What WR is the most mind boggling?

A well-reasoned post overall, but I'm curious how much of an advantage the pacing lights really give? We all know the super shoes provide multiple seconds' advantage for a distance race, I'm not sure I believe that for the pacing lights.

So far on the men's side, the following events have been mentioned in this thread:

100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, 1500m, 3000m, 5000m, 10000m, Marathon, 400mH, TJ, HJ, Javelin

I'm surprised the steeple and half marathon haven't been mentioned. I guess the 110mH and discus get no love either and the shot put and pole vault are too new and likely to be broken again soon.

On the women's side a lot of events haven't been mentioned simply because they are cartoonish times run by incredibly doped athletes..

So, in conclusion, I think we can say that pretty much all WRs are mindboggling.

Isn't the TJ just a weird, second tier event that draws athletes that aren't typically competitive in the LJ?

Koch's 400m in lane 2 in of all places Canberra Australia 47.60 in 1985 really stands out. Komen's 7:20 interesting the Jakob hasn't taken a shot at this one but maybe in the future. Marathon men's insane but not sure about that with the shoes.

Mike Conley says No.

And James Beckford concurs.

Strange how for radioactive Komen, El G, Bekele etc it's a case of - 'but everybody was doping', yet for Ma's army it's - 'just radioactive'.

As we know here EVERYBODY dopes, it's a shame the Chinese were the few to stop doping. They destroyed women's world records in a couple of years of trying. Imagine if instead of a tiny region of China doping a small group of women's distance runners for a couple of years, the whole of 1.3 billion China was under a similar Ma's army regime at all distances, men amd women, for 20 years? Men's 800m WR 1:38, 1500m 3:22 , 3000m 7:12 etc.

But..... I doubt if people here would be saying, 'who cares, everybody is doping?'

Is it just me, or does anyone else think the full throttle EPO records are not that 'mind boggling'? We know what EPO does, and these guys were full throttle on it for years. For example, 3:26.0 seems a little disappointing to me. It doesn't even look that outlandish from a 1500m historical WR progression pov. After all, Aouita, Coe, Cram were running 3 seconds faster than just a decade before them. It only seems other worldy because nobody has gotten near it in 20 years. Put Herb Elliott, Snell, Ryun Coe or Cram on full throttle EPO and pacers on full throttle EPO who can lead you to the bell and you'd get close to 3:20.

They stopped doping only after they doped so blatantly that it became embarrassing. A similar process happened with the Chinese women's swim team.

The whataboutism is pointless deflection.

The Heptathlon record should have been removed when they changed the women's javelin specification to reduce it's flight. The record was 80.00m in 1988; it's now 72.28m. It's a different event from 1988.

Except Muraz Barshim jumped 2m43 in 2014.

Completely miss the point.

No more blatantly doping than El G, Komen etc. Yet their doped out of their brains WRs are 'insane', 'incredible', 'jaw dropping', 'unforgettable', and the 'greatest ever', whereas Ma's WRs are simply doped and to be erased from history.

Very good points here.

Just to add something: I think when comparing Komen's 3000 WR to other newer WRs that it is NOT completely out of reach for some athletes.

BUT: If Komen ran the 3k with carbon shoes the record might be at least 7:18... or 7:17, 7:16? That is the insane part.

It is a weird combination of speed and strength indeed and I do not think that next year JI etc go out and run 7:15.

While tiping this the numbers they feel insane - but I am quite sure he could have gone way under 7:20 with today's environment.

Pikachu

WA scoring tables rate the WRs (including some non-running WRs for perspective):

1. Usain Bolt 19.19 -- 1351

2. Mike Powell 8.95 -- 1346

3. Eliud Kipchoge 2:00:39 -- 1335

4. Letensebet Gidey 1:02:52 -- 1326

5. Armand Duplantis 6.21 -- 1325

6. Ryan Crouser 23.37 -- 1323

7. Florence Griffith-Joyner 10.49 -- 1314

8. David Rudisha 1:40.91 -- 1302

9. Daniel Komen 7:20.67 -- 1300

He is doing what was doing Sergey Bubka for years.

There is an exploit in this discipliner that leads to several records by year.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men%27s_pole_vault_world_record_progression

Jerry Rice was pretty incredible personally I think Randy Moss was the most mind boggling in his prime

Moss was a lazy POS whose specialization in offensive pass interference was overlooked by the league in the search for profits.

Not even CLOSE to Rice

Of course, but it depends also on the style of the particular race.

What are the percentages for the various distances for “ideally-paced” efforts, and are the differences between 1500 and 3000, and 5000 and 10000, meaningful?

It seems as though the diff between 1 mile and 2 will be proportionally greater than that between 5 and 10k, but how much greater?