T&FN Number Ones

No love for El G. I understand how TFN uses a process to arrive at their rankings and AOY. But to bring home two gold medals in the Olympic year is what it is all about. Kenny B obviously makes a strong case for his AOY. But at least give El G a number one ranking somewhere. He wins the gold in what had to be his most pressure packed race ever (the 1500m) and comes back and beats the WR holder and a past world champ for the gold in the 5000m. Come on TFN, throw away those Cray computers and give El G his due.

satch WAS THE TRACK FAN, so sorry GARRY.AM I now banned BEYOND FOREVER . ps your picks are really stupid as are [ censured]

why is it that you have to behave like a prick by intentionally not abiding by the request?

hey there's a prick wrote:

why is it that you have to behave like a prick by intentionally not abiding by the request?

I'd guess he's trying to ensure TnF News decides not to give a sneak peek of future lists to subscribers like him since they obviously can't follow simple requests. This is a limited time for him to be able to brag about getting supposedly hush-hush information since he was left out of the loop previously by the several thousands of people involved in the moon hoax and the Kennedy assasination.

I don't agree with ranking Lagat over El G because EL G won the big race, but I would guess T&F New's reasoning was based on the 2-1 edge that Lagat held over El G. And, the 5K gold would have no bearing on the 1500m rankings.

Interestingly, since 1976, only once has the olympic champ earned the #1 ranking in the 1500m by T&F News (Morceli in 96).

I honestly want to hear Bautista's thoughts on this.

Whereas I completely endorse Bekele over El G for Athlete of the Year, I too am confused by Lagat being picked over El G in the 1500. Granted Lagat won 2 of the 3 races they ran but El G won the big one, finally getting the monkey off his back, and wasn't El G nursing a minor injury at the very beginning of the summer series? I forget but seem to remember there being some kind of drama.

drunkenhyena wrote:

I honestly want to hear Bautista's thoughts on this.

Whereas I completely endorse Bekele over El G for Athlete of the Year, I too am confused by Lagat being picked over El G in the 1500. Granted Lagat won 2 of the 3 races they ran but El G won the big one, finally getting the monkey off his back, and wasn't El G nursing a minor injury at the very beginning of the summer series? I forget but seem to remember there being some kind of drama.

Injuries/sickness/etc. are irrelevant to T&FN rankings. The question is--who did the best this season. Not who would have done the best in perfect conditions.

Honors won are a major factor in rankings, however, and the Olympic gold is a major honor. I'd lean toward El G.'s gold over the 2-1 record of Lagat. I don't have their complete seasons in my memory though, so I couldn't say for sure. Did Lagat never finish lower than the one 2nd place to El G.?

You're probably right...Lagat probably ran some fast times and maybe that 8th place finish by El G where he put it on cruise in the last 100 meters came back & bit him in the arse.

I always thought T & F News took titles won over fast times. Guess they didn't want El Guerrouj to break Morceli's streak of 7 straight years being ranked as number one in the world.

How about the US #1 in each event for both men and women?

Any word on Americans ranked in the top-10 for both men and women in all of the events?

drunkenhyena wrote:

I honestly want to hear Bautista's thoughts on this.

Bautista's just a simple child, about as deep as an inflatable

kiddie pool. If you're not Santa Claus, Bautista doesn't want to hear from you.

You'd get deeper thoughts holding a sea shell up to your ear.

T&FN's #1 for Lagat will probably have an adverse affect Bautista's El G inflatable doll business.

But if Bautista ends up with a whole bedroom of El G inflatable dolls left over from the warehouse, can you think of a better word for "bliss"?

gorney wrote:

Bautista's just a simple child, about as deep as an inflatable

kiddie pool. If you're not Santa Claus, Bautista doesn't want to hear from you.

You'd get deeper thoughts holding a sea shell up to your ear.

T&FN's #1 for Lagat will probably have an adverse affect Bautista's El G inflatable doll business.

But if Bautista ends up with a whole bedroom of El G inflatable dolls left over from the warehouse, can you think of a better word for "bliss"?

Bautista's hero worship of El G DOES seem to go beyond that of the typical track & field fan, doesn't it?

but it pales in comparison to Vipam's worship of Bekele

Lagat had the better over all 2004 outdoor season. He had 8 of the top 100 fastest times in the 1500m (including #'s 1 & 4)) whereas El G had 5 of the top 100 (including #'s 2 & 3).

Lagats's times were run between 5/31 and 8/24, whereas El G's were run between 7/2 & 8/24. Lagat raced faster for a longer period of time. Add that to the 2-1 edge for Lagat (Rome & Zurich) over El G (Athens) in their head to heads then the nod should go to Lagat for #1 ranking in the 1500m for 2004.

Regardless of who you think should be ranked #1 they both had one hell of an awesome year!!!

A track fan wrote:

Got an e-mail listing the #1-ranked athletes in each event. GH writes "We respectfully request that you not make it public until after we have done so on our website at 5:00 PM Pacific Time on Wednesday. Thanks for understanding our position on this." Whatever.

Does anyone not have any more respect anymore?

Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.

Granted I think TFN was a bit naive in emailing out the list to the public until they really wanted it to be seen as now a days it is easy for anyone to post on the internet. But at the same time they were doing you a favor by getting you the list sooner rather than later.

An embittered message board loser who played the race card a time too often.

SATCH

wejo wrote:Does anyone not have any more respect anymore?

Was this intentional?

Of course it was intentional. The poster started off by saying he wasn't supposed to post the info then went ahead and did it anyway: "Got an e-mail listing the #1-ranked athletes in each event. GH writes "We respectfully request that you not make it public until after we have done so on our website at 5:00 PM Pacific Time on Wednesday. Thanks for understanding our position on this." Whatever."

I think "head hurts" meant that wejo used the word "any" three times in one sentance (including two "anymore"s). A tad confusing for those of us without coffee this morning.