Mo Farah told us today he thinks he could have run 12:45 in his prime.... Agree or disagree?

Too bad that he never ran it. He must regret it now. Had he actually done it, we may consider him GOAT. Oh well...

No one who doesn't follow running knows who Geb is. Not in the US (or the rest of the Americas), the largest market in the world, the place where fame matters most. Same for Zatopek, Nurmi, Bubka.

If Geb or Kenny were a Brit or Yank they'd have a lot more fame. Mo had that going for him

I pretty much agree with all this said88.

On the surface Geb's and Bekele had both the medals and the records, which puts them ahead of Farah.

I was just playing devil's advocate for all those that accuse Farah of being a drug cheat, despite far more rigorous testing and never testing positive, and criticise him for not approaching the Ethiopians' times. IF, and of course there is no proof, Bekele & Geb were doping; and with hindsight looking at their era as a whole and what was also happening in the 1500 I would say there is about a 50% chance; then that could explain why Farah wasn't capable of approaching those times. Hence it would be pointless for him to attempt to. Having said that, I think Farah's 3:28 is a little suspect.

I do think Farah's bucket load of medals and longevity outweigh Komen's 2 great seasons of fast times, with no medals, however.

Competely agree. Probably faster, though.

Kiddiidyyd wrote:

Too bad that he never ran it. He must regret it now. Had he actually done it, we may consider him GOAT. Oh well...

Without setting a world record or coming close (i.e. 12:45 isn't close) you aren't going to be considered the GOAT.

That being said other than that one race in 2012, nobody has come close to 12:50 in like 10 years. At some point they might need to add the asterik to all those 1995-2010 times from the undectectable EPO era.

Bib #1 wrote:

No one who doesn't follow running knows who Geb is. Not in the US (or the rest of the Americas), the largest market in the world, the place where fame matters most. Same for Zatopek, Nurmi, Bubka.

If Geb or Kenny were a Brit or Yank they'd have a lot more fame. Mo had that going for him

Exactly. A US or UK World/Olympic champ is worth big bucks, regardless of times. Centro is making more off his OG 1500 gold than any other OG 1500 champ, even though we all know Kiprop is lightyears better, El G was probably the greatest ever, and plenty of runners have faster PRs.

Look at Emma Coburn, the boards go crazy over her win, she (the race) gets ESPN coverage. Did anyone care that Jebet won the Olympics last year? Or that she ran 8:52? No, and no one cares that Coburn is only the 6th fastest steeplechaser ever and that of the 5 in front of her, 4 (I think) are active. US and UK athletes are marketable: they will get way more attention and fame and make way more money than their faster competitors from other countries, especially African countries.

Running 12:30 doesn't make anyone famous. Winning Olympic gold counts for something, winning Olympic gold as a Yank or Brit counts for more than anything else in the sport. Thus: Mo, Rupp, and Centro have focused all of their attention on major championships and are probably the three wealthiest distance runners on the planet.

Using Emma's win is a dumb example. She's a cute, blonde, American girl who looks like the kind of girl you dated in high school. She's relevant to you and I and we're excited when she wins.

Mo is a goofy looking sub-saharan african that is doped to the gills. People don't give a shit about him winning because he's just like every other african that wins and nobody cares about. We want to see him run fast, I couldn't care less about a WC gold in the 5K from 2013 that was won in 13:35 with a season's best of 13:10. That's why he'll never even crack the all time top 10 for distance runners.

trolly mctrollerson wrote:

Then why didn't he?

He reminds me of Willis T Bell in the TV series the Paper Chase whom during a job interview after being questioned why he got a C in Contracts he tries to deflect the question saying : "I'm a hard working fellow, nobody will work harder than me in your firm". Needless to say the employers replies: "How come if you are as hard working as you say only got a C in Contracts?"

Mo had his chance and chose to run tactical races instead, pass the page, too late for Monday morning quarterbacking...Sir Mo

Bekeles dominance is often understated in these threads. He's clearly proved to be just as good/ better than Mo Farah at multiply points in his career. Bekele has proved himself in XC, Championship racing, time trialing, and nearly holds the marathon wr.

The only thing mo farah has got on bekele is his longevity as a championship racer and his 1500 speed. All I have to say to that is Bekele hardly ever raced the 1500, he probably could of gone faster-- after all, bekele was closing 10 ks and 5ks with the same sub 55 last laps.

Also, I don't think longevity is a huge factor in THIS GOAT discussion. Bekele has proven himself to be a world class runner for the past 14 years, with the exception of 2015.

Rojo --

If you hold not chasing times against Farah, shouldn't you hold not chasing titles against Geb?

-- end Rojo

Secondly, for anyone that says Geb was even close to the popularity level of Mo Farah is laughable. Mo is the second most popular person in the sport behind Bolt.

As much as runners on this board value fast times, casual fans don't because that's not what the competition is. The competition is to win the race and the people they say winning the races become the most popular.

This is because world record holders get beat all the time.

kimani wrote:

Running 12:30 doesn't make anyone famous. Winning Olympic gold counts for something, winning Olympic gold as a Yank or Brit counts for more than anything else in the sport.

All it takes is good doping prep weeks leading into it. Which, Mo knows aaaaalllll about.

reed wrote:

Mo could still improve his GOAT standing on the roads. I'd rather see him go run 58:xx for a half than go and run 12:47 or something.

How fast of a marathon would he have to run to be considered better than Geb? I'd say something like 2:03:20s

Gosh, don't get me started on Geb's marathon career. As someone whose ATM pin in college was haileg, I paid zero attention to his marathon career. Those time trials in Berlin did nothing for me.

Maybe now since I could watch them live, they'd be more interesting but at the time, I just hated them.

Deanouk wrote:

But it is naive of many posters on here to basically call out Farah as a drug cheat and that Geb and Bekele are greater down to world records, without even mentioning or considering that the latter two's times are drug fuelled, and as a result, unapproachable. Thus Farah was sensible to chase the medals instead, and for that alone he deserves credit and to be in the discussion for GOAT.

You seem to be implying that Bekele/Geb were dopers but not Farah. I think there are very few people who consider that. I think most people who care about drugs might assume that all 3 were on drugs (or non of them) so then the assumption would be to judge them by results.

So Haile and Bekele are dopers because they ran super fast in an era where there was no biological passport and it was easy to cheat?

But Farah is clean becuase he ran slow ?

That's your logic?

Nothing about the fact that Farah got great at age 28 and has ties to Salazar, Aden and some kid buying EPO in Kenya .

It should be remembered the Bekele did run in the era of BP. He's still running fast marathons now when healthy.

Micro dosing epo --- sure he could do it.

Yes, absolutely.

When you can run 12:5x allowing others to set the pace and finish with a 55 second last lap beating guys with faster PRs, why would anyone think that athlete isn't capable of running much faster. Mo won win it counts so consistently that there is not doubt in mind he could have run 12:46. I think Mo gave a realistic estimate; it's not he said he could broken the WR.

I will also add that Mo is the GOAT 'track' distance runner. Mo didn't run fast, but he won championships. Mo doesn't get credit for what he didn't do, but you can't take away from him what he did do.

To me this whole interview is not legitimate. What is this crap?? Talking with an athlete about what he could have done if only he had tried? Unless the interview is a criticism of Farah's legacy, and it doesn't seem so, I don't accept the legitimacy of making such an interview! Farah doesn't even have to run anymore? Now he just has to "could have run"??

Maybe asking him about distances he doesn't compete like 400m or 800m, but asking him what he could have done about the distances he ran dozens of times??

What he could have run is what he ran! Nothing more!

Tested wrote:

Rojo --

If you hold not chasing times against Farah, shouldn't you hold not chasing titles against Geb?

-- end Rojo

Secondly, for anyone that says Geb was even close to the popularity level of Mo Farah is laughable. Mo is the second most popular person in the sport behind Bolt.

As much as runners on this board value fast times, casual fans don't because that's not what the competition is. The competition is to win the race and the people they say winning the races become the most popular.

This is because world record holders get beat all the time.

I hold it against Geb but the internet barely existed when Geb was racing and I wasn't following the stuff day to day like I am now. I d remember being pissed he didn't do the 5k in Atlanta. But does anyone really think he'd lose to Veneste niyongaba unless injured?

Now the track was really hard in atlanta and i remember he complained about it. Plus they had 5 races in 1996. Mo only had to run 3. I just found out they had 3 heats of the 5k. For some reason they ran a rund to go from 37 to 30.

If Geb doubles in 1996, he's have to run two 5ks and 3 10ks.

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