Jim Ryun is the greatest distance runner of all-time, Make my day tell me I'm wrong.

The "greatest" distance runners are, as you pointed out, likely to be supremely talented at a young age, world-class! You are 100% right that Ryun fits the bill in that regard!

But the GOAT also has a ton of range (multiple events) and gold medals. Ryun, despite his massive talent, falls short in those two other areas.

So, in the GOAT contest, he has basically 1/3 of the full resume.

an 800m WR at 19 is pretty good, but in 1966 people were more interested in the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and not getting drafted to go to Vietnam.

Speaking of which, how did Ryun stay out of Vietnam? 19 is go to Vietnam age.

You're wrong, it's Nick Bester.

Zatopek baby. 3 golds. 5k, 10k, and marathon. Will never be repeated.

The greatest of all time? Depends how you define it. James Ronald Ryun had unmatched potential—he peaked at just 21 before injuries and overtraining cut his career short. Imagine what could've been!"

If you were in school you didn’t go. You are a dummy.
He was married at 21, so that but the bite on getting drafted post college.
Ryun was poorly coached. All that potential wasted.

Paavo Nurmi was the greatest of his day. Among other things he ran a 4:09 mile when tracks were clay, grass, and dirt. He had to get up in the middle of the night to put coal in the furnace, and they did not know what nutrition was.

He invented training. Hail to the pioneers.

I have to remind myself there are alot of young kids on here. Many in their 40s haven't a clue about the great runners who made it possible for what they do today.

You're not wrong.

Super carbon cheater shoes + modern training/nutrition + trampoline tracks: 3:25 easily.

Will be hard for someone to run on a 400m track after being used to short tracks.

Ah yes. During the era where (checks notes) 75 people knew how to run a 5k globally.

June 17th, 1966 @ 19 yo: 3;51.3 WR: 57.9, 57.6 [1:55.5], 59.8 [2:55.3] , 56 (3:36.1-1,500m); on dirt.

Jim Ryun had range..He had the WR in the 880,1500, mile, and the AR in the two mile. He ran without rabbits, he would often lead the whole race and then kick. He was one of the most famous athletes in the country, winning the Sullivan award and was Sports Illustrated sportsman of the year when SI was a big deal .

If the criteria is: line up every athlete from every era with 6 months of the same (modern) training, same shoes, same tracks etc... Ryun would be very high up in terms of who has a legitimate shot to win in the middle distance category. Zatopek has a resume that likely won't be repeated. But if he raced in the conditions described above, he likely doesn't finish in the top 1000. I think Henry Rono would be very high on the list as well.

Geb, Bekele, Kipchoge, Rono, Zatopek, Viren, Nurmi, Hassan, Tirunesh Dibaba, Tergat, Cheptegei, Kiplimo, Farah, Jakob, and Coe just off the top of my head... all better than Ryun.

So, someone pulled some strings and got him into college, that's one of the usual stories.

What was wasted was a blazing fast runner who could have closed down any VC sniper located within 1 mile, before they could reload

Where do you get the idea he was "overtraining" or his career was "cut short"? There was no such thing as "pro" and nowhere to go. He set WRs at 880, 1500m and mile. In another era he wold have advanced to the Munich 1500 final.

Just look at videos of him run. He was Secretariat. He was a tremendous machine.