Where Does Bob Kennedy's Career Rank?

This is becoming a futile argument. There are good points to both sides. What you will never know is how Pre, Shorter, and others would have done if they were competing in the early to mid-90's when almost overnight World class 5000 running went from 13:15 to sub 13:00. This was a true phenomenon around 1993-95 when Kennedy was developing. He ran 13:02-05 right at the time the WR went from 12:58 all the way down to Gebs shocking 12:44.

You have to realize that the floodgates really hit suddenly in the early 90's with the Africans. Prior to 1992 a 28:00 10,000 runner could win most road races here and make a nice living doing so. Then all of a sudden that same runner was lucky to run the same races he won the next year and get chump change for top 10.

Kennedy was the one runner who kept at it and improved steadily. We will never know what Pre would have done if his 13:21 was world ranked one year and all of a sudden the next year he was about 25th best. That's pretty much how it was. Kennedy stayed near the top 10. Got 6th in a much tougher era in the Olympics while Pre was 4th.

And if you don't think Kennedy was dominant against Americans I think someone made a good point that he was never in peak form for the US nationals. Yet if you ever saw a tape of the 96 OLY trials in the 5000 it was a joke how obviously better he was at that point than ANY other American 5000 meter runner.

I could not have put it any better myself! The reality is that all of these other "great" American runners would not have gotten close to running sub-13:00. Training methods didn't really change, it's just that the level of international competition (Africans) got a lot better in kennedy's era...

Your perspective of running is underwhelming.

If Kennedy was competing in an earlier era, eg the '70s or '80s, he still would not have medaled.

lkjhgfds wrote:

Your perspective of running is underwhelming.

If Kennedy was competing in an earlier era, eg the '70s or '80s, he still would not have medaled.

Thanks for the compliment, but I'm not suggesting he would have and you can't even say that with absolute certainty anyway. Plus, you're missing the point. Kennedy would have kicked all of those other Americans' butts. If anything, they were training HARDER back then, before people stopped running mileage for two decades. No one could have approached sub-13 for the 5k, nor did they have the potential to break 27 for the 10k, which Bob certainly did. Some of them were recognizable on the international scene merely because the competition was considerably more sparse.

lkjhgfds wrote:

Your perspective of running is underwhelming.

If Kennedy was competing in an earlier era, eg the '70s or '80s, he still would not have medaled.

Since when did Frank Shorter join this thread anyway?

But who else did? not Pre or Padilla. Nor Maree in 88 who was 5th. If this thread is all about the Olympics, yeah, I don't think the way those races went Kennedy would have medaled either. But I guess you believe those other runners who were 4th, 5th, and 7th, would have bettered Kennedy's best Olympic games if they ran at Atlanta. If so, then rank them above him.

Definitely those guys from the 70's and 80's didn't have the opportunity that Kennedy had to get pulled to fast times. So his overwhelming dominant list of times in the 5000 should be noted that he was benefiting from competing in a more opportunistic era to run fast. I just can't dismiss him from being included amongst the best ever in the 5000 in this country. Other than Bob Schul who won the gold, I would rank him up against all the best in consideration of the competition he faced. That means Dillinger, Pre, Liquouri, Padilla, Kennedy is just as impressive. Even though he was usually placing 5th to 10th in his international career. It was a tougher era. This sport has never seen an increase in depth in one area-the 5000 and 10,000. Nothing in the sport compares to this. It would be like all of a sudden 20 guys from Jamaica running 9.7 in the 100.

Not sure if Bob is the best ever, but he's up there.

That said, given the way some hyped/heavily anticipated runners of the recent past careers have turned out, Bob is looking very good.

If we judge running success by careers, and that should include consistency across many seasons, then Bob is the man.

One thing I know for sure is that when I tuned in to watch a track meet on TV in the early-mid 90s, it was always 2-3 Africans and Bob at the front in the final laps, with Bob grabbing a place now and then. And, the times were consistently low 13s.

Not fair to fully grade Pre. Pre died at 24. If Kennedy had died at 24 you would have barely heard of him. Pre was on the cusp of a world record in three events, including a 27:43 (within 10 seconds) solo effort in Cali. A few points. Yes, there weren't many Africans, but lets throw in race conditions then. Gerry Lingdren ran a 12:53 3 mile on cinder, s Ryun ran 3:51 on cinder. Rabbitts were rare then, much less the "setup a fast race for one person" mentality. The Africans weren't what they are, but the non-Africans were much tougher back then. Just look at Britain;s situation today. All in all, I am amazed at the exploits of American runners in the 60s and 70s.

If you ever watched any of Bobs races during the time when he was getting his pr's he wasn't getting pulled along. He was taking turns pushing the pace. In his 2 7:31 races he was 2nd and 3rd place. He lost to Daniel Komen by 1 second one and in the other Komen beat him by 6 seconds but he was a close 3rd in that race by a few hundredths I think. And in the 96 olympics which he took the lead with 800, he was racing guys with far superior speed. He ran 13:12 in that race and the guy that won was a 3:46 miler. 10 second better mile pr than kennedy. Also ahead of Kennedy in that race was drug cheat Dieter Baumann and older brother of a huge cheat Khalid Boulami. Basically I'm just say Kennedy was incredible and raced like a stud, none of this sitting back hoping to get pulled along. He was always pushing races. He's definitely near the top of the list of american runners

"Bigger the Jesus"

Kennedy still holds the US 3k and 5k records--which is very impressive when you realize just how much better he was than every other american in his generation, and how he was better than everyone in today's generation so far...Shorter won a few gold medals, Ryun was the world record holder in the mile, I would put kennedy and scott tied together at 3rd, with virgin 4th.

its a "silly" thread- you cant really compare runners of different era's- a runner can only run against the competition of his era. Great runners respond and all the names that have been thrown about were/are great runners. When somebody talks about a runner as talented and motivated as Seb Coe getting his "lunch" handed to him it just become foolish "noise". As to Kennedy i have to admit i was very impressed at his ability to run fast times in an era when most american were "invisible". Doping has totally destroyed any attempt at comparison. :)

Mark Croghan is always forgotten. 6th at the Olympics (equaling Kennedy) constantly ranked in the top 10 in the world in the steeple (which is as dominated by Kenyans as is the 5k), and just missed Henry Marsh's record a number of times.

Mark Croghan, Bob Kennedy, and Todd Willisams carried American distance running in the 90s. Not just Bob or Bob and Todd.

Drug testing was pretty much a joke during the '90s as well. That's not to say that its great now or prior but I think we can agree that there are many question marks surrounding some of the guys that were finishing in front of BK.

This is so random. 9 1/2 pages in 2006, then nothing until it's revived this afternoon. How does that happen?

And BK could have been just as dirty. We will never know. But if you look at the list of sub 13:00s during that time, and who they were, its hard to believe he did it without help. Its certainly possible, but I wouldn't say Bob is completely out of suspicion.

So do I.

Because you really had to follow track, or subscribe to print magazines, to appreciate Bob Kennedy.

He competed in a different era, and still holds up.

Mark Plaatges, Marc Davis, Steve Holman?

Lynn Jennings, Suzy Hamilton, Cathy O'Brien?