The Fall of Jim Ryun

But of course back in the day, most transfusions did not involve the athlete's own blood. The process was far riskier, especially once the 80s and HIV arrived. Tennis great Arthur Ashe famously contracted HIV following a transfusion with HIV-infected blood during heart surgery.

you supplied a lot of good info, but still doesn't explain why his coaches did not have Ryun train at altitude knowing keino comes from altitude which would give him an advantage, and his coaches didn't prepare Ryun for keino/jipcho tactics of going out at fast pace , since they must have known that keino knew he could not outkic Ryun so would have to go out at fast pace. you are saying that Ryun and his coaches figured 59second per 400 would win, but never thought keino might try something else to avoid running ryun's race, and instead keino would make Ryun run his (keino) race; still seems to be a failure on the coaches part

Ryun did train at altitude - Alamosa, I think -- working with sports physiologist Jack Daniels. But nobody had ever seen an early opening pace like Jipcho set, and no one would have ever predicted 3:34 at altitude. Ryun ran a very good race, but Keino ran a great one. Each deserved the medal they got.

The entire '68 US Olympic team trained in Tahoe.

This is exactly correct. In the preliminary heat, there was a little guy from Italy, I believe, who led at a slow pace up to about 500 meters. Keino then bolted past the Italian, with the whole pack (except the Italian) picking up the pace. Ryun, however, had been running at the back of the pack near the rail, presumably figuring that he could run the last lap fast enough to qualify for the semis. The problem, however, was that Ryun was boxed. The Ghanian, Billy Fordjour, was running immediately to the outside of Ryun in the second lane, a New Zealander was immediately in front of Ryun, and I believe an Ugandan was just behind Ryun. Ryun could have waited until to see if some space might open up, but he appears that he either either panicked or simply decided that making a move somewhere in the last lap or so would leave him with too little time to catch any of the other contending qualifiers. So he tried to squeeze in front of Fordjour, whose spike apparently caught Ryan's spike, and Ryun tripped into Fourjoor, bringing them both down. Probably in part because Fourjoor came over Ryun after the race, and partly because Ryun was the golden boy, many people incorrectly blamed Fourjoor. (Oddly, in a second appeal, Ryun changed his story, saying that someone made contact with his arm.)

I just saw, for this time, Marty Liquori's frame-by-frame analysis, and he got it exactly right, Here it is. https://digital.lib.ku.edu/ku-video/25

Even if Ryun had been advanced to the semifinals, which I believe was on the following day, Ryun himself said that he would have too badly injured to run. And in the final, even if Ryun had been allowed to skip the semis altogether. Vasala and Keino were in excellent shape, and I'm confident that Ryun would have done no better than third.

You didn't deserve all those downvotes from people who aren't especially familiar with the race. Pretty safe that they were almost all Americans. I was almost certainly on their side fifty years ago. But I've studied this incident and the surrounding circumstances to death.

um...and that one guy won the marathon.

2006 - my bad

Wrong again, there was no Senate election in Kansas in 2006. Ryan was defeated for re-election to the House in the Democratic wave election in 2006. Ryan never ran for Senate.

Not true. A bunch of guys were there; not all.

IIRC Ryun, George Young, and Conrad Nightingale (at least) were in Flagstaff that summer. (Yes, I was in the same dorm with Ryun but definitely did not do my morning runs with his group!--much less do any track work with him.)

And to address the question of why Ryun's coaches didn't have him training at altitude: Well, he *was* at altitude for a while (that summer); but he was a college student and it was an amateur era. A scholarship athlete couldn't just take off and spend a year or more at altitude. As it was, Jim had a job (at least part-time) to support himself in Flagstaff. So no, his coaches couldn't just "have him train at altitude"--that wasn't the reality of his economic/college-eligibility situation. It was definitely a different time.

Worth noting that at the time the belief was widespread that it was *training* at altitude that primarily caused adaptation. Only later did research demonstrate that it's the *living* at altitude that is most important.

Pretty much as I alluded to earlier which got the crew up in arms

As Liquori said on that replay, Ryun ran "right into that box".

Which is correct.

I always thought Ryun got treated unfairly at Munich. Now I'm not so sure.

jACK dASNIELS MAKES YOU CONFIDENT, BUT i HAVE NEVER SEEN IT MAKE YOU MORE FIT

Billy Fordjour was in his senior year at Howard Payne University (in Texas) when he competed at the Munich Olympics.