Haile Wins Berlin, Sets WR

I think Geb would have won the Olympic double had he been able to run the 5000m in Atlanta and also maybe a couple more in the World Championships as well.

I only used Lasse Viren as an example to suggest it can be done if you get the tactics right.Ken definitely got them wrong in the Olympic 5000m by not pushing the pace early on and handing it to El Guerrouj on a plate.Bekele should have won yes,but he blew it.

I don't know who was unsure about the Paris 2003 result,because i for one knew that Ken would win that day.

He was a 21 year old double double world cross champion against a 30 year old with his best track days behind him.

Gebrselassie did win a world title over 1500m,which is something Ken Bekele will never do.So,yes,Geb is definitely

the greatest of all time.

Really though, this whole message board post is supposed to be about excitement. I mean, we have a new world record in the marathon...that's pretty amazing. Who cares if we think/know someone is better that Geb. As of now, he is the best marathoner this world has ever seen (on top of a huge amount of other great achievements). And we should all be happy and excited about all the achievements he has done and how he is still doing them. He's an outstanding athlete..no doubt about it. We wont ever know if Bekele is just as good unless the race the same race, under the exact same circumstances. That's the only way to really ever say that one is faster than the other. But as of right now, Geb is on top of the world.

2:04.27

That's pretty amazing, no matter how you look at it.

Bekele will not attempt the Marathon.

A man for the ages!

Leirbag wrote:

Bekele will not attempt the Marathon.

Clarify.

"This year?"

"Before he's 30?"

"Ever?"

I predict that once Bekele "loses" his speed, he'll move up, just like Geb did. Whether that's before or after he turns 30, THAT I can't tell you...

Leirbag wrote:

Bekele will not attempt the Marathon.

He has been asked this question before and indicated that he would indeed be challenging the marathon one day.

first, this means the end of the430miler on letsrun which is just as big a cause of celebration as haile's world record (ok not quiet, but its big)

second, i voted that he would not get the record, not that i didn't believe in him, but you have to have perfect conditions for a marathon record, luckily things were close to perfect

haile is the best distance runner ever. he was before he got the marathon record, but now it is impossible to even question that he is. i'd love to see haile knock the WR down under 2:04 in the next couple of years now that he seems to have finally figured out the marathon.

as far as is kenny b better? in terms of technically being faster its close. kb is faster at 5k/10k, haile is faster at 1500/3k/2mile. not sure about 2k(i'm not sure if haile ran a 2k outdoors and if it was faster than the 4:49.99 that bekele ran), if not then bekele has the 2k too. although i do think bekele will eventually run faster than haile in the 3k/2mile at least, not sure about the 1500. so in the future i think kb will be the faster track runner and if he goes up to the roads... maybe, tough to tell. kb is a much better xc runner.

but on the track in terms of their respective eras haile is much better, took WRs down by much larger chunks of time and was nearly unbeatable. bekele is beatable, not often, but he has shown that he can be beaten everyonce in a while, unlike haile.

haile is better for now. bekele may one day pass him as the better (and faster) runner overall, but he may not.

presently haile is unquestionably the king of distance running in the history of mankind.

yo wrote:

as far as is kenny b better? in terms of technically being faster its close. kb is faster at 5k/10k, haile is faster at 1500/3k/2mile. not sure about 2k(i'm not sure if haile ran a 2k outdoors and if it was faster than the 4:49.99 that bekele ran), if not then bekele has the 2k too.

but on the track in terms of their respective eras haile is much better, took WRs down by much larger chunks of time and was nearly unbeatable. bekele is beatable, not often, but he has shown that he can be beaten everyonce in a while, unlike haile..

I personally don't believe Haile is faster at 1500/2mile/3k...he has marginally faster times but Bek will beat them all when he gets a few more serious attempts. He would have faster prs in all those events if not for his fiance dying in the year he was going to attempt all those records. He ended up having an off year because of everythign he went through.

Took WR's down by greater margins? that's COMPLETELY irrelevant. For Bek to take down the WR's by the same amount he would have to be running impossible times basically in a 10k. Geb had weak records to break, bek had gebs record to break. To make a statement like you just made INSULTS geb, not builds him up. Breaking Geb's records by 2 seconds and 5 seconds is more then comparable to breaking older records by 40 seconds or so. You can't just make statements like that.

I love Geb to death, but Bek is the greatest hands down. Wr in the 2ki, 5ki,5k,10k. Olympic gold in the 10k, world champ in the 10k 3 times, world indoor champ in teh 3k. 2nd in the olympic 5k and 3rd in the world 5k. 8 time world XC champion. And he's just getting started. What will Bek's times look like by 2010 if he stays healthy? How many more medals will he have? Geb's break through year was when he was 25, bek is 25 right now and is looking like his breakthrough year is yet to come with his recent 1500/3k times.

It's really no contest on who is the greatest. Bek is doing stuff Geb couldn't do, and he doesn't have a Komen or Tergat pushing him to have to run faster to break WR's. there hasn't been anyone in years who has even attempted a 5k or 10k WR besides Bek.

Geb Dude wrote:

35 km: 01:43:38 / 00:14:43

40 km: 01:58:08 / 00:14:30

Dear lord--a 29:13 for the split between 30km and 40km?

Samuel Wanjiru the WR holder for half marathon is moving up to marathon, Next year we might see different fireworks in marathon. Believe me man!

[quote]mrr82 wrote:

[quote]yo wrote:

It's really no contest on who is the greatest.

It´s "nice" to have such ignorant HS idiots on Letsrun.

"Geb's break through year was when he was 25"

It took quite a while for Haile to get anywhere. He hadn't quite made it when he took 9 seconds off the 10,000m world record and 11 seconds off the 5,000m world record in 1995. He was 22 that year.

I agree with most of the other things you wrote. In particular that Bekele couldn't be expected to break the records by anywhere near the margin that Gebrselassie did. But remember that Haile started all of these amazing times. He gave belief that smashing 13 and 27 was possible. Runners like Tergat, Komen, Hissou and Koech used this belief themselves. Having Haile in their era helped them to faster times, even if they might have preferred that he wasn't there so that they could have enjoyed more success!

Kenenisa probably used Haile as inspiration more then anyone else. That doesn't mean that it's 'easy' to go out and run 12:37 and 26:17. I just think that Geb should get a little credit for that.

mrr82,

i put "in terms of their respective eras" before the "geb took the records down by larger chunks" to mean that geb lowered the records by much more time and so for his era he was better but obviously its harder to do now. hmm, maybe that still doesn't make it make sense. i guess not, but i wasn't trying to say that bekele should take down the records by as much as geb. but anyway even if you take into account that its harder for bekele to improve on geb's records than geb to improve on what was already there still geb took those records down by A LOT more, enough more that i think haile's records were more impressive than bekele's despite obviously being slower. you can't really measure the amount unless you perhaps knew what the human limit was, but until bekele breaks his 5k/10k records a couple more times i don't think he can be considered as good as haile in the WR department (although he will actually be faster and obviously already is in some of the events).

also it doesn't really matter that YOU beleive bekele is faster than geb at 1500/3k/2mile because he hasn't ran the times and thats all that matters. maybe he is currently capable of it, but he hasn't done it, so he is not as fast in those events. like i said i think he will be faster in everything except maybe the 1500 but might eventually be faster in that as well, we'll see.

and here is the main point: you say bekele is better because he is for his age way ahead of geb, so basically you are saying he will be better for what he will continue to do in the future. cuz other than xc his accomplishments thus far, while incredibly good and perhaps better at the age of 25, aren't even close to what haile has done in his career. i agree its possible so i said time will tell, but to say he is already the best ever is ridiculous. if bekele doesn't break any more WR ever, gets 1 more olympic title, only 2 more World titles, if he continues to get beat every once in a while despite no one in the world being even close to as good as him (while as haile was pretty much invincible despite having much more competition), goes up to the roads later in his career and can't break any records whether they are haile's or wanjiru's or whoevers then bekele will most certainly not be better. and all those things just stated could certainly happen. i don't think faster necessarily means better when comparing runners' careers. otherwise you could just go down the list of WR holders and say they are all the best runners ever, which i don't think is fair.

Sir Lance-alot wrote:

2) Lasse Viren has little to do with this. Bekele's finishing speed has certainly been as good Geb's.

Do you think so? Take Geb NDA or ADN keep it and in a few years when the science will be able to detect what he tooks to run 2:04:26 you will see that they both did similar invisible training. Blood transfusion for one genetic manipulation for the other.

i gotta get me some of that invisible training.

can you really not see it?

mrr82 wrote:

Geb had weak records to break, bek had gebs record to break.

Until Geb ran those times in 1995, those records were not weak. Aquita, Moses Kiptanui had run the 5000. Barrios, two time WC champ Chelimo and Ondieki had run the 10,000. These are some terrific runners including a couple of legends. Granted, it's much harder for Bekele to set the WR because Geb set the standard so high, but those races in 1995 by Geb took distance running to a whole new level. Listen to Bob Kennedy talk, until Geb ran those times, it was not even in his thinking that someone might run that fast.

Great run by the "great one". So the man has a 12 year peak with his first record set in '95? Sort of like Regina Jacobs right?

Not trying to pee in the cheerios, only tryiing to add some context...

http://www.canadianrunner.com/content/view/11173/2/

http://www.elitetrack.com/main/content/view/474/9/

He's a half mile or more ahead of Derek Clayton, Carlos Lopez, Alberto Salazar, etc...

I'm not taking anything away from Geb, at least two of the above guys were likely on something as well. Even a doped up runner has to train and has to race hard. In a sports world flooded with illegal substances he has run 2:04:26, a time only 2 or 3 other runners could even approach. Hell, he's a half mile ahead of 2nd place on the IAAF list...the 2:06:51 run by Abel Kirui in the same race. Before that the best time of the year was 2:07:19. Even the best non-Geb time of 2006 was 'only' 2:06:38...over 2:00 back. Just crazy.

I think with the combination of training, flat paced races, and LOADS of medical help we could easily see sub 2:00 in the next 20 years. We've dropped almost almost 4 minutes since 1981, 26 years. Amazing.

Alan

Runningart2004 wrote:

We've dropped almost almost 4 minutes since 1981, 26 years. Amazing.

Alan

Runners were much more likely to be on drugs in 1981.