Aouita took down the 13 minute AND 7:30 barriers. He was the second under 3:30 after Cram-- but Cram's WR stood for a month while Aouita's stood for years. Aouita is the only runner with medals in the 800 AND 5000.
Aouita took down the 13 minute AND 7:30 barriers. He was the second under 3:30 after Cram-- but Cram's WR stood for a month while Aouita's stood for years.
El Guerrouj ran 3:26 WR for about 24 years/7:23/12:50, plus Olympic gold at 1500 and 5000 in the same games, without ducking the competition. He won silver in 2000 at the 1500m and he ran 3:43.12 WR still, not to mention 4:44.79 WR still standing unchallenged.
A simpler way of asking the original question is - who had the most natural talent?
I would say Aouita - Morceli - El G - Ramzi.
Aouita never had the set up that El G was fortunate to have, never mind slap bang in the middle of the full throttle EPO era. He was largely self-coached.
And as far as times are concerned, we need to start accepting now that every decade is an incremental leap in technology as far as tracks and shoes are concerned.
As a general rule, we should go by a measure of 0.25 per lap faster every decade, although this decade it's more like 0.5.
A simpler way of asking the original question is - who had the most natural talent?
I would say Aouita - Morceli - El G - Ramzi.
Aouita never had the set up that El G was fortunate to have, never mind slap bang in the middle of the full throttle EPO era. He was largely self-coached.
And as far as times are concerned, we need to start accepting now that every decade is an incremental leap in technology as far as tracks and shoes are concerned.
As a general rule, we should go by a measure of 0.25 per lap faster every decade, although this decade it's more like 0.5.
I've run on conders, macadam (yes a track) and all of the versions of all weather tracks we've been through.
I feel about 1 second per lap just for the track surface is accurate from say the typical 1970's high school cinder track.
Shoes- not just the current super shoes, but even spikes in the 80's, 90's, 2000.s 2010's, are much better and deserve some adjustment, I just can't figure out how much.
The other things are intangible- like better training shoes that lead to fewer injuries and quicker recovery, knowledge of diet, etc
It's hard to compare era to era- what would Ron Clarke and Billy Mills run 10,000 in now?
But, my first thought here was that Aouita HATED to lose. You can see that in his races (even ones he lost).