It's hard to say greatest of all time...
But if Sifan Hassans olympic marathon win (after medaling in the 5k and 10K) isn't in consideration, then we aren't really talking.
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Membrane wrote:
McRunnin wrote:
A correction to the post that first mentioned that race: Bekele ran the first half of that race in 13:52 (not 13:53). His second half was 12:57 (not 12:56).
To put that 12:57 second half in perspective, it was faster than Bob Kennedy's 12:58 American record at the time. It was also faster than Saïd Aouita's 12:58 world record set just 16 years before. At that time, only 26 other men (including Geb) had ever run a 5,000m faster than Bekele's second half split. The rough equivalent today would be 12:48, aka what Graham Blanks recently ran in Oslo.
To show how devastating it was, the 4th place finisher was nearly 30 seconds behind Bekele. Charles Kamathi, the defending world champion you mentioned, finished nearly a minute behind!
If you don't believe Bekele's performance deserves mention in this thread, read what World Athletics wrote about it in their 2003 year in review:
“The best ever 10,000m race,” that is how the Paris World Championships final in 2003 has been described. A race that started out almost leisurely (2:52 – 2:44 – 2:48 – 2:46 – 2:42) and finished in an absolute blaze (2:34 – 2:38 – 2:37 – 2:38 – 2:29). The halves of 13:52/12:57 tell much of the story – but certainly not the whole. Because much of the second half was in fact run at a pattern more resembling fartlek training than championship racing!
Add to that the historical significance of Bekele taking the torch from Geb, and it's absolutely one of the all-time great performances.
I admitted it was a great performance. I just don't think it's the best and is a little over rated. Your second paragraph where you mention great runners' all time best doesn't prove anything. The opening 5k in Paris was at 67 sec pace. That's slow for Gen and Bekele. It doesn't matter they closed in 12:57. That was twenty seconds off Bekele's lifetime best and 18 from Geb's. It's like if you had a two mile PR of 8:40, and ran a two mile and opened in 6 flat for mile 1 and closed in 4:18 for mile 2. Of course you could close in 4:18. A six minute mile would do nothing to sap your strength at your fitness level.
It's like when someone closes in 51 seconds in a tactical 5k. It doesn't mean they can run a 46 400, it just means they have incredible strength and can close close to an all out 400 when the rest of the 5k was slow for them.
12:57 was indeed faster than Kennedy or Aouata ever ran, but Bekele and Geb both broke 12:40. You need a better understanding of how distant strength works. Your assessment criteria is slightly off.
You're overlooking the line, "Because much of the second half was in fact run at a pattern more resembling fartlek training than championship racing!" Geb was varying the pace and surging to burn off the Kenyans. Perhaps you need a better understanding of how difficult it is to shift gears during a distance race.
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Wccet wrote:
GreatDane wrote:
No mention of Kiplimo’s 56:42 half WR? That was a jaw dropping time breaking the previous best 57:30.
It has been mentioned at least twice. And now a 3rd time by you. I think the shoes make some of us just roll our eyes at these times.
I would add that this isn't quite as earth shattering as everyone may think. The previous WR by Kejelcha was 4:23 per mile pace and Kiplimo's current one is right at 4:20 per mile pace. Yes, it's incredible that he literally dropped 3 sec per mile off of the previous record, but I would still argue that seeing 48 total sec taken off the previous record is a little bit deceptive in leading people to think it's a bigger jump than it really is.
Everyone was shocked when Kibiwott Kandie and Kiplimo first broke 57:40 a few years back. Everyone thought that made those two the greatest distance runners on the planet. But then, others like Sawe, Kejelcha, and Berega ran 58 minutes or under and it didn't seem out of the realm of possibility for any of the top guys to run mid 57s.
Now its just a similar situation and if we see even a couple more guys run under 57min, it's going to make Kiplimo's current record appear less mind boggling. For instance I wouldnt doubt for a second that Grant Fisher or even that Swedish dude could handle low 4:20s per mile for the half. Maybe Blanks as well, because I think he is really at least a 26:30 10k guy in the right race.
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Wccet wrote:
GreatDane wrote:
No mention of Kiplimo’s 56:42 half WR? That was a jaw dropping time breaking the previous best 57:30.
It has been mentioned at least twice. And now a 3rd time by you. I think the shoes make some of us just roll our eyes at these times.
Using Ron Clark’s % of breaking 28:15 down to 27:39 (x .979), that would be the equivalent of someone breaking 57:30 down to 56:18.
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McRunnin wrote:
Membrane wrote:
I admitted it was a great performance. I just don't think it's the best and is a little over rated. Your second paragraph where you mention great runners' all time best doesn't prove anything. The opening 5k in Paris was at 67 sec pace. That's slow for Gen and Bekele. It doesn't matter they closed in 12:57. That was twenty seconds off Bekele's lifetime best and 18 from Geb's. It's like if you had a two mile PR of 8:40, and ran a two mile and opened in 6 flat for mile 1 and closed in 4:18 for mile 2. Of course you could close in 4:18. A six minute mile would do nothing to sap your strength at your fitness level.
It's like when someone closes in 51 seconds in a tactical 5k. It doesn't mean they can run a 46 400, it just means they have incredible strength and can close close to an all out 400 when the rest of the 5k was slow for them.
12:57 was indeed faster than Kennedy or Aouata ever ran, but Bekele and Geb both broke 12:40. You need a better understanding of how distant strength works. Your assessment criteria is slightly off.
You're overlooking the line, "Because much of the second half was in fact run at a pattern more resembling fartlek training than championship racing!" Geb was varying the pace and surging to burn off the Kenyans. Perhaps you need a better understanding of how difficult it is to shift gears during a distance race.
Fair enough. I should reconsider my overall take. Varying acceleration averaging 62 seconds per lap is something to consider.
I'd like you to read my new Kiplimo 56:42 post from just a few minutes ago and respond with your thoughts.
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I would say Athing Mu 2024 Olympic Trials
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Sorry, I just think the 800 should be included
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This is my pick!
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Sorry, I thought that the previous message would be included...Zatopek, three golds in 1952!
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3:59:04. May 6, 1954. Iffley Road Track, Oxford University, England. In less than four minutes, Bannister broke through a supposed human performance barrier and electrified the global human population. The first ascent of Mt. Everest (May 29, 1953), and the first moonwalk (July 20, 1969) are among the only achievements that compare in modern times.
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Membrane wrote:
I would add that this isn't quite as earth shattering as everyone may think. The previous WR by Kejelcha was 4:23 per mile pace and Kiplimo's current one is right at 4:20 per mile pace. Yes, it's incredible that he literally dropped 3 sec per mile off of the previous record, but I would still argue that seeing 48 total sec taken off the previous record is a little bit deceptive in leading people to think it's a bigger jump than it really is.
This argument doesn't make any sense. If someone broke the world record in the mile by three seconds, would you say "Well, three seconds off the world record in the mile sounds like a lot, but really it's only .75 seconds per lap, so it's not really all that impressive"?
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qwf32q wrote:
From 1500m-marathon.
My first instincts would say Jakob's 7:17, Bekeles 5000m olympic gold in 2008, Kipchoge running under 2hrs (even if not legal).
If we include factors like age, Bernard Lagat getting 5th in the 5000m in Rio at almost age 42 is pretty insane to me (and him winning the olympic trials the same year with final lap of 52.)
I'm amazed that no one's mentioned Henry Rono's four world records in 81 days in 1978:
--5,000 meters: 13:08.4 in Berkeley, California 8 April
--3,000-meter steeplechase: 8:05.4 in Seattle 13 May
--10,000 meters: 27:22.47 in Vienna, Austria 11 June (this was a week after the NCAA championships in Eugene, where he set meet records in the semis and finals {8:18.63 and 8:12.39} of the steeple, and set a meet record in the 5000 of 13:21.79 in the semis)--3,000 meters: 7:32.1 in Oslo, Norway 27 June
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qwf32q wrote:
From 1500m-marathon.
My first instincts would say Jakob's 7:17, Bekeles 5000m olympic gold in 2008, Kipchoge running under 2hrs (even if not legal).
If we include factors like age, Bernard Lagat getting 5th in the 5000m in Rio at almost age 42 is pretty insane to me (and him winning the olympic trials the same year with final lap of 52.)
Bernard Lagat got caught with EPO in his system.he was/is a drug cheat. With what ever technicality, he got away with (B sample was stored improperly, etc...) is irrelevant. EPO was found in his A sample. How did it get there? He put it there.
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TrailsAreBetter wrote:
Membrane wrote:
I would add that this isn't quite as earth shattering as everyone may think. The previous WR by Kejelcha was 4:23 per mile pace and Kiplimo's current one is right at 4:20 per mile pace. Yes, it's incredible that he literally dropped 3 sec per mile off of the previous record, but I would still argue that seeing 48 total sec taken off the previous record is a little bit deceptive in leading people to think it's a bigger jump than it really is.
This argument doesn't make any sense. If someone broke the world record in the mile by three seconds, would you say "Well, three seconds off the world record in the mile sounds like a lot, but really it's only .75 seconds per lap, so it's not really all that impressive"?
Apples and oranges and you are making all kinds of assumptions and are expressing some logical fallacies.
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Email Zatopek and Sifan Hassan are the answers if you consider "performance" beyond the scope of a single race. If I had to pick one single performance without being able to verify doping allegations with 100% certainty (nobody on this message board can do anything but speculate anyway), it has to be Ruth Chepng'etich's sub 2:10.
I'm curious what people would say if you had to answer for performances that you strongly believe were 100% clean. Maybe Kipchoge or Bekele? I feel like they have both had incredibly long careers that reflect persistent growth without any serious accusations of doping ever holding much weight behind them. Neither of them rose out of nowhere or disappeared rapidly after some incredible performance. Maybe that just means they were better at getting away with it than anyone else. Of course, we can never know.
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Membrane wrote:
Fair enough. I should reconsider my overall take. Varying acceleration averaging 62 seconds per lap is something to consider.
I'd like you to read my new Kiplimo 56:42 post from just a few minutes ago and respond with your thoughts.
Thanks. Happy to share my thoughts on Kiplimo's HM. In general, I've been struggling to make sense of the times we've been seeing on the roads since the proliferation of super shoes. I'm particularly troubled by the notion of "super responders." I don't know what to do with that from an analytical perspective. The person who said, "I think the shoes make some of us just roll our eyes at these times" captured the sentiment well.
I think you make a good point about the benefit of passing time in being able to give us a better perspective on whether a new record is a historical outlier or part of a new wave of fast times wrought by the latest tech upgrades. You're right when you talk about Kandie & Kiplimo's 57:3x and the number of runners running 58 and below in the following years making their marks seem more approachable. In Kandie & Kiplimo's Valencia 2020 race alone, four guys including them ran under Geoffrey Kamworor's 58:01 world record, and a fifth ran faster than Zersenay Tadese's previous 58:23 world record which had stood for nearly a decade. So it was pretty clear that super shoes were changing the game.
I think one big difference with Kiplimo's 56:42 compared to Kandie's 57:32 is Kandie had several people within 30 seconds of him in that very race. Kiplimo is now 48 seconds faster than Kejelcha's world record set just four months beforehand. The standard for the world's best half-marathoners (including Kiplimo himself) the past few years in the super shoe era has been pretty well-established at 57:30-58:00, and Kiplimo blew that out of the water. Is that attributed to him reaching a new level that nobody else can match, or is Nike's newest product line that much better? I guess we'll see.
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Membrane wrote:
I would add that this isn't quite as earth shattering as everyone may think. The previous WR by Kejelcha was 4:23 per mile pace and Kiplimo's current one is right at 4:20 per mile pace. Yes, it's incredible that he literally dropped 3 sec per mile off of the previous record, but
I would still argue that seeing 48 total sec taken off the previous record is a little bit deceptive in leading people to think it's a bigger jump than it really is.
It takes a real twisting of logic to argue that breaking a half marathon world record by 48 seconds isn't that big of a jump.
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Who is the best of them all wrote:
Membrane wrote:
I would add that this isn't quite as earth shattering as everyone may think. The previous WR by Kejelcha was 4:23 per mile pace and Kiplimo's current one is right at 4:20 per mile pace. Yes, it's incredible that he literally dropped 3 sec per mile off of the previous record, but
I would still argue that seeing 48 total sec taken off the previous record is a little bit deceptive in leading people to think it's a bigger jump than it really is.
It takes a real twisting of logic to argue that breaking a half marathon world record by 48 seconds isn't that big of a jump.
Yeah, and it’s particularly vexing considering that Membrane’s pick for men is 1:40.91, which is .1 faster than Rudisha’s previous WR and .2 faster than Kipketer ran in ‘97.
His picks for women are 8:06 and 2:09:56, so he seems inclined to go with a crazy WR. Among men’s distance records, 56:42 seems like a viable choice…
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1972 Munich Olympic 10,000. Lasse Viren gets knocked down, gets up, and wins in World Record time.
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Membrane wrote:
TrailsAreBetter wrote:
This argument doesn't make any sense. If someone broke the world record in the mile by three seconds, would you say "Well, three seconds off the world record in the mile sounds like a lot, but really it's only .75 seconds per lap, so it's not really all that impressive"?
Apples and oranges and you are making all kinds of assumptions and are expressing some logical fallacies.
No, I posed a hypothetical scenario in which a different world record got broken, and asked in that scenario whether you would downplay that record in a similar way.
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