oh please wrote:
Flagpole Willy wrote:My opinion is and always has been that primarily the fastest time wins. There are exceptions there, but in KKs case, I feel he's done enough to be America's best marathoner of all time.
Done enough? He hasn't even shown up for an olympic TRIALS much less won an olympic medal. Has he even completed a world championship race?
Whatever, your logic says that Dathan Ritzenhein is a greater 5k runner than Emil Zatopek. Of course he isn't. just faster.
Funny how "oh well, it's all just opinion" to you. Right up until the moment you find you haven't had the last word.
1) The Olympics is HUGE, but it isn't everything.
2) Yes, I would say Ritzenhein is a greater 5K runner than Emil Zatopek. Zatopek was more dominant during his time and more revolutionary, but Ritz is better.
3) Fact is that with more and more people on the planet now and more and more countries pulling themselves out of Third World status, and more and more people RUNNING and competing each year in the world than ever before, the pool is getting larger and larger from which to find the next great runner. Along the way are going to be also rans who are greater than Zatopek ever hoped to be. His name will live on because he was a champion of his time, but by the time this world is done, there will be thousands of runners if not more who were greater 5k runners than he was. The US right now has several.
Distance running is one of the simplest sports there is. There's a distance. There's a runner. The one who completes the distance the fastest is the winner.
[and NO, I don't care about "time trial" races or rabbits or whatever. The runner still had to do it on his own power.]
Fastest time wins just about every single time. KK is far enough ahead to be the greatest American marathoner in my opinion. If not for Tergat, he'd be the greatest EVER (still giving him the nod over faster times simply because he's done more than a flash in the pan (kind of an exception to my rule, but like I said there are exceptions).