Hull, Schweizer, Purrier and Johnson are all at essentially at the same level right now, at the same point in their careers, and all are in different training groups. It will be interesting to see how they all pan out from here.
Hull, Schweizer, Purrier and Johnson are all at essentially at the same level right now, at the same point in their careers, and all are in different training groups. It will be interesting to see how they all pan out from here.
Kazankina has run
1:54.94 while running wide (next best runner at the time 1:55.42)
3:52.47 (next best runner at the time 3:56.7)
8:22.62 (next best runner at the time 8:26.78)
15:23.12 (best runner at the time 14:58.89)
She has won 3 Olympic Golds.
It's almost impossible for Koko to better these achievements. For sure your point 1) remains...
Jo72 wrote:
If one wants to watch, admire, cast suspicions on NOP I think the person to watch is Jessica Hull.
Koko and Hassan were already too good before they joined NOP, clearly talents on an extremely exalted level (Hassan already has world records, Koko will probably become the strongest distance runner without African heritage ever, except maybe for Radcliffe in the marathon, she is already faster than Paula in the 3k/5k).
Hull is very good but on a level where one has a bunch of post/college runners of roughly the same age and ability to compare her with.
Koko is much more exciting to me than Hassan. Especially since Koko is much younger and has much more room for improvement. She is already close to the 3000 WR and I believe she may get that in the next couple of years, and then go for the 5000 & 10000 WRs. Koko may become the greatest distance runner ever, period.
Jomama wrote:
Koko is much more exciting to me than Hassan. She is already close to the 3000 WR and I believe she may get that in the next couple of years, and then go for the 5000 & 10000 WRs. Koko may become the greatest distance runner ever, period.
Close to what? You better check that.
She might have a chance to break the 5000m WR during her career, maybe even the 10000m WR (also that's very far stretched), but definitely not the 3000m WR.
To get back on Sifan Hassan:
Maybe she currently has something to draw extra forces from?
Have a look at her instagram message of Sept. 1st (the message, not the video clip) and also at (youtube/)watch?v=EWmGxkPB1xA
where she shows up after about 11:30 and then after about 14:00.
I admit that I am now curious. Is there anyone who knows more about it?
Because it was at a time with almost no participation of African women, rampant doping, especially in the Eastern bloc, and the long distances only slowly becoming Olympic events for women, I don't think it makes a lot of sense to compare Kazankina with any currently active runner. Nevertheless it seems fair to classify her as a mostly middle distance runner.
So if or when Klosterhalfen beats the best 5k and 10k times of the best European heritage runners (14:23.75 Liliya Shobukhova, 30:01.09 Paula Radcliffe) , I'd have no qualms declaring her the best long distance runner of such heritage. She might never get a world record because even when running faster than a current one, there could be a still faster runner (like Hassan) in the same race.
Someone recently posted about (weak) records in non-olympic distances. The 2000m is very beatable (around 5-6 women could be able to beat it in good conditions). And now I think that Hassan or maybe Muir or Kipyegon could also have a shot at the 1000m WR.
I don't see anyone beating the chinese 8:06 and if someone did so, I probably would not believe them clean. Around 8:13-15 seems possible for Hassan and maybe for Koko, Gidey or Muir.
Genzebe, Ayana and Obiri failed to break Tirunesh's 5000m record, so I don't think it is obvious that Hassan (or Koko or Gidey) could beat it, but they might.