" in 1971 or 1972 that Wilde had decided to enjoy running rather than train really hard like some of the other Brits of the era. And even with a comparatively relaxed approach to training, Wilde still managed ran 13:29 for 5,000 meters in 1972. He was the fourth fastest Brit in that event that year, so he didn't make the Olympic Team. (That was made up of Dave Bedford 13:16, Ian McCafferty 13:19, and Ian Stewart 13:20.)

By the way, Ian McCafferty should be added to our list of least-known great runners. He got a silver medal in the 1970 Commonwealth Games with a time of 13:23.4, behind Ian Stewart (13:22.8), and ahead of Kip Keino 13:27.6.

And has anyone mentioned Dick Taylor of England or Dick Tayler of New Zealand?