Where Does Bob Kennedy's Career Rank?

I was bieng extremly sarcastic in response to the 12:58 was in a time trial therefore it wasn't a big deal.

Asterisk wrote:

IBelieveICanRun wrote:

Wow, im sorry now that you put it that way clearly 12:58 is easily overlooked and means nothing in the grand scheme of things.

I can remember when Said Aouita, arguably the greatest runner of his generation with amazing mile speed, struggled with breaking 13:00 for several years. Now multiple Africans are damn near running that for the second half of their 10k races. I call bullshit. Breaking 13:00 in and of itself is quite a feat, and training methods have not improved that much over time. Guys were running BIG mileage thirty years ago, but nobody could break 13:00, let alone smash it. Too bad that drugs have so permeated endurance events that they will no longer be pure, and all of the existing records are tantamount to Mark McGuire's 73 HR.

14th

zxcvbn wrote:

Coe has TWO Olympic gold medals. It is obvious you are relatively new to the sport or simply naive.

Kennedy may have been the best american during an extremely weak period for the US, but the world stage he was not a factor. He did relatively well in time trials in Europe, but still lost in the US in ~13:20 races.

Coe has ONE 1500m gold. Read what I wrote.

You have given me amply opportunity to simply trash your reading comprehension. I'll let you do that for yourself.

Wrongo wrote:

Coe has ONE 1500m gold. Read what I wrote.

You have given me amply opportunity to simply trash your reading comprehension. I'll let you do that for yourself.

Oh, the irony. Actually, as several posters have mentioned, Coe has two Olympic gold medals in the 1500m, from 1980 and 1984. Is that clear enough for you?

Wrongo wrote:

Coe has ONE 1500m gold.

Interesting. Which one of his 1500m gold medals are you personally disqualifying him from: the one from Moscow, or the one from Los Angeles?

On top of that, when did Ovett win his 1500m title?

Marc's system is based on honors won,how well and athlete did in major meets. Times play a factor only if they are Word or American records. In his system a WR is equal to an Olympic Silver.

In another system that counts times heavier the order would/may be different.

I can not come up with a system any better than how you did against your peers.

Is speed the ultimate measure or is it succesfully racing to win,the heck with the watch, that makes you better than another.

I lean towards "Winning is everything school" but it's a slow sprinters lean and we all know how dumb sprinters are LOL.

Marc's system basicly follows the system T&FNews uses ....try as I can I dk/ns what system Iaaf uses.

Screw it, I was thinking of the 800 where Ovett beat Coe in his favored event.

The argument stands; Lagat would feed Coe his lunch at 1500m. The guy dropped a 51 and a 1:46 in Athens. Coe never did that.

the heats/semis were closer together in LA than they are now in major championships. people get more rest than before. it's hard to compare. given that coe has run 1:41 and lagat could at best run a 1:44 probably, it's safe to say that coe could take lagat on. lagat's best way of running is time trial affairs. if he is such a stud kicker how come he lost over half of his races the last three years? most of them in the last 100m?

Coe ran the last 800 of a 1500 in 1:46 in 1987.

Wrongo wrote:

Screw it, I was thinking of the 800 where Ovett beat Coe in his favored event.

The argument stands; Lagat would feed Coe his lunch at 1500m. The guy dropped a 51 and a 1:46 in Athens. Coe never did that.

Wrongo wrote:

Screw it, I was thinking of the 800 where Ovett beat Coe in his favored event.

The argument stands; Lagat would feed Coe his lunch at 1500m. The guy dropped a 51 and a 1:46 in Athens. Coe never did that.

I'm sorry, but you DID rather blatantly stick your foot in your mouth. What was that you said before about reading comprehension? You were wrong about the Olympics, and you're wrong about this.

Kip Lagat still hasn't broken 1:45 for an open 800m, and even James Li is mystified at his lack of speed over the shorter distance. How in the world are you going to convince us that he would have easily out-kicked a 1:41 800m runner (and two-time Olympic champion)?

wtf wrote:

Coe ran the last 800 of a 1500 in 1:46 in 1987.

Document this. Was it a 3:34 race? Just curious.

Run5k wrote:

Kip Lagat still hasn't broken 1:45 for an open 800m, and even James Li is mystified at his lack of speed over the shorter distance. How in the world are you going to convince us that he would have easily out-kicked a 1:41 800m runner (and two-time Olympic champion)?

Hey, Wrongo...why did you ignore what he said, mate?

Run5k wrote:

I'm sorry, but you DID rather blatantly stick your foot in your mouth. What was that you said before about reading comprehension? You were wrong about the Olympics, and you're wrong about this.

Kip Lagat still hasn't broken 1:45 for an open 800m, and even James Li is mystified at his lack of speed over the shorter distance. How in the world are you going to convince us that he would have easily out-kicked a 1:41 800m runner (and two-time Olympic champion)?

I made an error, but that has nothing to do with reading comprehension.

I was not reading anything. I reversed Coe and Ovett's 1980 wins mentally; Coe won the 1500 and Ovett the 800. My mistake.

And if you think Lagat, a 3:26.34 1500m man (which averages 1:49 for each 800) could not break 1:45 while in 3:26 shape, there's little to say to that. His attempts at the distance have come in early season meets such as Kingston when he is in 3:32-3:34 shape.

Wrongo wrote:

And if you think Lagat, a 3:26.34 1500m man (which averages 1:49 for each 800) could not break 1:45 while in 3:26 shape, there's little to say to that. His attempts at the distance have come in early season meets such as Kingston when he is in 3:32-3:34 shape.

Kip Lagat has been in the business for several years, and no, not all of his 800m races have been "early season" efforts.

The simple fact of the matter is that Coe has done two things that Lagat hasn't:

1. Proven that he has impressive finishing speed, both within a 1500m race and with open 800m performances.

2. Proven that he can win at the highest level. Please refresh my memory: how many two-time Olympic 1500m champions are there? (Hopefully your case of Moscow dyslexia has been cured)

Buckshot wrote: This makes him #1, or the best.

Yeah? Well, which is it? Don't be so indecisive.

I've never heard of him running an 800 in the thick of the season (July and August) while in his normal 3:26-3:29 shape.

If you know of an instance, do tell.

Lagat certainly has impressive finishing speed. Unfortunately for him, he runs up against El Guerrouj in most cases.

In 2002, for instance, he closed a 3:30 1500 in 52-high. Unfortunately, El Guerrouj was there first.

Coe closed that 1980 Moscow race in 52, and, if I'm not mistaken (i.e., the one he lost), the winning time was not 3:30 but 3:38.

In Athens, of course, Lagat ran 52.03 behnd El G. He also outkicked El Guerrouj in a 3:27.40 winning time in Zurich.

It's not really possible to place Coe's sprint in context given that he never even achieved these speeds for a race (his PR was 3:29.77). Lagat certainly hasn't run 1:41, but he is faster than men like Baala and Ramzi over 1500, guys who have run 1:43-1:44 at 800.

Different eras. Coe would have had enormous difficulty winning those things against someone like El Guerrouj if and when El Guerrouj took off with 900 to go and finished in Coe's PB time. Do you think Coe would be hanging off of El Guerrouj's shoulder, for instance, in a Seville-type race at 3:27 1500 pace? I think not.

You might say the same about Coe running up against Wilson Kipketer. I have doubts that Coe's one-time 1:41 speed would look quite so impressive against a 3-time 1:41, who-knows-how-many-time 1:42 man Kipketer in the last 200 of an 800m race.

Coe was great and still is one of the best ever, but his achievements have been surpassed (not the double 1500 gold, obviously, but time-wise and race-tactic wise, he would not be winning golds in the current aura of the event established by Morceli and El Guerrouj).

Wrongo wrote:

If you know of an instance, do tell.

One month ago I was at the USATF High Performance Distance Summit listening to James Li's presentation regarding his protégé. Once he finally figured out how to use the "Slide Show" view in PowerPoint, he showed us a rather comprehensive database of Lagat's race performances, including a smattering of 800m efforts on the European circuit. He has had his chances to break 1:45, but he simply hasn't done it, and even his own coach isn't quite sure why.

Wrongo wrote:

Coe was great and still is one of the best ever, but his achievements have been surpassed (not the double 1500 gold, obviously, but time-wise and race-tactic wise, he would not be winning golds in the current aura of the event established by Morceli and El Guerrouj).

That's quite possibly true. But as another person pointed out earlier, if we're going to focus strictly on time then Wejo has managed to surpass Nurmi and Zatopek, so obviously those comparisons can easily reach absurd levels.

That doesn't alter the original point of contention. The face remains that there is nothing to indicate that Lagat could out-kick Coe in a competitive 1500m race.

Morceli vs. Coe is more historically germane than Wejo versus Nurmi. The sheer time periods separating the two are quite different.

Coe closed a 3:38 1500 in 52. Lagat has closed 3:29-3:34 1500's in 52. That would seem to point to a "fact" right there that Lagat has and can close faster. Coe's 1:41 is a far superior mark to his 3:29, seeming to point to his status as an 800m specialist. Lagat, obviously, is much better at the 1500m than he is at 800m. Coe would not last a GP season as Lagat has with race after 3:26-3:30 race, and ALL of those things finish at slowest in 55 (rarely), mostly in 54-low, sometimes in 53, and sometimes even in 51-52.

We saw what Lagat did over 5,000; the guy simply TOOK OFF against extremely good 5,000m runners in a reasonably fast 12:59 with a 25 second last 200. That's the most "tactical" race we've really seen him in.

There were a lot more 3:35-3:40 type races in Coe's time, whereas now, El Guerrouj would never allow it to go that slow. Lagat is partially a product of his time; we saw that he runs 3:29 without El Guerrouj to push him faster last season. But he is very fast and any hypothetical 1500 race against Coe would, I think we can agree, be very close.

Repairman wrote:

Flagpole Willy wrote:

Cacho won gold in 3:40. Clearly he was a better runner than that time suggests, but if an Olmpic 1500 final can be won in such a slow time, that suggests that some not-so-stellar athletes can sometimes come away with a victory. As Olympic finals tend to be tactical races, sometimes a slower athlete wins. Can't then say that that athlete is better than someone who was consistently stellar yet never won a gold medal.

Peter Rono in '88 would be a better example than Cacho.

Perhaps, but the example I gave still works. If someone wins Olympic Gold in 3:40, then that shows what a tactical race it is, and it opens it up for lots of athletes who wouldn't have had a chance in a non-tactical race. Since that is the case, you can't simply look at Olympic medal winners as the defining thing that makes them greater or not than someone who hasn't won an Olympic medal.