Which British runner had a 4 - 0 winning record against Said Aouita?

my personal opinion wrote:

Golden goose wrote:

Here’s one...

How many runners have broken 1:44, 3:30, 7:30, and 13:00?

Just curious

El Guerrouj was 100% in 1:42-1:43 shape for multiple years, a shame he never ran the 800 seriously during his prime from '98-'04.

Why is it a shame? You already knew he was in 1:43 shape.

ukathleticscoach wrote:

Cram beat him twice in 83 1500m world champs once in the first heat

84 1500m World record

87 Bislett Games. 1500m

Cram was 1st all those races .

No, he wasn't.

Coevett wrote:

I think Cram finished with something like a 6-2 record against him.

You think a lot, mostly wrong. Correct is 5-5.

ukathleticscoach wrote:

Cram beat him twice in 83 1500m world champs once in the first heat

84 1500m World record

87 Bislett Games. 1500m

Cram was 1st all those races .

Sorry, but there are so many inaccuracies on this thread.

1) The 1500m WR in Nice where Cram beat Aouita, was in 1985, not'84.

While Cram won that fair and square, it is not true that he was carrying an injury. He had already mightily impressed a few weeks before with a very easy 3:31 in Oslo, where he ran away and decimated a top notch field. Cram was at his very best, or at least at the start of his best ever form. The stats from his mile WR race a week or so later were more impressive than his 1500m stats in Nice.

Putting aside the claims of many re Aouita's possible doping, the Moroccan's performance in the Nice 1500m, was intrinsically better than Cram's. Aouita ran large sections of the race wide and let Cram get too far ahead at the bell. Had he been on Cram's shoulder with 400m to go, I believe Aouita would have narrowly beaten Cram in Nice. Aouita was in 3:28 shape in that race and finished faster than Cram. Had it been the Cram from a week or 2 later, then I would be more inclined to think Cram would have held Aouita off, just!

2) There was NO meeting of Cram and Aouita in 1987; not at Oslo or anywhere!

3) If you include all races in which Cram and Aouita met; so heats, road races, etc; then the head to head score is 6 - 6

4) At no point did Cram have a 4-0 winning head to head score over Aouita, so the OP is wrong.

Cram (1st) beat Aouita (2nd) in a heat of the 83WC 1500m, then again in the final (Cram 1 - Aouita 3). So at this point Cram had a 2-0 winning lead.

They met next over a mile in Crystal Palace in 1984 (after the Olympics), where Aouita won, and Cram, who had fallen early in the race, came 15th! Of course that is a hollow win for Aouita, but the fact Cram finished the race means that it still counts in head to head races. Thus at this point the score is 2-1 to Cram.

Their 4th confrontation was the Nice 1500m in 85: (3-1 to Cram);

They did not meet again until the 2nd round heat of the 800m in the '88 Seoul Olympics. Aouita won the heat and Cram went out of the competition, finishing 6th.

3 - 2 to Cram for their peak years (1983 - 1988)

After this they met 7 more times between the end of the 1990 season and the end of the '91 season, when both were past their best and suffering from injuries and the emergence of the likes of Morcelli.

1990 - Cram came second in the NY 5th Av. Mile, while Aouita came 15th (Cram 4 - Aouita 2)

1991: -

-Monaco 1500m - Aouita (2nd) beat Cram (4th) - (Cram 4 - Aouita 3);

- Tokyo WC heat - Aouita (3rd) beat Cram (7th) - (Cram 4 - Aouita 4 );

- Tokyo WC semi - Aouita (2nd) beat Cram (7th) - (Cram 4 - Aouita 5 );

- Brussels 1500m - Cram (4th) beat Aouita (6th) - (Cram 5 - Aouita 5 );

- Barcelona 1500m - Aouita (2nd) beat Cram (5th) - (Cram 5 - Aouita 6 );

- Djakarta Mile - Cram (1st) beat Aouita (9th) - (Cram 6 - Aouita 6 ).

5) Even if you chose to discount the confrontation over a mile in 1984, when Cram fell, Cram never got beyond a 3-0 winning lead in races over Aouita.

I meant 85 obviously 84 was Olympics year

Cram ran mile and Aouita 1500m in Bislett.

Your comments on Crams 1500m are ridiculous. Intrinsically better! What stopped Aouita getting on Crams shoulder at 400m. Who made Aouita run wide. Nobody. Perhaps if he had got up he would not have had the same finish left. Its irrelevant. Its a race not a time trial. You need tp get back in contact with Ventolin if you want to discuss shouldawooda.

Deanouk wrote:

4) Cram (1st) beat Aouita (2nd) in a heat of the 83WC 1500m, then again in the final (Cram 1 - Aouita 3). So at this point Cram had a 2-0 winning lead.

Both qualified easily for the next round in this heat, nonsense to talk about a "winner" and/or "looser".

Has Coe lost to Fontanella, B. Konchellah, Khalifa, Thibault, Abascal, Scott, Elliott, Hoogewerf, Druppers, McKean, O'Sullivan in Moscow, Athens, LA, Stuttgart?

Deanouk wrote:

4) At no point did Cram have a 4-0 winning head to head score over Aouita, so the OP is wrong.

OP was proven WRONG several pages ago but yes let's keep rubbing it in. Stay devastated, OP.

Bad Wigins wrote:

Well, nope. Elliott apparently never beat him despite being undeniably better at the distance.

Elliott has beaten Aouita over 800m but was not "better at the distance".

Complete nonsense from you, as usual.

How is 1:42 not better than 1:43?

Why do I get all the triggered people?

Everyone laugh at the triggered person

887766 wrote:

Bad Wigins wrote:

Well, nope. Elliott apparently never beat him despite being undeniably better at the distance.

Elliott has beaten Aouita over 800m but was not "better at the distance".

Complete nonsense from you, as usual.

Elliott was far better over 800 than Aouita. Aouita had one season as an 800m runner after his transformation in 83, but Elliott.was world class over the distance for almost a decade. Elliot was a part-time runner for most of his career. When he switched to full-time and a new coach he was in the same league as the other Brits. Unfortunately he got injured not long after that 1:42 800m (which was a few months after winning Commonwealth Gold), so we never really had a full summer of him at his peak potential. Nobody had ever ran 1:42 that early in a season and I'm not sure more than 2 or 3 have since. Aouita ran 9 or 10 800m races in 88, and 1:43.9 was the best he could do in a perfect race.

Bad Wigins wrote:

How is 1:42 not better than 1:43?

Why do I get all the triggered people?

Everyone laugh at the triggered person

O, for you "faster PB" and "better at the distance" is the same? This explains a lot.

During his prime years (84 - 89) Aouita has a 5 - 0 record against Elliott, including 2 - 0 at 800m (before and after it's 3 - 1 for Elliott). So, the reigning 5000m Olympic and World champ and WR holder has a 2 - 0 record against the reigning 800m world silver medalist - over 800m. But Elliott is "undeniably " better at the distance because of his better PB. Again, this thinking of yours explains really a lot.

Deanouk wrote:

They met next over a mile in Crystal Palace in 1984 (after the Olympics), where Aouita won, and Cram, who had fallen early in the race, came 15th! Of course that is a hollow win for Aouita, but the fact Cram finished the race means that it still counts in head to head races.

Certainly Aouita beat him in that race; but Aouita would still have had a win over him even if Cram had DNFed.

If A and B start the same race and A gets to the finish line (legally) before B, then A has beaten B--whether B ever finishes, or not.

In my first 50k I finished DFL and still beat more than half the field, because they dropped out.

887766 wrote:

Bad Wigins wrote:

How is 1:42 not better than 1:43?

Why do I get all the triggered people?

Everyone laugh at the triggered person

O, for you "faster PB" and "better at the distance" is the same? This explains a lot.

During his prime years (84 - 89) Aouita has a 5 - 0 record against Elliott, including 2 - 0 at 800m (before and after it's 3 - 1 for Elliott). So, the reigning 5000m Olympic and World champ and WR holder has a 2 - 0 record against the reigning 800m world silver medalist - over 800m. But Elliott is "undeniably " better at the distance because of his better PB. Again, this thinking of yours explains really a lot.

Even comparing Elliott and Aouita is a travesty.

Elliott was a UK age group record holder for the 800m, faster than Ovett, Cram Coe as a U17. Unfortunately, with athletics still moving into professionalism back then and coming from a very working class background, he chose to be a part-time runner and for most of his career worked 40 hours a week in a polluted steel mill. He won silver in the 800m in 1987 in 1:43 while working 40 hours a week in that factory. That was surely the last global medal won by a part-time athlete and the fastest ever still by a 9 to 5 real job worker.

After his 87 silver medal, he worked part-time in the same steel mill for 20 hours a week instead of 40. In early 88 he set a UK indoor 1500m record but started having groin problems. He raced Aouita once over 800m before Seoul and lost by 0.11 seconds. In Seoul, his groin injury became infected, yet still just got pipped by Aouita for bronze and won silver in the 1500m. He spent two weeks in hospital when he came back from Seoul. He was in far worse shape than Aouita in Seoul but as we know, Aouita dodged the Brits yet again in the 1500m. (assuming Aouita was even injured, rather than panicked after Ben Johnson's drugs bust).

In 1990 at the age of 28, and after having been running for over a decade and having being plagued by injuries, Peter Elliot finally became a full-time athlete. Within the space of several months, he broke the 1500m indoor WR, crushed the first wave Kenyans at the Commonwealth Games, and ran a 1;42 800m in May, and was running crazy times and workouts in training. Everybody expected him to beat Aouita's 1500m WR that summer, including his new coach Kim McDonald, but unfortunately he developed injury problems again shortly after that 1:42..

Compare with Aouita who was a 1:50/3:40 runner at age 22 until he 'got serious' and moved to Italy in 83. Even if you're naive enough to think Aouita was clean, his performances before 83 show that Elliott was a far better talent. If Aouita had worked 40 hours a week manual labour throughout his career, we would never have heard of him, even with all the drugs.

Elliott was a 1:42/3:29 athlete if full-time and healthy, and possibly the unluckiest middle-distance athlete in history.

Coevett I am not sure why you feel the need to lie so much. You think the last global medal from a part time athlete was in 1987? Surely you have a limited understanding of the subject and you simply embarrass yourself with such palpable demonstrations of ignorance.

intrigued by this thread, i had to look back at the only time i raced both, monaco '91: 1-morcelli 332.04; 2-aouita 333.28; 3-david kibet 333.92; 4-cram 334.96 (i was a distant 17th place in a field of 21 counting the rabbits, in a then-PR of 338.60).

until reading an earlier post on this thread, i would have supposed that aouita was much older than cram, but by '91 it seems both were largely on the downside of their careers, though the above marks are still pretty legit in a legit field (lane-fillers like me notwithstanding). it was the only time i got to race cram. to the best of my recollection, i raced aouita only one more time, sunkist indoors '95 where i actually outkicked the old man (i think we were 5th and 6th place, though). so i'm 1-1 vs. him; i ain't 4-0, nor am i british, and therefore i am irrelevant to this thread, except that irrelevance seems to have taken over anyway...

also to the best of my recollection, and also irrelevant to this thread: pretty sure i'm 2-0 against el g (brussels and berlin, '94).

that's my story and i'm sticking to it...

cush

YMMV wrote:

I don't recall Aouita ever beating Cram. Too bad we don't have that algorithm thingy to spit out the answer any more.

Ha! You mean Trackbot! Ah the good old days

Cram was not at his peak that season in Nice and he had been having his niggling calf problems between his outstanding early season performance in Oslo and his race against Aouita .

He lost to McKean who was still a nobody over 800m shortly after Oslo and withdrew from the AAA final just 2 days before Nice.

Nobody expected Cram to brak the WR in Nice. For that matter, nobody expected Aouita to either, who had still done nothing in the 1500m aside from humuliatingly run the 5000m in LA to avoid the Brits. Cruz was actually the favourite going into this race which was billed as a WR attempt by him. That seems ridiculous now, but less ridiculous than the idea of Coe breaking the mile WR in 1979 and destroying the best field ever assembled. Nice was the night Cruz was going to establish himself as the new middle-distance GOAT. Instead it was Cram and Aouita who took over the baton from Coe.

Cram was in 3;28 or 3:27 form the week he ran the 3:46 mile (with ease in a badly paced race) and almost broke Coe's 1000m WR on a windy Gateshead track. Aouita had amazing luck relative to that era in avoiding injuries (hgh does that) and made countless WR attempts at both the 1500m and mile. He absolutely reached his limit. Cram, Coe, Ovett (and Elliott) did not. Aouita would have finished behind Gonzalez and Coe in the Dream Mile 85.

Fact is, Cram and Aouita met twice when both were fit and healthy and at their peak, and Cram won both. Cram World Champion, Olympic silver medalist, 1:42 PB compared to 1:43.9 , multiple victories over Coe and Ovett who Aouita always dodged. Cram was by far the superior middle-distance runner to Aouita.

I'll bet you that it wasn't Cram in 1983 that scared Aouita off running the 1500m in LA (1984) it was the last lap of Ovett. Ovett ran horribly in that race and if Aouita's team sat down and watch a reply they would've concluded that he couldn't beat an Ovett in similar shape in a better position and then there was the possibility of Coe having an even better kick.

I love it POD 10/10. Now a compulsory drug test.