And I' not saying Pre would win. I'm just saying that there are so many factors involved.
I remember when they thought steak and eggs was the best pre-race meal.
Nobody wants to admit that Pre's larger problem was a lack of discipline and self-control that ultimately killed him before he even reached his prime.
Not that he is in terrible company. The same could be said of Sammy Wanjiru, who probably would have been a better marathoner than Eliud.
That's true, but, I remember when the movies came out, people close to Pre said that reality was somewhere in between. He did drink, but so did basically every other runner back then.
Although everyone here KNOWS he was drunk when he died, Frank Shorter DID say that he, obviously, felt safe being a passenger so it's not like he was blind drunk.
Rupp by a wide margin. Fisher got 6th in the 10k at the Olympics with a time of 27:46, closing with a mid 56 last 400. This was with superspikes on the fastest track surface ever created.
Rupp, however, closed the 2012 Olympic silver race 27:30 with a 53 mid. Last 200 was 26 low IN LANE 2 WHILE SLOWING DOWN THE LAST 15 METERS. This was on old mondo with old spikes, no carbon fiber.
Additionally, Fisher benefits from being able to recover from workouts easier because he runs in carbon fiber shoes. This allows him to do much harder workouts and much more frequently with a lower risk of injury than runners in previous generations. If Solinsky got to train in carbon fiber shoes, he might have never gotten injured.
Fisher is just scratching the surface of his talent, every race now is a new revelation. He’s leveling up under our noses The rest mentioned are done, and that includes Rupp. We’ve seen their best. Pick against Fisher if you must now. It’s impossible to prove what will happen in the future. Let’s resurface this thread periodically over the next few years. When Fisher is done, this conversation will have seemed silly in retrospect. I think we may even reach that conclusion by the end of 2022. It’s not super shoes, it’s not burritos, it’s because Fisher will prove to be the best we’ve ever seen in a USA singlet.
Perhaps this is true. And I don’t disagree that we should resurface this in a few years of even later this year.
I think in a slow race, Rupp has shown himself to the best American kicker at 5k/10k outside of Lagat.
I think in a race set up like Grant had, Rupp could’ve run that fast or faster. Now, with that said, I certainly don’t think 26:33 will be Grant’s lifetime PR.
I know nostalgia is a thing and it’ll be hard for each older generations to accept what the newer generations have done / will do. It’s not as simple as just running faster. Even Grant would tell you that he ran the fast because of Galen.
I think if the generations were reversed we would still be having this discussion. For example, let’s say Grant ran 26:33 in 2014 and Rupp was the young, 24 year old upstart, do we have any doubt that Rupp would break it? Absolutely none.
But that’s what supposed to happen. One person sets the standard and someone else is inspired & talented enough to break it.
So this thread is really about Grant verses Galen.
I think in the 10000 it does come down to the two of them. In the 5000, it would be different. If this was about the marathon, with super shoes and super training, I’m picking Bill Rodgers, just to show that I’m not always enamored of the new shiny object.
I think if we're talking absolute prime then Solinsky probably takes it (for now). His 26:59 is roughly the equivalent of Fisher's 26:33 in the supershoes, and his peak 5k and peak closing speed are a little better than the rest of the group.
Roughly equivalent according to what? Your made up calculation of 26 seconds (4.5 seconds a mile)? Solinsky's highest finish in a global final was 12th and never even made a 10,000 team. Fisher just finished 5th in a stronger field than Solinsky has ever been in, and is far better now than 7 months ago.
People on these forums have nostalgia goggles on for some older runners. Rupp is the only one that could have possibly run Fisher's time.
They are all in their absolute primes wearing the super spikes. They are all training for the 10000m.
Fisher wins, and it’s not particularly close either.
Great list of athletes to be part of.
Fisher for the win. He would hang with any of them and has better natural speed. When Fisher dials back on base work and begins his sharpening phase this summer he will be deadly in the 5 or 10 and in the 3k
Nobody’s disputing Mills’s greatness, but the era he ran in was so radically different, and I don’t think any conversion of shoes and track surfaces brings his 28:17 down well under 27.
As for Webb, out-kicking Ritz in a 27:34 California 10k is superb for a miler, but are you really ready to claim he’d out-kick a recent Olympic 10k silver medalist, or hang with a guy who just ran 61” faster? If so, you have to believe he was contesting the wrong event (he wasn’t).
Mills's 28:24 in Tokyo was only nine seconds off Clarke's World Record at the time and he beat several all-time greats in the race. It was also at a time when there was still a first round in the 10,000. I believe it was a uneven race where Clarke surged a lot and broke everyone except Mills and Gammoudi. In other words, Mills was a legitimately great runner and should not be dismissed based on recency bias.
Still, I would probably pick Rupp at his peak.
There was not a first round heat in the '64 Olympics.