What if Jim Ryun had raced in this era?

How does Ryun do against Vasala and Keino had he been able to run in that '72 Olympic 1500m final?

Opinions?

No, it isn't. You've just earned that.

It's not dumb but, saying Ryun could win against Jakob is a large stretch.

You earn that on every thread you post.

True, it is more likely that the best miler would come from all runners after 1966 than before, simply because we have a larger pool of runners, but that does not make it so. We also could argue that the best miler is more likely to come with a last name that begins with A-Q, rather than R-Z, because there are more runners in the first category than the second. Or, what are the chances that the best miler ever was a paperboy from Kansas? Very slim, I would say.

If you assume that Ryun or Snell or Elliott were, in their prime, the most talented ( whatever "talented" means) 1500/milers alive, above the 99th percentile in those terms, they'd be as talented as a human can be. Later mid distance stars could have as much talent but not more because each of them in his prime has the full load. If the population grows there should be an increase in the number of people born with the same amount of talent. But there couldn't be anyone born with more talent because each of those three had that full load.

In that event what you'd get is more people with that full load competing at the same time, one of them winning this big race, another of them winning that big race, maybe a third in the mix doing the same. If Ryun's running today (assuming all the developmental things that went on for him in the 60s happened now) I think he'd be one of the guys in that mix. Maybe he'd even be a fraction of a hair better than the others but even so he'd lose a race here, have a close call there. I don't believe he'd have been as untouchable now as he was in '66 and '67 but I believe he'd be running the times our current top guys run. But I did not say that I think he'd be as dominant now as he was in his prime. There is more depth now.

And I'm saying this about the 1966-'67 Jim Ryun. He was never the same runner after mono and Mexico. Yes, Keino beat him in Mexico where the setting gave Keino an advantage, when Ryun hadn't run for most of the preceding ten months and Jipcho sacrificed his race to help Keino win. Liquori and Ryun never raced each other at their peak. The Dream Mile happened when Ryun was not the '66-'67 version of himself. You really can't compare.

And sky, that's great question. I've never thought of it nor can I recall seeing anyone else asking it. The post Mexico Ryun was wildly inconsistent but occasionally looked like his old self. He ran his third fastest time ever, 3:52, at a meet in Toronto, faster than Keino ever ran. But he came last in a mile somewhere, can't recall where, in 4:18 or 4:20. He won the Trials 1500 with the same kick he'd shown in his prime. I'll say I think he'd have beaten Keino in Munich because the ONLY time Keino ever beat Ryun was in a race where Keino had major advantages.

The really interesting one here is Ryun vs. Vasala. When I think about Ryun's contemporaries and compare kicking abilities I cannot think of any of them who could come close to matching Ryun's kick EXCEPT for Vasala. I'll just say it's a shame no one ever got to see that race.

1:40

3:24

One of the most freakishly talented athletes in history. He would spank today's comp.

Ryun didn't have access to modern pharmaceuticals.

Another loser chimes in.

He would have fit in better with this era's frequent appeals to the almighty by professional athletes.

Would the New York Yankees have been known as "The Bronx Bombed" after Hitler attacked the city with an atomic weapon?

What if Dick Fosbury was a flop (as in his having failed to clear an opening height) in the '68 Olympic high jump?

What if the Beatles had been born and raised in then-Peking, China and had recorded "Love Mao Do"?

What if Shoeless Joe Jackson had been a distance runner wearing supershoes?

What if Jim Ryun had been a bank robber? He might have been on the run, in a different way.

What if Frank Shorter had really won a '72 Olympic marathon that was 385 yards short? Would he have banked on the accuracy of his surname?

What if Superboy had been raised in the late 1930s/early 1940s in Germany, not Kansas? Would he have fought Truth, Justice, and the American Way?

These "what ifs" are ridiculous, as are all "what ifs". Jim Ryun was a jaw droppingly awesome runner in his era, and he is revered to this day, but he is 76 years old and will never be an elite 2023 miler/1500m runner wearing supershoes, training/running always on all-weather tracks, and benefiting from today's training techniques, nutrition, and coaching.

LEAVE IT AT THAT, FANTASY ISLAND RESIDENTS!

Jim Ryun in today's conditions with today's equipment:

Lap 1 - Mononucleosis, couldn't run it

Lap 2 - Catches up with pacemakers and wavelight set to 3:26 WR pace and takes the lead; no drafting needed, that's for weaklings

Lap 3 - Changes shoes to his old 1960's heavy spikes (feels more like home) and starts running in lane 4

Lap 4 - Last 300m in 34.7; Runs 3:21.9 but could go faster because he had mono and used old shoe technology

Last 800m 1:46 from lane 4

Last 400m - 47.8

If you look at the WR progression, Ryun's run is amazing. But some of you guys assume he had the best physical talent of anyone ever. This is flawed.

Why would an American farmboy have the best physiological gifts of all time when no other USA white runner has sniffed 3:26. Ryun was as talented or less talented than Seb Coe and Alan Webb, who were absolute super talents.

Makes you wonder what Coe and Webb could have run with full-throttle EPO

Why would an American farm boy have the best physiological gifts of all time? First, he was not a farm boy though I don't see what being a farm boy or not being one has to do with the physical abilities you're born with. Second, having the most gifts for anything of all the people on earth is an incredibly unlikely event. If that really was the case with Ryun, and that's just hypothetical, it could be a very long time until it's true for another US runner, white or otherwise (and I have no idea why being white turns up here) even if they have absolute super talents which could explain why they haven't sniffed 3:26.

My point is and has always been, Ryun DID NOT have the best physiological gift of all time. It took a U.S.A.-born runner until 2023 to break 3:30 in the 1,500m (Nuguse). Why would one born in 1947 in Kansas be some exception?!

Those arguing that he could run sub-3:26 seem to assume he has a higher talent ceiling than every other 1,500m ever. It's stupid (to me) to think that because someone runs a certain time in a certain year that they just automatically continue to improve. Even happens today when a new high school phenom enters the scene and they say, "Wow, he's only 17 now and he ran 3:33...by the time he's 24 years old he'll have run 3:24." or whatever....

NO Athlete can continue to develop on a linear path. The curve gets steep when you hit certain times and have limitations, that's why plenty of runners run 3:33-3:34, but not many run 3:30-3:32 or faster. They cannot do it.

I just imagine every Letsrunner discussing young Alan Webb when he ran 3:53 in high school in a race with El G. People speculated about how fast he'd be when he was El G's age.

I'm sure people kept wondering how much faster Jim Ryun could run when he ran his 3:51 WR at age 19, but he never improved.

Letsrun would have posted, "RYUN IS DONE"

The odds of anyone having the most physical gifts for an activity s/he is pursuing are heavily against it. And the topic gets really murky when you try to define what physical gifts that person has. We can never know what physiological gifts Ryun or anyone else had. But if we're going to assume that at any given time one person will have more of those gifts than anyone else, it has to be someone. Maybe in 1966-'67 it was Ryun. Maybe it was someone else. But among those of us who saw Ryun in 1966-'67 loads would say that someone was Ryun and would say that anything Nuguse or Webb can do Ryun could do better under identical circumstances. Or to put it another way, if Webb, Nuguse, Ingebrigsen, etc. were running in the 60s or 70s they would have run no closer to 3:26 than Ryun did at the time.

Congrats on arguing a hypothetical.

Anyone arguing this in favor of Ryun is trying to make up for the reality that people sucked at running in the 60s and is blaming technology instead of terrible training, competition, and lifestyle. Anyone arguing against has failed to recognize that the people they're arguing for their God Ryun are brainless agenda pushers that care more about there own pitiful accomplishments than the truth.

This argument is worthless.

Your comment was.

so true!