I do give German Fernando credit for not falling down or quitting this time. For anyone to compare this flash in the pan to a great runner like Jim Ryun is beyond ridiculous. Ryan ran great race after great race. Fernando on the other hand has had one or two great races, followed by injury, falling down, and running poorly. GF is no Jim Ryun.
This Lalang kid from Arizona is incredible. He will kick some major ass on Fernandez at the NCAA championship meet. Watch...GF will fall down after Lalang steamrolls him.
long dong silver wrote:
My take on it wrote:3:55 and 13:25 at age 18.
That's the truth. The most talented american born runner ever. I'll defend that last sentence forever (or until someone better). Is figuring out who has the most talent a precise science? No, but still. His 3:55.02 indoors at age 18 years, 3 months, and 26 days is superior to Webb's 3:53.43 outdoors at age 18 years, 4 months and 14 days. He won an NCAA 1500m title as a true freshman leading the entire race! If he can stay healthy all summer, he should be able to do some pretty good stuff. And if he stays healthy all the way through NEXT summer, he will do some really really big stuff.
Don't forget that German's 3:55.02 was wire-to-wire all alone indoors, as well as him being a month younger than Webb's 3:53.43 at the peak of his outdoor season being dragged along by some of the best runners in history.
according to his wikipedia page, byers was 2nd at the aau (senior) nationals. he had college bests of 3:37.5 and 4:00.
Fernandez's pr's are 3:39.00/3:55/7:47/13:25, they were all run in his freshman year at age 18, and his training was significantly interrupted by injuries.
Fernandez is 5 sec quicker at the mile and 1.5 seconds slower at 1500 but has rarely raced that, only winning ncaa nationals against a strong field in 3:39.00, wire to wire.
Event 5 Men 1500 Meter Run
=======================================================================
3 Heats. Advance top 3 from each heat plus next best 3 times.
American: 3:29.30 8/28/2005 Bernard Lagat, Nike
College Best: 3:30.56 8/11/1999 Bernard Lagat, Washington State
NCAA Meet: 3:35.30 6/6/1981 Sydney Maree, Villanova
Name Year School Finals Points
=======================================================================
Finals
1 German Fernandez FR Oklahoma State 3:39.00 10
2 Garrett Heath SR Stanford 3:39.51 8
3 Lee Emanuel SR New Mexico 3:39.66 6
4 Dorian Ulrey JR Arkansas 3:39.93 5
5 Matthew Gibney SO Villanova 3:40.58 4
6 Liam Boylan-Pett SR Georgetown 3:41.11 3
7 Austin Abbott SR Washington 3:41.15 2
8 Jeff See SR Ohio State 3:41.18 1
9 Craig Miller JR Wisconsin 3:41.31
10 Michael Coe SO California 3:41.64
11 Jordan McNamara JR Oregon 3:42.42
12 David McCarthy FR Providence 3:44.55
=====================================================================
American Fernandez wrote:
Don't forget that German's 3:55.02 was wire-to-wire all alone indoors, as well as him being a month younger than Webb's 3:53.43 at the peak of his outdoor season being dragged along by some of the best runners in history.
You're right, German was running all alone indoors: nobody near him that he needed to surge past, run into lane two to go around, etc. He also had artificially perfect weather conditions indoors that Webb didn't have.
And according to the post that you quoted, Webb was an entire 2½ weeks older than Fernandez when he ran his famous mile. Wow, that WAS a big advantage!!!
jjjjjjjj wrote:
...and (Fernandez's) training was significantly interrupted by injuries.
You think so? Welcome to the German Fernandez show!
I'm sorry, but that logic simply doesn't hold any water. That is a state-of-being for certain athletes and can't be used as an excuse for all eternity. The same flawed logic tries to paint Bill Walton as a person who would have been the greatest center in NBA history. For whatever reason, if you can't perform at that level you aren't that great!
Once again, I will mention that I am still waiting for German to break McChesney's American-born collegiate record at 5,000m the way that his naive fanboys predicted two years ago.
sfasdf wrote:I think Ritz is more talented. He ran 13:27 as a freshman at Mt. Sac I believe. Also 4th in NCAA cross as a freshman. Not to mention his 27:38 as a redshirt sophomore(I think?)
I don't think that even compares. GF went 8:34 as a 17 year old in HS, and the only reason he wasn't a JR when he ran it was because CA is one of less than a handful of states with a cutoff that made him a sr.
He went 13:25 (AJR) and 3:55i (WJR solo)7:47i (AJR) as mentioned above at an age that in almost every state would have made him a HS sr. Can you imagine if he was from NY, and was a Sr. in HS when he ran those times? Obviously that would change everything about him, but point is that's what grade he would have been in in almost any other state.
Nobody born in America compares "timewise" at the same age (the track run on and era considerations are obviously factors as well). He blows everyone out of the water strictly on time for the age he ran those times. Hence why he holds the AJR in all 3 at age 18.
These are some big names here: Garrett Heath, Lee Emanuel, Dorian Ulrey in particular.
So now that we know that Ryun was the WR holder going into the Olympic Games (which is the main thing) Did he win it, even though he was the favorite? What about the second time? OK thanks
Mrr82 wrote:
GF went 8:34 as a 17 year old in HS, and the only reason he wasn't a JR when he ran it was because CA is one of less than a handful of states with a cutoff that made him a sr.
You made some good points, but that isn't one of them. Jeff Nelson was a CA runner also, and German wasn't elbowed onto the infield during the homestretch the way that Jeff was when he ran 8:36 at the Pepsi Invitational.
jjjjjjjj wrote:
according to his wikipedia page, byers was 2nd at the aau (senior) nationals. he had college bests of 3:37.5 and 4:00.
Byers won Junior Nationals in '74.
Byers won AAU Champs in '74. He finished second to Rod Dixon who did not have the paperwork required on file to win a US title.
When did it become a big deal with a NCAA 1500 meter champion wins his indoor conference meet?
It became a big deal when that runner had amazing potential and a lot of hope invested in him, and then battled injury for at least a year. This is one of the first races where he's begun to show his true form in a long time...
And it's surprising that a 3:55 miler and NCAA champion can beat up on his conference?
True form is a 4:06 mile?
Who cares that he got the win? I can see why people would want to skip college to turn pro like Alan Webb. Who cares if you run mediocre times to win different college titles. Hell it makes sense Alan Webb runs 3:53 and then wants to get faster instead of winning little titles. He got FOURTH at the pre classic, just behind Lagat? Why settle for 4 years of running times he ran as a soph in high school just to win a few meets or NCAA titles?
The fact is is that German's 3:55 indoor SOLO mile is world class, and it would be foolish to want an indoor NCAA title and outdoor NCAA title in whatever 4:0X time instead of improving to 3:54
take a look at this list wrote:
These are some big names here: Garrett Heath, Lee Emanuel, Dorian Ulrey in particular.
Ah... ahhaha... hahahahah. Dude, did you really just compare the list of people Ryun beat (Snell, Keino, et al.) to GARRET HEATH?
malmo wrote:
oldoldrunner. When I pushed the send button the first thought was that Fernandez grew up in the Valley and probably has seen, and even run on, tracks as crappy as the best tracks that Ryun ran on.
You are correct, Fernandez hasn't run a high calibur race on a track as crappy as the ones that Ryun ran on regularly.
No, not high caliber races, but he has run plenty of quality, ie fast, races on crappy tracks.
I don't remember the exact times, but his senior year, at our league finals he was somewhere around 4:14, 1:58, 9:15 over the period of 2 hours or so. I don't think he ran the 4 x 4 that day also, but he was known to quad up plenty of times when running for Riverbank.
The point is moot. Ryun was way better at age 18 by any metric. However, the speed at which Fernandez burst on the scene and started running fast times is what has always been the alure of Fernandez to Track and Field fans. Knocking out 800 reps @ 2:15 in his first week EVER of training as a high school frosh (he did not run cross as a freshman). Running a 1600 in 4:31 after only 3 weeks of training and finising the season at 4:22. As a junior, winning a half marathon in 1:09 while only running the first mile at 6:19 with his girlfriend, but catching the leaders by 10 miles and kicking to the win. These were things he had accomplished long before he burst onto the national scene with his 4:00, 8:34 double at the CA state meet.
I pick Ryun over Fernandez because as has been stated Ryun beat world class runners while still in HS.
The things we will never know are:
1. Could GF have run much faster than he did in HS if he had run against open competion.
2. Could Ryun have run those time by himself( in his 3:58 in HS his team mate did some rabbit duties for the first 2 laps).
3. GF was a HS senior age his freshman year in college. If he had run his best JR times as a senior in HS against open cometion. What could those times have been? Would we now be saying he was the best?
4. Ryun, like me, only had three year in HS. Back then many HS's were soph, JR and SR .iF Ryun had his fourth year of running as a senior, how much faster could he have run.
We will never know. Ryun gets my vote. Remember he ran 3:39 1500 as a JR in HS and made the Olympic team as JR in HS.
It is stuff like this that I'm talking about. German, wearing his Nike Frees, ipod and baggy basketball shorts sat on Abdallah and outkicked him at the end in what he was treating as a tempo effort at the time. Notice a few of the other names in the race. This is the type of "talent" that people talk about.
TOP 100 MEN
PLACE NAME TOWN ST TIME
===== ==================== =============== == =======
1 KARIM EL MABCHOUR MOROCCO 27:53
2 ALENE RETA ETHIOPIA 27:59
3 HARON LEGAT KENYA 28:05
4 JOHN ITATI KENYA 28:06
5 BRETT GOTCHER WATSONVILLE CA 29:13 (ex-Aptos HS/Stanford)
6 CATHAL LOMBARD ALBUQUERQUE NM 29:18
7 GERMAN FERNANDEZ RIVERBANK CA 30:26(Riverbank HS)
8 MOHAMED ABDALLA SAN JOSE CA 30:36 (Willow Glen HS)
9 CHRIS MOCKO STANFORD CA 30:39 (Stanford)
10 JEFF JACKSON SANTA ROSA CA 30:49
11 JACOB EVANS WATSONVILLE CA 30:50 (Ex-Aptos HS/now at Stanford)
12 BRETT CARTER STANFORD CA 30:56
13 JIMMY ELAM MANTECA CA 31:07 (Ex-Sierra HS)
14 MICHAEL COE LOMPOC CA 31:10 (Ex-Cabrillo HS/now at Cal)
15 JEFF GILL APTOS CA 31:28
16 ANDREW DIXON SAN RAMON CA 31:30 (Ex-Valley Christian HS/now at Westmont College)
17 JULIAN MARSH SAN FRANCISCO CA 31:40
18 CARL DAMBKOWSKI MONTEREY CA 31:52 (Ex-Granada HS/Stanford)
19 SEAN MARZOLF LODI CA 31:58
20 SCOTT HIMMELBERGER PALO ALTO CA 31:59
21 MARCOS CORONA SAN JOSE CA 32:08 (Ex-Willow Glen HS)
22 AJ ACOSTA OCEANSIDE CA 32:11 (Ex-el Camino HS/now at u of Oregon)
long dong silver wrote:
That's the truth. The most talented american born runner ever. I'll defend that last sentence forever (or until someone better). Is figuring out who has the most talent a precise science? No, but still. His 3:55.02 indoors at age 18 years, 3 months, and 26 days is superior to Webb's 3:53.43 outdoors at age 18 years, 4 months and 14 days. He won an NCAA 1500m title as a true freshman leading the entire race! If he can stay healthy all summer, he should be able to do some pretty good stuff. And if he stays healthy all the way through NEXT summer, he will do some really really big stuff.
Ryun was better off crummy training, much better natural talent. I like German but he will never, ever run anything close to Webb in the 1500/mile, and maybe not even the 5k if Webb decides to pursue the event seriously.