Best running form you ever saw--please vote

Yes, Kipketer is great but Coe's form was equally good.

I often thought Kip looked a bit fragile, while Coe could look gazelle like (as did Kipketer), but also show great power when he needed to. His change of pace was awesome.

Others may claim to match it, but it doesn't get any better than this IMO:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6aH0TlRWuY&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PL7C1C897BA107CC86

Red Arrow wrote:

Yes, Kipketer is great but Coe's form was equally good.

I often thought Kip looked a bit fragile, while Coe could look gazelle like (as did Kipketer), but also show great power when he needed to. His change of pace was awesome.

Kipketer never needed to change pace. He would just string two .50sec 400s back to back.

Kipketer

Bekele

Coe

Bill McChesney

And a random high school junior who none of you know.

Yeah my contention is that Kipketer never looked strong because he didn't have to press like Coe because he was always gliding with smooth form.

Yes but then Kipketer never had to run a last 100m in a 1500 in 12.1 to pull away from Ovett! Gliding over the last 100m would have been useless for Kip in a race like that. He would have been buried.

My favorite marathoner to watch right now is Wilson Kipsang. He has the relaxed power of a miler combined with the economy of a road guy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsBag9OAMro

Yes, I would also like to add Lagat (I said only Coe earlier). Coe's form when sprinting down the homestretch to his first olympic 1500m gold is perfection in my mind. I love watching Lagat race too though. I'm so envious of him in pretty much every way when it comes to running. Check out his 51.9 last lap against Bekele, Kipchoge, and Choge a few years back (kick starts at about 1:30):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2rHmSKqs2w

Those two are probably my favorite. Bekele's form is terrible in comparison.

As for sprinters, Gay and Bolt both have awesome form. Sprinters often look a little goofy when running due to being at 100% effort, but Gay and Bolt always look perfect.

Check out this video of Bolt (be sure to watch 2:53 onwards):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RT67nKzD1Tw

GEB!!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSp1r1QhUSY

Thread over.

McChesney was an absolute beast back in the day!

I'd have to say... (in no particular order)

Coe

Bekele

German Fernandez

Hicham

Centro

This has been an amazing thread. Thanks to everybody for all your posts, looking forward to more hopefully. Question now is do or did these elites work on form specifically or did this simply come naturally. Case in point is Ritz who had his form altered by Salazar, did it help or not is debatable, also Radcliffe who has been told to alter her form and has not, then look at Geb, Meb, etc and they just look natural. I will never look even close to these runners but just trying to improve things and hopefully just be more efficient and less injury prone.

xlev2 wrote:

This has been an amazing thread. Thanks to everybody for all your posts, looking forward to more hopefully. Question now is do or did these elites work on form specifically or did this simply come naturally. Case in point is Ritz who had his form altered by Salazar, did it help or not is debatable, also Radcliffe who has been told to alter her form and has not, then look at Geb, Meb, etc and they just look natural. I will never look even close to these runners but just trying to improve things and hopefully just be more efficient and less injury prone.

Coe's form as a teen wasn't very good. There is some footage of him running X country and on the road as a young teen. He's short for his age, very skinny with very long legs; looks more like a kenyan, apart from the colour of course.

His dad had to break him down and change a lot biomechanically, even up to 1979, when he was the finished article.

Red Arrow wrote:

Yes but then Kipketer never had to run a last 100m in a 1500 in 12.1 to pull away from Ovett! Gliding over the last 100m would have been useless for Kip in a race like that. He would have been buried.

Agreed, but the question wasn't who has the best finish, it was who has the best form, and I think it is Wilson, though he can't turn it over as fast at the end of races as Coe.

Coe in 1984 is hard to vote against

but

after watching Kipketer again...pretty close.

I am defining form as 'how I would like to look when I run'

Because in the end - form is an addendum - speed can come ugly.

Mohammed Gammoudi. Lots of great battles with Viren, Clarke and Keino in the late 60s and early 70s, but he always seemed to be running like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWmReV1B2cg

That is awesome.

As far as personally witnessing in the flesh -- Mike Boit. In the early '80s I happened upon him training on Hayward Field and timed one of his 400s. The guy was just flowing through them -- it was a 52! He was one of those guys where it was impossible to tell how fast he was going just by watching. Most guys start straining and tightening up on fast reps -- not Mike Boit.

Ryan hall

coe eased up at the end instead of running through. he would have broken 2:12 otherwise. and he was running alone for much of the race. give him competition that day and it'd still be the world record.

Centro, by the way, is very similar. Hard to tell how fast he's going by watching because he's so smooth. Being shorter and squatter, he's not quite as pretty as the taller Boit.

Sammy Wanjiru - carries his arms a little low, but it looks soooo effortless, I'd like to run like him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-SxTnqCmLA