No. The greatest runner of all time means just that. You compare runners from today against those of yesterday and every yesterday before that. If a HS girl runs 8:59 for 2 miles tomorrow, she is the best of all time.
The fact that she's got no competition makes it easier for her to just attempt a run away than if there were 4-5 other girls equal to her were in the race.
4-5 girls equal to her? Good luck with that.
I think the key word (which I've put in bold above) from the comment by "not like comps" is if. If, hypothetically speaking, there were 3 American girls at Hedengren's level (there aren't, but imagine if there were), plus a phenom from another country at her level, and they were all in the race, would Hedengren have been as comfortable going out and taking the lead at that pace? Perhaps not.
When you're head and shoulders above your competition, there's little risk involved in hammering a solo time trial.
That said, it was obviously a fantastic performance. Even though she didn't have to worry about losing to anyone, it takes tremendous concentration and effort to smash a record while running solo like that.
I think the key word (which I've put in bold above) from the comment by "not like comps" is if. If, hypothetically speaking, there were 3 American girls at Hedengren's level (there aren't, but imagine if there were), plus a phenom from another country at her level, and they were all in the race, would Hedengren have been as comfortable going out and taking the lead at that pace? Perhaps not.
When you're head and shoulders above your competition, there's little risk involved in hammering a solo time trial.
That said, it was obviously a fantastic performance. Even though she didn't have to worry about losing to anyone, it takes tremendous concentration and effort to smash a record while running solo like that.
High school kids are fearless, so it's not unusual to see someone run away at the front. Impressive yes, comfortable yes too!
Still to your point, if she gets in a race with 9:25/15:00 runners, hangs out at the back of the pack, and hangs on for dear life the last 800, she certainly has potential to be a bit quicker at both distances.
As a GOAT watcher, Jane certainly now in discussion. A full sr year of xc record/champ, indoor mile thru 5000, outdoor mile thru 5000 records is no joke.
With Leachman and Blade seemingly out of the picture at the moment, Jane has clear lead on the field. Engelhardt v Hedengren at 800 & mile could still be a great race!
We'll see how April to June plays out, but Arcadia & Brian Clay are some start!
Sounds like Jane Hedengren is making a clear case for greatest female HS runner of all time?
The clear top-4 are #1 Decker, #2 Cain, #3 Fairchild (XC GOAT), and #4 Hedengren.
Decker would have competed and possibly medaled in the 800m in Munich in '72 as a 14-yo. Remember, after the Olympics, she traveled to Minsk and defeated the Soviet woman who had just won silver in Munich. She broke several world records as a 15/16-yo, but then injury (I think compartment syndrome?) derailed any chance to compete in Montreal in '76. It would have been her second Olympics as a high schooler! Just ridiculous.
Cain, of course, became the youngest American to ever qualify for a World Championship team when she was 17. She then went on to finish 9th in the WC Final. She won the World Junior Championship in the 3000 a year later and also broke the world junior record in the 1000m.
Fairchild is the GOAT of cross country. On an 80-degree day, she set a Balboa Park record that still stands 35 years later and obliterated Deena Kastor, Amy Rudolf, and Jen Rhines that day (combined 8x Olympics, 7x NCAA Champs), all by over a minute. She then finished 3rd at the World Junior Cross Country Championships, beating Paula Radcliffe, Gete Wami, Gabby Szabo, and Kastor. As a junior, she won Footlocker over Kastor, Rudolph, and Carol Zajac and placed 12th at the World Junior Cross Country Championships, beating Kastor, Tegla Loroupe, and Carla Sacramento.
All three of these runners not only crushed US competition, but they also made their mark globally as high schoolers.
Hedengren leads the chase pack, but don't discount Leachman. She was beating Hedengren a year ago and when she comes back, maybe she will again.
Thank you for reminding everbody about Mary Decker Slaney. I realize it was a different time in the sport, especially for women, but as a high schooler Mary was probably the best middle distance runner in the world. Jane would need to be running neck and neck with Kipyegon or Tsegay to compare. Decker still is the most talented female US middle distance runner in history and this was evident by the time she was a junior in HS.
This post was edited 35 seconds after it was posted.
Hedengren has run Sadie Engelhardt right off the track and out of the limelight. Jane is the more talented of the two, in my opinion. I'm thinking that Engelhardt is intimidated and feels dominated, so she won't show up and race Hedengren. Ventura is not that far from Arcadia, and Engelhardt wasn't there. Hedengren flew in from Utah. So at this point there's only only one clear alpha distance runner.
12:47.53 = 14:11.96 female age 18 so maybe 7 seconds off or so.
So a top college make going 12:54 is 14:19 female. Maybe in a couple years she runs that and sets record or American record. I hope she doesn't go pro until at least end of season 2027.
I think women's world record will be about 13:55 in 2-3 years
The clear top-4 are #1 Decker, #2 Cain, #3 Fairchild (XC GOAT), and #4 Hedengren.
Decker would have competed and possibly medaled in the 800m in Munich in '72 as a 14-yo. Remember, after the Olympics, she traveled to Minsk and defeated the Soviet woman who had just won silver in Munich. She broke several world records as a 15/16-yo, but then injury (I think compartment syndrome?) derailed any chance to compete in Montreal in '76. It would have been her second Olympics as a high schooler! Just ridiculous.
Cain, of course, became the youngest American to ever qualify for a World Championship team when she was 17. She then went on to finish 9th in the WC Final. She won the World Junior Championship in the 3000 a year later and also broke the world junior record in the 1000m.
Fairchild is the GOAT of cross country. On an 80-degree day, she set a Balboa Park record that still stands 35 years later and obliterated Deena Kastor, Amy Rudolf, and Jen Rhines that day (combined 8x Olympics, 7x NCAA Champs), all by over a minute. She then finished 3rd at the World Junior Cross Country Championships, beating Paula Radcliffe, Gete Wami, Gabby Szabo, and Kastor. As a junior, she won Footlocker over Kastor, Rudolph, and Carol Zajac and placed 12th at the World Junior Cross Country Championships, beating Kastor, Tegla Loroupe, and Carla Sacramento.
All three of these runners not only crushed US competition, but they also made their mark globally as high schoolers.
Hedengren leads the chase pack, but don't discount Leachman. She was beating Hedengren a year ago and when she comes back, maybe she will again.
Thank you for reminding everbody about Mary Decker Slaney. I realize it was a different time in the sport, especially for women, but as a high schooler Mary was probably the best middle distance runner in the world. Jane would need to be running neck and neck with Kipyegon or Tsegay to compare. Decker still is the most talented female US middle distance runner in history and this was evident by the time she was a junior in HS.
You need to take quality of competition into account. Not Deckers fault that runners back then weren’t better, but if a high schooler today were as good as Kipyegon that would be orders of magnitude more impressive than Decker
No. The greatest runner of all time means just that. You compare runners from today against those of yesterday and every yesterday before that. If a HS girl runs 8:59 for 2 miles tomorrow, she is the best of all time.
Sure? Not sure how this relates to anything I’ve said
The clear top-4 are #1 Decker, #2 Cain, #3 Fairchild (XC GOAT), and #4 Hedengren.
Decker would have competed and possibly medaled in the 800m in Munich in '72 as a 14-yo. Remember, after the Olympics, she traveled to Minsk and defeated the Soviet woman who had just won silver in Munich. She broke several world records as a 15/16-yo, but then injury (I think compartment syndrome?) derailed any chance to compete in Montreal in '76. It would have been her second Olympics as a high schooler! Just ridiculous.
Cain, of course, became the youngest American to ever qualify for a World Championship team when she was 17. She then went on to finish 9th in the WC Final. She won the World Junior Championship in the 3000 a year later and also broke the world junior record in the 1000m.
Fairchild is the GOAT of cross country. On an 80-degree day, she set a Balboa Park record that still stands 35 years later and obliterated Deena Kastor, Amy Rudolf, and Jen Rhines that day (combined 8x Olympics, 7x NCAA Champs), all by over a minute. She then finished 3rd at the World Junior Cross Country Championships, beating Paula Radcliffe, Gete Wami, Gabby Szabo, and Kastor. As a junior, she won Footlocker over Kastor, Rudolph, and Carol Zajac and placed 12th at the World Junior Cross Country Championships, beating Kastor, Tegla Loroupe, and Carla Sacramento.
All three of these runners not only crushed US competition, but they also made their mark globally as high schoolers.
Hedengren leads the chase pack, but don't discount Leachman. She was beating Hedengren a year ago and when she comes back, maybe she will again.
Thank you for reminding everbody about Mary Decker Slaney. I realize it was a different time in the sport, especially for women, but as a high schooler Mary was probably the best middle distance runner in the world. Jane would need to be running neck and neck with Kipyegon or Tsegay to compare. Decker still is the most talented female US middle distance runner in history and this was evident by the time she was a junior in HS.
Interestingly, Mary Cain did race Faith Kipyegon in the WC final in 2013. Kipyegon was 19, running in her first WC and finished 5th, 4 seconds ahead of 17-year-old Mary in 9th place. Future world record holder Genzebe Dibaba finished 7th.
As long as we are talking about teenage runners, let's not forget that Tirunesh Dibaba was 18 when she won the WC in 14:51.
If we want to include foreign high school aged athletes, we need to include Zola Budd. Ran a WR 15:01 for 5000m barefoot as a 17-yo that was not ratified because of South Africa's apartheid policies, then ran 14:48 barefoot as an 18-yo for an official WR.
You haven’t been paying attention. Jane Hedengren ALREADY ran 5000M in 15:13 on an indoor 200m track with 2x the turns and 1/2 the straight aways. She is FAR better than “15:15 outdoor.” Standby . . . she runs 5000M in 6 days at Brian Clay against top NCAA runners to push her . . . no blowing away by a ridiculous margin ALL the other top/best high school runners in the nation.
9:34.12y is insane for a HSer. Cain was also a freakish talent and ran 9:38y indoors (in an open race?) and 1:59pt outdoors. I'd put Tuohy a half notch below the other two.
Hedengren, IMO, will have a better post HS career than the others. The height and form are impressive. Will probably benefit a great deal from having runners to work with and/or chase.
Some of you posters seem to think that the 3200 is the only distance that Arcadia has. If Sadie Engelhardt had been eligible to run Arcadia she would have run the mile, not the 2 mile.
Hedengren beat Touhy’s NXN record by 5 seconds in HORRENDOUSLY bad conditions . . . mud, water puddles throughout course, heavy rain. Hedengren has fast times than Touhy at 1mile, 3200M, 2 mile, 5000M track, 5000M cross country, and NXN. There is NOT a single metric in which Touhy was ever faster than Hedengren at ANY distance as a high school athlete . . . period. #FactsAndTimesDontLie
As long as we are talking about teenage runners, let's not forget that Tirunesh Dibaba was 18 when she won the WC in 14:51.
If we want to include foreign high school aged athletes, we need to include Zola Budd. Ran a WR 15:01 for 5000m barefoot as a 17-yo that was not ratified because of South Africa's apartheid policies, then ran 14:48 barefoot as an 18-yo for an official WR.
If we want to include foreign high school aged athletes, we need to include Zola Budd. Ran a WR 15:01 for 5000m barefoot as a 17-yo that was not ratified because of South Africa's apartheid policies, then ran 14:48 barefoot as an 18-yo for an official WR.
Wrong. Need to better inform yourself 🤦♂️. Hedengren set the national high school record for a 5K XC course at NX SW regionals where she ran 15:50. Fairchild only ran 16:38 at Balboa in optimal conditions (80 degree San Diego with low humidity = optimal conditions). Hedengren ran 48 sec faster than Fairchild at NX Southwest regional, aka Hedengren is faster, better, more of a GOAT than Fairchild. Moreover, in slop, mud, heavy rain, and a course littered with water puddles Hedengren ran 16:32 in breaking the NXN record of Touhy that Touhy did in ideal conditions. Hedengren’s NXN record in terrible conditions is 6 sec faster than Fairchild’s Balboa time. Hedengren’s NX regional time of 15:50 is 48 seconds faster. Hedengren is the GOAT of high school girls distance running from 1mile to 5K distances, indoor, outdoor, XC . . . all of it. Hedengren is the GOAT it’s not even debatable. Times don’t lie. It’s a race, over a distance, the faster runner is better . . . sorry I had to explain this “no duh” to you but . . . in your post you seemed either deluded or uniformed. Your welcome . . . .
As a GOAT watcher, Jane certainly now in discussion. A full sr year of xc record/champ, indoor mile thru 5000, outdoor mile thru 5000 records is no joke.
With Leachman and Blade seemingly out of the picture at the moment, Jane has clear lead on the field. Engelhardt v Hedengren at 800 & mile could still be a great race!
We'll see how April to June plays out, but Arcadia & Brian Clay are some start!
Regarding Leachman and Blade, they are very good at 3200 and 5k, but they aren't competitive with Hedengren at 800 or 1600.
Even if Hedengren never ran another race in high school after this week's 5k, it would be very difficult for either Leachman or Blade to surpass Hedengren in a GOAT discussion.
Even if Leachman reclaims her 5k and 3200 national records, she would probably also have to smash the 10k national record, and win the NXN and Foot Locker double next year to have a shot at moving ahead of Hedengren.