guy not from there wrote:
Based on what exactly? He has no medals at championships and some fast times. He's also 25 years old, meaning that he's not "just developing", he's in his prime, as the 3:30 shows.
His range isn't that impressive. There are literally dozens of people who have run 3:30 and some so-so races at longer distances. Running 13:10 and 27:34 isn't that impressive when you look at the very best of all-time. Try 3:33/12:46/26:49 as Kipchoge has done, Bekele's 3:32/12:37/26:17, or Geb's 3:31/12:39/26:22. Webb isn't anywhere near that. Hell, Daniel Komen ran 3:29/12:39, which blows Webb's doors off, and added a 27:38 years later when he was out-of-shape. Venuste Niyongabo ran 3:29/13:03 and has an Olympic medal as well. Webb would do well to replicate these times, but no one talks about Niyongabo these days.
Aouita ran faster than Webb 20 years ago: 1:43/3:29/12:58/27:26. When Webb medals at the Olympics in the 800 and the 5,000, we can talk about Webb as being the best at anything. Until then, you're just suffering from American myopia.
I'd agree, though I believe Webb has the ability to approach Aouita's times in the longer distances eventually AND if he focused more on them. The problem is, as you've pointed out already, a lot of guys have shown the same ability in the interim. IF and when Webb gets a championship medal and delivers a sub-12:50 effort, then we can put him in the upper echelon. But, it is exciting as an American to see that we have finally produced someone with that kind of potential as we have also produced a Ryan Hall, true 2:06-2:07 caliber guy in the marathon. Seems like Americans for decades have shown the ability to get down to the 27:20-30 range for 10k and all of its equivalents, while the rest of the world (Africa mainly) is a full minute faster now.