What distance runner in history has had the biggest fall from grace?

Are you rating using the official Rudy Giuliani Fall From Grace Scale?

Mary Decker. After having a stellar career for the most part, in the end she was caught doping

Sumgong or Ingebrigsten when he became farcical

Was Lukas V's bike named Grace?

Was thinking more in terms of performance decline than being caught doping.

Still a fall from grace though

Webb. Top of the world to suddenly barely able to break 4. Even in that era, that wasn't enough to continue as a pro. Webb attempted to come back to track for several years without real success.

He then tried the triathlon for a couple years but couldn't make it to the upper echelons of that sport.

His comeback attempt was like 6 years long.

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Steve Magness - 401 high school miler. Never pr'd again after that in the mile or if he did he didn't even take another second off. He ran in college and post collegiately for a couple years. His pr's were few and far between after hs. He brought his 800 about in line with the mile and dropped a little time in the 5000. I don't think there has ever been a runner so good who didn't get a big pr in college.

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Bekele - the best distance runner in the world by far for years. He could not duplicate that success in the marathon. He has had some good marathons here and there and after years of sub par results clawed himself back for one more attempt at the olympics. The deprioritization of world xc really hurt him. When world xc was big, he was the most dominant xc runner in the world.

Suzy Favor Hamilton?

For American distance runners it's tough to top Shelby. She went from the US best to a 5-year ban.

No, no and no!

SFH did not fall from grace!

She was an outstanding runner who found out later that she's even better at other things besides running!

I don't agree about Bekele, and Magness was never fast enough to be in the conversation, but if we're talking strictly performances, then Webb is close to the top as he pretty much fell off a cliff.

Tim Danielson - sub four-minute mile in high school, never broke four minutes again, murdered his ex-wife and now sits in prison for the rest of his life.

Joanie. Olympic gold. WR. Now, can she even break 3:00 anymore????

Yeah, I did not think of him and now I cannot think of anyone who can top his story. I believe that a "fall from grace" needs to include something that causes people to lose considerable respect for an athlete's character and not just his athletic ability.

Looking to baseball, Steve Blass was one of the heroes of the 1971 World Series for pitching and winning two complete games against Baltimore. He'd won 18 regular season games and was one of the better pitchers in MLB. Then in 1974, maybe '73, out of nowhere and for no apparent reason he almost completely lost the ability to throw strikes and never regained it despite all sorts of interventions. The condition has affected a handful of other major leaguers and is called "Steve Blass Disease." But there was never anything like a fall from grace for him. Pirate fans who are old enough to remember him or ones who are up on the team's history have nothing but respect for him. But Barry Bonds? Yes, big time fall from grace despite performing well right to the end of his playing days because we learnt that some of his accomplishments were likely due to cheating.

So I think "fall from grace" as it applies to distance runners needs to have a moral dimension even more than one related to performance decline and that's mostly going to involve PED use. But Danielson's is kind of unique and much more vile.

Jesse Owens. Fell from 4 time Gold Medalist to racing horses in county fairs in just a few months. Shameful.

Regina Jacobs

Lukas V

Shelby

Fall from grace only meaning that the runner was once at a very high level, then due to some circumstances became a very weak runner. I probably should have made that clear in the post, so my bad. Looks like Alan Webb is the victor if we're going by majority vote.