Its been 10 years to the day since arguably the greatest ever mens 5000m championship race

Agedd wrote:

Another possible explanation is 'age cheating' (I put it in parentheses because who really cares how young they say they are!? Yes, junior championships and WR are affected, but I'm not that worried about that).

Perhaps Choge was actually 25 when he said 19, and now is 35. That would explain the 'early' peak, at least on paper.

But both points listed above are valid.

Yours is the primary reason. I can't believe people still deny it.

I wouldn't call it age "cheating" because it's not really your fault - if you were born in a rural part of Kenya in the 80's/90's (as most of their runners were), you probably have a birth certificate that says you're younger than you are.

Agedd wrote:

Another possible explanation is 'age cheating' (I put it in parentheses because who really cares how young they say they are!? Yes, junior championships and WR are affected, but I'm not that worried about that).

Perhaps Choge was actually 25 when he said 19, and now is 35. That would explain the 'early' peak, at least on paper.

But both points listed above are valid.

The early peak is due to the fact they have been active and exercising/training since the day they could walk/run in all areas of their lives unlike westerners.

Ow snap! wrote:

I can barely notice Mo Farah....haha

I fast forwarded to the end and caught the last lap. No Farah.

Then I rewound it to the 7 minute mark. I coudln't believe it Farah was way off the back of the top group there.

I then fastforwarded to the end to look at results and they didn't even show Farah as he wasn't on the first page in the top 8. I hadn't read down to Rojo's post that showed him in 9th.

And Mo Farah was there. How things change look how young he was.

I clicked on the thread expecting to relive the glorious 13:55 in trainers :-)

mofong wrote:

Not even top 5 of the greatest ever mens 5000m championship races.

Yep. Good race but not the best. There's this one:

This one:

This one:

This one:

And for the Aussie fans, my personal favorite:

1972 Olympic 5000 metres: Kipchoge Keino, due to scheduling conflict and maybe other reason(s) decided not to race 5000 metres. Violent international events occurred between 10000 metres & 5000 metres, 1972 Olympics. Miruts Yifter, dispute with Ethiopian coach(es) &/or Ethiopian official(s), declined to race 1972 Olympic 5000 metres. Said dispute resulted in Yifter serving 9 months in prison in Ethiopia. 1972 Olympic 5000 metres, a race in which we did not know the winner until app. 4950 metres. 1972 Olympic 5000 metres, more likely the greatest 5000 metres championship race. Also, Ben Jipcho due to scheduling conflict and maybe other reason(s) decided not to race 5000 metres. Pre-race intrigue and a race down to the wire.

It's because they're not actually 19. Kenyans (and many other countries) do not view age as the U.S. does. It's arguably more difficult to get good opportunities to start with on the world stage at 19 than it is at 27, because westernized countries are so enamored with prodigies. U.S. Men do not see as great of an improvement from 27 on. I'm not saying that every single Kenyan is older than they say they are, but it's more common than not. Sometimes, they're 23 and they say they're 19. I have a friend who ran in high school in the U.S. at the age of 22. They thought he was 18.

Les wrote:

Imagine how long Mo Farah would have lasted fighting off dozens of younger, hungrier Mo Farahs every day in practice.

This is an amazing scenario to think about, mainly because of how dauntingly accurate it is.

Mottram first clean runner in the race. Miss that dude.

I personally think the '76 Olympic 5000 was the best "race". 6 guys still in contention with one to go, and right all the way until the final straight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzXfmaiMYnY

And 2008 was the best performance with Bekele utterly dominating the last 6 laps.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQuktexECqo

And in 10 years no one has mentioned that 'the big MAZUNGO' is actually a Swahili racial slur against whites. It would literally be like if people called Kiprop 'the big N*GG**'.

it's th wrote:

Agedd wrote:

Another possible explanation is 'age cheating' (I put it in parentheses because who really cares how young they say they are!? Yes, junior championships and WR are affected, but I'm not that worried about that).

Perhaps Choge was actually 25 when he said 19, and now is 35. That would explain the 'early' peak, at least on paper.

But both points listed above are valid.

Yours is the primary reason. I can't believe people still deny it.

I wouldn't call it age "cheating" because it's not really your fault - if you were born in a rural part of Kenya in the 80's/90's (as most of their runners were), you probably have a birth certificate that says you're younger than you are.

Agreed. Which is what makes it crazy when I look at a video of Kipchoge beating ass in 2003, against two all-time greats no less, and then turn on a television to watch a marathon in 2015 and see him still beating ass, against world record holder/s.

Sure Craig was good.

But c'mon, Mo is FAR and AWAY a wildly superior athlete to Mottram.

You are correct to a great extent, but also Choge was perhaps in his mid-20s as opposed 19. A lot of African runners have short careers simply because when they first come on the scene, they are usually much older than what's presented. One year there where 4 African 'youth' as in 17 year old athletes who ran 1:44x or better in the 800m. Later that year, most of these athletes where competing in DL meets and never even ran world juniors.

rojo wrote:

...

The question I have for people is how come there are so many African runners who are great at 19 but then worse at 25? It makes no sense to me. Choge was doing that at 19 but now is so-so 10 years later.

Sure German Fernandez exists for us but it's rare for US men to be no better at 25 than 19.

Is this ^ true? Seems to me that it is the other way around. It is quite rare for American runners to be better at 25 than at 19. The vast majority have become injured or just discouraged by 25 and have disappeared entirely from the scene.

You seem to be basing your bias on a very tiny minority (Rupp, Hall, Ritz...) who do some great things between 25 and 30. Looked at as a whole, the percentage of top 25 American NCAA distance runners in any given year who are doing anything worthwhile at the age of 25 or 26 is very, very small.

wejo wrote:

Ow snap! wrote:

I can barely notice Mo Farah....haha

I fast forwarded to the end and caught the last lap. No Farah.

Then I rewound it to the 7 minute mark. I coudln't believe it Farah was way off the back of the top group there.

I then fastforwarded to the end to look at results and they didn't even show Farah as he wasn't on the first page in the top 8. I hadn't read down to Rojo's post that showed him in 9th.

Crazy, I completely forgot he was in that race.

Have we ever heard him or Salazar explain how he turned into a world beater so late in his career? Especially when nothing about his early performances indicated he had such potential.

Agreed, and my half birthday to boot. Just the energy in that stadium.

Great race. Thank you for posting the video link.