a recent guy is tim nelson, pretty damn good runner, not olympic gold good but still damn good and is hardly ever mentioned, i remember when he won the state 3200 in high school, no one talked about him winning, just how great of a kick the guy who got second had and almost won.
International:
Fernando Mamede
Belayneh Densimo
Vénuste Niyongabo
Allison Roe
Americans
Tony Sandoval
Pete Pfitzinger - for his performances, not his books
Curtis Stone
My bad I left Eaomon O'Reilly of the list.
American record holder for the marathon in Boston 1970. 2:11 AND CHANGE.Finishing second behind Ron Hill in his prime and pounding Kenny Moore in the process. Eamon would have made the 1968 Olympic marathon team if he had not sustained an injury.
At that time he was running sub 2:15. Great range as an athlete close to a 4 minute mile. Had a wonderfull fluid running style. Eaomon trained for nearly two years with Bob Schul and Tom Laris.
Galen Rupp!!!
Buddy Edelen
db37 wrote:
a recent guy is tim nelson ... is hardly ever mentioned.
What is Tim up to these days?
http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=931597&page=0Max Truex
It has to be Ron Clarke. He set around 17 world records, including the 10k by over 30 seconds. Add an olympic medal and his ability to run many races in a year, and you have a quality candidate. He is never mentioned on this board.
Its got to be a friend of my grandfathers named Horace Ashenfelter!! Gold medalist in the 3k steeple in a world record time. He hardly ever gets props. He hasnt even been mentioned on this thread yet. My grandfather said they used to have to run together while in the Air Force and he put everyone to shame without trying...Granted any of us could probably do that but still.
Arne Andersson. Set quite a few WR:s.
Um, there is and entire thread on here right now devoted to Ashenfelter
Alain Mimou
Melbourne Marathon..
Fabled French distance man. One working lung.
Billy Mills
Hasn't even been mentioned in this thread - that I saw. Could be wrong.
He hasn't been mentioned because this is about overlooked runners. You actually think Mills has been overlooked?
I've mentioned Ronald William Clarke on quite a few occassions. He certainly deserves to be mentioned quite a bit more however.
Basically anyone who was/is not from the USA or is not a very high profile current runner seems to miss out. Numerous WR setters and Olympic medallists never get a mention at all.
bruce bickford
bruce bickford was top 10k guy in world in 86. no american will ever hold that title....ever
Greg Domantay.
For the UK:
Ian Stewart and Ian Thomson- great under estimated distance runners in the 1970/80's
Brian Abshire
every post makes it someone different