Have any elite runners become elite cyclists?

DB87 is right. The ability to go as fast as they do for the respective W/kg output is almost as impressive as the W/kg output itself. For better or worse, the technical skills matter a lot.

I think a bigger legged middle distance runner can make the transition, but in my experience it does take a few years to build up the leg muscles.

James Knox who cycles for Quick-Step and was 14th in this year's Giro d'Italia was a really handy junior runner in the UK.

He didn't stay in the sport long enough before choosing cycling to be 'elite' but his times and performances indicated he had the talent to go very well in either.

He won the English National Cross for his age group one year, which is generally a precursor to a decent senior pathway if you choose out.

His track times weren't amazing as he's from the Lake District in England so did a lot of fell-running and though an age group below Marc Scott was pretty similar in his output at that level - won the British and Irish Junior champs, had international vests and won several English champs races

He did run 15.58 for 3 miles when he was 14, which is relatively decent I guess.

It is for a woman doing that off cycling training. She's a pro Salomon mountain athlete for performance, not instagram. Pro athletes are elite by definition.[/quote]

Kilian is also a pro Salomon athlete. When he tried to do a normal 10k race, he was beaten by 17 Norwegian club runners and a child. I wouldn't call that elite by any stretch. Some 22 minute 5k turkey trot winner takes home $20 and thus is a pro. I guess by definition he is elite.[/quote]

Of course Kilian is elite. If you are the OP, what you asked was, "I've never really heard of an elite cyclist changing to running and having success. " You didn't say track only, or road only. Mountain running has elite athletes too.[/quote]

Of course the world champ at tiddlywinks is elite at tiddlywinks, but not at running. Kilian is not elite at running. He is a club level turkey trot runner who runs mountain races. Kilian is elite at mountain races but is not an elite runner. Let's put it this way, Kilian will never have a faster PR at any event than I ran in high school. Mountain running might have elite athletes, maybe even some elite runners and Kilian may be an elite athlete at something like SkiMo, but Kilian is not an elite runner. An elite distance runner doesn't get smoked over 10K by 17 Norwegian club dudes and a child. Based on how many Norwegians alone are better than Kilian at distance running, there must be at least 10,000 men, women and children distance runners worldwide who he is behind. Is being ranked 10,000th in anything considered elite?[/quote]

Kylian ran 30 minutes flat but he said after the race that he was partly injured and so we estimate that his true potential over 10,000 m flat would be around 29 minutes flat which is a good college division one time but not super elite. However there are 29 minute 10,000 m runners who can run a marathon in round 211 so he would still be considered elite. He has excellent bio mechanics and if he really focused on pure road running he could probably be even faster. If you tested Kylian in a lab with Yuki Kawauchi (recently 207 Marathon in Lake Biwa) one can think Kylian would have better numbers all around including bio mechanical efficiency. However, I think Walmsley is superior to Killian on most counts.

Sorry for the typos including Kilian’s name....

Laurent Jalabert (Former Tour De France Cyclist) in the 1990’s retired and ran a couple of US marathons in the 2000’s (sub 3hrs) at both New York City and Chicago. I remember running with him in Chicago 2006 thinking this guy’s a pretty decent runner for a retired cyclist. Laurent ran 2:59 in Chicago (2006) and 2:55 in New York (2005). Also did a few Ironmans....

DB87 wrote:

I can say for sure that it would not be an easy transition from elite runner to cyclist.....

It isn't going to be easy but the question is after 2-3k hours of training where will an elite runner be. A lot of cyclist don't have the efficiency for running fast and I doubt any amount of training will change that. I am not sure the same would hold for pedaling efficiency. I know enough triathlete who came from a running background who have done well on the bike. Their handling skills though are definitely sub par.

I don't have any real evidence, but I can speak from the personal experience of transitioning from cycling to running in the last year.

I spent most of my childhood doing a lot of training on the bike. In 2019 (when I was 16/17) I did a bit over 15,000km total. A little under a year ago though, in my final year of high school, I didn't have time to be spending 15+ hrs on the bike each week so I started running. After about 8 months of running (mostly on trails), I ran 31:47 for a road 10km. I know that time isn't anywhere near elite, but bear in mind I hadn't done any kind of specific running training at all until May last year, so I think I have room to improve in the future.

I think that all that cycling was definitely helpful in building endurance and aerobic capacity, but I lack a lot of the speed that someone who grew up running might have. Where I really see a big benefit is on hilly trail runs, where - like on the bike - you have an opportunity to recover on the downhills. Probably because of my cycling background, I have good recovery time; my HR and breathing return drop very quickly after an effort.

So, in short, I would say that elite-level cyclists' abilities would be much more transferrable to something like a mountainous trail race or a trail ultra than anything on the track. In saying that, though, it does ultimately come down to whether you have a decent enough running economy to unlock your capabilities from the bike (which many cyclists don't).

You're both wrong. Taller runners and cyclists have an aerodynamic ADVANTAGE. Surface area to volume ratio is LESS for the bigger athlete.

There is no real incentive for an elite runner to switch to cross county skiing and try to have success. Unless you live in Norway, elite nordic skiing receives much less attention than elite running, the prize money in races is less in nordic skiing than running, and the athletes receive less sponsorship $.

Ben True was a top nordic skier in college but chose to pursue running.

It is interesting to follow Ari Klau on Youtube, being a very good 5k runner, as he moves on to become a triathlete . He has progressed pretty well on a crappy bike.

I've been trying to go from a cyclist to a runner. I never quite "made it" as a bike racer, but I've been to multiple world championships and was top 5 in my country as U19/U23 . This is my 2nd year of running and I still haven't really been able to train consist

consistently because I keep getting injured. I'm used to riding 25 hours a week, so I running anything less 100km/wk doesn't seem elite. I ran a 70 minute half in the fall, but that's about it for results. I'm kind of tired of getting injured so I might just drop down to 60km/wk and go back to bike racing. I like running but getting injured every 3 months starts to get annoying.

How about a Pro Cyclist running a 13:25 5K

https://runningmagazine.ca/the-scene/pro-cyclist-and-casual-runner-drops-mind-blowing-5k-in-1325/

canadian wrote:

How about a Pro Cyclist running a 13:25 5K

https://runningmagazine.ca/the-scene/pro-cyclist-and-casual-runner-drops-mind-blowing-5k-in-1325/

This is hilarious. I love his quote "apparently this is pretty fast".

I think his Garmin had a bad day.

Dereck Treadwell.

Elite runner, went from cat 4 to cat 1 in one year, previously unheard of in road cycling.

US MTB champ.

Grampa Surf wrote:

I think his Garmin had a bad day.

I think someone, you, always has a deuce in his pants and couldn't break 30 minutes for a 5K if your life depended on it. Better grab some more depends, gramps...

So, we have many examples of runners (some sub-elite like Woods and Engleman) becoming elite cyclists, and zero examples of elite cyclists becoming elite runners. The Poole girl became a sub-elite runner, but her best is over 20 minutes slower than an elite marathoner. Lance did much worse than Poole.

Also, we've established that Kilian is a sub-elite distance runner. A good question is: can an elite mountain runner (aside from Walmsey) become an elite distance runner? Kilian tried and failed, but can others step up?

rstranger wrote:

In fact, if you can imagine, or if you know any physics, the heavier rider would benefit from being less affected by a headwind (and just general wind friction) than the lighter rider.

I have a PhD in physics. Explain this to me. Wind resistance is not related to mass. It's a function of cross sectional area and velocity. As long as two riders are putting out the same watts, the physically smaller rider with a smaller cross sectional area - likely to have less mass - will be less affected. The more massive rider is likely to have a larger cross sectional area and fare worse in the wind.

You say you have a physics PhD and your contradicting me. Interesting situation. Either I’m about to learn something or I will heroically triumph over a physics PhD. Or your lying I guess, only time will tell. To explain, no I wasn’t asserting that as mass increases wind resistance increases. I understand that it’s related to cross sectional surface area or whatever you said. Also I did not account for a heavier rider having slightly more air resistance due to probably being larger, I assumed it was negligible.

I could defend my point, but I’d rather go about it a different way and gauge if you really are a PhD. Since you have the alleged physics PhD I’ll let you explain to me why a bowling ball falls faster than a beach ball of the same size, and we’ll go from there. :)

ienjoyracing wrote:

I’ll let you explain to me why a bowling ball falls faster than a beach ball of the same size, and we’ll go from there. :)

In case anybody else reading this thread doesn’t get why this deserves an explanation, it’s because in a vacuum they would fall at the same rate. You could also ask why can you throw a baseball farther than a ping pong ball. In fact that question actually relates more to the situation than my original question now that I think about it.