Wishful thinking. GOAT t-shirt tells it all.
Wishful thinking. GOAT t-shirt tells it all.
If Shorter trained at altitude like Kipchoge and had access to Kipchoge's drugs, then yes I think he could.
Who wasn't competing in the '70s?
Breakfast In Bed wrote:
If Shorter trained at altitude like Kipchoge and had access to Kipchoge's drugs, then yes I think he could.
Shorter did train at altitude.
I think there is a case to be made that Shorter would be able to go toe to toe with Kipchoge. Same for Bikila. They are all a very rare breed of runner who is able to do whatever it takes to get the win just about every time the line up for a race. Time comparisons do not mean much. Shorter ran 2:10 because that was as fast as he needed to run to win. There weren't time trial marathons like Berlin back in the 70s. WRs were not a priority back then. And while the E. Africans were not yet dominant, there was a lot of support for track and road runners during the cold war. So, in a way, the sport cast a pretty wide net internationally in the 70s and probably was just as competitive as it is today.
[quote]800 dude wrote:
If you're going to write something like this, why not do some actual research instead of just dropping stuff like, "let's say drafting is worth 10 seconds/mile." This has been researched. Drafting gets you about 4/seconds per mile at Kipchoge's pace.
Totally agree, there was a whole race/documentary in Vienna where they give specifics on what they think is saved from the V formation. Also Nike quite famously gives a specific number on what they think their shoes save (and Boulder did a whole study with a more specific number).
I was willing to hear out Bloom's argument in the article up until "Kipchoge’s collection of eight cannot be denied, but the “business model” of faster-and-yet faster courses, pace cars, a phalanx of pacesetters and drink retrievers, and all the money and bonuses, I think undercuts the historical grandeur of the marathon and takes just a little something away from the athletes’ accomplishments. Marathons have, in the recent decades, gotten 'easier'"
I guess marathons at 2:0x just aren't as much of an accomplishment if you're getting paid, and the course doesn't have the good 'ol hills they used to. For that matter any track race not done on cinders also can't be worth as much because they got easier as well. Bowerman really ruined the sport trying to make better spikes and track surface materials.
Yes, Frank Shorter in his prime would give Kipchoge a real run for his money and a prime Bob Cousy would DESTROY LeBron James in a game of 1 on 1.
Ridiculous.
There seems to be this nascent effort to make the case for retro "white guys" as the GOAT in various sports.
The same thing is going on in various NBA discussions, people are now all of a sudden trying to make the case that Bird is the GOAT, which is at least equally idiotic.
And this one is not "new", per se, but the Woods/Nicklaus debate has essentially "hardened" because of the 18 vs 15 "majors" difference. I saw both in their prime, and Woods is just better, and everybody knows it.
Precious Roy wrote:
I think there is a case to be made that Shorter would be able to go toe to toe with Kipchoge. Same for Bikila. They are all a very rare breed of runner who is able to do whatever it takes to get the win just about every time the line up for a race. Time comparisons do not mean much. Shorter ran 2:10 because that was as fast as he needed to run to win. There weren't time trial marathons like Berlin back in the 70s. WRs were not a priority back then. And while the E. Africans were not yet dominant, there was a lot of support for track and road runners during the cold war. So, in a way, the sport cast a pretty wide net internationally in the 70s and probably was just as competitive as it is today.
East Africans won medals in the Olympic marathon from 1960 to 1972, a streak that ended in 1976 when the boycott kept any of them from racing. That seems pretty dominant to me. I'm totally with your comment about time comparisons not meaning much. It's very hard to draw comparisons between different eras. I think you can make a case for all three guys that you mention as the greatest.
Flagpole wrote:
Monkeyoo wrote:
And Cierpinski. He has to be ahead of Frank for obvious reasons. The doping argument does not work for me. There would be others disqualified then probably including Kipchoge.
You mean you don't believe Cierpinski was doping? Impossible to believe that he wasn't.
Your reading comprehension is shockingly, almost unbelievably, bad.
Who?
That's all that needs to be said. 🤣🤣💀
Real Obvi wrote:
Flagpole wrote:
You mean you don't believe Cierpinski was doping? Impossible to believe that he wasn't.
Your reading comprehension is shockingly, almost unbelievably, bad.
Ok, but no, I don't want any ice cream.
OK boomer.
Shorter was great and stepped up on the world stage for the Olympics but I don't think he was even the best American marathoner as Bill Rodgers also has a compelling resume, including setting the American Marathon record multiple times in addition to setting the American record for 15, 20, 25 and 30K distances at one point as well as his nearly 13 miles run in one hour. Rodgers also set the world record for 25K.
You can say that Rodgers middle distance PRs weren't as fast as Shorter but we're talking about the Marathon not the 5K or 10K.
Salazar also has a pretty good claim to greatest American Marathoner and had significantly better times from 5K on up than Shorter and their peaks were less than a decade apart.
In short I don't think the technology advances from 1972 to 1982 were all that dramatic such that Shorter would have been significantly better than Rodgers or Salazar with better shoes. Rodgers eventually turned pro but was an amateur at first like Shorter. Salazar probably had much more support and sponsorship but nothing compared to the support top athletes get today.
Its kinda like well would Koufax strikeout Ruth or Bonds and would Pedro Martinez have Ted Williams number, it's impossible to tell.
Precious Roy wrote:
I think there is a case to be made that Shorter would be able to go toe to toe with Kipchoge. Same for Bikila. They are all a very rare breed of runner who is able to do whatever it takes to get the win just about every time the line up for a race. Time comparisons do not mean much. Shorter ran 2:10 because that was as fast as he needed to run to win. There weren't time trial marathons like Berlin back in the 70s. WRs were not a priority back then. And while the E. Africans were not yet dominant, there was a lot of support for track and road runners during the cold war. So, in a way, the sport cast a pretty wide net internationally in the 70s and probably was just as competitive as it is today.
I don't think that is true - heck just take two countries Kenya and Japan are contributing almost as many world class runners vs pretty much the whole world back then - and that discounts a lot of other very good runners. You could say the US (and probably a few European countries) are similar or less competitive but that's not where a majority of your runners are coming from. There are just so many runners almost as good as the elite of the elite now the depth is pretty staggering.
And I agree WR's were not as fast as they could have been in the 70's so the opposite should have been true - it should have been a tighter grouping if it was of similar competitiveness. For instance in 1972 Frank had the WB at 2:10:30 and 50th place was 2:16:27 (4.5%) . In 2015, pre super shoes Kipchoge was 2:04 and 50th was 2:07:42 (3%) - statistically that is a big difference.
A lot of it is simply population and access - access has grown particularly in non-western countries and population is double what it was in the '70's. Those two things alone make it much more likely a outlier today is, farther away from the mean than an outlier in the 70's. Throw in the money to be made being far greater and well you get the idea.
RetiredTrackGuy98 wrote:
[quote]800 dude wrote:
I guess marathons at 2:0x just aren't as much of an accomplishment if you're getting paid, and the course doesn't have the good 'ol hills they used to. For that matter any track race not done on cinders also can't be worth as much because they got easier as well. Bowerman really ruined the sport trying to make better spikes and track surface materials.
Technological advancement is inevitable. You really expect civilization to just say “we’re good now”. No more innovations.
His argument that on times (adjusted for shoes and training and whatnot) Shorter and Kipchoge are a tie (or "tie-ish") is mind boggling.
Shorter barely got within two minutes of the world record. He had the year's fastest marathon once (as opposed to three times for Kipchoge). If he thinks that Shorter could have run head to head with Kipchoge then what could Derek Clayton have done?
The argument for Non-Olympic Marathons being a tie also seems strange to me. Shorter ran in an era when it was harder to get to races, so races weren't as deep and were slower. Today, however, races are much faster and incredibly deep, but that's suuuuuuper tacky (plus, faster races are easier for elite runners because of reasons), so we'll call it even.
Wut?
I dont think he's running under 2:05:15 on a fast course. Modern shoes, post 2016, improve elite runners 1-2 minutes the improvement of shoes before has never been this drastic even if he could get another 3 minutes from tech improvement where are the other 5 minutes coming from?
It's hard to make any case for any person besides Kipchoge, to be the GOAT in the Marathon. No other runner has ever demonstrated the consistency and the depth of talent across other distances to justify the display we've seen in the Marathon from Kipchoge.
Shorter does not even belong on the discussion of GOAT. He is somewhat similar to Matthew Centrowitz, especially IF Matthew had managed a Silver medal this year in Tokyo. You can argue that Frank lost to a doper in 1976 but again, the Africans were boycotting, and it seems a slippery slope to start awarding medals based on who is presumably doping. Neither Frank nor Centro were world record threats BUT both were generally able to run well on the big stage. Both are in the discussion for US GOAT at their respective events but not GOAT overall.