Ventolin wrote:
ignore everything ive said here im wrong
That's very honest of you. I didn't think you had it in you to admit when you were wrong!
Ventolin wrote:- "& you clearly didn't watch or have access to eurosport in early/mid 90s when a conversation of 400 times came up in an 800 race - he mentioned he didn't really run it often & had no idea how fast he coud go, but certainly thought 47s at least"
I've heard Cram state in an interview after his career finished, that he certainly could never run 400m as fast as Coe (45.5 relay, probable 46.0 ability for flat in 81) or Ovett (47.0 relay leg/47.5 flat). That would seem to give him 47.5 at best.
Ventolin wroe:- "i have no idea what you were watching in '80s, but they were plenty obssessed with times, even from '79 when coe broke WRs & forced ovett to chase
then likes of aouita/maree trying virtually week-in-week out tring to break 1500/3k/5k WRs on the circuit & scott for 1500/mile
as for wabbits - again nonsense
they simply went at pace asked - in '80s, 3'30 was target, so 56s laps asked for"
This is vastly over-exaggerated, which doesn't surprise me at all.
For a start, there were far fewer "big" meets in the '80's, and most of the top 1500m names ran at these to win, not to set fast times. After Championships there were often several attempts, but in the late 90's, fast races were expected at almost every meet from June to September, and there was a far higher % of pacemaking happening on the circuit. This trend has lessened again in recent years.
A lot of pacing was awry. Of course 3:30 was the initial target! World records are moving targets. But even efficient pacing for that sort of target was dreadful at times.
Coe asked for - 55.5~ 1:51.5 ~ 2:47.5 for 1500m in '81. What did he get?
51.5 (he went 52.4) ~ 1:47.4 (1:49.1) and then he solo ran to 2:48.3. Not exactly optimum efficiency to break 3:30!
A month later he asked for 55.5 at 440, 1:52.0 at 880 and 2:48 at 3/4 for the Mile in Zurich & Brussels. He was given 56.2~ 1:53.6 ~ 2:51.7 in Zurich, & 55.2 ~ 1:53.3 ~ 2:51.9 in Brussels. Vastly erratic.
On both occasions the rabbit didn't even reach 1000m. Although he'd asked for sub 56 secs 400m up to 1200m, they were almost 4 secs out by this point and they had been reduced to races rather than record attempts. Similar disastrous pacing was given him in Zurich 79 and 84.
So the intention and hard targets were there. It's just that the delivery was useless.
What did EL G get in his Mile record? - laps of 55.6 ~ 56.0 (1:51.6) ~ and 56.3 (2:47.9). Almost spot on perfect pacing.
Ventolin wrote:- "hicham was far superior & asked for 55s"
So because EL G was running 4 secs faster than the stars of the 80's some 20 years later, does that mean that the likes of Wessinghage & Hudak running 3:31 in 1980 were far superior to Herb Elliott and Peter Snell, because they were 4 secs faster than the early '60's stars?