Worst runner with an Olympic gold medal?

agip wrote:

and also, you are arguing my point when you say the OG fields are diluted by the 3 athletes per country rule. obviously london and nyc don't have that problem.

Wrong. Your assertion was that the money at the big-city races drains the Olympic marathon of "quality and meaning," not that the quality or depth of competition in the Olympic marathon is limited by the restriction on the number of athletes from each country. The limitation of three athletes per country has always limited the number of world-class athletes in any event where a large percentage of world-class competitors come from just one or two countries. That's been true of Olympic steeplechase competition for a long time, since most world-class competitors have come from just one country in recent decades. It's been true of Olympic 10,000-meter competition on both the men's and women's side in those years when Ethiopian and Kenyan runners have constituted most of the world-class competitors. It was also true of Olympic 100-meter (and 200-meter, and 400-meter) competition for many years, when a high percentage of world-class competitors were from the U.S.

agip wrote:

Niyangabo's PRs - these are absolutely first rate:

1500 Metres 3:29.18 Bruxelles 22 AUG 1997

One Mile 3:46.70 Berlin 26 AUG 1997

2000 Metres 4:48.69 Nice 12 JUL 1995

3000 Metres 7:34.03 Köln 16 AUG 1996

5000 Metres 13:03.29 Saint-Denis 03 JUN 1996

he does seem to lack some actual race wins tho. But 3:29 and 3:46 put him top first tier even without the wins.

Lack of actual race wins? Better you check this again.

In 1994 - for example - Niyongabo has had wins - besides many others - in Saint-Denis, Nice, Monaco, Zürich, Brussels, Cologne, Berlin. Not so bad.

His career was relatively short and he had to deal with the likes of Morceli, El Guerrouj or Gebrselassie. But still he was able to achieve many first class victories. He should not be mentioned in this thread at all. In Atlanta for sure he was lucky that Gebrselassie or Hissou didn't compete over 5000m. But even with them in the race, he still would have had his chance.

agip wrote:

a few OG marathon winners...never won a major marathon, before or after their gold medal. You'll never be able to say that for an OG 5k or 10k.

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Really? Which "major" 5Ks did Venuste Niyongabo, Million Wolde, and Dieter Baumann win? (European championships don't count by your standards remember)

_________

First of all, I only meant the euro champs MARATHON didn't count as a first tier race. the track races are first tier.

Niyangabo's PRs - these are absolutely first rate:

1500 Metres 3:29.18 Bruxelles 22 AUG 1997

One Mile 3:46.70 Berlin 26 AUG 1997

2000 Metres 4:48.69 Nice 12 JUL 1995

3000 Metres 7:34.03 Köln 16 AUG 1996

5000 Metres 13:03.29 Saint-Denis 03 JUN 1996

he does seem to lack some actual race wins tho. But 3:29 and 3:46 put him top first tier even without the wins.

you have a point on Million.

Baumann won a silver in one OG and a gold in another, and won the euro champs 5000. You make no point with him.

_________

You are going to remarkable lengths to defend your initial statement, which was this:

"tons of one marathon winners you've barely heard of:

Stefano Baldini

Gezahegne Abera

Josia Thugwane

Young-cho Hwang

Gelindo Bordin

Constantina Tomescu

Mizuki Noguchi,

Naoko Takahashi

Valentina Yegorova"

"Hardloper" gave you three examples of fairly recent 5,000-meter Olympic champions who did not meet your own standards for winning "major" races. (Personally, I consider them all to be great runners.)

I would love to know how you justify your statement that the track races in the European Championships are "first tier," but the marathon is not. In general, the quality of the track races in the European Championships these days does not come anywhere close to what you'll find in a run-of-the-mill Diamond League race.

Here are the results of the most recent men's 10,000-meter European Championship. Out of these 26 runners, how many of them have you heard of? And how many of them would you consider to be world-class or "first-tier"?

1 ARIKAN Polat Kemboi TUR 12 DEC 1990 16 28:22.27

2 MEUCCI Daniele ITA 7 OCT 1985 26 28:22.73

3 RYBAKOV Yevgeniy RUS 27 FEB 1985 20 28:22.95 SB

4 ABDI Bashir BEL 10 FEB 1989 17 28:23.72

5 CASTILLEJO Carles ESP 18 AUG 1978 23 28:24.51

6 LAMDASSEM Ayad ESP 11 OCT 1981 18 28:26.46

7 CHOUKOUD Khalid NED 23 MAR 1986 21 28:26.82 PB

8 SILVA Rui Pedro POR 6 MAY 1981 24 28:31.16 SB

9 GERRARD Keith GBR 24 MAR 1986 15 28:57.97

10 PENAS Manuel Ángel ESP 9 NOV 1977 10 29:02.01

11 NAERT Koen BEL 3 SEP 1989 3 29:02.08

12 LA ROSA Stefano ITA 22 SEP 1985 4 29:02.53

13 NAGEEYE Abdi NED 2 MAR 1989 22 29:05.12

14 BOUAFIF Adil SWE 31 DEC 1978 1 29:07.31

15 KENNEALLY Mark IRL 18 APR 1981 13 29:10.55

16 LUNDERS Mats BEL 5 JUL 1991 2 29:16.46

17 MOOGAS Tasama ISR 2 FEB 1988 5 29:22.03

18 SCHRÖER Ronald NED 28 SEP 1984 6 29:31.06

19 ROMANENKO Roman UKR 30 JAN 1988 11 29:32.57

20 ROONEY David IRL 30 MAR 1988 25 29:57.82 SB

21 JÄRVENPÄÄ Jarkko FIN 22 AUG 1986 12 30:59.63

EL KALAI Youssef POR 1 MAR 1981 9 DNF

LABOVSKYY Mykola UKR 4 MAY 1983 8 DNF

MOHAMED Mustafa SWE 1 MAR 1979 7 DNF

ROCHA José POR 6 JUL 1976 19 DNF

MAYAUD Denis FRA 22 APR 1986 14 DQ R 163.3b

Niyangabo was a great runner and I defended him from being named as one of the worst runners in this thread.

However, according to agip's standards he is on a par with many of hte marathon winners. He was not a very accomplished 5000m runner. His competition record at that distance is pretty thin as he was a 1500m specialist.

Mr. Obvious wrote:

Niyangabo was a great runner and I defended him from being named as one of the worst runners in this thread.

However, according to agip's standards he is on a par with many of hte marathon winners. He was not a very accomplished 5000m runner. His competition record at that distance is pretty thin as he was a 1500m specialist.

For sure, his 5000m competitioon record is thin - mainly because he almost hasn't raced the distance in his prime.

Even a bigger sign of his greatness, that he was able to win Gold in not his speciality. A wondeful runner which I liked watching very much. He really came very close (0,01s!) in beating Gebrselassie in his absolutely prime (1995).

I give up. I think I've lost more than I've won in this debate, which is fine.

I'll stand by my main assertion that the OG marathon winners are not generally of the same legendary quality of the 5000 and 10000 OG gold medalists, but you all have shown me so many exceptions that I have to agree that all I am pointing out is a generalization rather than a rule.

I've learned a few things - grazie and arriverderci.

This has been an interesting thread.

I will end it now with the definitive answer.

The worst runner to win an olympic gold medal is:

Michel Theato - Paris 1900, marathon.

The 1900 Olympic marathon was run through the streets of Paris. The Americans surged to the lead and were never passed. When they got to the finish line two of the French runners were already there, and didn't look tired. A Swede also beat them to the finish line. Several runners took wrong turns and had to double back, thus running extra distance.

Theato supposedly covered the distance of 40.26k in a time of 2:59:45, just off the time of Spirodon Louis (2:58:50). If it had been the modern distance of 42.2k his time would have been about 3:09.

2nd was 3:04, 3rd was 3:37, and 4th was 4:00

To be fair, it was 102 degrees that day. 13 runners started, only 7 finished. The first mile was 4 laps around the track, one of the runners dropped out before getting off the track.

It was discovered many years later that Michel Theato was a citizen of Luxembourg, not France.

His time sucked, and he cheated.

If he had been disqualified for cheating whoever would have got the gold would then be the worst runner to get a gold.

And if that person had been disqualified then whoever was next in line for the gold would then have been the worst runner ever to get a gold.

For perspective, I am a 50 year old fat man and I would have challenged for the bronze medal. The entire field was a bunch of bad hobby joggers.

agip wrote:

First of all, I only meant the euro champs MARATHON didn't count as a first tier race. the track races are first tier.

Niyangabo's PRs - these are absolutely first rate:

1500 Metres 3:29.18 Bruxelles 22 AUG 1997

One Mile 3:46.70 Berlin 26 AUG 1997

2000 Metres 4:48.69 Nice 12 JUL 1995

3000 Metres 7:34.03 Köln 16 AUG 1996

5000 Metres 13:03.29 Saint-Denis 03 JUN 1996

he does seem to lack some actual race wins tho. But 3:29 and 3:46 put him top first tier even without the wins.

you have a point on Million.

Baumann won a silver in one OG and a gold in another, and won the euro champs 5000. You make no point with him.

I disagree, before the rise of big city marathons, the European Championship Marathon was second to the Olympics for them. Doesn't the fact that most of them were Olympic/World champions as well show how strong it is rather than that they were flukes.

I don't know why you bring up Niyangabo's PRs rather than (lack of) championships - most if not all of those marathon runners had worthy PRs as well. Most of them were within 2 minutes of the current WR - maybe the real trend you're forgetting is that 2:08 used to be a very good marathon time, similar to a 2:05 today.

Hardloper wrote:

I don't know why you bring up Niyangabo's PRs rather than (lack of) championships

In 1993 - at age 19 - Niyongabo reached the semi-final in Stuttgart, in 1995 in Göteborg he finished 3rd - behind the two arguably greatest 1500m runners in history. And in 1996 he won 5000m-Gold - so until then his championship record was very good. After some injury problems he wasn't the same runner anymore after 1997.

His Gold was anything but a choke and he really is a great champion. For sure his career at the top was too short and he also doesn't have any records. But he really shouldn't be mentioned in this thread at all.

Hardloper wrote:

[you have a point on Million.

I disagree, before the rise of big city marathons, the European Championship Marathon was second to the Olympics for them. Doesn't the fact that most of them were Olympic/World champions as well show how strong it is rather than that they were flukes.

I don't know why you bring up Niyangabo's PRs rather than (lack of) championships - most if not all of those marathon runners had worthy PRs as well. Most of them were within 2 minutes of the current WR - maybe the real trend you're forgetting is that 2:08 used to be a very good marathon time, similar to a 2:05 today.

Agip is full of baloney

agip wrote:

I give up. I think I've lost more than I've won in this debate, which is fine.

I'll stand by my main assertion that the OG marathon winners are not generally of the same legendary quality of the 5000 and 10000 OG gold medalists, but you all have shown me so many exceptions that I have to agree that all I am pointing out is a generalization rather than a rule.

I've learned a few things - grazie and arriverderci.

just want to point out that the OG/WC marathon champ was non competitive in London - Stephen Kiprotich was 12th in 2:11.

If you don't remember this thread - an interesting argument about the quality of the OG marathon. I argued that the OG marathon was often won by weak runners compared to big city races.

Although I conceded some error on my part, this is another piece of evidence - the 2012 OG marathon champ was a non factor yesterday against a serious field.

Dieter Baumann ran 12:54 for the 5000m when the WR was 12:44 (Geb brought it down to 12:41 a month or two later). He is still the fastest caucasian runner ever in the 5000m.

I was someone who believed Kiprotich was a lot stronger than his PR suggested. Not so sure now. It looks more like he benefited from the Kenyan Olympic / worlds selection process and questionable tactics from other runners.

agip wrote:

just want to point out that the OG/WC marathon champ was non competitive in London - Stephen Kiprotich was 12th in 2:11.

If you don't remember this thread - an interesting argument about the quality of the OG marathon. I argued that the OG marathon was often won by weak runners compared to big city races.

Although I conceded some error on my part, this is another piece of evidence - the 2012 OG marathon champ was a non factor yesterday against a serious field.

Guess who was 3rd in the 2012 Olympic Marathon that Kiprotich won? Wilson Kipsang. Abel Kirui (2:05:04) was 2nd. Meb was 4th. Emmanual Mutai (2:04:40) was 17th.

The next year in the 2013 World Champs, he beat Lelisa Desisa (2nd, PR of 2:04), Tadese Tola (3rd, PR of 2:04), Tsegay Kebede (4th, PR of 2:04), and a couple of 2:06 guys from Kenya.

Robert Harting.

v6 wrote:

Dieter Baumann ran 12:54 for the 5000m when the WR was 12:44 (Geb brought it down to 12:41 a month or two later).

Dieter Baumann has ran his ER of 12:54,70 in the same race where Haile Gebrselassie has beaten Daniel Komen with a new WR in 12:41,86 (which Komen lowered to 12:39,74 a few days later).

Borzikovsky in the 8 in 2004, no doubt.

said88 wrote:

v6 wrote:

Dieter Baumann ran 12:54 for the 5000m when the WR was 12:44 (Geb brought it down to 12:41 a month or two later).

Dieter Baumann has ran his ER of 12:54,70 in the same race where Haile Gebrselassie has beaten Daniel Komen with a new WR in 12:41,86 (which Komen lowered to 12:39,74 a few days later).

Gotcha. Didn't realize it was the same race.

Point still stands that Baumann was a BAMF, though.