Which country would win if the DMR was an Olympic event?

Kenya.

Alfred Kirwa Yego

?

Wilfred Bungei

Asbel Kiprop

Kenya....take your pick of many runners who could do it and still beat the world.

It shouldn't be an olympic event, because like any other relay that doesn't have legs of equal distance it heavily favours teams with strong endurance runners. The best 400m runner in the world is only going to beat the 10th best by about a second, if that. The best mile runner in the world could gain a lot more than that on their leg, meaning that the longer legs count for more, therefore it's not really fair.

I'll take the USA (why not?) We have 1200 guys that would be close to anyone else's (someone like Manzano or Symmonds), 400's are the best in the world (take your pick of whoever is running 44ish at the time), solid 800's (Symmonds, KD, Wheating, Smith), and Lagat anchoring it all. Not a bad lineup.

non yank wrote:

It shouldn't be an olympic event, because like any other relay that doesn't have legs of equal distance it heavily favours teams with strong endurance runners. The best 400m runner in the world is only going to beat the 10th best by about a second, if that. The best mile runner in the world could gain a lot more than that on their leg, meaning that the longer legs count for more, therefore it's not really fair.

Isn't that the reason they call it distance medley?

The winner of most of the distance events also favor those with stronger endurance.

It is fair to be better.

blah wrote:

Kenya.

Alfred Kirwa Yego

? -- K. Komen

Wilfred Bungei

Asbel Kiprop

Yep, I was going to say that too. If you put the 1:43/3:46 Webb at 1200, he would hand off in the lead. Wariner or Merritt runs 43-mid and puts 1.5 seconds on Kenya's guy. Symmonds loses a little to the Kenyan but at worst hands off tied for the lead. Then we let Lagat do his thing.

Kenya would f--- everyone else up.

Then USA, Morocco, Bahrain, and Qatar.

I wouldn't say that "it's not really fair." Rather, some members of the team are simply much more important than others. In baseball, a team with a great pitcher can beat a team with superior players in the other eight positions. In American football, a team with a great quarterback or running back can beat a team with a superior group of offensive linemen. In soccer (football), a team with a great goalie can beat a team with superior players in most other positions.

I do agree, however, that the DMR shouldn't be an Olympic event. And I agree that Kenya would be a perennial favorite, with the U.S. and Great Britain in the mix when they've got the right runners. Think how good Great Britain would have been in the early '80s. On a team with Coe, Ovett, and Cram, who would anchor?

agreer of things wrote:

Yep, I was going to say that too. If you put the 1:43/3:46 Webb at 1200, he would hand off in the lead. Wariner or Merritt runs 43-mid and puts 1.5 seconds on Kenya's guy. Symmonds loses a little to the Kenyan but at worst hands off tied for the lead. Then we let Lagat do his thing.

I'd say the US if everyone was at their best, but are you talking about '08 or '12? Based on Lagat's performance and the lack of Webb in '08, the US would not have won it. Would you keep the same team for 2012? How good will Fernandez and Manzano be by then?

Prince Charles could anchor that team.

This is a very good post topic!

I say it would definitely be between the U.S. and Kenya, but there are a lot of variables. By far the most important variable for the U.S. is can Lagat and Web get back to their form of 2-3 years ago; if they can, I would say it is 50/50 between the U.S. and Kenya. A 3:52 anchor from a Lamong, Manzano or the 2008 version of Lagat and Web and would definitely get smoked by Kenya and Great Britain and perhaps Russia, Spain and Morocco as well. The DMR unlike most other relays depends significantly on the anchor leg. At the world class level, 400m runners are separated by 10th of a second, and only by a second in the 800m.

If Kenya has David Rudisha on the 800, Komen and Choge on the 1200/1600, the U.S. would probably be down by 2 seconds and Webb or Lagat would have to run a 3:45 1600m for us to have a chance.

Btw, Kenya and the U.S. ran a DMR at the Penn Relays a couple of years and it was an incrediblely exciting race.

Not truly an all-star team, but the USA teams (especially the blue team) were significantly better on paper than the Kenyan team. And we still got wiped.

Well, it would most likely be between Kenya and the U.S., but if Bahrain purcahased a good 400 person from some other country, they'd be in the mix.

I like Wheating on the 1200 by then. I think a great guy to chase down anyone. Already at 1:45/3:38, so if he could get to 1:43-4/3:34 that's lights out for the 1200. Yego runs the same way he does, so that'd be some nice cat and mouse tactics. In 4 years it is hard to project, but Fernandez and Manzano have a lot of room to improve. Manzano can do higher mileage + altitude, and Fernandez is of course very young.

Also, we've ignored Lomong for the 1200 leg, which is probably his ideal distance right now. If Webb is off form, and you run Symmonds in the 8 not the 12 then he's your guy over Wheating, Hernandez and Manzano.

Oregon's NCAA-winning DMR team would have beaten all of those 2008 Penn Relay teams, and you'd have to think that a "USA All-Star" team would be slightly faster than Oregon's team.

Note that the world record and the American record (as noted on that Penn Relays page) are almost the same.

(I'm using the 2008 outdoor lists for my comparison.)

If the US and Kenyan were racing, the 400 and 800 basically cancel each other out. There's a 1.5 second swing between the two events. The 1600 goes to Kenya, although Lagat is only about a second behind.

The 1200 would probably be a blowout though. Kenya had over 10 guys ahead of Webb (our second best) on the outdoor list for 1500.

Help an interested foreigner out please. What are the individual legs on a DMR, and what order?

1200-400-800-1600

Do any other countries run the DMR? I've only seen it at US college relay meets (and NCAA indoors, of course).