eeeooor wrote:
Should read: While no one is suggesting that it is "not" much more difficult to become world class today than it was in Ryun's era, his times stand on their own.
eeeooor wrote:
Should read: While no one is suggesting that it is "not" much more difficult to become world class today than it was in Ryun's era, his times stand on their own.
Because a 3:55 mile for a guy is still better than any of Cain's times.
Not to mention on a cinder track back in the 1960s where he wasn't dragged along.
Bad Wigins wrote:
NCAA football is just as bad today. Most of those poor kids will never make a dime as football players, but they make millions for their schools. All they get out of it is a few dozen grand worth of education.
Yeah those poor kids. They get a free education at a potentially fantastic school (Stanford, Notre Dame, USC, etc) because they can play a game, and all the other kids have to pay potentially 200 thousand dollars for it.
The Kenyans were already a very dominant force in the late 60s. They won seven medals in distance events in 1968, including three golds. We also can't forget the hordes of dopers being churned out behind the iron curtain during the cold war.
Jim Ryun set a handful of world records, won an olympic medal, and competed very well against a dominant Kenyan force, and a dominant doping force, all at a very young age. It makes him one of the greatest American runners since WWII (we all tend to disregard some of the great American talent before the war.)
9/10
World class troll. Missed the 10/10 because you didn't quite sneak in enough ridiculously sexist arguments even though you had the opportunity. Still a great job.
Young trolls - take notes. This is how you do it.
3 pages so far. Well known posters in the thread. Front page. Everyone's biting!
Jim Ryun "not so great"...HA!
Troll is the word. There's no reason for anyone to have to explain why "so many" think Jim Ryun was great. He was. He was ahead of his time, he obviously didn't reach his potential. That's the fascination with Ryun.
Who's that atop the list?
I think Ryun was great because he was untouchable over the mile and 1500 for two years.
We all know the facts: Four world records, and he beat the crap out of the best. He set his final mile record from the front. He smoked Kip Keino twice in '67 at 1500/mile, with Kip trying brilliant and unexpected tactical approaches to beat Ryun. Jim Ryun also beat Keino over 2 miles in '66, a race made for Kip to win.
I'm not including '65 in his peak years, but let's just say, how brilliant was his '65 AAU title win over Peter Snell, a literal passing of the torch? It was his second race against Snell that season, the first being won by Snell.
Ryun's 2nd at Mexico city at altitude was not bad either. I'd say he was off his peak and Kip would have won at sea level too. We'll never know. Both runners had serious ailments that year.
When I started running in '72 as a high school freshman, Ryun was the guy I looked up too. Watching him win the Oly trials on TV was a thrill. I will say, Pre stepped in from there and took over as my hero, but there is only one Jim Ryun. Love the guy, and I'm way far left of liberal!
I would assume he means 20th century. Some folks are not so good with history. 19th century is quite a long time ago and no, I don't think T&F was particularly popular. People were more considered with survival.[/quote]
the word is 'concerned', not 'considered', and you're wrong on both counts anyway (unless you think the 19th century was the time of the 'hunter gatherers', in which case you're still wrong):
In 1865, Dr William Penny Brookes of Wenlock helped set up the National Olympian Association, which held their first Olympian Games in 1866 at The Crystal Palace in London.[10] This national event was a great success, attracting a crowd of over ten thousand people.[10] In response, that same year the Amateur Athletic Club was formed and held a championship for "gentlemen amateurs" in an attempt to reclaim the sport for the educated elite.[10] Ultimately the "allcomers" ethos of the NOA won through and the AAC was reconstituted as the Amateur Athletic Association in 1880, the first national body for the sport of athletics. The AAA Championships, the de facto British national championships despite being for England only, have been held annually since 3 July 1880 with breaks only during two world wars and 2006–2008.[11] The AAA was effectively a global governing body in the early years of the sport, codifying its rules for the first time.
(from Wikipedia)
I wrote:
Track is not popular on the local level like it was in the 19th century
ancient history wrote:
I don't think it was really that popular back then. And times weren't all that impressive. I mean, the WR for the mile progressed no further than 4:15.
Middle Distance Analyst wrote:
I would assume he means 20th century. Some folks are not so good with history. 19th century is quite a long time ago and no, I don't think T&F was particularly popular. People were more considered with survival.
You are both too crazy stupid to not be trolling me. But it's still an opportunity to mention that tens of thousands of people showed up just to see match races, as fast as 4:12.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_George_%28athlete%29The only way a US track meet can get 20,000 people to show up today is if half of them are athletes and the other half are coaches and parents. Just try to fit 20,000 people into Hayward Field. The 19th century was the glory days, track is now dead by comparison.
nolo contendere wrote:
I would assume he means 20th century. Some folks are not so good with history. 19th century is quite a long time ago and no, I don't think T&F was particularly popular. People were more considered with survival.
the word is 'concerned', not 'considered', and you're wrong on both counts anyway (unless you think the 19th century was the time of the 'hunter gatherers', in which case you're still wrong):
In 1865, Dr William Penny Brookes of Wenlock helped set up the National Olympian Association, which held their first Olympian Games in 1866 at The Crystal Palace in London.[10] This national event was a great success, attracting a crowd of over ten thousand people.[10] In response, that same year the Amateur Athletic Club was formed and held a championship for "gentlemen amateurs" in an attempt to reclaim the sport for the educated elite.[10] Ultimately the "allcomers" ethos of the NOA won through and the AAC was reconstituted as the Amateur Athletic Association in 1880, the first national body for the sport of athletics. The AAA Championships, the de facto British national championships despite being for England only, have been held annually since 3 July 1880 with breaks only during two world wars and 2006–2008.[11] The AAA was effectively a global governing body in the early years of the sport, codifying its rules for the first time.
(from Wikipedia)[/quote]
Wikepedia.
[quote]Seyta wrote:
"If you have to ask, you will never understand."
To put it simply, even though he never won an Olympic gold medal, he is with out a doubt America's greatest miler and one the greatest milers of all time. He is probably the only athlete form 50 years ago, that would be competitive in world class competition today. Check Wikipedia!
If he wasn't competitive in world-class competition then, how would be be today?
All those teen prodigies burn out early. Ryun, Webb, Ngeny, Komen, Budd. They hit their peaks young, but their peak isn't any higher because of that.
If they were really that much more talented than everyone else, they should keep improving till their mid-late 20's and set records that last 20 years. Webb, for example, was 22 seconds faster than Steve Scott in high school. Why was his career PR only 1 second faster?
Ryun was as fast in college as he was ever gonna get. So was Pre, who would never have broken 13:20. Americans get all hyper about their whiz kids but they consistently fail against more durable athletes like Lagat, El G, Kipketer. Gebreselassie. Yifter.
oh brother wrote:
9/10
World class troll. Missed the 10/10 because you didn't quite sneak in enough ridiculously sexist arguments even though you had the opportunity. Still a great job.
Young trolls - take notes. This is how you do it.
3 pages so far. Well known posters in the thread. Front page. Everyone's biting!
Jim Ryun "not so great"...HA!
Agreed, this is an excellent attempt, really pitting the geezers against the entitlement generation.
Back then wrote:
He is still the second fastest high school miler--that means something. Ryun was a great runner, regardless of the competition. You're making a poor argument against him. If you take Ryun's high school achievements, he's pretty solidly in the top-3, and perhaps number one. But he's nowhere close, in comparison, to Mary Cain. She's on another planet. At 17, she's established herself as easily the greatest high school girl in history. Maybe you can also make the depth argument against Mary though. Girls sports are not as far along in overall depth/development as boys sports. She might be the first greatest, much like Ryun.
Here's my boys top 5, for what it's worth:
1) Alan Webb-he was a mortal in XC, but the greatest high school track runner we've ever seen. I give track more respect than XC.
2) Jim Ryun-Think about how we'd react to a high school 3:55 today. He did it on cinders.
3) Lucas V-Incredibly well-rounded. He was good at everything from XC to the track and dropped some phenomenal times. Don't let his post-high school career muddy his high school accomplishments.
4/5 This is a tie between Ritz and Lindgren-These two had guts for days. Lindgren was internationally competitive in high school, like Ryun. His indoor 2 mile record was unbelievable, and to this day, might still be the greatest high school performance. As for Ritz, back to back Footlockers said it all. Webb stole the spotlight with the 3:53, but there's no doubt in my mind that Ritz could've gone sub-4 if he trained for it in high school (interestingly, he's never done it in his career). Ritz was a phenom. That was a special year for high school running.
Ryan is so great because what he did AFTER high school. He ran a 3:51 mile AJR and 1:44 880y? AJR. No American ever has had such a transition from senior year of high school to college.
Mary Cain isn't blowing Ryan out of the water. Realistically her times need to get better, but she is decently close. 4:04 is not greater than a 3:51. Neither is 1:59 greater than a 1:44 880. I don't think Ryan had people rabbiting him like that back then either.
I bet if Alan Webb had ran in the Pre classic 800m that day instead of mile. He probably would have ran 1:45. Alan Webb and Mary Cain seem to be on a pretty similar level, just about opportunity. And now what gets done with it.
Bad Wigins wrote:
Ryun was as fast in college as he was ever gonna get. So was Pre, who would never have broken 13:20.
Sure he would.
Bad Wigins wrote:
All those teen prodigies burn out early. Ryun, Webb, Ngeny, Komen, Budd. They hit their peaks young, but their peak isn't any higher because of that.
They don't all burn out. Slaney hit her peak in 1982-83 and set the world record in the mile in 1985, 12 years after she set her first world record.
Tirunesh Dibaba was a teen prodigy and won a WC Gold in 1983 at age 18. She is still going strong.
I see what the OP was saying. He is simply stating that just because a guy was the best for his era doesn't imply that he is the the greatest of all time. I think we need to look at a combination of factors including performance on the world stage, and especially the one factor that has been consistent TIME. While the surface they ran on and the shoes they ran with are a factor, it is simply not true that a 3:51 is better than a 3:46. Even though most posters don't like Alan Webb, the fact of the matter is that he has run faster than any American in the mile. Running on cinders is not worth five seconds or even three seconds for that matter. While Ryun may have been the best American miler for his era (post-sub 4:00 mile).
Also in general, athletes competing in today's age have to rise to compete in a higher level of competition, due to the international aspect of sports and most importantly the professionalism of sports.
I know a lot of people like to be nostalgic about their favorite athlete growing up, but likely they wouldn't be as good as they are if they were playing today.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that Ryun, Shorter, Prefontaine, Owens, Ruth, Cy Young, Wilt Chamberlain, etc. would be horrible in today's game. They would still likely be very good, but they wouldn't be the dominant player they once were.
Rupp > Prefontaine
Hall > Shorter
Webb > Ryun
Bolt > J. Owens
Pujols (5 years ago) > Ruth
R. Johnson > Cy Young
L. James > W. Chamberlain
Bad Wigins wrote:
If he wasn't competitive in world-class competition then, how would be be today?
All those teen prodigies burn out early. Ryun, Webb, Ngeny, Komen, Budd. They hit their peaks young, but their peak isn't any higher because of that.
If they were really that much more talented than everyone else, they should keep improving till their mid-late 20's and set records that last 20 years. Webb, for example, was 22 seconds faster than Steve Scott in high school. Why was his career PR only 1 second faster?
Ryun was as fast in college as he was ever gonna get. So was Pre, who would never have broken 13:20. Americans get all hyper about their whiz kids but they consistently fail against more durable athletes like Lagat, El G, Kipketer. Gebreselassie. Yifter.
Poor Argument
Komen, Webb, and Ngeny's peaks were actually quite high. I'm sure they would have wanted to last longer at the top, but they did get about as high as they could possibly go.
Webb - AR Mile, 3:30 1500, 1:43 800
Komen - WR 3000 - 7:20, WR 5000 12:39
Ngeny - WR 1000, 2nd all time Mile, Olympic Gold 1500m
If you are comparing baseball, there is a good book about why we haven't had a .400 hitter since Ted Williams.
It's called Full House, by Gould