Rank the best milers of all time...

CoachB wrote:

2. El G (because he still owns the record, although very likely doped) and had a pretty long career

There is no such thing as "likely" doped. There is either proof he doped or not proof.

ovett ran to win not chase the clock until '79

he got caught with his trousers down in '79 which he had planned as a "low-key" year to gather his strength for '80, meaning he hadn't trained as hard for '79 as previous 3y

unfortunately for him coe started chasing the clock in '79 forcing ovett to chase it as well to be considered number 1 but he was nowhere near '77 / '78 shape

ovett of '78 was in likely

~ 1'42-mid / 3'28-flat/low

i haven't got access to "calculator" just now to offer solid estimate for '77, but likely

~ 1'42-high/1'43-flat / 3'28-mid/3'28-high

i have not seen anyone else bother to flex their neurones for his 800 / 1500 shape in the following race, but above estimate is likely to be very, very close to it :

no it woudn't

that thread offers nothing for depth of contemporary talent

you might as well throw in nurmi or whoever those bums were who won all the golds in the '20s / '30s

the talent level today is incredible but rubbish pacing

here is astonishing race won by Silas in 3'27.64, when severely baulked 12s in costing at least 0.3 - 0.4s, lots of wide running that bend & still clocked 3'27.64 !!!

that was easily a 3'26-high/3'27-flat run if not baulked & no extra run wide on bend

i have asked numerous times :

what is the estimate from vid for Silas's split at 800 ???

subtract from 3'26-high/3'27-flat

what was his last intrinsic 700 ???

then extrapolate what that last 700 was for 1500 !!!

compare to what morceli's last 700 in a nominally quicker 3'27.37 but closest clocking on lists & it was huge wr back then & i thought unbeatable at the time

what was his last 700 & extrapolated to 1500 ??

Silas is in talk of greatest ever milers from just that sensational 3'27.64, let alone when analysed further

much more, it shows talk of "greatest" only drawing from pool of goldists is nonsense

Komen in berlin-'98 was in 3'43+ shape but never ran it in a global...

In response to 'calculo': 'neurones' are exquisitely sensitive cells that should not be 'flexed.'

Credit Limit wrote:If the pace drifted to 3:35 or slower there were several milers who had the wheels to outkick him ~ Morceli, Coe, Ovett, Ryun

is this a joke ?

he finished of a 3'26.00 with a 53.2 !!

what on earth do you think he couda finished a 3'35 in ???

And I seriously doubt he'd have run much faster than 3:30 without the EPO

eh ??

is this a joke ?

epo test introduced in '00

he ran a 3'27+ in '04 !!

so why no +ve test ??

LOOOLLL!! Is this a serious question.

#1. Jim Ryun, USA. DVTT mile of 3:41. Still the best ever. Let's not forget, 3:24, 1:39 and 44.0.

All others are second-rate.

i see they let the yahoos out of the gorilla cage

i have tried hard, extensively & laboriously on give facts/newspapers/vids/etc & come up with "interesting" times

it can never be proved but I have 100% belief that the lines of fit were on a '70s synthetic in zurich, not mickey-mouse, illegal 6-lane 105/95 track of oslo :

'66 :

44.25

/

1'40.00

->

2'09.63

3'27.05

3'44.05

no possible cracking 3'27 in '66 & that woud make him well outside top-10 intrinsic top-1500 talents to this day, as morceli, Keino, Komen & even mo couda dipped under 3'27 in their peak runs at 1500/mile if smoothly drafted to bell at sea-level

he wouda had small compensation in that his 800 ability wouda been

~ 1'40-flat

how much of a compensation you call that for not being capable of breaking 3'27 is your individual judgement

'67 :

44.00

/

1'38.97

->

2'08.13

3'24.22

3'41.35

offers correction of the previous year's 1500 paucity

the guy you see here in this brief vid, who finished off a 3'38.2 on a chewed-up dirt track, with a 10k run on it immediately before, with a 11.6 kick at 1200 finishing in a 36.5 was on a '70s track :

~ 44.0

1'38.9

3'24.2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUsEuv3Debs

a big job of a message board is quantifying ability to a '70s track

i offer above as my analysis

others please offer respective lines of fit for '66 & '67 for a zurich

Ya'll are pissing me off today.

The list is as follows:

1. El G

2. Nourredine Morceli

3.Steve Cram

4.Asbel Kiprop

5. Bernard Lagat

calculo wrote:

ovett ran to win not chase the clock until '79

he got caught with his trousers down in '79 which he had planned as a "low-key" year to gather his strength for '80, meaning he hadn't trained as hard for '79 as previous 3y

LOL. More re-writing of history I see!

Your top statement is correct re Ovett not chasing the clock until 79, but the rest of your statements are nonsense.

When and where did Ovett ever state that he hadn't trained as hard for the 79 season? He never did.

calculo wrote:

unfortunately for him coe started chasing the clock in '79 forcing ovett to chase it as well to be considered number 1 but he was nowhere near '77 / '78 shape

Your lack of knowledge on Ovett is telling here. His best years were 79, 80 and 81. In fact the man himself stated in his autobiography that his best year was 81.

He may have run his 800 pb in 78, but this was because he never really got into enough fast paced 2 lap races in the 3 seasons that followed.

He was the best miler in 77 and 78, but made to look better by the fact the other milers those years were quite a bit behind in ability.

His penultimate 100m in 12.0 in the 77 World Cup in Dusseldorf was amazing on the face of it, but coming straight after a previous 200m of 29.1, which is extremely pedestrian for the last lap of an elite 1500m, it certainly flattered to deceive, somewhat. In 78, his best 1500 performance was winning the European title in 3:35.6 with a last lap of 53.2 and a last 200m of 25.7. This was bettered on several occasions in 1500 and mile races in 79, 80 and 81.

calculo wrote:

what was his last intrinsic 700 ???

then extrapolate what that last 700 was for 1500 !!!

Kiplagat hit 800m in 1:52.3/1:52.4, giving him a last 700m of 1:35.2/1:35.3.

That is 1:48.86 pace for 800m. Which is 3:24.1 pace for 1500m. And? Your point is?

You can take a split of less than 50% of many elite 1500s and extrapolate a 1500 time much quicker than what the athlete actually ran.

Why does the 700m time have to be at the end of a race? Coe ran the first 700m from a stationary position in his 3:31 in 1:34.0, which is 3:21.4 pace for 1500m. If he'd had a rolling start, like Kiplagat had, it would have been more like 1:33.0, which is 3:19.9 pace!

A 700m section in a 1500m, however fast, tells us very little about what they could have run in an ideal race.

Bottom line is, Kiplagat's 3:27.6 run was on the only track where anyone has run faster than 3:29.2 in 10 years +, which would suggest it is an incredibly fast track compared to all other current mondo ones, let alone old synthetic ones.

There was no serious baulk after 100m.

He ran maybe 1.5m wide on first bend and 0.5m wide on last.

He had 1000m of drafting over the course of the race ~ 150m - 900m; 1050m - 1250m; 1350m - 1400m.

His splits were not wildly uneven either - 41.3, 57.1, 55.6, 53.6

And he had a rabbit for the entire race.

Yes, he is one of the best 1500m guys ever, but he has no world records and not too many medals from major champs. These are the main 2 currencies in measuring greatness.

Pwelch wrote:

Retiring Runner wrote:

1. Glenn Cunningham - because no one ever had more guts

2. Hicham El Guerrouj

3. Herb Elliot

4. Sir Roger Bannister

5. Hicham El Guerrouj

Hicham is both the 2nd and 5th best of all time. That is quite a feat.

Ranking with and without EPO

Tooo many marathons wrote:

Hicham El Guerrouj being ranked #2 and #5 is good, but at one time Ryun probably had the top 4 or 5 times in the world in the event. If you go back you will find several people who had multiple times ranking in the top ten in the world. Yes you would have to do an internet search and chances are some of the records are incomplete, but Ryun definitely had the two best times in the world as of 1967 as he ran 3:51.3 in 1966 and 3:51.1 in 1967. (On cinder tracks.)

Consider that he was 21 in 1967!

In addition his NCAA 800 record was just broken last year. That record was set in the late 1960s as well!

In this respect, El Guerrouj cannot hold a candle to Jim Ryun.

Unless you ignore college sports which mean nothing outside the US and shouldn't there and concentrate on gold medals at championships

Coe double 1500m champion

Elliott gold in WR

EL G if you ignore EPO

Walter George- WR for 30 years

Snell

Silas's time would not have changed, as he was hardly pushed. His last 800m was about 1:49, he ran negative splits because he ran with good judgement that day. Silas doesn't belong in the same sentence as the greats I mentioned. He has not put in a relatively impressive performance over 800m.

Komen used up his sprint finish at the beginning of the race. This his best mile performance, and he still lost. Mile/1500m was not his best distance.

1. Coe

2. ELG

3. Morceli

4. Elliott

5. Ovett

I believe El G and Moceli were highly likely to have doped, considering when they competed. But no proof. If it ever were proven then list would change to.

1. Coe

2. Elliott,

3. Ovett

4. Walker

5. Cram

6. Ryun

7. Snell

8. Kiprop