Troothsayer wrote:
Neither of you is making much sense. Kpketer is the best of all time? Rudisha is the greatest of all time? These are nonsensical and inconsistent assertions.
Dependent on ones interpretation of "best" and "greatest" which it appears the majority here comprehend and you don't. But that's fine - I'll give you some examples and maybe you will take it on - it's a very helpful perspective to have especially in all the "greatest of all time" debates that happen across sports.
"Greatness" transcends era's and is a measure of all things to do with the athlete such as their career body of work, their reputation, their aura, their impact on the game at the time, and yes of course their pure ability at the sport/event (because without a really high level of ability none of the aforementioned probably amounts to anything).
"Best" is a measure of straight up ability at just the sport/event and is purely momentary. It doesn't cover an intangibles, titles/races won, duration of career or dominance - it's just how good the athlete was at their absolute best for the moment of the event.
This concept helps in these discussion across all sports. For example in the NBA there are some (not many but some) that argue in a team sport, there is a guy with 11 rings, who dominated an era and was as revered as any player in history. That player is Bill Russell and there are people that make a claim he is the greatest NBA player ever, which, all things considered is valid point of view. But it's hard to make the case that based on pure basketball ability he's even close to the best player ever - there are multiple centers that have played the game that were better at the sport than he was (Olajuwon, O'Neal, Chamberlain etc) - but as a total package, hard to say they were greater.
Since we are talking 800m running let's use a better example - Peter Snell. Peter Snell ran 1.44.3 on an oddly measured grass track back in 1962, but also ran 1.45.1 to win the second of his 2 Olympic titles (the first man to do it and still only the second man to do so along with Rudisha). But even if we transport Snell across era's (giving him the benefits of modern track and footwear etc) is he really beating Rudisha, Kipketer, Coe, Cruz and even guys like Borzakovskiy, Bungei etc etc? I'm not so sure. But if he isn't the greatest 800m runner ever (I think Rudisha is) he is most certainly #2 on that list because of his career body of work, dominance, aura etc.
Greatest and Best are connected but are slightly different things, I hope that explains the train of thought and glad you could enjoy the clip of the great Kipketer running a race that nobody on earth before or since could run.