greatest ever at 800m

This is the case against him, the European champs isn't a major title in my books. Given the level of talent in Brazil, US, and Africa at the time it isn't a proper championship.

However in Coe's defense he is a proper middle distance runner as he held numerous WRs from 800m to the mile and won 2 x 1500m Olympic golds. So it might be 1500m training sapped some speed come championship time hence the 2 silvers. And I'm an Ovett fan personally.

Hold up yo wrote:

Mel W, despite being a 45 second quarter miler was a 1:47 800m runner. Olympics golds besides, that's hardly impressive.

And don't bring up the track/equipment/training issue. If it was good enough for him to run 45.9, it was surely good enough for better than 1:47.9.

Good points, his 400m is very impressive even today. But these guys often get trapped in a mental no man's land. I have posted elsewhere that John Walker has said over the years, knowing Snell's training splits, he is surprised that Snell did not run even faster over 800m but when you are out on your own and you have already lowered the WR a mental element comes in to play.

Subway Surfers Addiction wrote:

coe denier wrote:

But it should be noted that Coe won but one international championship at 800m in his entire career. So Snell and Whitfield perhaps should be ranked above Coe.

This is the case against him, the European champs isn't a major title in my books. Given the level of talent in Brazil, US, and Africa at the time it isn't a proper championship.

However in Coe's defense he is a proper middle distance runner as he held numerous WRs from 800m to the mile and won 2 x 1500m Olympic golds. So it might be 1500m training sapped some speed come championship time hence the 2 silvers. And I'm an Ovett fan personally.

Actually, I would argue that a European title was 2nd only to the Olympics until the inaugural Worlds in 83. In the 70's and 80's, the most powerful athletic nations were USA, GDR & the USSR. 2 of those competed in the Europeans, and most European Champions would have been at least good enough to medal at the Olympics.

Of course now the standards in Europe have dropped, and their continental Championships are held every 2 years and are held in June. They have lost all significance. However, in the era of Coe & Ovett they were the jewel in the Athletic crown the years they were held.

If one looks at the results in the 800 & 1500m in the European Champs of 78, 82 & 86, the winners generally tended to be the best in the world or ranked No. 1 that year anyway.

78 - Beyer, Ovett, Coe were the 1,2,3 in the Europeans, and they were also ranked in those same positions by the US publication T&FN.

-Similar for 1500m, where Ovett won gold and was ranked No.1.

82- Coe ranked No. 1 in World, and he won silver at the Europeans, whilst under the weather with glandular fever. No 2 that year was Juantorena I think.

-In 1500m Cram was European Champ and World No.1.

Same in 86, Coe was European Champ and World No.1. Cram was bronze medalist and World No. 2

In the 1500m, the World top 2, Cram & Coe, also went 1,2 in the Europeans.

So I don't think there were any notable Americans, Brazilians or Africans waiting in the wings who would have been favourites in either event in any of those years. Perhaps Aouita over 1500 in 86.

It has to be remembered also, that approaching senior competition at the end of the 70's, it was only the Olympics and Europeans that mattered to the likes of Coe & Ovett. In addition the European Cup was a significant meeting, held at peak season in August during the seasons when there were no Olympics or Europeans. The Worlds only appeared in 83, when arguably their best years were over.

If you take Coe's record over 800m, he performed pretty successfully during those years prior to the Worlds in those competitions available to him.

77 (20)- European Indoor gold (2nd fastest all time), 4th European Cup (in lead in home straight and then shoved by Wulbeck into lane 8!)

78 (21) - European Champs bronze.

79 (22) - European Cup gold

80 (23) - Olympic silver

81 (24) - European Cup gold, World Cup gold.

82 (25) - European Champs silver

83 (26) - ill, non starter at Worlds.

84 (27) - Olympic silver

86 (28) - European Champs gold.

87 (29) - injured all year, non starter at Worlds.

88 (30) - not selected for Olympics.

So of the 6 major Champs in which he lined up for the final, he won 2 golds, 3 silvers and a bronze.

And of the other major events (European & World Cups, which were the top things to win in those years either side of the Olympics), he competed in 4, won 3 golds and came 4th when fouled in another.

This is a pretty impressive resume. Had he been afforded the opportunity to run in World Champs in 79, 81, 83, 85, 87 & 89, then I'm pretty confident he'd have won a few more medals over 800 and at least 1 gold. But they did not exist bi-annually as they did for Kipketer & Rudisha, so of course they have more 'global' medals.

is Ryun above was44.251'40.003'27.063'44.50i don't believe he wouda cracked 3'27 that day but 44-low &1'40-flatmaya offered modicum of compensation...

Sorry my boy, you are completely nuts

if you seriously are coach to whole continent's current 800 record holder, & that guy hasn't broken 1'44.5, then i suggest you post better...[/quote]

This is an exhibition of nuttiness. Seriously, do you not have any thing else to do? A couple of months back you said Ryun could run 3:24 for 1500m why because El Guerrouj could do 3:26. Now you are saying that Ryun could run 44.25 for 400m a time that would have won that event at the 72, 76, 80, 84 Olympics for a man who did 110 mpw. An extremely unlikely possibility. But your incoherent ramble unravels itself when exposed to logic. Ryun was a mid-to-high 1:44 man and really a 48-flat over 400m (give or take 0.5s) now Ventolin you say that he is 3.75s quicker over one lap, given his level of endurance this should be as much as 7.5s over 800m or 1:37ish. But we have seen David Rudisha, perhaps Kenya's most talented athlete, give everything and 1:40.91 was his max. Rudisha is vastly more talented over two laps than Ryun ever was.

Facts and Figures demand that Rudisha be considered the best of all time.

If I had Snell, Juantorena, Coe, Cruz, Kipketer, Rudisha all lined up for a race at their best, I'd back Kipketer to win.

I'll guess at the placings

Kipketer, Rudisha, Snell, Cruz, Coe, Juantorena

This was an amazing performance. Kipketer could have run low 1.40 point

1m:41.24s(WR)

1997

200m:23.0s

400m:48.2s(25.2s)

600m:1m:14.3s(26.1s)

800m:1m:41.24s(26.94s)

48.2s/53.04s

Kipketer was in two Olympic finals, lost them both. Kipketer couldn't beat those guys, how's he going to beat Rudisha?

What a shame that Ryun's couch Bob Timmons didn't realise that he had an potential 400m, 800m and Mile (probably also 200m and 5000m) WR holder under his wings.

It's also obvious that Ryun could have reached 2.50m in the HJ and 24m in the SP (and this when the respective WRs were 2.28m and 21.52m). What a shame this blind couch solely trained Ryun to be a Miler.

What I'm wondering little bit is why Ventolin hasn't given him some hint back in the mid 1960s. He seems to be in his early 90s now, so 50 years back he was in his early 40s and already an expert for something like 3 decades.

You sure? wrote:

Kipketer was in two Olympic finals, lost them both. Kipketer couldn't beat those guys, how's he going to beat Rudisha?

I also think that the Kipketer from 1997 would beat Rudisha 2010-2012 more often than the other way. Kipketer was much better in 1997 than when he lost his two Olympic finals.

But for sure the overall all-time Nr. 1 over 800m has to be Rudisha, there almost is no room for some debate here.

Surely a sub 2 hour marathon as well. Good to see has been deleted. But he'll be back.

A big if I know but if Kipketer had of run in Atlanta he would have broken Coe's world record as there are many claims in past threads that the track in Atlanta was too fast. But his time in 1997 were faster again.

go back, sit down, have a schnapps, & i'll buy you one some day, think on all of above :

my line of shit for Ryun at 18y is

44.25

1'40.00

2'09.63

3'27.06

3'44.50[/quote]

No 3k guess?[/quote]

Schnapps, mate you've had something alot stronger that to come up with the 's__t' you're hypothesizing. Perhaps it's a full moon tonight, Ventolin is out.

The reason Ryun looked so impressive in that 4x400m was because it was the Freshman 4x400. Look at the title of the footage.

To make predictions about 400m times based on second hand details of handheld relay splits and 70m of footage from a freshman 4x400m is not appropriate.

Even when I was sitting on a couch when I did my detailed analysis, a coach is a coach is a coach.

So far, I had no idea that the surface of the running track also has influence on the performances in the SP. But luckily Ventolin is also an expert here, as he is for almost any sience and any sport which has ever existed, and doesn't hesitate to inform me and all the other ignorants. Little bit surprising that it took something like 30 years for a genious like him to grasp the pythagorian theorem.

It is highly unlikely Epstein's 1.5% hypothesis holds for every track/surface. It is also unlikely that Jesse Owens is only a yard or so behind Usain Bolt given the undoubted "other stuff" Bolt has access to that Owens didn't. Epstein is a classic example of the Rosy Retrospective bias and you seem to be committing the same mistake.

Nowhere in that link and at no time did Epstein state the data was for a "pristine" track. As usual you have spun and embellished to satisfy your own agenda.

It is far more likely that the conversion he gives is either based on an average of different dirt tracks, or else it is based on conditions/ cinders from a typical 1950's track, as the context of the comparison was with Bannister.

Has Ralph Doubell been mentioned? I could build a strong case for him Only gold, etc. But you Northern Hemisphere bigots would crap on the Aussie.

FarOutMan wrote:

Has Ralph Doubell been mentioned? I could build a strong case for him Only gold, etc. But you Northern Hemisphere bigots would crap on the Aussie.

Bit of a generalisation! I don't think people identify themselves as Northern or Southern Hemisphere people!?

I wouldn't put Doubell in the discussion personally, but certainly Snell, who has to be in top 4.

I believe if he really wants to that Rudisha can win a third Olympic gold. Not easy but he seems to have mastered these championship 800s.

Stop the thread. Rudisha is greatest. Thread over.