What are your criteria for the title of the Geatest runner ever?

Criteria for Greatest Distance Runner

1. First name must be Haile or Paul

2. If it's not Haile or Paul then it's Hicham

3. have held many world records

4. Beat everyone else in most races

5. Medals

6. Skinny

I'd say that would be the best criteria

except the the versatility part, theres plent of field events that sprinters could also do, not many a distance runner would excel at

unless that just means that it would most likely have to be a sprinter

then it would have to be -carl lewis, jesse owens, or soon possibly.. xavier carter?-

Meb Meb Meb wrote:

Criteria for Greatest Distance Runner

1. First name must be Haile or Paul

2. If it's not Haile or Paul then it's Hicham

3. have held many world records

4. Beat everyone else in most races

5. Medals

6. Skinny

I agree, except that #1 had to mention:... or Emil (Zatopek) or Hicham. #2 should have been: If it's not Haile or Paul or Emil or Hicham then it's Kennenisa.

Don't disregard the level of competition in the past- those guys were the best of the best at their time, without proper equipment, as amateurs and as hard-working people (also outside of sport). So we should mention also Paavo Nurmi.

1 Olympic Title

2 World Title

3 World Record

4 Lifetime best performances

5 European or Commonwealth Title

6 Silver medal at Olympics or Worlds

7 Bronze medal at Olympic or Worlds

8 Silver or bronze at Europeans or Commonwealth

9 Longevity

10 Versatility

I think a long stretch of dominance over ones competition (i.e. extremely rarely, or never, losing) is important in being considered great. It gives that "untouchable" feeling. I think Kenenisa's recent loss at 5000m shows how well he has been working towards that level, as everyone was pretty shocked that he went down.