Does Nico Young have the best range of any US runner ever?

Yeah, it's Webb. For now, as Nico still has time.

Throw Pre in the mix. While his legend has gradually lost luster over the last several years, Pre's range was formidable in relation to his era. His 3:54.6 mile best at age 22 was only 3.5 seconds behind Ryun's WR at the time. His PBs at 3000 (7:42.6), 5000 (13:21.9), and 10,000 meters (27:43.6) were but 5, 8.9, and 12.8 seconds behind the existing world records at the time he accomplished them, respectively (and all by the age of 24). Pre was also a 3-time NCAA cross country champion who might have excelled at the marathon, had he lived for the attempt.

Why the downvotes? If Fisher is in the conversation, Pre for sure is.

There are three different definitions of "range" and nobody bothered to say which one we were talking about:

1) Fastest PRs over the greatest number of distances

• a) absolute fastest? Is a 1:44.0 from 1965 "worse" than a 1:43.9 from 2024?
• b) fastest relative to the times from that era? Is a AR in 1976 worth more than a 9th place today (in a faster time)?
  

2) Most competitive over the greatest range of races?

3) Single season GOAT? Do they have the greatest set of results at one moment in their career? Lagat didn't run all his times in the same season, for example. Nico has. Does that matter to you?

Rupp better

In normal shoes.

Nico young is in college. if you think he has a chance to medal in the Olympics, I think you’re completely fixated on the times he’s run, not how he will compete against the other international elites.

Alan Webb’s range more impressive than Nico.

dont compare Young to Lagat and Rupp. He has barely accomplished anything compared to them.

these supershoes are ridiculous.

That’s just…aggressive. Fisher was taking the race as a business trip. He was not close to his limit, so I’m not really sure that’s as relevant. It was a race well set up to run low 26:50s. I feel like Nico did as well as he could and taking 17 seconds out of it as a lot. I hope you’re right, because if true he will be in the kick in Paris. It just seems more likely he’s in the large batch of guys in low 12:50s/26:50 shape than he’s already at Grant Fishers level. But again I hope you’re right.

Lomong accomplished the most in the range from 800-10k.

Paul Cummings deserves a look in this discussion. He ran the second fastest indoor 1500m ever in 1977, just getting clipped at the line by John Walker, and then six years later he set the world best in the half-marathon. Nico certainly has faster times but, when taken in context, Cummings had quite the range for his day.

Maybe Pre

This is ridiculous. You need to add 15-20 seconds to his 5k and 30-40 for his 10k to compare to the pre super shoe era

Also ran a 47 in high school. I don’t know if he ever ran 400m as a pro. Adding in a quality 400 shows a lot more “range” than the 10k end of the spectrum. 5k/10k are almost always dominated by the same people….400/5k, never happens.

The super shoes really make a difference. I ran 4:04 for the mile in super shoes we are talking 4:00. I also ran 29:05 for 10,000m in super shoes its worth probably 28:35 or so.

nico has way better 800/1500 PRs, and judging by how close he was to Fisher in the 10k, I think he'd be a lot closer in the 3/5 than PRs suggest.

cope

mods take this down! Its talking about a slightly controversial topic and its hurting my feelings!

Rojo rojo rojo rojo rojo

Not to mention his swimming and bench pressing prowess and ability to regrow hair.