Kipchoge vs Mayer records. Which is the greater?

SDSU Aztec wrote:

North Woods wrote:

I believe Warner is a top Canadian sprinter that tried to this. After years of trying he's going backwards now compared to Mayer, who's getting better and better. It's easier said than done.

Are you talking about Damian Warner? He won Bronze at Rio. As I would have expected, he was very good at the 100, 400, hurdles and LJ. I would have have expected him to do poorly in the weight events as he only weighs 180. Wikipedia has Mayer at 170, but he must weigh more than that.

Wikipedia, at least the French version of his bio, has him at 187 lbs. Considering that he's French, I ll trust their media better when dealing with this kind of information.

Galatchin wrote:

Lol. Hes just trolling you. Theres typically only 5-6 high school studs that can go faster than 10.55. Thats huge in high school. And as we all know, top high schoolers can be close to world class.

There are quite a bit more than than that.

HS athletes that can be World Class are an order of magnitude faster than 10"55. In fact the only way to know if a HS athlete is World Class is through the times he runs since he does not compete usually against pros.

As far as I know, a male athlete would not be considered World Class if he's not significantly better than the female World record. None of the female World record (despite how much doped up some are) would be considered World Class among males. They would not be remotely competitive

Denying that would be akin to believe than the best females ever could have been competitive among "World Class" males.

In events that can be compared ( so not the throwing since they use diff weights) , Mayer is better that the female WR in the LJ and the PV (a niche event, with a small pool that was introduced only in 2000 as a female discipline).

The reality is that decathletes for most of them might be the best all around athletes, but it is because the would not be competitive in any of the specialised events, and tend to command less money than their specialised counterparts.

There is a reason why Daphne Schippers never went back to combined events despite her claims, it is because Nike, her sponsor pays her significantly more than they would as a dominating heptathlete.

A good analogy would be to compare general practitionners and specialists. the former might be better all around but I don't think they can be considered better than the latter

I personally would rather be great in 10 things and have no weakness than just tediously, boringly focus on being at an extreme level in one thing but sucking at all others.

It’s the scoring in decathlon that keeps it obscure.

If I tell a non-track fan that Kichoge ran 26.2 miles in 2:01, they know what that means. They can immediately conceptualize the enormity of that accomplishment. With a little arithmetic they can break it down to units they might have personally run - “oh my gosh, that means he ran one lap of the track in 69 seconds... for 26 miles! I can’t event do that once!”

If I tell them someone set a world record in decathlon, scoring over 9100 points... no one knows what that means:

“How do you know how many points to give?”

“Well, there’s a book...”

“And how many points do you get for running the 100m?”

“Depends how fast you run.”

“Well how many points would Usain Bolt get?”

“I don’t know, but this guy didn’t run nearly that fast.”

“Well how many points did he get for his 100mm?”

“I don’t know, I’d have to look it up...”

To this, add the fact that non-fans are always going to be most impressed by records that demonstrate the extreme limits of human performance. A guy who set a record for the best combined score in 10 events, but couldn’t even get an Olympic medal, much less a world record, in any of them, is not going to be as impressive as the guy who ran the fastest marathon ever, period.

Finally, the 10 events are abitrary. Take out the 1500 and replace it with a 10k, and you have a whole different set of champions. You could say the marathon distance is arbitrary, but change it to 25 miles or 20 and you don’t fundamentally alter the challenge - Kipchoge is still your champion.

10.55 isn’t particularly fast for a high schooler? GTFOH

Interestingly, in the heptathlon, there are athletes who could win medals - even gold on a good day - at the Olympics/Worlds, but that's not the case - I don't think - in the decathlon. I wonder why that is?

Walter j wrote:

10.55 isn’t particularly fast for a high schooler? GTFOH

Of course 10.55 is fast for high school. What I said was in response to a poster's claim that Mayer was near world class with the 10.55 cited as one of the examples. That time, compared to the history of HS sprinting, is not even close to being top tier.

Nobody knows what the hell is decatlhon

Diego Maradona wrote:

Nobody knows what the hell is decatlhon

That might be true were you are but...take the UK, Daley Thompson was a household name. Jessica Ennis was a household name and over the years we've had a series of successful/ very successful multi-eventers to keep the events in the public mind.

Likewise, with the triathlon were the Brownlee brothers, again, are very well known; indeed, they've done a series of Tv ads ( but don't ask me what they were advertising!)

El Keniano wrote:

There really is no way to settle this except by the super scientific method of instagram likes:

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bnwfen1BE-P/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_linkhttps://www.instagram.com/p/Bny4cdXiuwq/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

I don't read french but I'm pretty sure the Meyer post is after day one, not after getting the WR.

GPspecs wrote:

HS athletes that can be World Class are an order of magnitude faster than 10"55.

An order of magnitude faster would mean World class athletes are running 100m in under 2 seconds.

ironside wrote:

I find it interesting how decathlon athletes win. Mayer's 110m high hurdle skills are solid. His javelin throwing ability is about the same as Terry Bradshaw's when Bradshaw was a young man. [For those outside US, Terry Bradshaw was a NFL football player.]

The current jav specs are very different than the speer that Bradshaw would have thrown. My guess would have Terry at about 210' to 215' with the new rules jav.

SDSU Aztec wrote:

Walter j wrote:

10.55 isn’t particularly fast for a high schooler? GTFOH

Of course 10.55 is fast for high school. What I said was in response to a poster's claim that Mayer was near world class with the 10.55 cited as one of the examples. That time, compared to the history of HS sprinting, is not even close to being top tier.

You don’t need to combat a ridiculous statement with an equally ridiculous statement. You literally said that 10.55 isn’t particularly fast, even for high school.

ironside wrote:

Coordination necessary to complete decathlon depends significantly on two events: pole vault and 110m high hurdles. A young Justin Gatlin could have been at least a decent decathlon athlete. Gatlin, as a younger man was better than an ok hurdler. It would have been interesting to watch Gatlin giving it a try at pole vault. Besides pole vault and 1500m, Gatlin would have been at least good at the other eight events.

Gatlin WAS a very solid multi-event athlete at Tennessee under one of the great multi coaches (Bill Webb). He won the US Junior champs in the deca but was disqualified for not filing the TUE paperwork for his ADHD meds. (This was his first positive test that many forget about). I sort of remember him scoring about 7400?

I don't see Gatlin as a power guy or a high jumper. I wonder what marks he had back then?

The decathlon record was improved 6 times since the mid-1980s when the current table for the points was introduced. The first mark beyond 9000 held for 11 years.

The Marathon WR has been improved about 10 times in that timeframe, so at least recently a decathlon WR has been a more special event.

I wonder when the decathlon was dropped in perception from "King of Athletes" to uninteresting event to complicated for the audience. It certainly wasn't like that when I began following T&F in the 1980s.

The Marathon is perhaps the second biggest event to the 100m these days, so I think Kipchoge’s is a bigger deal. More people follow Marathon’s than multi-events.

Kipchoge represents being remarkably close to an unimaginable sub-2 hour barrier, this was a big day for distance running in general. It’s not even close, Kipchoge > Mayer in terms of greatness.

Amerikano wrote:

The Marathon is perhaps the second biggest event to the 100m these days, so I think Kipchoge’s is a bigger deal. More people follow Marathon’s than multi-events.

Why is this even relevant? In Germany far more people follow third league soccer than any world class track and field and a similar relation is probably true in most places.

Amerikano wrote:

The Marathon is perhaps the second biggest event to the 100m these days, so I think Kipchoge’s is a bigger deal. More people follow Marathon’s than multi-events.

Kipchoge represents being remarkably close to an unimaginable sub-2 hour barrier, this was a big day for distance running in general. It’s not even close, Kipchoge > Mayer in terms of greatness.

Lol. I cant seriously consider someone an athletic great if they cant run a 100 faster than 13 seconds, cant long jump more than 4 meters and cant throw a shot put more than 8 meters ( not sure Kipchoge could even pick up 16lbs with one hand).