Everybody knew who the best runners were in Ryun's day. Cover of Sports Illustrated and all that. No one cares outside running fanatics today.
You got a lot of downvotes for a post that is completely factual.
In the 1960s literally every American sports fan knew who Jim Ryun was.
Now? 90% of American sports fans couldn't even name a single US Olympic level track athlete of the top of their head. The other 10% couldn't name more than one or two.
And the idea that cinder tracks can be as fast as synthetic ones? As somebody who ran during the period that high schools switched from cinder to the rubberized asphalt... this is patently absurd. Even those first generation rubberized tracks gave you a bit of bounce. Cinders just allowed your spikes to grab the ground so that you didn't slip. There damn sure wasn't any "bounce" provided by them.
Most Ingebrigtsen fans have no memory of anything in the sport before 2000 - or even 2010. But they are the only ones interested in who he is, since track almost never features now in mainstream sports reporting.
What a facile argument. Ryun wasn't just "two seconds ahead of his competition", as you say Jakob also is, the American destroyed the previous world 1500 record by well over 2 seconds, and did the same to the previous mile record. Jakob has no world record at either distance. Ryun was also the world 880 record-holder despite not even specialising at the distance. From that perspective, as a truly great md runner, Jakob isn't yet in the same conversation as Ryun. He remains closer to Centro, with an Olympic gold but no world record over the distance and the mile, and no world championship title over that distance. And before you blinkered Jakob fans start hugging and puffing again, Jakob's attainments over the longer distances are irrelevant to the discussion of what he has achieved as a md runner.
Talk about a facile argument. Sandor Iharos set world records at 1500, 5k, and 10k in the 1950s and I would argue there have been greater runners since who haven’t held any major world records. To claim that Ryun having held 1500 and mile WRs makes him definitively better than Jakob is to ignore the obvious facts that a) the sport has developed and expanded, including to better reflect African talent and b) Jakob is running against an additional 55 years’ worth of middle distance talent, from a records perspective. Honestly the sport didn’t start gathering much serious international momentum until after WWII and of course wasn’t professionalized until the 70s, so Ryun’s WRs were run in fairly early, relatively uncompetitive days.
You have to be scarcely older than 20 to make such ridiculous claims. Running is a second-tier sport today - most sports fans don't give a sh*t about it and it is barely if ever news - whereas up to Ryun's era it was one of the leading international sports and its heroes were household names.
Jim Ryan would destroy Jakob now. If Komen was around now, he would also destroy Jakob over 3,000m. If Bekele was running 5,000m now, he would destroy Jakob too. We are in a weak era for track at the moment
If you take Jakob back to 1967, with the same training, tracks and shoes as Ryun, he doesn't beat Ryun at anything. He's probably 20m behind.
Ryun legally took PEDs for his ‘asthma’ medication’ and they were serious PEDs too. IHe was also competing in the pre testing era only a couple of years prior to testing. Guess what tests didn’t come in because PEDs weren’t being used. Ryun enters comps with drug testing and suddenly can’t run as fast. Also the talk of him running much faster on synthetic tracks is laughable given the fact he never ran faster on synthetic tracks. A good hot cinder track is near synthetic standard.
So what "peds" was Ryun taking for asthma? I would guarantee they would be nowhere near as potent as what Jakob and his contemporaries are on.
Talk about a facile argument. Sandor Iharos set world records at 1500, 5k, and 10k in the 1950s and I would argue there have been greater runners since who haven’t held any major world records. To claim that Ryun having held 1500 and mile WRs makes him definitively better than Jakob is to ignore the obvious facts that a) the sport has developed and expanded, including to better reflect African talent and b) Jakob is running against an additional 55 years’ worth of middle distance talent, from a records perspective. Honestly the sport didn’t start gathering much serious international momentum until after WWII and of course wasn’t professionalized until the 70s, so Ryun’s WRs were run in fairly early, relatively uncompetitive days.
You have to be scarcely older than 20 to make such ridiculous claims. Running is a second-tier sport today - most sports fans don't give a sh*t about it and it is barely if ever news - whereas up to Ryun's era it was one of the leading international sports and its heroes were household names.
Ryun legally took PEDs for his ‘asthma’ medication’ and they were serious PEDs too. IHe was also competing in the pre testing era only a couple of years prior to testing. Guess what tests didn’t come in because PEDs weren’t being used. Ryun enters comps with drug testing and suddenly can’t run as fast. Also the talk of him running much faster on synthetic tracks is laughable given the fact he never ran faster on synthetic tracks. A good hot cinder track is near synthetic standard.
So what "peds" was Ryun taking for asthma? I would guarantee they would be nowhere near as potent as what Jakob and his contemporaries are on.
I dont really care, as you would have said, cheating is cheating. And all cheaters should be kicked to the curb
Maybe the headline should be Jakob wasn't born with as much natural talent than Jim Ryun. He was born into a family of runners with brothers who went through all the trials before him and passed the knowledge down to him.
This thread is not about achievements in middle distance running, dumbo.
If we are just asking, who is/was the better middle distance runner (JR for full career, JI up to age 23!), then it's clearly Ryun. Ingebrigtsen is not even a middle distance runner, he has no really good 800m performance.
If we ask, which of the two has had the better achievements over all the events, then it's already Ingebrigtsen, despite just being 23 years old.
If Ryun was "overtrained" is completely irrelevant for the subject. The point is not, what COULD someone have done, but what HAS someone done. It's also not true, that Ryun scipped running for three years, he raced in '69 and in '71. After '72 he choose to become a "professional" - his choice.
The question wasn't who is the better runner over all events - that is merely your interpretation, so that you can include the events Ryun never ran. Since Jakob is a 1500/mile competitor that puts him in the same category as Ryun with regard to those events. In that regard Ryun was far better in his era than Jakob is in his, since Ryun demolished the world records in the 1500 and mile. Jakob has neither record. The longer events that Ingebrigtsen runs are irrelevant to this conversation - just as they would be if the comparison was with Rudisha, who never ran anything over - or under - his specialty event but absolutely dominated it, which Jakob doesn't do in his events.
The thread title: "Jacob is not as good as Jim Ryun." The claim is not about the 1500m/Mile specifically - but obviously that Ryun was a better distance runner than Ingebrigtsen (so far) was (why is this my interpretation?). I have absolutely no interest to lift JIs achievements in any way - why should I do this? I'm not a fan of him. The events Ryun never ran? steeple? 10000? Ryun has run much more 2 Miles than Ingebrigtsen has run 3000/2 Miles. Ryun has achieved great results here (not far from the WR) - but still way behind to JI (a fantastic WR ++). Ryun also has run 5000 - in mediocre time. JI is a two times World champion. Ryun at his absolute best (1967) probably was little bit "better" (relatively) than Ingebrigtsen at his (2023). But Ingebrigtsen's career achievements already better Ryun's, even JI just turned 23.
You have to be scarcely older than 20 to make such ridiculous claims. Running is a second-tier sport today - most sports fans don't give a sh*t about it and it is barely if ever news - whereas up to Ryun's era it was one of the leading international sports and its heroes were household names.