Everyone has gotten insanely fast at all levels. HS kids of today could be challenging Steve Prefontaine at his best. Sub 4 is no guarantee of all conference in college. Sub 4 won't even win d3. Collegians are now running sub 13. At the elite level, times in the 1230s are being run.
Between wavelight tech and the shoes, times aren't what they used to be.
No. Not even close. HS kids of today are coming close to the times Prefontaine ran then --with antique shoes, on antique tracks, off zero money, crappy diet, antique training, etc.
Pre today would be 20 seconds faster for 5K, easily.
Except when someone like Centrowitz outfoxes the world’s best for an Olympic gold medal, all anyone can do is talk about the finishing time. This is quite the schizophrenic place.
The funny thing is Centro was probably winning that race one way or another. His masterpiece was awaiting to be unleashed that day. He's medaled at worlds. His gold was no fluke, just a matter of execution meeting opportunity. Anyone trying to take away from his well earned gold is a clown.
Nike put the fix on the race is only way Centro won. Nike will fix the Paris 'thon for EK's 3rd GM
Part of the reason why there is not more excitement is because his post-high school path is unclear due to his faith.
If this were a non-LDS kid, fans would be buzzing about, "Can Coach ****** at University of ***** turn him into a sub-13:00 guy before his sophomore year? This kid could rule the NCAA for the next four years! Should he join a pro group and just go for it now?"
Since he is Mormon and committed to BYU, then we will not see him for two years while he fulfills his mission. That tempers the fan enthusiasm. When he gets back, can he return to form? Will he even care about running any longer? Marriage, a desire to pursue religious work or academics instead of sport may have greater meaning to him. Also, who knows if NCAA D1 running will even be a thing in two years with realignments, lawsuits, compensation, football and hoops going their own way, etc.
He's an outstanding athlete but, we will be distracted by the next big thing and then the next big thing after that. Fans will forget about him. This is not a knock on him, the church, or BYU. People want to follow a story, crave social posts, and get really into daily news about their heroes. Knowing that he will drop off of the radar for two years, many people just won't board the Simmonds train.
its the shoes. hard to care about time trials these days. Sport is interesting for who beats who not how fast they ran in a paced time trial.
This wasn’t a paced time trial, he went from 17th to 7th over the last 800 and did not run optimal splits
Actually, he ran incredibly even splits until the last two laps... when he moved up to the front of the chase pack (coincidentally Simmons has a teammate named Chase Pack) he was simply running even splits as the group slowed.
33.4
64.4
64.6
65.0
65.2
66.0
66.4
65.2
64.7
64.9
65.0
63.5
57.7
It was beautiful to watch - and the folks sitting near me all knew what was happening with Simmons.
I remember reading that Prefontaine's goal was to run 12:36 for 3 miles. At his memorial service they set the clock to 12:36 and had it count down. 12:36 for 3 miles seemed crazy fast at that time.
Better yet, is that a women's collegiate 4x4 runs 3:17.xx (6th fastest AT) and their time is not even visible on the home page, let alone an article or a story. OUCH! Alos was there much about the UT decathlete scoring 8961?
Except when someone like Centrowitz outfoxes the world’s best for an Olympic gold medal, all anyone can do is talk about the finishing time. This is quite the schizophrenic place.
That was in a different generation where times still mattered. Since 2019 most people i know only care about who beats who at a big race, not what you can do in a sterile time trial environment.
Times never mattered in the Olympics my young friend.
They were about winning.
Even in regular meets on the circuit, it was about winning not the winning time.
Fast races were cool but no one took anything away from the winner.
I remember reading that Prefontaine's goal was to run 12:36 for 3 miles. At his memorial service they set the clock to 12:36 and had it count down. 12:36 for 3 miles seemed crazy fast at that time.
Other way around. They ran the clock up and stopped it at 12:36 as if timing a race.
To others saying this was just supershoes or whatever, what shoe was he wearing? Is that a supershoe on his feet?
The funny thing is Centro was probably winning that race one way or another. His masterpiece was awaiting to be unleashed that day. He's medaled at worlds. His gold was no fluke, just a matter of execution meeting opportunity. Anyone trying to take away from his well earned gold is a clown.
True fans want the best runner to win… which wasnt the case
Yet for some reason the men's NCAA basketball tournament, called March Madness because of the number of upsets that occur every year, is a hugely popular sporting event.
If only basketball could limit fan participation to "true fans", maybe its attendance would rival that of track meets.
Rupp ran 13:37 in HS with no supershoes. Is 13:25 a better or worse result?
it is within a couple seconds either way. It is a really good time. And yes it would have gotten more press at nationals.
one thing that has changed is kids are running a lot more 5ks. When Rupp did it basically nobody ran the 5k. The kids these days are running a lot more. Gets you more fast times.
That was a high school athlete running 13:25, in part due to the shoes, but running against pros who won NCAA championships, who were also wearing magic shoes, and who were among the best NCAA runners for years, including Dylan Jacobs and Wesley Kiptoo, so give him a great deal of credit. Prior to supershoes, how many high school distance runners ever came within 7 seconds of former NCAA champs in a 5000m? Simmons is really, really good, and he is going to smash the high school two mile record if he gets a chance at it.