faggit wrote:
ctrlaltdel wrote:Everyone is looking at this only in terms of times, not medals. Aouita won Olympic medals at 5K and 800 (and he ran the 800 injured). To me that is more impressive than fast times from 1500 to marathon.
Can anyone name another runner capable of this? Geb, Farah, Choge, Bekele, Kipchoge? None of them could have medaled in the 800.
And Aouita couldn't even dream of a 2:10 marathon! So what?
Geb and Kipchoge showed way more range, so did Farah and Bekele!
I don't see many world champion 1500m runner destroying the marathon WR way past their prime! that's how good Geb was!
Based on Aouita's 10K time I'm pretty sure he could run 2:10 if he trained for the marathon.
But my point is that 800 requires speed that very few distance runners have. Yes, Geb's times are impressive but a fast distance runner should be able to run a fast 1500 and a fast marathon with the right training. I think Lagat and El G could have run a really fast marathon time as well with focused training. But Geb, Bekele, or Farah did not have the speed to compete with the best 800 runners in the world, regardless of how they trained.