otter wrote:
On his best day do you think Rudisha could have matched Seb Coe on his best day?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0e1yaMIM08Does anyone know the conditions of that track Coe ran on? I've always wondered that. It's hard to tell with the poor quality of the video. Also, it looked like it had tight turns and long straights.
Coe got bumped out in lane two with 300 to go but he had help for the first 400. Rudisha led his entire race.
I've always felt that Coe's 800 was the best middle distance performance of all time.
What do you think?
Of course Rudisha could have done this, and his 2012 Olympic front run in a WR is, on the face of it, statistically better than Coe's run.
However, Rudisha ran his time in 2012 when at his season peak, in the most important race of his life. Coe ran his 31 years earlier with no competition and on an inferior track in early season. How do the exploits of 800 runners in 1950 (31 years earlier) compare to Coe's time!?
You have to put each in historical context. When Rudisha won the Olympic title he was expected to win and ran his normal race, that gave him the best chance of winning. That's not a criticism, it's one of the greatest and bravest performances in T&F history, but an accurate analysis of his tactics. It was a 0.10 improvement on the WR.
Coe's 1:41.7 was the biggest jump forward in the event since Harbig in 1939.
At the time of Firenze, Coe was a whopping 1.71 secs faster than anyone else in history. No one in modern times has been that far ahead of his contemporaries in the 800m. It was a different era, when running fast times all season was not the name of the game, as it is nowadays. But despite this, at the time, 30 years ago, the average of Coe's top 7 times on the eve of the 1984 Olympics, was 1:43.42, faster than anyone else had run once at the time.
I had the opportunity of asking Coe about his Florence race in person in Dec 2012.
He confirmed that Konchellah wasn't hired as a rabbit, hence he had to run round him at 400m, and that it wasn't intended to be a WR attempt. He was hoping for a fast time in 1:43, with a view of attempting the WR in Oslo a month later. When I suggested that he could have run under 1:41 later that season had he taken several attempts with good pacing to the bell, he said, "I think sub 1:41 is pushing it a bit, but certainly 1: 41.2/1:41.3."
I then asked what he'd have been able to run on the latest mondo tracks, and he said, "a couple of tenths faster".
Ignore all the drivel from Ventolin and co that the track was short. He is always trying to demean Coe's performances, and when asked to provide evidence from others that call into question the length of the track, he is left floundering. It's a "normal" track, where the bends are longer than the straights. He does also run about 60m wide on the 3rd bend which cost him perhaps 0.2 in terms of a perfect race.
Here is a better version of the race ~
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKJ_4RU4jKsA look at the race will show that Coe takes c. 10.5 sec at the end of the first lap to run the home straight (as soon as the bend ends) to the bell. That's about 82m in distance. He then goes into the bend a few metres later. So the bends are certainly not short.
In fact a look at Rudisha's 1:41.09 WR in Berlin also clearly shows that he took more like 12.3 secs from the beginning of the straight to the finish line on the 2nd lap. Meaning the straights in Florence were shorter than the Berlin track, but the bends in Florence were longer than in Berlin. Running longer bends and shorter straights would actually put an athlete at a slight disadvantage.
So in summarising, YES, Rudisha could have done this 30 + years later. But Coe's Florence run also represents one of the greatest and most ground breaking performances in T&F history.