Jim Ryun now outside looking in of the top 10 US Mile times in History

cover boy wrote:

1. Ryun's American junior records for 800m, 1500m and 1 mile still stand, 44 years and counting (1500m and 1 mile in same race).

2. I believe the only marks dating from the decade of the 70's on the American top ten lists in running events are Wohlhuter's at 800m and (of course) 1000m.

Am I missing something? Doesn't Alan Webb have the American junior record in the mile?

Webb has the US HS records, but not the junior records. The Jr records are:

800 m 1:44.9 Jim Ryun U. of Kansas Terre Haute, IN 1966-Jun-10

1,500 m 3:36.1 Jim Ryun U. of Kansas Berkeley, CA 1966-Jul-17

1 mi. 3:51.3 Jim Ryun U. of Kansas Berkeley, CA 1966-Jul-17

http://www.usatf.org/statistics/records/view.asp?division=american&location=outdoor%20track%20%26%20field&age=junior&sport=TF

edumacator wrote:

cover boy wrote:

1. Ryun's American junior records for 800m, 1500m and 1 mile still stand, 44 years and counting (1500m and 1 mile in same race).

2. I believe the only marks dating from the decade of the 70's on the American top ten lists in running events are Wohlhuter's at 800m and (of course) 1000m.

Am I missing something? Doesn't Alan Webb have the American junior record in the mile?

I don't think so. I think Webb has the HS record, but Ryun has the Junior record. 3:51.3 or something like that at 19 yrs old.

Ryun rules wrote:

800 m 1:44.9 Jim Ryun U. of Kansas Terre Haute, IN 1966-Jun-10

http://www.usatf.org/statistics/records/view.asp?division=american&location=outdoor%20track%20%26%20field&age=junior&sport=TF

And that one really should be 1:44.3 since he ran 1:44.9 for 880y but usatf won't give the adjustment.

old tymer wrote:

In the 3:33.1 race, he and Keino were eyeing each other for the first 440, which they passed in just under 61 flat. Then Keino sprinted ahead and set a very fast pace for the next 2 laps; then Ryun blitzed past him to win by a huge margin.

Someone mentioned Lagat as rivalling Ryun in terms of greatest US miler/1500 guy. As an American, Lagat has certainly done well, but there's still no comparison. Competitively, Lagat holds up very well in comparison, but in historical stature (WRs, stature vs. the competition of the day, etc.), Ryun comes out way on top.

In the 3:33.1 race, Ryun ran the last 880 yards in something like 1:51.3.

Regarding the comparison between Ryun and Lagat as US 1500/mile runners, this just shows how silly it can be to compare runners across eras. Since becoming a U.S. citizen, Lagat has won an Olympic silver medal, as well as a gold and a bronze in outdoor world championships. (If he had been permitted to run the 2005 world championships, there's good reason to believe that he would have another world championship gold.) He has also run 3:27.40 as a U.S. citizen -- not the world record, but still the fastest 1500 since 2002, and obviously much faster than Ryun ever ran. Although there have been a few valleys among the peaks, his record over the past 6+ years as a U.S. citizen has been one of pretty consistent world-class running, which really can't be said of Ryun's running over a similar period of time. And although Lagat has never dominated the 1500/mile the way that Ryun did in 1966-67, he has been competing in an era of much greater international depth.

Ryun was a very special runner, and we can only imagine how good he might have been under different conditions and against better competition. I can't think of anyone on the scene today whom I'd rather watch. But we can acknowledge his great gifts and accomplishments without embarking on the more dubious course of declaring him to be head-and-shoulders above someone else who, in a different era, has run much faster, for much longer, against much stronger competition, in many more big races.

Give Ryun modern tracks and modern drugs, and you might be looking at sub 3:45.

Jim Ryun had competed in 3 Olympics by/at age 25. Retired in 1973 at age 26.

Avocados Number wrote:Regarding the comparison between Ryun and Lagat as US 1500/mile runners, this just shows how silly it can be to compare runners across eras.

Ryun was a very special runner, and we can only imagine how good he might have been under different conditions and against better competition. I can't think of anyone on the scene today whom I'd rather watch. But we can acknowledge his great gifts and accomplishments without embarking on the more dubious course of declaring him to be head-and-shoulders above someone else who, in a different era, has run much faster, for much longer, against much stronger competition, in many more big races.

I agree with a good deal of what you're saying--such comparisons across eras are, on one level, pretty wildly subjctive. My point--and perhaps I didn't articulate it clearly enough--was that, from a purely historical point of view, Ryun is vastly "better" than Lagat. Lagat has faster times, and a longer high-level career--no question at all, that's obvious. However, Lagat is NOT in any way a runner who dramatically pushed the boundaries of his event forward--and Ryun did that in a very major way.

The danger with all these historical comparisons is that we're not comparing apples to apples: times are faster today and athletes have much longer careers than they did prior to about the mid-1970s. And, the competitive season is also quite different--the Euro circuit was a far smaller deal, there were no World Championships, the US national meet actually meant quite a bit, etc. Thus, what really counts is comparing individual athletes to the others of their own times--which I sense that you fully agree with. So, then, we (try) to extrapolate to to compare one "relative rank within one's own time" to another.

...when all is said and done:

"what IS a 'cinder' track???" (dripping in sarcasm!)

Sincerely,

Young 20-something & wet behind the ears

variations of rules and which governing body accepts what type of races is very confusing.

Didn't A.J. Acosta run a 3:53 at Pre this year?

If so he should be on this list, which means the list is not correct.

Also amazing is that his 1:44y still stands as the top college mark, including foreign competitors.

I wonder how many runners from the 1924 all-time list were still there in 1967?

I'm thinking the Oslo track is either short or - somehow - downhill. Dang.

Bill Huntington wrote:

I wonder how many runners from the 1924 all-time list were still there in 1967?

That's an easy one: NONE! In fact, I wonder how many 1924 performances made the US top 100 in 1967, never mind the top 10. I haven't done the research, but I would bet that the answer is still nada.

I think that the Oslo track is the most scrutinized track in the world (obviously accurate), but the greatest fields in the mile and awesome conditions when they run in the evening time!!!

Didn't A.J. Acosta run a 3:53 at Pre this year?

If so he should be on this list, which means the list is not correct.[/quote]

Yeah good spot. I think David Torrence ran something around that too

1500 wrote:

Didn't A.J. Acosta run a 3:53 at Pre this year?

If so he should be on this list, which means the list is not correct.

Yeah good spot. I think David Torrence ran something around that too[/quote]

please correct the list to include update

I`ll forward your amended list to the website

racetraining wrote:

I think if you wanted to just use times to make a comparative list of US milers you should list them by the amount of time they were over the world record at that particular time.

Good idea. Here is a list of the top 47 US mile times, sorted by the number of seconds over the WR on that date.

# - Diff - Result - WR - Name - Venue - Date

01 - 0.0 - 03:51.1 - 03:51.1 - Jim Ryun - Bakersfield - 6/23/1967

02 - 0.4 - 03:47.7 - 03:47.3 - Steve Scott - Oslo - 7/7/1982

03 - 1.2 - 03:52.2 - 03:51.0 - Marty Liquori - Kingston - 5/17/1975

04 - 1.5 - 03:48.8 - 03:47.3 - Sydney Maree - Rieti - 9/9/1981

05 - 1.5 - 03:50.3 - 03:48.8 - Todd Harbour - Oslo - 7/11/1981

06 - 2.1 - 03:53.2 - 03:51.1 - Tony Waldrop - Philadelphia - 4/27/1974

07 - 2.2 - 03:53.3 - 03:51.1 - David Wottle - Eugene - 6/20/1973

08 - 2.3 - 03:53.3 - 03:51.0 - Rick Wohlhuter - Wichita - 5/31/1975

09 - 3.0 - 03:49.3 - 03:46.3 - Joe Falcon - Oslo - 7/14/1990

10 - 3.1 - 03:52.0 - 03:49.0 - Craig Masback - Oslo - 7/17/1979

11 - 3.5 - 03:49.8 - 03:46.3 - Jim Spivey - Oslo - 7/5/1986

12 - 3.5 - 03:54.6 - 03:51.1 - Steve Prefontaine - Eugene - 6/20/1973

13 - 3.5 - 03:50.8 - 03:47.3 - Tom Byers - Koblenz - 8/25/1982

14 - 3.8 - 03:46.9 - 03:43.1 - Alan Webb - Brasschaat - 7/21/2007

15 - 4.0 - 03:51.3 - 03:47.3 - John Gregorek - Oslo - 6/26/1982

16 - 4.1 - 03:51.4 - 03:47.3 - Richie Harris - Koblenz - 8/29/1984

17 - 4.3 - 03:51.6 - 03:47.3 - Chuck Aragon - Oslo - 7/21/1984

18 - 5.2 - 03:48.4 - 03:43.1 - Bernard Lagat - Oslo - 7/29/2005

19 - 6.0 - 03:50.4 - 03:44.4 - Steve Holman - Oslo - 7/4/1997

20 - 6.0 - 03:54.8 - 03:48.8 - Steve Lacy - Stockholm - 7/7/1980

21 - 6.5 - 03:52.8 - 03:46.3 - Jeff Atkinson - Zürich - 8/17/1988

22 - 6.7 - 03:54.1 - 03:47.3 - Kevin Johnson - Berlin - 8/17/1984

23 - 6.9 - 03:54.2 - 03:47.3 - Donald Paige - Westwood - 5/16/1982

24 - 7.2 - 03:54.6 - 03:47.3 - Terry Brahm - Burnaby - 7/16/1984

25 - 7.3 - 03:54.6 - 03:47.3 - Tom Smith - Westwood - 5/13/1984

26 - 7.5 - 03:50.6 - 03:43.1 - Leonel Manzano - London - 8/14/2010

27 - 7.6 - 03:54.9 - 03:47.3 - Matt Centrowitz - Oslo - 6/26/1982

28 - 7.9 - 03:54.2 - 03:46.3 - Doug Padilla - Westwood - 8/6/1989

29 - 8.3 - 03:54.6 - 03:46.3 - John Quade - Westwood - 8/6/1989

30 - 8.6 - 03:51.7 - 03:43.1 - Andrew Wheating - Eugene - 7/3/2010

31 - 8.9 - 03:53.3 - 03:44.4 - Richie Boulet - Eugene - 5/31/1998

32 - 9.3 - 03:53.6 - 03:44.4 - Terrance Herrington - Eugene - 6/4/1995

33 - 9.8 - 03:54.2 - 03:44.4 - Adam Goucher - Eugene - 5/30/1999

34 - 9.8 - 03:54.2 - 03:44.4 - David Krummenacker - Edwardsville - 7/25/1998

35 - 9.9 - 03:54.3 - 03:44.4 - Marc Davis - Nice - 7/16/1997

36 - 10.0 - 03:53.2 - 03:43.1 - Lopez Lomong - Eugene - 7/3/2010

37 - 10.4 - 03:54.8 - 03:44.4 - Karl Paranya - Eugene - 5/30/1999

38 - 10.5 - 03:54.9 - 03:44.4 - Jamie Harris - Stockholm - 8/5/1998

39 - 10.6 - 03:55.0 - 03:44.4 - Matthew Holtaus - Eugene - 5/30/1999

40 - 10.7 - 03:53.8 - 03:43.1 - Robert Myers - London - 7/30/2004

41 - 11.1 - 03:54.2 - 03:43.1 - Jonathan Rankin - Stretford - 8/11/2007

42 - 11.2 - 03:54.4 - 03:43.1 - Evan Jager - Eugene - 6/7/2009

43 - 11.2 - 03:54.4 - 03:43.1 - Seneca Lassiter - Oslo - 7/13/2001

44 - 11.3 - 03:54.4 - 03:43.1 - Jason Lunn - Eugene - 5/24/2003

45 - 11.3 - 03:54.5 - 03:43.1 - Chris Lukezic - Eugene - 5/28/2006

46 - 11.7 - 03:54.9 - 03:43.1 - Brian Berryhill - Linz - 8/20/2001

47 - 11.8 - 03:54.9 - 03:43.1 - Paul McMullen - London - 7/22/2001

Sources: