Rotterdam 83: Salazar vs Deek (video)

Wrong..Dave Moorcroft ran 13.00 the very same year, 82.

awestruck wrote:

Another of Deek's awesome runs was 82 Commonwealth Games ... that really put him on the map. Great come-from-way-behind win over Ikangaa and Shananga.

Well, he was already the world record holder (Fukuoka 1981), although a lot of people were giving Salazar that designation at the time. But I agree that his Commonwealth Games victory was great -- perhaps his best marathon performance ever.

Salazar and Abdi got the exact same running style.

Salazar looked like Groucho Marx when he ran. Give him a moustache, pair of glasses, cigar, and tuxedo, and he could be a stand-in for Groucho in "A Night at the Opera."

slaps wrote:

That race was huge and touted as a showdown between Salazar (who was considered invincible) and Deek.

Deek won it in the last 400 against Lopes a marathon novice, with a rumored 60 second last 400.

Salazar was 5th in 2:11.

2:10:08

Groucho had a faster stride.

info man wrote:

2:10:08

That's right. The truth is that Salazar didn't run a horrible race. It was his first and (excluding the 1983 Fukuoka race on a questionable course)fastest marathon on a record-quality, loop marathon, and his time that was not that far off his time on the downhill course in Boston. Only his 1981 NYC win seemed clearly superior, and that turned out to have been on a short course. As the careers of Salazar, Deek, and Lopes have demonstrated, Salazar was just competing against superior marathoners that day.

On Juan's Al Salazar page, there is a photo of NYC 81 with Greg Fredericks. How did he do? Did he have any good marathons, or even many attempts?

P.S. my previous question. Was Salazar ever beaten by an American other than Pfitz?

Avocado's Number wrote:

info man wrote:

2:10:08

That's right. The truth is that Salazar didn't run a horrible race. It was his first and (excluding the 1983 Fukuoka race on a questionable course)fastest marathon on a record-quality, loop marathon, and his time that was not that far off his time on the downhill course in Boston. Only his 1981 NYC win seemed clearly superior, and that turned out to have been on a short course. As the careers of Salazar, Deek, and Lopes have demonstrated, Salazar was just competing against superior marathoners that day.

Not at all---Rotterdam is/was a much faster course than NYC, even "short" NYC 80-82. It's also faster than Boston, esp Boston in the heat. Had the Salazar of '81 or '82 showed up for this race, the results would have been very different. Sadly, by '83, Salazar was but a burnt out shadow of himself. The next year, he was a shadow of a shadow. And by '85, he was gooooone.

I swear I've seen Alberto's NYC time adjusted to 2:08:4x on some lists....

I agree that Rotterdam was a faster course than an accurately measured NYC, and faster than Boston in the heat, but I don't agree that Salazar's performance reflected as much of a drop-off in his condition as you seem to believe. Rotterdam was Salazar's first marathon against a truly world-class field, and against two runners who were simply better marathoners. I think that his final time of 2:10:08 would have been faster if he hadn't been broken by Deek, Lopes, and R. Gomez. (I realize that Salazar outkicked R. Gomez in the 1982 NYC marathon.)

Avocado's Number wrote:

I agree that Rotterdam was a faster course than an accurately measured NYC, and faster than Boston in the heat, but I don't agree that Salazar's performance reflected as much of a drop-off in his condition as you seem to believe. Rotterdam was Salazar's first marathon against a truly world-class field, and against two runners who were simply better marathoners.

Uh, no.

(Carlos Lopez dropped out of this one)

Salazar's 1983 results at other distances were also not up to snuff...

Whoops---here's '81 and 80:

http://www.nyrrc.org/cgi-bin/htmlos.cgi/14115.20.044054496516891615?

http://www.nyrrc.org/cgi-bin/htmlos.cgi/14115.22.034491827816891615?

info man wrote:

Whoops---here's '81 and 80:

http://www.nyrrc.org/cgi-bin/htmlos.cgi/14115.20.044054496516891615?http://www.nyrrc.org/cgi-bin/htmlos.cgi/14115.22.034491827816891615?

Weirdness. Here's 81:

info man wrote:

Uh, no.

Is that just a general denial of . . . something?

I am aware that Lopes (not "Lopez") dropped out of NYC prior to running Rotterdam. He said that was by design; he never intended to run the whole race, although he was in excellent shape at the time.

I don't know whether the Rotterdam result would have been different if the Salazar of 1981 or 1982 had been there. But Salazar never showed that he could handle a runner like Deek over the course of a marathon.

Deek proved to be a very consistent marathoner, even in the worst weather conditions (LA84). The match between Seko vs Deek vs Salazar never took place in the level that everyone expected.

Later, I'll try to upload the Fukuoka 83 highlights to watch how easy looked when Seko outkicks Ikangaa, and how Salazar lost contact with the leaders who looked apparently without any strength. After that marathon, things were totally different for him...

juamarti wrote:

Later, I'll try to upload the Fukuoka 83 highlights to watch how easy looked when Seko outkicks Ikangaa, and how Salazar lost contact with the leaders who looked apparently without any strength. After that marathon, things were totally different for him...

That would be great. Since that was back before letsrun.com, and the race wasn't on U.S. television, I never saw much about that race at the time. It apparently has generally been regarded as a "marathon" of questionable distance, which isn't what one expects from the Japanese. (Although, now that I think of it, I recall other marathons in Japan that turned out to be short or of questionable distance.)

The world record was 13:06 when Salazar ran 13:11. Moorcroft ran 13;00 the day after Al's 13:11. It is all in the details, loser. the

JamesHetfield wrote:

Wrong..Dave Moorcroft ran 13.00 the very same year, 82.

Lorenzo the Magnificent wrote:

Was Salazar ever beaten by an American other than Pfitz?

Salazar ran in the 1992 U.S. Olympic Trials, and dropped out pretty early on (around five or six miles into the race, if I recall correctly). So if you count that, then I guess he was "beaten" by everyone who finished that race. Other than that, I don't think so.