Have to lean towards Rudisha but Kipketer did run a 1:41,3 with a 48 something opening. Would be epic
Kipketer setting WR both in semis and final of the world indoor championship was certainly epic.
Coe running 1 1/2 seconds faster than any other man in history, and over 2.3 seconds faster than the WR only 10 years previously, on a s h t y track at 11 pm with no official pacemaker (and having to move around him) was certainly epic.
Coe is 'underrated' as an 800m runner because people remember him losing to Ovett in Moscow, and then he was never at the same level at 800m after suffering his illness problems in 82/83. He's also the wrong..... for many natural born running Kenyan fans here.
Doesn't alter the fact that Coe in his WR form was at least the equal of Kipketer and Rudisha on their best nights.
On a 2022 next generation mondo track in super shoes? All three on their very best night (when they set their WRs/pbs)?
Still Rudisha wins handily keep in mind the advances in technology where not that crazy between Coe, Kip, and Ruds time they all achieved there standards prior to the so called super shoe movement.
All 3 were obviously fabulous runners. The complicating factor in your question, I think, is the supershoes. Please correct me if I'm misunderstanding but, from what I've read, just as people respond to different degrees to different types of training and to performance enhancing drugs (w/ a cheater such as Lance Armstrong having excelled in that area), there is variability in how much benefit people get from supershoes. I don't think there's a way we can know how much benefit each of them might have gotten from the supershoes, and perhaps *that* would have determined the outcome? I don't see it as a case (which is Eliud Kipchoge's) where one athlete is so ahead of the competition that, supershoes or no supershoes, the outcome would be predictably the same. I must say that Rudisha looked pretty unbeatable in that WR olympic final - but who knows. (Fun trivia fact aside: I was volunteer at 16 mile aid station of NY Marathon some years ago and suddenly I was thrilled to see Kipketer - not one of the front runners, he was just doing the race to do it - I think he actually grabbed a cup of water I was holding out, if I remember right - but what I remember most vividly was how thrilled I was to see this great runner and that it was clear nobody else around me had any idea who he was!).
Coe had more endurance than both Rudisha and Kipketer, as his enormous ability over the 1500/mile showed - and which they lacked. That will be telling. He was also almost as fast as Rudisha over 400, with a 45x relay performance and was faster than Kipketer (and Cruz) over that distance. So on the same track, with the same shoes in the same era it will thus be between him (at his '81 peak) and Rudisha 2012. His greater endurance and famed kick could give him the win - if he is at least on Rudisha's shoulder entering the home straight. Kipketer has to be well in front of both to win. They wouldn't let him - so, no - he is third.
Kipketer setting WR both in semis and final of the world indoor championship was certainly epic.
Coe running 1 1/2 seconds faster than any other man in history, and over 2.3 seconds faster than the WR only 10 years previously, on a s h t y track at 11 pm with no official pacemaker (and having to move around him) was certainly epic.
Yes Coevett, the greatest performance in middle distance history was run on a sh*tty track - you have checked it, correct? Do you know that Bob Beamon also has had terrible conditions in Mexico?
Jürgen Schult's long standing Discus record probably also was set with bad wind. It just was his best of his hundreds of throws because...
Could Coe have run faster later in the season with concentration on it? Pure speculation.
Coe running 1 1/2 seconds faster than any other man in history, and over 2.3 seconds faster than the WR only 10 years previously, on a s h t y track at 11 pm with no official pacemaker (and having to move around him) was certainly epic.
Yes Coevett, the greatest performance in middle distance history was run on a sh*tty track - you have checked it, correct? Do you know that Bob Beamon also has had terrible conditions in Mexico?
Jürgen Schult's long standing Discus record probably also was set with bad wind. It just was his best of his hundreds of throws because...
Could Coe have run faster later in the season with concentration on it? Pure speculation.
Salazar's 81 NYC run might not have been statistically 42.195, but it fits that description.
Kipketer setting WR both in semis and final of the world indoor championship was certainly epic.
Coe running 1 1/2 seconds faster than any other man in history, and over 2.3 seconds faster than the WR only 10 years previously, on a s h t y track at 11 pm with no official pacemaker (and having to move around him) was certainly epic.
Not only did Rudisha not have an official pacemaker, but he front-ran the whole thing from the get-go in the Olympic. I don't think Coe has ever matched that epicness.