Great Duels with WR's

How far back are we going . . . when Paavo Nurmi and his teammate Ville Ritola stepped on the line, I can't imagine at least 3-5 times a world record was set. Definitely no rabbits back then, although Nurmi would sometimes carry a stopwatch.

A juiced up Komen throws in a 2:29 4th 1,000.

Geb sprints past w/ 250m to go for a 12:41.86 WR (at the time).

Yeah, '85 Aouita-Cram 1500 at Nice would qualify except for rabbits.

A good women's one: Ashford-Gohr '84 Zurich 100 (10.76-10.81).

Zurich- Yes! I can't believe I forgot that one (I have it on tape and have watched it many times). That may be the "trifecta" I'm looking for. A true classic.

Bill Carr- The thing is, Nurmi would routinely set WR's whether Ritola was in the race or not, so I think only a few were real "duels", but you are right. Such duels were more commonplace and productive pre-60's (Hagg/Andersen, Bannister/Landy, etc.) I think that modern races are more competitive overall and have a lot more variables as far as money/logistics, etc.. So maybe we should have two categoreies: Pre- and Post-1960.

Hicham just out lasted Noah Ngeny, 3:43.13 to 3:43.40.

Ryun vs. Keino (US vs. Brit. Commonwealth '67) - slow starting Ryun runs last 1200 in 2:46.6 on dirt to set 1500 WR. Track temp was 105 degrees! (Air temp 97 in the stands)

Clarke vs. Jazy '65- Jazy sets WR in 2 mile.

Viren vs. the world in '72 Oly 10k - falls, gets up and breaks WR! Ok, not a real duel, but an insane feat.

Ovett vs Rono '78 - Rono had been blasting records left and right - and Ovett stepped up to the 2 mile, and set a new WR. Now why did he and Coe duck each other so often ...? Must have been the $$$.

Cram vs. Aouita 85 - Aouita reels Cram in, then Cram holds him off the last 50 meters. Rabbits or not, still a duel between two greats.

Cram vs. Coe 85 - while Coe was not at his best, the race was billed as a duel (even on ABC's WWofSports) and Cram ran away from Coe over the last 200 (53 last lap) to set mile WR. Coe said he knew it was over with a 250 to go - he was straining, while Cram was looking around, no sign of effort at all. Cram's celebrating the last 30 meters cost him a faster time. I still have the race on tape.

Yeah, El G holding off Noah in his WR mile.

I'm sure I can think of more ... I just need a couple of beers, for recovery of course.

this wasn't a record (but very close), but how about the Rono-Salazar duel in Eugene in 82?

Mr. ds-man,

Would you please expand on that race? I'm curious to know the details...

Cheers,

Monty

I remember that race. I think it was won in 27:25 back when the WR was 27:20. Looked like it was raining and Rono in the pictures had a substantial beer gut. If that doesn't earn him title of greatest natural talent ever than the alleged 13:12 5000 he once ran after drinking a pint of scotch on the bus ride to the track must.

And did any of his world records use pacesetters? I know some must but I bet he ran times all alone that would still rank top 20 in the world today.

Incidentally Salazar won Boston in the famous duel with Beardsly I think less than a week later.

of course, malmo would have more specifics on this, despite the fact i witnessed that race...

was a nike-generated 10k only race after an Oregon dual...i think it was UCLA...

rainy, cold day, but was perfect for a solid race. no rabbit that i recall, except Adrian Royale(RIP) led for a fair amount of the race.

i'm guessing it was around 6k that things got interesting, with salazar going to the front. royale should be credited for making the race move quickly after 2k or so, but once overtaken, tagged the other two for as long as he could...he would go on to run 27:47 or so.

it should be noted that this was set up for exactly the reason someone else suggested: this race was on April 10...salazar would run the classic battle w/beardsley 9 days later at Boston. it is my understanding that salazar and dellinger wanted to test the waters of two such efforts in that small amount of time for future reference.

so anyway, rono was not an idle bystander.. he took a lap here and there but was never a factor from the front. as he would later admit, he was hangin on one lap at at time, thinkin he could drop out at any point.

rono was, by all admissive observers, sportin a boiler...as impressive a performance under those circumstances that i've ever seen.

henry hung on long enough to smell the finish, completing maybe the best last mile of any race i've seen, two heavyweights(no pun intended) givin each other the business.

rono, of course, wins, by a very miniscule amount. salazar runs 27:30.00 and misses virgin's record by less than a second.

one of the all-time highlights for me at hayward...which i've been lucky enough to witness many....including several pre races when i was a lad...a solo 13:19 by chapa and myriad other nuggets.

this race deserves a better rendition than i was able to conger at this late an hour. hopefully someone else that was present can actually do this race justice.

timmy

did i say 'conger'.....well, there is a certain element of eels involved...but i obvously meant: 'conjure'.

In this race, both Carl Lewis (9.86) and Leroy Burrell (9.88) broke Burrell's WR of 9.90. I believe that Linford Christie ran 9.92-9.93 and didn't even medal. Definitely the highest quality field ever put together for one race. Also at those championships, Mike Powell broke the WR for the LJ and Lewis responded with three jumps over 29' (three best jumps of his life). That was truly two athletes bringing out the best in each other.

As long as I've brought up some sprinting, the 1996 Olympic 200m was an incredible performance. Not only did MJ run the 19.32 (best track performance in history), but Frank Fredericks ran 19.68, which was the third fastest time in history and would have been the world record had MJ decided to focus on 400.

MJ took 'duel' outta the picture ... what a race ... no, not a race a performance, no - a showcase. And, like you said, Frankie was not too shabby either.

BTW - somebody has to have compared the MJ 200 explosion with Beamon's LJ explosion - in terms of how much they respectively knocked off or bumped up the WRs.

Timmy did well. I did a recap awhile back. If a picture speaks a thousand words, check out the Track and Field News Cover(May 1982) which shows a flooded track and an overweight Rono hanging on for "just one more lap".

Deek, Lopes, Jones at the 84 Chicago Marathon. Jones runs a 29:00 last 10K and leaves the Oly champion and world champion in his dust.

NO QUESTION.

Lewis vs. Powell 1991.