Let the debate begin. Here are our Olympic MVPs from 1896 to 2016.

Jonathan Gault wrote:

But there’s a better chance I end up marrying Emma Watson than that performance was clean.

Alright fellas, Gault has done a lot for the world of track and field I think the least we could do is make this happen. Who's got a line to Emma? Brojos can you send a letsrun.com tshirt to the first person to make an introduction?

DGAF.

When I was at Long Beach State in '94, head T&F coach, Andy Sythe (sp?), said that in the '48 Olympics there was some sort of 'official' MVP, and William "Moose" Thompson won. Moose was the current throws coach at the time and taught me how to shot put.

I've tried to verify this claim in the years since and haven't been able to.

Coe lost a final in 1980.

Yifter is my hero for these Games.

With his kick, he could have won more medals if he had had the chance to participate, but he fully used the one he had with 2 golds. Really iconic.

not Coevett wrote:

Coe lost a final in 1980.

Yifter is my hero for these Games.

With his kick, he could have won more medals if he had had the chance to participate, but he fully used the one he had with 2 golds. Really iconic.

Yifter the Shifter is a hero to bald men everywhere.

I am black, not bald.

Elliot's 1960 gold is one of the most incredible 1500s ever run, but the iconic performance of those games is undoubtedly Bikila, and Rome is the race that defines his career.

If Jon wanted to give Bikila his due it really should have been 1960 (for bonus points the race was even run at night), because Snell's 1964 Olympics was a generational performance. It took 52 years for another athlete to defend their 800 title, and he's the only runner in 100 years to complete the 800/1500 double.

sub sub elite local hobby jogger wrote:

Fun article. After perusing that, I wonder how Jim Thorpe and Jesse Owens would do under modern training methods. 6565 modern score in the decathlon is still pretty impressive for a guy that probably barely trained and used ancient equipment. And Jesse Owens long jump world record is probably more impressive than the Beamon jump, considering it stood for 25 years and wasn't altitude aided.

Interesting points. Its fun to think about how beamon's record was so crazy ahead of anything before or any of his contemporaries. And yet it stood for 23 years. By comparison, Powell's record didnt seem at all ahead of it's time or too shocking, yet it has stood for longer at 29 years and counting.

Regarding the decathlon: it wasnt just old training and implements (although the shotput and discus havent changed much, but obviously poles have changed a ton and javelins a moderate amount). A big change has happened in the technique for some of the events.

High jump is obvious the most famous for technique. The predominant technique has changed twice since then. He had to content with a pit of sand to land into, no mats. That would really limit you. Same with pole vault.

Even hurdles have changed a bit. Athletes today get much farther down, much more compressed over each hurdle. They really jumped the hurdles in his day.

Discus and shotput nobody turned "away" from the throw, it was done in dirt with spikes and always facing forward. With modern technique, they could have easily added 25% onto these two throws.