Kipketer_Pumpkin_Eater wrote:
Alright, it appears that like Mo Farah, Steve Jones was a 5k/10k athlete up til about the 30-year age mile stone. At any rate, if you have any sources/repositories of information (books, websites) that you could share, that would be really cool. I see your side of the argument. Steve Jones went from doing the 5k/10k focus to achieving near PR marathon form quite quickly. The age and timeline is a point of comparison. I can also see the viewpoint where fans would expect a tremendous athletic phenom at middle-distance and distance to transfer some ineffable talent and prowess to the marathon, and to be judged, whatever the case, to see what they can put out. I can see the viewpoint where Steve Jones was phenomenal and Mo Farah seems underwhelming.
I watched Mo Farah's marathon debut live. I don't know the facts on the many marathons and particularly the early ones Steve Jones ran.
But, still, Mo Farah has only ran one marathon so far. There is the theory, too, of opportunity cost in athletic ability and someone with as much high achievement and perhaps natural or trained ability in 1500m to 10k, might have a lack of leftover mojo for the marathon. Maybe Farah even went to the well, hard, all those championship race summers, as, although some of the championship races were not fast in absolute terms, the trend in the Mo Farah age has been a long, grinding, super-fast nasty finish to thin out the contenders.
Jones on an absolute perspective started off as a 5k/10k specialist. But I would say that the marathon was his best event. Since Farah has not only been personally a specialist but the world-beater and world-specialist at 5k/10k, it would seem surprising if the marathon became his best or even long-term specialty.
Another hypothesis is that going to the marathon from an early age may be a relatively new phenomenon in terms of sheer numbers and custom, which I think is mostly influenced by financial factors. Maybe Jones was made to marathon.