Joan Benoit winning the first womens olympic marathon has got to be up there. If this performance isn't on your top-ten all time, you need to read up on it. I would rank it the single greatest American distance running performance of all time.
Athletically it was an amazing performance. But symbolically, it was MASSIVE. This was the first time women competed in a previously mens-only event and it was amazing. It was a performance that ushered in the women's athletics revolution.
Wave lights + pacemakers brings the performance way down for me. I'd have to say Mo Farah 10k in London - home games, fell early, massive favourite, field covered his every move, olympics, great field, iconic stadium
Fell early? He did not fall in that race, i've watched it 100 times
I have to agree with Kobbs Hessler. Ron Clarke was the first man under 28:00 in the 10,000 with a 27:39.4. Insane.
From the Sports Illustrated account of the race:
The weather was comfortably cool but the track only moderately fast when Clarke and two others, Jim Hogan of Ireland and Claus Boersen of Denmark, jogged up to the starting line for the 10,000-meter run. Clarke immediately jumped well out in front of the other two, perhaps prompted by his prerace announcement that he intended to set some world records. Running alone and paced only by the cheers of 21,000 Norwegians, not a word of which he could understand, Clarke sped past the blinking timers stationed at the six-mile mark in 26:47, lowering a 17-day-old record (set by Billy Mills and Gerry Lindgren at the National AAU championships in San Diego) by a thumping 24.6 seconds. At the end of another 376 yards Clarke burst through the 10,000-meter tape in 27:39.4, reducing his own world record for that distance by an even more astonishing 34.6 seconds.
Far too many but personally for me it's Molly Seidel winning bronze. No one expected that performance by her during the Olympics especially in extreme heat for marathons. Especially with her absence from the public after graduating from college. And not coached by someone that's world renowned. Her mental struggles are real but for a moment she was able to be in good enough mental health to get the best of her physical talents on an international stage. She demonstrated why having trials are important. Don't have a committee select the favorites to attend major meets. Continue to have trials to send the best at that point and time. For the fans that don't have to be lured into viewing track and field. Molly was the underdog that gave us a reason to get excited and scream at the TV for momentum watching her race into medal contention in the Olympics. Track and Field has so many great moments but her long shot performance is my choice for single most memorable performance.
Far too many but personally for me it's Molly Seidel winning bronze. No one expected that performance by her during the Olympics especially in extreme heat for marathons. Especially with her absence from the public after graduating from college. And not coached by someone that's world renowned. Her mental struggles are real but for a moment she was able to be in good enough mental health to get the best of her physical talents on an international stage. She demonstrated why having trials are important. Don't have a committee select the favorites to attend major meets. Continue to have trials to send the best at that point and time. For the fans that don't have to be lured into viewing track and field. Molly was the underdog that gave us a reason to get excited and scream at the TV for momentum watching her race into medal contention in the Olympics. Track and Field has so many great moments but her long shot performance is my choice for single most memorable performance.
"What is the single greatest distance running performance of all time?"
I'm an American myself, but this take makes me want to call you a "Stupid American" lol.
In terms of impact and era-defining achievement, it's clearly Bannister and the 4-minute mile
Terry Fox's run also has to be up there.
Whoever voted this down is heartless. Imagine running a marathon a day--totaling 1000s of miles--on just one leg and with lung metastases. And a prosthetic so bad that you have to do this hopping, not really running.
Just remember--no one defined what "greatest" meant in this discussion.
He was twice voted Canada's top national sportsperson and, in 1980, Canada's top overall newsmaker. There are statutes, buildings, etc. still named after him today, clearly attesting to his impact.
Clarke's 27:39. Viren's 10k world record after falling in 72. Clayton's 2:09 at Fukuoka, Bikila barefoot gold medal in Rome. Bannister sub 4 minute mile (I know, not a real race per se' but hugely iconic)
In totality, it's clearly Roger Bannister's 3:59.4 in 1954 because:
1) The first sub-4 Mile transcended the sport like no other distance performance. 2) The first sub-4 produced an embedded, ripple effect that resonates to this day. 3) The sub-4 standard; no other event in the sport has such a well-known, understood and respected standard in the sport and beyond. 4) Proving #1-3, look at all the hype, exposure and attention - positive and negative - for Faith Kipyegon's sub-4 "attempt".
No other mentioned great distance performance comes close to the totality of the enduring impact of the first sub-4 Mile by Bannister; none.
Ruth Chepngetich 2:09:56 in Chicago last fall. It is the distance-running equivalent of Bob Beamon's 29 foot long jump.
By comparison, Frank Shorter's PR was 2:10:30 and Bill Rodgers' was 2:09:27.
Galen Rupp won Chicago in 2017 in 2:09:20.
Wasn't Rodgers literally sitting down to drink some orange juice a few times in his Boston Marathon PR and stopping to tie his shoelaces as well. Makes you wonder how many more minutes faster that guy could have gone ...
Bill was rarely pushed in marathons. During the second of the three marathons he ran in 1976 AFTER Montreal, he ran:
1976 Sado Island, Japan (2:08:23) 1st CR (200 meters short)
Against a team of Japanese relay runners. This was either a world record at the time, or arguably the second-fastest time ever run at that point. Even at Boston in 78 with Wells chasing him down he'd been slacking a few miles and didn't finish under 2:10.
I'd say that if Rodgers was pushed on a flat course, he could have run mid-2:07, assuming late-78 to 80 fitness.
But nothing can touch his 2:09:55 in 1975, in Nike Sting shoes. Can you imagine?
My first instincts would say Jakob's 7:17, Bekeles 5000m olympic gold in 2008, Kipchoge running under 2hrs (even if not legal).
If we include factors like age, Bernard Lagat getting 5th in the 5000m in Rio at almost age 42 is pretty insane to me (and him winning the olympic trials the same year with final lap of 52.)
His mile world record. He won the race by setting the world record and beating his competition who also went under the previous world record.
All depends what 'greatest' means. For me it means iconic, and has to have caught lasting attention with the global (or at least Western) general public. By this measure, Bannister and Bikila win for me. Dorando Pietri is close just because of the theatre. Joanie would be there too if womens marathon had been higher profile globally at the time, but outside the US she was mostly unknown to the public.
Several of the very strong performances I think of are mentioned here; and some of them happened before I was alive or old enough to follow the sport . If I think of the one that, in my memory, struck me as the most dramatic leap forward since I've been following the sport - a kind of "Beamonesque" running performance - I would think of Paula Radcliffe's marathon WR.
It's me last Saturday. On Wednesday I had a nasty fall while out running, and the next few days I was limping around feeling sorry for myself. But I decided to go to my local parkrun anyway. I thought I could at least jog round. But despite the pain I decided to go a bit harder at the start just to see. Everyone just fell in behind me, and I had no choice then and came first by nearly a minute, running through the pain. Heroic stuff.
In 1960, Abebe Bikila won Olympic gold in a world record time of 2:15.16 (see earlier post). In 1964, he won Olympic gold in a world record time of 2:12.11 (beating Basil Heatley’s 2:13.56 from four months earlier).
