What did they do? Pre's record at Hayward... Every Amer Rec from 2K to 10K.. Never missed a workout in 4+ yrs at Oregon... Fighting the AAU... Taking on competitors like Hailu in Corvallis, or Wottle in the restoration meet... Taking the fight to Viren on Munich... All in a time without the money/support/EPO of today... I love watching Fisher, but Pre was simply a Star.
All while juggling multiple women.
All of that isn’t worth a drop of spit in a bucket.
This thread, though pointless, is interesting. My initial reaction was "Fisher is a different league". While this is true, the points raised here make me think Pre would have a shot.
I'm the end I think if Pre were in this generation, Fisher would still be the faster runner and hold all the records, but it would still be a thing of beauty. Each diamond League and indeed championships would feature a Pre vs. Stewie crash and burn against the pacing lights for the first 80% of the race with a host of better east African runners and Jakob/Fisher hitching a ride. Pre would have 10 million Instagram followers and sponsors out the yazzoo people would have actually turned up in Eugene for the worl champs wearing his merch chanting his name.. "today is a good day to die". People on here would moan constantly about how this guy makes so much money and he's not all that and would be better off in tinman elite. This would hurt Pre inside.
I’m a huge pre fan. My son is named after him, I have a tattoo of him and even I have to accept Fisher is a better runner. Granted (see what I did there) we don’t know where Pre would have ended up but looking at where they are, Fisher has the edge. But Pre was a way better for the sport. Fisher is like a wet noodle. Pre at least had a personality and people were drawn to him. He was popular when it took actual work to be popular. If people knew who you were, you accomplished something.
One way to tell would be to get Fisher to run in crappy 1960's shoes on crappy 60's era track surfaces (they're still around) with no financial support, no social media, living in a van down by the river, and see if he can run the times Pre did.
One way to tell would be to get Fisher to run in crappy 1960's shoes on crappy 60's era track surfaces (they're still around) with no financial support, no social media, living in a van down by the river, and see if he can run the times Pre did.