Daily Debate: If Mo Farah wins Tokyo 10,000 gold, will he be the GOAT of track distance runners?

Ok, fair enough, I missed the word "Track". However, whenever discussing distance runners, it is almost impossible to ignore cross country and the roads. Even we say we are only talking about track, in the back of our minds winning multiple XC titles can't be ignored.

The thread is about Farah who Wejo apparently thinks could be GOAT track distance runner with a gold in Tokyo. Of course if the competition shows up and Farah wins that would be enough to place Farah at the top. Again it won’t happen. Farah had an edge in closing speed but that has gone away at age 37 and soon to be 38. Farah likely could not run faster than 3:32 at Monaco in 2021 (as opposed to his 3:28) so his advantage is gone.

o0o0o0 wrote:

Impossible that there are 70 runners who can make those arguments. Name just 30.

Off the top of my head and in absolutely no order.

In no order off the top of my head (did have to look up some spellings), here a bunch that are clearly better.

1Viren

Gammoudi

Yifter

Geb

Bekele

Farah

Nurmi

Ville Ritola

Mimoun

Kutts

10 Zatopek

Clarke

Rono

Auotia

Eliud Kipchoge

Sihine

Tergat

Kip Keino

Kiptanui

Komen

20 Kemboi

Cheptegi

Bauman,

Hissou

Kipruto

Mekhissi-Benabbad

And some of roughly the same level of performance

Tadese,

Skah

Richard Chelimo,

Onediki

Brahim Boutayeb

Koech

Mills

El G,

Lagat

Haag

Schul

Notice how many names on my list are from the 90s ,00s, and 10s. If I could actually remember the 20s,30s,40s,50s,60s,70s, and 80s to go along with all the names I forgot from the later years we would be have a much longer list. Start adding in 1500m guys (not sure if we are counting them for this list) like Ryun, Elliot, Snell, Morceli, Coe, Cram , Ovett, Bayi, ... or the guys with XC chops (say Ngugi, Virgin) and it isn't close. I am sure you will disagree about some of them (heck I would have to think about some of them . :)) but as I said the list of fast distance runners is pretty darn long. I am not sure if there are many names to be added to the first list(harder to forget about legends) but that 2nd list is probably missing 50+ names that you could add in and debate depending on how you value things). For example is Rupp better? I would go no without the marathon, but it is close enough that I would have a hard time saying you are wrong if you swapped them on the list.

yes

Of course he would be the goat. Only thing that matters is winning and he’s a winner. Imagine calling someone other than Brady the football goat because they have better “stats” (times) than Brady, you’d sound stupid. Imagine calling Russ the goat because his triple double stats despite not winning anything. This is completely wrong. Farah is the goat if he wins

urdumb wrote: Imagine calling Russ the goat because his triple double stats despite not winning anything.

There’s another NBA Russ who’s on the exact opposite side of this argument. I wouldn’t call him the GOAT, but he’s a lot better than Westbrook!

These days I’m starting to wonder if Westbrook is detrimental to his team and they’d be better off with playing a 100% “average “ NBA player in his stead.

urdumb wrote:

Of course he would be the goat. Only thing that matters is winning and he’s a winner. Imagine calling someone other than Brady the football goat because they have better “stats” (times) than Brady, you’d sound stupid. Imagine calling Russ the goat because his triple double stats despite not winning anything. This is completely wrong. Farah is the goat if he wins

The difference is that in track one of the goals it to run fast. In basketball nobody cares if you win a 100-90 game or a 140-130 game. In track we care if you win running a 12:35 or a 13:35. Russ stats are more along the lines of Webbs record for the fastest 100 in the 3rd lap of a 1500m race.

With an * I have marked those runners who can not touch Puttemans in THOSE ARGUMENTS I gave. For sure I'm not saying Puttemans must be ranked above all of them.

It seems that multiple WRs is a much stronger argument for me than for you, and that's OK.

o0o0o0 wrote:

adsfdasfasfsafadfa wrote:

1Viren *

With an * I have marked those runners who can not touch Puttemans in THOSE ARGUMENTS I gave. For sure I'm not saying Puttemans must be ranked above all of them.

It seems that multiple WRs is a much stronger argument for me than for you, and that's OK.

yeah Viren with the WR at 2mile/10k and 4 olympic golds can't touch puttemans.:) And given Mo Farah has a world record , I think his 4 olympic golds more than make up for only having 1.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot wrote:.... I don't believe Geb and Bekele were necessarily clean, but with Mo it just got to a level of obvious ridiculousness on a par with Wang Junxia.

This statement is moronic. Geb and Bekele set several records, and until 2020, largely untouchable times. Yet you suggest Mo is more ridiculous because he ... didn't set WR or run as fast as those guys? All he did was win.

o0o0o0 wrote:

Tron wrote:

I think the big difference to me is on top of that, Bekele basically ran every golden league race during those years and won. At one point after a loss to Lagat in 2006, Bekele went on to win close to 30 races in a row (don't have the exact number but that's what i recall reading) over the next few years.

Not correct. After 5 wins he lost twice . He also lost in 2007, 2008, 2009.

I know world XC in 2007 he lost. When on the track did he in those years?

westsouthrunner wrote:

So you're saying bolt would be the goat without a world record? Or that mo farah could've won all the same races bekele won? Anyone can win any race. See the rio 1500 for example. Not everyone can run a world record (bekele is only a few years older than farah Interestingly enough).

World records >>>>> titles even though I don't really respect cheptegeis we've light record

Farah winning the 10000 again would put him in the goat conversation for me because I've always had him in 3rd clearly behind bekele and haile

Bekele and Farah are within a year of each other

adsfdasfasfsafadfa wrote:

o0o0o0 wrote:

With an * I have marked those runners who can not touch Puttemans in THOSE ARGUMENTS I gave. For sure I'm not saying Puttemans must be ranked above all of them.

It seems that multiple WRs is a much stronger argument for me than for you, and that's OK.

yeah Viren with the WR at 2mile/10k and 4 olympic golds can't touch puttemans.:) And given Mo Farah has a world record , I think his 4 olympic golds more than make up for only having 1.

OK, this is the point were I should realise that a serious discussion is not possible, when the other side is completely changing what I have said.

When you don't read what the other writes, why are you going into a discussion at all?

Historyer wrote:

Bad Wigins wrote:

Is Kipketer "almost equal" to Nils Schuman or Vebjorn Rodahl? Of course not, he was far superior.

Mo Farah has never held even one world record, and his winning track career started during a declining and ultimately soft era. Not even close to GOAT.

Not even as good as Galen Rupp at 10,000.

OK you cannot possibly believe that Mo Farah, clearly one of the top 5 10000m runners of all time, is “not even as good as Galen Rupp” when Galen is not even one of the top 20 10000m runners of all time.

How can Mo be one of the top 5 if Rupp isn't one of the top 20?

Face facts: Rupp was faster. This matters. Medals are nothing, and the era was soft.

Bottom line is, neither Rupp nor Farah was anywhere near being an all-time great at 10,000. FFS they were preceded by Geb, Bekele and Tergat! And now there's fast people again. They're from a dark age where there were no greats at all.

Nobody can ever be called a GOAT if they focused on 3 different distances and never set a WR. Best Mo could hope for is Range GOAT but 800-HM king Augustine Choge has that locked down.

Bad Wigins wrote:

Face facts: Rupp was faster. This matters. Medals are nothing, and the era was soft.

At least, you keep your posts on a constant level.