All time greatest 800m Runner

I'm about as big an Ovett fan as anyone, but, no, he's not a top 10 in the 800m. He had the talent but just didn't focus enough on this distance. Same for his 5k career - oh, what could have been...

Glad Snell is getting some love (although #2 is probably too high).

Yeah and we agree on all of that. Rudisha is the greatest ever and I even wrote that even though it seems obvious that a runner at an elite international level should just simply execute each race to their strengths time after time, it's easier said than done. Great case in point over 800m in Coe who bungled away a few 800m titles despite having the highest ceiling of ability every race (as the WR holder) and even in recent times we have seen for tough it's been for Jakob to execute a 1500m final to his absolute strength despite winning everything possible in DL races.

Johnny Gray is the greatest American 2 lapper ever.

Rudisha > Coe > Kipketer

The 800 is very much outside my area of knowledge or expertise, but it strikes me that your rankings seem from a very British perspective, particularly with Snell and Coe ahead of Kipketer, Ovett at 8 (at 800? -- in 1980, Coe ran a bad race, Paige was ranked #1 by T&FN, and much of the world was missing), Bucher at 10 (I don't know if that's a British perspective or not, but I thought that it might be a European thing), and Doubell at 12 (one might say that both Doubell and Wottle are remembered almost entirely from just one race, but Wottle had more of a history, and there are still many people in my own largely ignorant country who have Wottle's big race permanently etched in their brains).

(From a U.S. perspective, I might like to see Gray or Whitfield on the list somewhere, but that's at least partly because they seemed like good guys, with Gray responsible for a lot of great races and a lot of fast times over a long time and Whitfield a double-gold who had at least some role in the emergence of East Africa as the preeminent source of great runners.)

Consistency without a global championship title or a world record doesn't beat either. Wottle is ahead of him on that count - both of them - and so is Ryun on one of them.

You remind me of people who have conversations with themselves.

So why are all the indoor records slower than the outdoor records? I see you don't really follow the sport.

You are too stupid to understand sarcasm.

It didn't even qualify as sarcasm. It was merely a stupid observation. But stupid is what you will know something about. It's what you do - as you have just shown again.

Be quiet, idiot. You just didn't understand it.

The longevity clause is unfair because it works against the pre-professional athletes who often wouldn't train at top level year in and year out and often retired young.

Haha wow - not a lot of support for that one - love to know why.

Really the clear and major protagonists are:

-Whitfield

-Ryun

-Wottle

-Gray

-Symmonds

-Brazier

(yes Ted Meredith was WR holder and OC but this was 1912 and we have to have some comparison across eras and relative competition/evolution of the event at the time).

So let's do a process of elimination. Ryun ran an estimated 1.44.3 (1.44.9 for 880) which tied the WR at the time, but as mentioned he was more decorated over the 1500m (never won any color medal in any meet of note) so he's out of the discussion. Symmonds broke 1.43, won multiple US titles and has the high point of a world silver. He was as consistent as they come in terms of world 800m runners from 2009-2013, making all global finals (4) and broke 1.43 in the Olympic final. That being said, He doesn't quite have the same resume of the remaining crew.

Brazier has a world title and the AR. He might be the best 800m runner the US ever produced (those two accolades back that up) but he's made ONE US team and might only ever make ONE US team. You can't be the GOAT with an elite pro career that spans 3 years.

Dave Wottle has arguably the most inspiring and exciting 800m win in history in the Olympic 800m in Munich. He ran 1.44.3 to win the trials in 1972 which like Ryun, equalled the WR at the time (sidenote: was this time never ratified/official - it is not included on the alltime list of US mens 800m performances? WA website says the time was "*not legal". Now back in this era there was not the same opportunities for competition (no world champs etc) but even so, the period of dominance/relevance just isn't there. I know the Olympic title is the ultimate but his current best "legal" time is 103rd on the alltime US list. The 3 spot is still a great spot to occupy but he's not the greatest.

So it's Whitfield vs Gray and it's a coin flip. Whitfield went B2B in London and Helsinki, ran 1.47.9 in 1953. He never set the 800m WR but set the 880y in 1.48.6

Gray made 4 Olympic finals in the modern era - when the WR was under 1.42 (Coe). It had never been done before and has never been done since. He went 7-5-3-7 in those finals which is incredible. He has a 6th place in a world final, ran 1.42.60 back in 1985 - a time only beaten by one American since. Somebody pointed out that it's unfair to use longevity as a metric because prior to the 70's professional track wasn't really a thing and that is a fair point - but at the same time when it did become professional the level and depth of performances increased exponentially. Gray was extremely relevant across multiple eras from the Coe era of the 80's through into the Kipketer era of the 90's. The volume of elite running he did is mind blowing

and another fun fact - in the 26 times he broke 1.44.0 he never finished outside the top 3 which means he wasn't just along for the ride and benefiting off mega-fast races - he was making them.

I'm fine to say Gray 1A, Whitfield 1B or even reverse the order - but this is still an opinion thread and I like Gray as your GOAT by a fraction - and I also backed up why which is all we can ask for I guess.

All good arguments but unfair to Ryun. He equalled a great world record for the 800 (Snell's) in his era. 1.44-low in '66 is easily worth 1.42-flat in the mid-80's. It was a good twenty years before Gray and the modern tracks he ran on, plus Gray was pulled along for the ride by better runners. He only placed at his best - he didn't win. Sure, Ryun focused on the 1500/mile but I think he showed that at his best over the 800 he was better than Gray. Longevity isn't the decisive criterion. Elliott had a career of only 3 years.

I'll add this: Ryun is the only American runner who has held the world record over the distance (with the possible exception of Wottle's unratified time).

Olympic gold behind the Iron Curtain facing guys who had likely been given blood transfusions an hour before the race, easily beating the WR holder. Fastest ever second lap at the time, despite being boxed in at the bell.

Three successive 800m Olympic finals, including LA where he literally had to come out of the hospital to race it.

European silver in 74 at 18, and again in 78 losing to an obvious GDR doper.

I agree he could have been even better though, and probably broken the WR in 78.

Well...Coe was, at the time, 1.71 seconds faster than the second-faster performer in history (Juantorena), but his 1981 world record was an improvement of .60 on the previous world record, his own 1:42.33.

How much should very small margins matter with respect to times? If Cruz had run 1:41.71 instead of 1:41.77 in his fabulous 1984 season, how would this influence how he would be ranked in lists such as this one?

Coevett: Keino coming out of hospital and running an Olympic final = biggest doper of all time.

Also Coevett: Ovett coming out of hospital and running an Olympic final = brave athlete that makes Brits proud.

Hi Hoad. A difference being Ovett was the defending champion and came last in 1:55 or something, and Keino had never beaten Ryan and won by the biggest margin in history and in a massive pb that he never got close to again, and which some consider to have been the sea-level equivalent of 3:22. And you're calling other people stupid?