So who was the competition from GB, Northern Europe, and Australasia for El G and Lagat? Who were the Snells, the Elliotts, the Coes, the Ovetts, the Jakobs, the Kerrs and Wightmans, or the young generational talents like Laros and Myers?
To name a few: Mayock, Willis, Whiteman, East, Fountain, Mottram, McKay, Carroll, Healy, Blincoe, Graffin, Nolan, Christensen, Cleary, Yates, Turnbull, Petersen.
Only one Coe: Blin(d).
So, your beloved countries 20 years ago hadn't absolutely top class 1500m runners. Because they weren't allowed to compete?
Yes Hoady, they effectively weren't allowed to compete because Africans and Iberians were allowed to full-throttle with a new drug that knocked 5 or 6 seconds off 1500m times.
El G 'dominated' (lost two successive Olympic finals) because he was competing against a small tribe in Kenya and a handful of similarly doped up Iberians and fellow North Africans.
The full-throttle EPO era was the worst era of miling since the war. It's only masked by the fact that a few doped to the max 3:33 guys were running 3:26-3:29.
John Borican (world records in multiple events but no Olympics because of the war) Glenn Cunningham and
Mel Sheppard (gold medals two Olympics)should be on this list but they are before your time.
I can certainly see the challenge of including runners from WWII and earlier and making meaningful comparisons with modern athletes. But OTOH, leaving off Nurmi is sort of like ranking the 100 top baseball players and leaving off Babe Ruth. Or leaving Joe Louis and Jack Dempsey off the list of the 100 top boxers. Kolehmainen, Nurmi, Hagg and others played pivotal roles in the history of the sport.
But this is not to criticize JWH in any way for a truly valiant effort. Now that he has done 90% of the work maybe someone else should take a crack and ranking the old time runners.
No place for Nick Willis in the top 100, despite being cheated out of at least one Olympic gold.
Seb Coe only 8th, despite being the only man in history to hold the 800,1000,1500, and mile WRs at the same time, the only man in history to defend his 1500m Olympic title, and the first man to break 1:42 when no other person in history had broken 1:43.
Rono, Shorter and Clarke out of the top 30. Clayton as well - took the marathon record from 2:12 to 2:09. Peters from mid 2:20's to 2:17 not ranked either. Of the higher placed Baumann Amos Ngugi faced bans. Caucho, Cierpinski, Makloufi, Lagat, Kuts, Farah with question marks. And the usual suspects of the EPO era.
This post was edited 5 minutes after it was posted.
No place for Nick Willis in the top 100, despite being cheated out of at least one Olympic gold.
Seb Coe only 8th, despite being the only man in history to hold the 800,1000,1500, and mile WRs at the same time, the only man in history to defend his 1500m Olympic title, and the first man to break 1:42 when no other person in history had broken 1:43.
This list was made before Josh Kerr did anything of note before Tokyo Copey.
Nick Willis has a silver and a bronze. End of story copevett.
Seb Coe was a great runner do doubt about that. However, other runners have surpassed him.
No place for Nick Willis in the top 100, despite being cheated out of at least one Olympic gold.
Seb Coe only 8th, despite being the only man in history to hold the 800,1000,1500, and mile WRs at the same time, the only man in history to defend his 1500m Olympic title, and the first man to break 1:42 when no other person in history had broken 1:43.
This list was made before Josh Kerr did anything of note before Tokyo Copey.
Nick Willis has a silver and a bronze. End of story copevett.
Seb Coe was a great runner do doubt about that. However, other runners have surpassed him.
Coe has set great records. Looking at all the achievements in middele and long distance running, Gebrselassie and Bekele have surpissid him by a loong way. It's not debatable.