If my mum had a dick she would be my dad. There is literally no way to prove or disprove this theory but by your maths if Lydiard would have trained Snell like Mu or Hodgkinson he could have run 1.39! Utter tripe.
While I like your analogy, that could actually happen these days so I'm not sure if the comparison is valid. But I agree with you that we have no way of knowing at all whether with low mileage training he would have been faster or slower. It's just all a guess. People respond differently to training; that's why it's individualised. Anyway, I'm sure Ovet tried lots of different approaches at various points in his career and decided that he responded best to higher mileage training for whatever reason.
Everyone loves the what if game cause you can just make stuff up. There is nothing to suggest that he was a better 800m guy than 1500m. He is a guy where if we had WC in 1977,1979 and 1981 we might looking at someone with a fistful of medals. As it was he was a hair young in 1976 and past his prime in 84 so we are left with that 80 season and it's diluted Olympics.
How is school system set up in Great Britain? Are all the kids together K through 8th grade then some go to vocational schools, 9th through 12th grade and others go to pre-college 9th through 12th schools?
* It is fair to assume, K through 8th grade, Ovett would have destroyed Coe, 60 yard dash through 1/2 mile run.
* We can all agree 9th grade through 12 grade, Ovett would have defeated Coe, 60 yard dash through 1/2 mile run.
* We can all agree past teenage years Coe began closing the sprinting speed gap.
* Coe did not close the gap, sprints to 800m because Coe was genetically superior to Ovett.
* Coe did not close the gap, sprints to 800m because Coe trained harder than Ovett.
Coe closed the gap, sprints to 800m because Coe focused on low mileage speed development with cross-training while Ovett was slogging 120 miles per week. One-hundred-twenty miles per week does next to nothing for 60 yard to 440 yard sprint speed development and actually makes one slower as a sprinter.
You all can love Ovett and his achievements but also realize his 120 plus miles per week hurt his 800m development.
Two things here. One) Coe was a year younger, and Two) their maturity rates were hugely different, and at extreme ends of the spectrum.
Ovett was physically precocious, and a 19/20-year-old Ovett was a powerful grown man.
Coe, at 19 still had a "kid's" physique. Here he is age 19 in 1976 running against Moorcroft and Walker and looking more like a rather weedy 16-year-old.
In 1976 Ovett was already at a much higher percentage of his potential than Coe and therefore had far less room for improvement. At that point Ovett was already showing tremendous versatility. He started the year winning the South of Thames X-country (around 6 miles) and on his third and fourth starts of the year won the Southern Counties 400m and 600m. In the middle of the year - the same year we see a waif like Coe - Ovett beat Willi Wulbek and Mike Boit over 800m to win the IAC Coca Cola meeting.
It's true that 120 mile weeks did nothing for Ovett's 400m/800m speed, although the raw pace was there (see his 11.8 penultimate 100m in the 1977 World Cup), but he was surely doing the mileage to move up to 1500m because he didn't have the speed of a 400/800m runner like Juantorena, who had won the Olympic 800m in 1976 with Ovett in fifth. Ovett was knocked out in the heats of 1500m at that Olympics, but the next year made the switch to being primarily a 1500m runner. Incidentally, that blinding 11.8 penultimate 100m in the World Cup came in 1977, just 13 days after Ovett won the Dartford Half Marathon by a very easy 21 seconds over Olympic Marathon runner, Barry Watson.
Ovett also ran a 28:16 for 10k on road in race during in winter training in 1983, at a time when the world record on the track was 27:22 and the recognized road best was 28:00.
You have to ask yourself whether a runner with that kind of physiology would really have been quicker than a prime Coe over 400/800m whatever training they did.
How is school system set up in Great Britain? Are all the kids together K through 8th grade then some go to vocational schools, 9th through 12th grade and others go to pre-college 9th through 12th schools?
* It is fair to assume, K through 8th grade, Ovett would have destroyed Coe, 60 yard dash through 1/2 mile run.
* We can all agree 9th grade through 12 grade, Ovett would have defeated Coe, 60 yard dash through 1/2 mile run.
* We can all agree past teenage years Coe began closing the sprinting speed gap.
* Coe did not close the gap, sprints to 800m because Coe was genetically superior to Ovett.
* Coe did not close the gap, sprints to 800m because Coe trained harder than Ovett.
Coe closed the gap, sprints to 800m because Coe focused on low mileage speed development with cross-training while Ovett was slogging 120 miles per week. One-hundred-twenty miles per week does next to nothing for 60 yard to 440 yard sprint speed development and actually makes one slower as a sprinter.
You all can love Ovett and his achievements but also realize his 120 plus miles per week hurt his 800m development.
There is a bit of generalising there. You have to remember that there was a whole school academic year between them, which in itself is a big gap when a young teen. On top of that Ovett developed and matured much more quickly. He was pracically fully grown and developed by 15, whereas Coe was puny still and short. He didn't reach full height until 20 and then started to work out in the gym to develop strength.
Coe was actually a naturally gifted sprinter. His biography revealed that at 11, when in his last year of primary school and before any idea of training or joining an athletics club, he won the school 60yds and long jump, before winning both events at the Stratford Schools, and coming 3rd in the Warwickshire County 60yds. So, he had natural speed and elasticity, just like Ovett.
An account of an anaerobic strack session of Ovetts overseen by Harry Wilson…
”Wilson had incredible scary anaerobic sessions with ridiculously short recovery. This was a bread and butter type approach. The most awesome session I have ever heard of was a Harry Wilson/Ovett session as he readied for 800. It highlights my point. He did 200, 400, 600 with 30" rest in, best sit down now, 25", 50", and 1:15. He finished the 400 and gasping, turned to Wilson and said something to the effect of "Harry, I can't". Wilson replied..."3...2...1...go". He ran 1:16. Remember, this is 1200m at 1:40 pace with 30" rest. “
An account of an anaerobic strack session of Ovetts overseen by Harry Wilson…
”Wilson had incredible scary anaerobic sessions with ridiculously short recovery. This was a bread and butter type approach. The most awesome session I have ever heard of was a Harry Wilson/Ovett session as he readied for 800. It highlights my point. He did 200, 400, 600 with 30" rest in, best sit down now, 25", 50", and 1:15. He finished the 400 and gasping, turned to Wilson and said something to the effect of "Harry, I can't". Wilson replied..."3...2...1...go". He ran 1:16. Remember, this is 1200m at 1:40 pace with 30" rest. “
How is school system set up in Great Britain? Are all the kids together K through 8th grade then some go to vocational schools, 9th through 12th grade and others go to pre-college 9th through 12th schools?
* It is fair to assume, K through 8th grade, Ovett would have destroyed Coe, 60 yard dash through 1/2 mile run.
* We can all agree 9th grade through 12 grade, Ovett would have defeated Coe, 60 yard dash through 1/2 mile run.
* We can all agree past teenage years Coe began closing the sprinting speed gap.
* Coe did not close the gap, sprints to 800m because Coe was genetically superior to Ovett.
* Coe did not close the gap, sprints to 800m because Coe trained harder than Ovett.
Coe closed the gap, sprints to 800m because Coe focused on low mileage speed development with cross-training while Ovett was slogging 120 miles per week. One-hundred-twenty miles per week does next to nothing for 60 yard to 440 yard sprint speed development and actually makes one slower as a sprinter.
You all can love Ovett and his achievements but also realize his 120 plus miles per week hurt his 800m development.
Two things here. One) Coe was a year younger, and Two) their maturity rates were hugely different, and at extreme ends of the spectrum.
Ovett was physically precocious, and a 19/20-year-old Ovett was a powerful grown man.
Coe, at 19 still had a "kid's" physique. Here he is age 19 in 1976 running against Moorcroft and Walker and looking more like a rather weedy 16-year-old.
In 1976 Ovett was already at a much higher percentage of his potential than Coe and therefore had far less room for improvement. At that point Ovett was already showing tremendous versatility. He started the year winning the South of Thames X-country (around 6 miles) and on his third and fourth starts of the year won the Southern Counties 400m and 600m. In the middle of the year - the same year we see a waif like Coe - Ovett beat Willi Wulbek and Mike Boit over 800m to win the IAC Coca Cola meeting.
It's true that 120 mile weeks did nothing for Ovett's 400m/800m speed, although the raw pace was there (see his 11.8 penultimate 100m in the 1977 World Cup), but he was surely doing the mileage to move up to 1500m because he didn't have the speed of a 400/800m runner like Juantorena, who had won the Olympic 800m in 1976 with Ovett in fifth. Ovett was knocked out in the heats of 1500m at that Olympics, but the next year made the switch to being primarily a 1500m runner. Incidentally, that blinding 11.8 penultimate 100m in the World Cup came in 1977, just 13 days after Ovett won the Dartford Half Marathon by a very easy 21 seconds over Olympic Marathon runner, Barry Watson.
Ovett also ran a 28:16 for 10k on road in race during in winter training in 1983, at a time when the world record on the track was 27:22 and the recognized road best was 28:00.
You have to ask yourself whether a runner with that kind of physiology would really have been quicker than a prime Coe over 400/800m whatever training they did.
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