Taking all things into consideration - track facilities, equipment, training sophistication, and nutrition/supplementation modalities, I have to beleive Jim Ryun has been the greatest middle distance runner in the sport to date.
I welcome your thoughts.
yes
would be a 3:24 1500m runner today
Seb Coe says "hi!"
Seb Coe would probably agree
no
he wouda been a 3'24 guy on a
'70s synthetic
i have no idea of what he couda been on an
early '80s/late '90s/current track
all i'd offer woud be for '67 "teleported" to a '70s synthetic is
45.7 / 1'40.9 -> 2'09.95 , 3'25.34 , 3'42.25
45.8 / 1'40.9 -> 2'09.87 , 3'25.00 , 3'41.84
45.9 / 1'40.9 -> 2'09.79 , 3'24.66 , 3'41.44
45.7 / 1'40.8 -> 2'09.78 , 3'24.98 , 3'41.85
45.8 / 1'40.8 -> 2'09.70 , 3'24.64 , 3'41.44
45.9 / 1'40.8 -> 2'09.62 , 3'24.30 , 3'41.03
in my evaluation, which i have looked at for long time, many times over, the 2nd-to-bottom line is best estimate
laugh as you may, but mods can confirm i'm not the OP from IP
Ryun info going on here...
In comparing him to today's elites, you also need to take into account that he had to live in utter poverty during his prime due to amateurism rule, which (as he relates in his bio) really began to weigh on him mentally when he got married (quite young--not long after 68), which can't help but negatively affect motivation and training. Other old timers like Snell and Elliott have told the same tales.
His son, Drew, posts on here on occasion. As Drew was at the dinner in London a few years ago that celebrated RGB's anniversary of his sub4, it would be interesting to hear what the general consensus was of the other milers present at the party regarding who was/is best, etc.
NASCAR racers unite wrote:
His son, Drew, posts on here on occasion. As Drew was at the dinner in London a few years ago that celebrated RGB's anniversary of his sub4, it would be interesting to hear what the general consensus was of the other milers present at the party regarding who was/is best, etc.
Drew has posted that when Roger Bannister was asked which mile record he believed was the greatest, he said without hesitation "Jim Ryun's 3:51.1".
In the documentary Jim Ryun: America's Greatest Miler, Peter Snell said that Jim also got a standing ovation at the 40th anniversary in 1994 when they had all the living former mile world record holders there (Ibbottson, Elliott, Jazy, Bayi, Walker, Coe, Cram, Morceli, etc). I can't think of a higher compliment then that.
One of the things that I like most about Jim is that he was from Kansas. He was essentially the all-american boy.
T&F Analyst wrote:
Taking all things into consideration - track facilities, equipment, training sophistication, and nutrition/supplementation modalities, I have to beleive Jim Ryun has been the greatest middle distance runner in the sport to date.
I welcome your thoughts.
I really do have to question this logic...
You're saying that one of the factors that makes Jim Ryun better than all of the runners who emerged decades after him is that because his training was INFERIOR...?
Honestly, there isn't a way to extrapolate that factor. For instance, if he were to be forced in his prime to undergo some of the training that El Guerrouj or Lagat conducted, there is a VERY high likelihood that he may have ended up with frequent injury problems
And even ignoring that factor, what about Kip Keino? If we're taking poverty into question, then he has Ryun totally and utterly crushed. No matter how poor Ryun may have been during his amateur years, Keino, as a Kenyan in the 1960s, would have been far worse off. Yet Keino was still able to defeat Ryun in the Mexico City Olympics, and went on to win titles in the Steeplechase as well.
T&F Analyst wrote:
Taking all things into consideration - track facilities, equipment, training sophistication, and nutrition/supplementation modalities, I have to beleive Jim Ryun has been the greatest middle distance runner in the sport to date.
I welcome your thoughts.
I love Jim Ryun, I really am a huge fan. But how can you put a guy with no golds and only one silver as the top middle-distance man of all time? His record was amazing and lasted a long time, to be sure. But a guy who never won on the biggest stage? Yeah, I know, there were other factors, but still ...
Fact is, I'd put El Guerrouj, Morceli or Coe ahead of him.
Seyta wrote:
I really do have to question this logic...
You're saying that one of the factors that makes Jim Ryun better than all of the runners who emerged decades after him is that because his training was INFERIOR...?
Honestly, there isn't a way to extrapolate that factor. For instance, if he were to be forced in his prime to undergo some of the training that El Guerrouj or Lagat conducted, there is a VERY high likelihood that he may have ended up with frequent injury problems
And even ignoring that factor, what about Kip Keino? If we're taking poverty into question, then he has Ryun totally and utterly crushed. No matter how poor Ryun may have been during his amateur years, Keino, as a Kenyan in the 1960s, would have been far worse off. Yet Keino was still able to defeat Ryun in the Mexico City Olympics, and went on to win titles in the Steeplechase as well.
No. If el g and lagat did the type of training Jim did, THEY would have been injured. Jim could withstand a tremendous workload. Take away the drugs lagat and el g were on and they don't stand a chance of doing half of what Jim did in training.
I hate to break it to you but Jim was a 3:51 miler and that's all he was.
He had great trainiing and there was nothing wrong with the tracks he ran on.
I've raced on every type of modern track and asphalt and they made no difference to my times.
Using the logic that training and tracks are the big difference maker we could pick out any guy from before the 4 minute era and give him the vote.
ventolin^3 wrote:
no
he wouda been a 3'24 guy on a
'70s synthetic
i have no idea of what he couda been on an
early '80s/late '90s/current track
all i'd offer woud be for '67 "teleported" to a '70s synthetic is
45.7 / 1'40.9 -> 2'09.95 , 3'25.34 , 3'42.25
45.8 / 1'40.9 -> 2'09.87 , 3'25.00 , 3'41.84
45.9 / 1'40.9 -> 2'09.79 , 3'24.66 , 3'41.44
45.7 / 1'40.8 -> 2'09.78 , 3'24.98 , 3'41.85
45.8 / 1'40.8 -> 2'09.70 , 3'24.64 , 3'41.44
45.9 / 1'40.8 -> 2'09.62 , 3'24.30 , 3'41.03
in my evaluation, which i have looked at for long time, many times over, the 2nd-to-bottom line is best estimate
laugh as you may, but mods can confirm i'm not the OP from IP
He might have been a 3:24 guy but slower guys beat him to gold
T&F Analyst wrote:
Taking all things into consideration - track facilities, equipment, training sophistication, and nutrition/supplementation modalities, I have to beleive Jim Ryun has been the greatest middle distance runner in the sport to date.
I welcome your thoughts.
It doesn't matter what Ryun coulda run if such and such had been the case. When looking at the greatest middle distance runner ever you gotta look at what they actually achieved over 800 and 1500. It comes down to Olympic medals and world records as the main 2 factors, as other events werent open to every athlete from every era and nationality. After that you gotta assess longevity and rankings over their career.
Ryun only won 1 Olympic silver at one event from 3 Olympics. That is poor when looking at the guys he's up against. He does well with world records~ one tie at 800, one at 1500 and two at the mile. He scores poor with longevity also, no matter what the reasons. He had 2 great years and one good year.
His record overall is nowhere near as strong as Snell, Coe or Ovett. I'd put all 3 of them above Ryun in terms of their career records as pure middle distance runners. People like EL G & Morceli are in a different category really as they didn't really run 800 and were 1500/5000 men.
I'd put Coe at the top on account of his many world records and greater longevity over both distances than Ovett or Snell. I'd put Snell 2nd on his 3 Olympic golds, and Ovett 3rd. Then Ryun.
Overrated wrote:
T&F Analyst wrote:Taking all things into consideration - track facilities, equipment, training sophistication, and nutrition/supplementation modalities, I have to beleive Jim Ryun has been the greatest middle distance runner in the sport to date.
I welcome your thoughts.
It doesn't matter what Ryun coulda run if such and such had been the case. When looking at the greatest middle distance runner ever you gotta look at what they actually achieved over 800 and 1500. It comes down to Olympic medals and world records as the main 2 factors, as other events werent open to every athlete from every era and nationality. After that you gotta assess longevity and rankings over their career.
Ryun only won 1 Olympic silver at one event from 3 Olympics. That is poor when looking at the guys he's up against. He does well with world records~ one tie at 800, one at 1500 and two at the mile. He scores poor with longevity also, no matter what the reasons. He had 2 great years and one good year.
His record overall is nowhere near as strong as Snell, Coe or Ovett. I'd put all 3 of them above Ryun in terms of their career records as pure middle distance runners. People like EL G & Morceli are in a different category really as they didn't really run 800 and were 1500/5000 men.
I'd put Coe at the top on account of his many world records and greater longevity over both distances than Ovett or Snell. I'd put Snell 2nd on his 3 Olympic golds, and Ovett 3rd. Then Ryun.
So it sounds like you're giving him a big thumbs down in terms of performance and overall success.
fixed
SMJO wrote:
I hate to break it to you but Jim was a 3:51 miler and that's all he was.
He had great trainiing and there was nothing wrong with the tracks he ran on.
I've raced on every type of modern track and asphalt and they made no difference to my times.
Using the logic that training and tracks are the big difference maker we could pick out any guy from before the 4 minute era and give him the vote.
idiot
Roger Bannister wrote in his book that Seb Coe, an athlete who ran on both cinder and synthetic tracks found about a 1 second per lap difference in times. This is consistent with what many other athletes have found.
3:51.1-4= 3:47.1, faster than Seb Coe ever ran. Additionally, this is changing nothing but the surface. He led every step of the way and ran a huge negative split at the end.
ukathleticscoach wrote:
He might have been a 3:24 guy but slower guys beat him to gold
17 years old and sick in '64
7800 feet altitude + recovering hamstring injury + recovering from mono in '68
tripped by non-competitive athlete and screwed by politics in '72
Jim simply had bad luck when it came to the olympics, not much else to say. He would have won gold in '72. The race was set up perfectly for him to annihilate the field on the last lap. Nonetheless, he has said that he wouldn't be the man he is today if he didn't go through that unfortunate experience.