which performance was better leo manzanos silver or centros silver?

i kinda like running wrote:

I'm gonna go with Manzano on this one, if we're comparing a single race. Olympic silver > WC silver.

But Centro is the better championship racer, and his career will far outshine Manzano's when all is said and done. Leo's silver was really kind of a fluke. He has a very good kick. If you are a fast kicker and you find yourself on the big stage enough times, chances are decent that you will eventually time your kick correctly and sneak in for a medal.

I don't buy the "fluke" theory. All of these guys are good kickers, including Centro.

having said that, I agree, Centro is a the better championship racer so far. But not by much, when you consider that head-to-head Manzano beat Centro on the biggest stage.

Both medals were smart.

Manzano realized his opponents were boxed and then destroyed them in the outside lane in the straightaway.

Centrowitz timed everything perfectly so that he had the half a step lead over 3rd and 4th crossing the line.

The one thing I think you can say is that manzano clearly had second, but with centrowitz, one wrong step and he'd been fourth.

For that reason I think I'd say Manzano. I won't go into the bandwagon of saying it's better simply because one is OG and the other is WC.

The OP's question was not which medal is more prestigious, but which PERFORMANCE was more impressive.

Obviously, the Olympic Games will, in theory, benefit from better fields, with more athletes with greater amounts of focus, preparation and "nervous energy" (as Renato Canova would say).

Apart from that, however, I would agree that it should be considered that Kiprop, in his best form and not making any tactical blunders, was present in the Moscow Final, and that, Makh Daddy's Olympic Final performance was bizarre and certainly suspicious (he hasn't done squat since--compare this with Mo Farah's continual consistency). This gives a little extra weight to the Centrowitz's 2013 WC performance.

How consistent either athlete is, the rest of the time, is not really relevant when evaluating the merits of an individual performance, unless you really think an outlier breakthrough performance has less merit because the athlete is "throwing" performances against "the wall" and seeing "what sticks," and that an athlete who performs consistently is somehow, "probabilistically," disadvantaging himself for future triumphs (tell that to Mo Farah), or that breakthroughs in past world championships wear an athlete down in the long run (a year or years later)

An interesting point to ponder, abstractly, is that, the dominant countries of distance running--the East Africans: the Ethiopians and Kenyans--of course, face the same limits other countries do in sending athletes to Championships, and that, more so than other countries, the selection process doesn't necessarily result in the best athletes-- most suited and liable to perform well at a given championships--being sent. Thus, it is conceivable that, the qualifiers sent by Kenya to the Olympics one year might be weaker than those sent in a WC another year.

Daryl Basarab wrote:

Both medals were smart.

Manzano realized his opponents were boxed and then destroyed them in the outside lane in the straightaway.

Centrowitz timed everything perfectly so that he had the half a step lead over 3rd and 4th crossing the line.

The one thing I think you can say is that manzano clearly had second, but with centrowitz, one wrong step and he'd been fourth.

For that reason I think I'd say Manzano. I won't go into the bandwagon of saying it's better simply because one is OG and the other is WC.

I would agree with this, too. When I first watched the 2013 race, I was delighted Centrowitz managed silver, but minutes later, I realized, in replay, how close 2nd place was to 3rd and 4th.

As a biased and loyal American, I have no choice but to declare Centro's silver as superior.

Olympics >>> WC's.

Manzano's Silver >>> Centro's Silver. Saying otherwise is saying the below greats are wrong.

“It’d be a big honor to represent your country. I got a little taste of that at the World Championships, but the ***Olympics*** is something that every runner aspires to be in.” -Galen Rupp

"As a competitor, I started so young and the ***Olympics*** was all I could think about." -Mary Decker Slaney

"I've been dreaming about this (***Olympic*** Gold) since I was 8 years old." -Bryan Clay

"I will have to wait until the Olympics in 2012 to finally fulfill my long-standing ***dream*** of becoming an ***Olympic*** medallist. In fact, if I had won a medal at the Beijing Olympics, my athletics career would likely have come to an end." -Marta Dominquez, 2009 World Champ.

Prestige aside, the only difference between the Olympics and the World Championships is basically the year that it is run.

WC's can actually be harder since they allow a 4th athlete to a country with a returning champion.

Kiprop did run in London and was healthy enough to make the final.

Makhloufi was not in Moscow, which waters that down a bit.

But you can only race who shows up.

From one aspect I think Manzano's Silver was a better performance because he completely exceeded expectaions. And he passed Centro on the way to that Silver.

But I really think Centro's performance was better precisely because people were watching for him to medal and he came through. He executed great tactics, put himself into position to defend his place and covered all moves made on him.

Most of us think Manzano had a little bit of luck to get there.

There was no luck in the way Centro got his Silver.

He performed.

(And I am more of a Manzano fan, by the way)

off constantly wrote:

Centro.

Manzano got very very lucky- everyone else blew their loads trying to match Makhloufi's outrageous move at 300 to go.

This is wrong. Leo was faster 1200-1300, 1300-1400 and 1400-1500 than anyone chasing makhloufi.

The idea that he benefited from people 'blowing up' is solely based on stupid shit said by rojo.

Even if Kiprop were healthy last year, Manzano still gets his silver...if you catch my drift...

The Champ wrote:

off constantly wrote:

Centro.

Manzano got very very lucky- everyone else blew their loads trying to match Makhloufi's outrageous move at 300 to go.

This is wrong. Leo was faster 1200-1300, 1300-1400 and 1400-1500 than anyone chasing makhloufi.

The idea that he benefited from people 'blowing up' is solely based on stupid shit said by rojo.

wrong, Cheseba and the Ethiopian were faster from 1200-1300 than Manzano.

Leo Manzano's performance because it will be come gold when Makdoppie gets busted.

Not even a contest. I am a fan of both racers, but the Olympics is an event athletes build entire careers around.

As many in this thread have already mentioned, coaches and athletes create career cycles that are focused on Olympic years, not World Championship years.

Silver @ OG trumps Silver @ WC, but congrats to Centro on an amazing season this year.

Again, the question is not about what's more prestigious, but which run was the superior performance. I don't disagree that an Olympic silver is superior to a WC silver, but that's not really what's interesting about the original post.

It's hard to contest that Manzano benefited from the hard break that Makhloufi made with 300m to go--Kiplagat, Gebremedhin, and Chepseba are a testament to this. They went with Makhloufi, going hard when he did, but they paid for it dearly in the last 100 meters.

Manzano's final push in the midst of all this was a thing of awe. But what Manzano benefited from wasn't just a racer like Kiplagat running out of gas; it was that the field had gotten so strung out that traffic control was no longer an issue for a late charger like Manzano.

Compare this to the Moscow 1500m final, which featured a slow but steady push from 800m out. When you watch that race, it looks "slower" than the last two championship finals because there's no hard acceleration with 400m-300m to go like there was in Daegu and London. Instead, each 100m was incrementally faster than the one before it, which had the beneficial effect of conserving enough energy to keep most athletes "in it" even with 150m to go. Like most recent championship races, the medalists came through the final 800m in ~1:50, but the splits were relatively more even (57/53)--until the final 100m, when everyone started gunning for home.

With such a crowded field at 100m to go, there were a lot of ways to mess up, and if you hadn't put yourself in good enough position by that point, you really were out of contention. Because of this, I'm inclined to say that Centrowitz's WC silver represents a tactically superior race, even if Manzano's represents a more awe-inspiring one. It wasn't a pretty finish, in a lot of ways, and it very easily could have ended differently, but Centro was beyond smart to recognize that Kiprop was going to open up a space for him to make his move on that final stretch.

Uncle Samowitz wrote:

As a biased and loyal American, I have no choice but to declare Centro's silver as superior.

I don't actually understand what you mean by this. Can you clarify?

An Olympic Silver is better than a World Gold. Therefore, Manzano's performance has more weight. The average bear on the street can not tell you anything about the T/F World Champs, but can always add something about the Olympics.

I'd normally say Manzano's was superior, but he had to parade around with that Mexican flag afterwards, so Centro silver > Manzano silver

pt az wrote:

An Olympic Silver is better than a World Gold.

Riiiight. Manzano > Kiprop. Hilarious.

OP,

An Olympic medal always trumps any other type of award/medal.

However I would say Centro's Bronze, 4th, and Silver, trump Manzano legacy wise.

What really matters in these medals is lifetime earning potential. Leo's has more.

But Centro is by accident of birth better connected.

RRRR wrote:

As many in this thread have already mentioned, coaches and athletes create career cycles that are focused on Olympic years, not World Championship years.

I don't agree with this.

Track athletes have one year training cycles, not four year cycles.

If age 26 happens to be someone's peak of physical ability, they can't change that for an Olympics that happens when they are 24 and 28.

I noticed that Bolt had his best year in 2009, in the World Championships.

Morceli had his best years in World Championship years.

El G as well.

Lagat's approach hasn't changed from year to year based on any four year cycle and he has been in it forever.

Gold medals in 2007. Nothing in 2008. More medals is 2009 and 2011. Nothing in 2012.

Now look at some of the one-off Olympic medalists.

Peter Rono, Mohamed Suleiman, Stephen Kipkorir, Nick Willis, Manzano and Iguidor.

I don't see any evidence that the performance to get an Olympic medal is any harder than the performance to get a World Championship medal.

All of the athletes are there and peaking for that moment regardless of the year.

There is more pressure and more glory in Olympic medal, but the execution to get it is no different.

What if you had a Super Duper Bowl winner every four years but the season and playoff schedule to get there was the same as Super Bowl years?

What that performance really be any better?