Curtis Beach 1:47.9 split!

You are correct I would take Ashton any day of the week over Curtis as far as becoming the top world class decathlete. Speed Kills.

C.K. Yang I believe won 7 of the 10 events in the Olympics that's pretty good, but he did lose the Gold to Rafer Johnson!!!

krunksta wrote:

You are correct I would take Ashton any day of the week over Curtis as far as becoming the top world class decathlete. Speed Kills.

I agree though I think Curtis can be a very good decathlete at the NCAA level. I could definitely see him placing at NCAAs this year. But maybe he should consider making the 800 his primary event.

Duku Kim wrote:

Curtis Beach will NEVER beat Ashton Eaton. Eaton is the amazing athlete we should all be raving about. There isn't one decathlon event that is new to Curtis Beach. He has been training for the decathlon LONGER that Eaton. Beach was training like a post-collegiate for 3 years prior to college. Eaton on the other hand, had never done the following events prior to college:

shot put

high jump

high hurdles

discus

pole vault

javelin

1500m

And before you crown Beach as the greatest running decathlete in history, you might want to check out Eaton's WR for that category.

For perspective, here are Eaton's collegiate marks:

http://www.athletic.net/TrackAndField/Athlete.aspx?AID=675996

If you want to have a good laugh, check out Beach's collegiate marks from this indoor season. Not exactly the stuff of legends.

http://www.athletic.net/TrackAndField/Athlete.aspx?AID=1781610

No shit! Beach has marks from half of one indoor season and Eaton has been in the NCAA for a few years, and Beach's marks don't match up well? You're kidding.

RIGHT now Beachboys best event is the 800 which is not a deca event. Satch predicts the pv may eventually be his best and that he will be NCAA DECA champ his soph or juinor year.Eaton is better right now by a lot.His chances of a WR are slim .

It will be interesting to see Beach's freshman marks later compared to Ashton's. Unless Beach drops his 100m time down quite a bit (he may) Ashton will probably still have the upper hand. If Beach wants to compete at a World Class decathlon level he will put on more muscle and inevitably the 1500 and maybe the 800 will cease to improve. If it does it will be very minimal, way to many points sitting in the throws and jumps vs. the 1500m.

I don't think it's set in stone that Beach will never handle the weights at an international level. He's six-feet, 166 and still a growing teenager. Dan O'Brien was 6-2, 185; Bryan Clay was 5-11, 185. Beach can easily put on twenty pounds of muscle, be a potential world champion, and still break four minutes in the 1,500, maybe even faster. He probably won't keep improving in the 800, but remember that Peter Snell set WRs at 175 pounds, and was shorter than Beach. And Alberto Juantorena was six-three, 185.

Beach has a good shot at putting all sorts of cliches to rest. He is one of a kind.

Impressive, but he's not an unprecedented talent.

Back in around 1980, I saw decathlete Rob Baker run 1:50.xx in his first 800 ever (and last, as far as I know). The race was at UC Santa Barbara, where Baker was training under the great multi-event coach Sam Adams, who died recently. As I recall, Baker went 56-54, and he looked very comfortable throughout. Baker was several years older than Beach when he did that, but I think it's clear Baker could have run much faster if he'd chosen to run the 800 again.

Baker's 3:58 is still the fastest 1500 ever run in a decathlon competition.

Duku Kim wrote:

If you want to have a good laugh, check out Beach's collegiate marks from this indoor season. Not exactly the stuff of legends.

http://www.athletic.net/TrackAndField/Athlete.aspx?AID=1781610

What do u expect? He went to DUKE. end of story.

Duke is the place where talented, smart HSers who don't want to be good but rather would drink go to die a slow death.

(Apparently, Beach does want to be good so I guess he didn't realize this).

If they think they want to be good, but don't really, they go to Princeton. If they really want to be good, they go to Stanford or a state school.

Buzz Moorman has cake like everyday is his birthday.

[quote]sprinkles wrote:

Here is a good version.

Umm, yeah...it's not really a great debate guys. Curtis was popular before he ran the 1:47.9 split. Wheating is a 800M specialist and more seasoned. Curtis has an "unheard of" combination of speed, endurance, strength, and coordination. How many people do you know can run 47.7 400M, run a 1:47.9 800M, high jump 6'9 1/2, long jump 23'10, pole vault 15'3, and run a 4:07 1500M? He can also hurdle well and ran a respectable 21.8 200M in high school. He has to be the most versatile track & field athlete we've seen in our generation.

Um...yeah..not really the best debate I've seen guys. I love Wheating. He's great middle distance runner...he really is. But Beach has an "unheard of" combination of strength, speed, endurance, explosion, and coordination that I've ever seen rolled up into one man. How many guys in the world can run 21.8 200M, 47.7 400M, 1:47.9 800M, 4:07 1500M, pole vault 15'3, high jump 6'9 1/2, long jump 23-10, etc. He runs sub 11 for 100M and is also an exceptional hurdler. Most of those PRs are from high school. That PR of 1:47.7 was no big deal for him. The 800M is not even one of the ten events in the decathlon he trains for. 800M runners better be thankful his goal is not to run an Olympic 800M race.

This thread is absurd.

The kid ran a great race.

Can we leave it at that?

Geez.