Least Deserving Gold Ever?
1. Park Si-Hun (South Korea)
2. 1972 Soviet Union basketball team
Least Deserving Gold Ever?
1. Park Si-Hun (South Korea)
2. 1972 Soviet Union basketball team
Ever heard of Peter Rono?
You think he deserved his 1500m Gold in 1988 more than Centro?
You guys forget Centro won a Bronze at the World Championships in 2011? It was a brilliant run which primed him for his Gold in 2013. He's highly decorated.
Thanks, OP for making me go back and look at that race again. I enjoyed it even more this time around. Centro was a master. The goal is to cross the line first, and that's what he did, leading from the front pretty much the entire way. Much respect to him!
ex-runner wrote:
No, no it does
I know we love our stats in this sport but you can't award gold medals to athletes who didn't win them (bar doping scandals).
Every elite knows this, and even the general public appreciates the merit in the medal itself.
Elite sport is about hard work, being prepared at exactly the right time, executing tactics and delivering under pressure. That's what it takes to win the gold. That is severely underestimated in athletics whilst celebrated in team sports regularly.
Time trials are not what counts in athletics. That stuff is for the nerdy fans who cream over the tenths and post on Letsrun (like me).
Centro put together a masterful race. Although the final time was slow, he dictated the race when he needed to and knew he was prepared with a final lap in his locker that would beat anyone in the world.
He deserves that medal and all the credit with it.
Spot on post.
Excluding certified dopers? Even if we only pick Rio 2016, Ruth Beitia was "less deserving". Ruth was a good, consistent high jumper all her career so I don't really begrudge her the gold.
In 2000, Nils Schumann's win was somehow similar to Centrowitz. But he was the best on the day, in the type of race that was run.
Back in the time of the boycotts - and forgetting about the universal doping during the steroid era - gold medalists like Allan Wells, Viktor Markin, Alessandro Andrei and Juha Tiainen certainly have an asterisk next to their gold medals, as great athletes as they may have been.
tell the whole story wrote:
Thanks, OP for making me go back and look at that race again. I enjoyed it even more this time around. Centro was a master. The goal is to cross the line first, and that's what he did, leading from the front pretty much the entire way. Much respect to him!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Grf_62s_95w&t=393s
Its funny that the only video one can find of Centro winning gold is a video titled "Nick Willis wins bronze".
SDSU Aztec wrote:
Ghost of Igloi wrote:
Keino ran a great tactical race, Centro perhaps even better.
There was nothing tactical about Keino's race. It was a fast, even pace that no sea level based runner could possibly have matched.
Making the race so fast that no one but you can win it is a tactic -- a great tactic, in fact.
Yeah - not a big Centro fan, but he capitalized on the slow pace and it was the fault of the rest of the pack that they let the pace be that sluggish. It was fortunate for Centro that the race went as it did, but you can’t hold that against him.
If the Olympics were paced single round races, no way he'd even medal. But you have to give Centro credit for doing well when it's 3 rounds of tactical races. Webb, for example, was much more talented physically but didn't have Centro's tactical sense.
1955 wrote:
If the Olympics were paced single round races, no way he'd even medal. But you have to give Centro credit for doing well when it's 3 rounds of tactical races. Webb, for example, was much more talented physically but didn't have Centro's tactical sense.
Agreed. But I think what has happened in the last 15 years, since Americans have started to perform better in championship races, is that they have embraced that racing requires a skillset that includes far more than the ability to run a fast time trial. The way that championship races are run, it can be argued that being able to run the fastest time trial is not even the primary skill required to be successful in that style of race. That skill is probably secondary to being able to get into proper position, being able to accelerate from slow to fast better than everyone else, being able to maintain a very fast speed for an extended period of time, and the sense to move around in the pack to avoid obstruction hold as much importance as being able to run the fastest time. Americans have done a really good job honing these skills. They must know that when a championship race is run hard from the front that they are screwed, but it happens so rarely that it is worth the risk.
After watching that race yet again, it's really incredible how Centro manages to maintain his position EVERY SINGLE TIME another runner tries to get in front and cut him off. By accelerating, elbowing his way back to the front, you name it. He really knew what he was doing.
Sure, Centro is a better tactical runner than time-trialer (with the medals to back it up), but his success at global championships is only possible because he's also really, really f*cking fast. It's easy to forget that he has has a faster 1500m PR than Webb, and managed to run fast (3:30-3:31) far more frequently than Webb (supposedly a time trial specialist) did throughout his career.
WinnytheBish wrote:
Gabe Jennings's Teeth wrote:
Excluding doped to the gills gold medalists, though microdosing isn't exactly doing it clean. If Jim Ryun had won gold, he'd be on a level with Shorter and Joanie, a beloved and iconic hero. (He's still a legend, don't get me wrong.)
Same for Mary Slaney. And yet Centro doesn't rate with any of these names, seemingly. It's like his gold was a lark and few put any stock in it. Maybe it's just not as important to sports fans or the general public like it was in the '60s, '70s, or '80s. I suppose coming in the wake of Michael Phelps didn't help.
This is ridiculous. Centrowitz out-witted the entire field, and had the tools to back it up. He performed a master class in tactics that I will marvel at for years to come. What he did was legendary. He has the times to back up his performance, and how many US titles does he need to "rate"? He is an indoor world champion, a multiple time medalist, and has won a diamond league 1500. Remind me again which global titles Ryun has?
Maybe not everybody picked Centrowitz to win gold in 2016, but if you didn't think he was a medal threat you would have been crazy. You know, just because you experience more nostalgia to your favorite runners from the 70s and 80s doesn't mean the new wave of talent isn't worthy of winning.
Agreed - it was a perfectly executed race. Literally right from the start. Watch the start of the race carefully - watch Centro's eyes. He is looking directly at the starting gun while the rest of the field looks down at the ground or down the back stretch. Centro is looking to see the starter's hand pull the trigger. He gets a good jump and takes the rail which he defends from numerous surges and holds to the finish.
I knew centro was going to medal in Rio. I didn’t think he would win the way that he did, but he had shown over the couple years leading up that he had crazy speed and form.
The more I watch this race, the greater I think it is. He played that field like a fiddle. People like to discount it because it was a slow time but ANYBODY in that field could have challenged the pace and they didn’t.
I think a lot of people in that race had the same thought as him when the pace was that slow and thought they could win in a kick battle. They were wrong. Excellent execution by Centro
Gold is gold, you can't take that away from him. That being said there used to be a time in athletics when the people calling the event and the fans in the stands would let the field know that they were stinking up the joint. The slowest winning time since 1932 and almost two seconds slower than the winner of the Paralympic 1500 in Rio. How many times here have we seen people calling Farah out for slowing down races? Hardly anyone defends that but somehow Centro holding the inside lane in a ridiculously slow race is now a masterclass in tactics. He's a great tactical racer it's true and had the race been honest he would have certainly beaten guys in the field that were faster him on paper but he would not have made the podium. Sticking on the inside lane and everyone else just deciding not to challenge the slow pace right away isn't genius tactics, it's luck. Winning the finals in a fast race will always trump Centro's gold. Can't believe someone came in here and said Centro is better than Ryun.
Ummmmm, ever heard of Park Si-hun?
Deservin's got nuthin to do with it. GOLD.
Just Another Hobby Jogger wrote:
Some of the gold medalists in 1980 and 1984 did not face the strongest competitions due to boycotts. (Or even 1976 and 1988 to an extent.)
I don't know which one is the least deserving, but the guy who won 400mH in Moscow would have had zero chance against Moses.
'84 was pretty legit at least for mid-D and distance races---Soviet Union and DDR had perhaps one or 2 finalists, but Steve Cram, Coe, Ovett and Steve Scott were the best in the world at the time; as for the women different story lol and Mary Decker-Tabb wouldn't have been a shoo-in for the 3000m if the East Bloc athletes were there...the 400/800m East Bloc women were doped to the gills then...
WaitingForTheWorms wrote:
Ummmmm, ever heard of Park Si-hun?
Ummmmm, he was the first person I thought of hence my post at the time of this page ;)
MeHereYouWhere?! wrote:
WaitingForTheWorms wrote:
Ummmmm, ever heard of Park Si-hun?
Ummmmm, he was the first person I thought of hence my post at the time of this page ;)
Yeah, but what about Million Wolde?