Greatest American Distance Runners: 1) Billy Mills, 2) Alan Webb. 3) ? 4) ? 5) ?

Let's start with all of the Olympic Medalists (men only) in events ranging from 1500m on up. No medal, no consideration. Sorry Alan, Pre, Gerry, Bernie (no Oly medals for the USA), Ritz, and Craig.

1500m (gold)

James Lightbody (1904)

Mel Sheppard (1908)

Matthew Centrowitz (2016)

1500m (silver)

Arthur Blake (1896)

Frank Verner (1904)

Abel Kiviat (1912)

Glenn Cunningham (1936)

Bob McMillen (1952)

Jim Ryun (1968)

Leo Manzano (2012)

1500m (bronze)

John Bray (1900)

Lacey Hearn (1904)

Norman Taber (1912)

Lawrence Shields (1920)

3000m SC (gold)

Horace Ashenfelter (1952)

3000m SC (silver)

Patrick Flynn (1920)

Evan Jager (2016)

3000m SC (bronze)

Joe McCluskey (1932)

George Young (1968)

Brian Diemer (1984)

5000m (gold)

Bob Schul (1964)

5000m (silver)

Ralph Hill (1932)

Paul Chelimo (2016)

5000m (bronze)

Bill Dellinger (1964)

10,000m (gold)

Billy Mills (1964)

10,000m (silver)

Lewis Tewanima (1912)

Galen Rupp (2012)

Marathon (gold)

Thomas Hicks (1904)

Johnny Hayes (1908)

Frank Shorter (1972)

Marathon (silver)

Albert Corey (1904)

Frank Shorter (1976)

Meb Keflezighi (2004)

Marathon (bronze)

Arthur Newton (1904)

Joseph Forshaw (1908)

Gaston Strobino (1912)

Clarence DeMar (1924)

Galen Rupp (2016)

I personally do no feel comfortable listing anyone from pre-1960 as the best ever. That was before Bikila and the Africans really "crashed the party"... in other words, the competition was watered down back then.

That leaves us with the following 10 men:

Matthew Centrowitz - 2016 Olympic 1500m champion

Leo Manzano - 2012 Olympic 1500m silver medalist

Jim Ryun - 1968 Olympic 1500m silver medalist

Evan Jager - 2016 Olympic 3000m SC silver medalist

Bill Dellinger - 1964 Olympic 5000m bronze medalist

Bob Schul - 1964 Olympic 5000m champion

Paul Chelimo - 2016 Olympic 5000m silver medalist

Billy Mills - 1964 Olympic 10,000m champion

Galen Rupp - 2012 Olympic 10,000m silver medalist, 2016 Olympic Marathon bronze medalist

Frank Shorter - 1972 Olympic Marathon champion, 1976 Olympic Marathon silver medalist

Meb Keflezighi - 2004 Olympic Marathon bronze medalist

I personally feel that Centro, Meb, Dellinger, Chelimo, and Manzano do not belong in the convo (not yet for Chelimo, at least). So that leaves:

Ryun, Jager, Schul, Mills, Shorter, and Rupp. Jager and Rupp still have time to build their resumes. Schul doesn't strike me as an All-Time great. Injuries cut his career short and he really only had 1 good season. It happened to be an Olympic year. No gold medal hurts Jim.

1) Frank Shorter

2) Billy Mills

3) Jim Ryun

4) Galen Rupp

5) Evan Jager

6) Bob Schul

You left Lagat off this list

Good analysis but if you open it to World Championships and to American record holders it changes things.

One, it gets Alan Webb at least considered.

And for sure it puts Lagat on the list with 2 WC golds, a WC Silver, a WC bronze and an AR.

Steve Scott also gets in looked at with a WC silver and an AR.

You give Centro credit for a WC Silver and Bronze to go with his OG Gold

For me, if I took everything into consideration I'd put Galen Rupp #1.

Kind of hard with no Gold and no world record.

But his total body of work is more impressive to me than anyone else.

observer_of_things wrote:

You left Lagat off this list

I mentioned him somewhere in that post. No Olympic medals for the US hence his exclusion. I don't count the JV Olympics (WCs).

1) Bruce Egeland (this one is not even open to debate)

2) Joe Bonadeo

3) Sarah Soman

4) Carl Schieder

5) Brian Fitzgerald

1. Joey DeFeo

2. Alan Webb

3. Galen Rupp

4. Evan Jager

5. Jim Ryun

Man, James Lightbody in 1904! A running god! Nobody can hold a candle to him -- and he was CLEAN.

Sherman, set the Wayback Machine for 1904.

Billy Mills ahead of Galen Rupp is laughable. Give me a f*cking break, I know people hate Rupp but come on.

You failed to mention two time world cross country champion Craig Virgin. He certainly belongs in the top 5.

Todd Williams

Mark Nenow

Joe Falcon

End of thread.

So you also consider pre-1950s baseball players and baseketball players not worthy of the hall of fame?Babe Ruth, Lou Gherig, Ted Williams - not hall of famers by your logic.

GBohannon wrote:

I personally do no feel comfortable listing anyone from pre-1960 as the best ever. That was before Bikila and the Africans really "crashed the party"... in other words, the competition was watered down back then.

why the heck is Jager in the conversation and Centrowitz isn't? 1 silver medal and an AR compared with three medals, one of them Olympic gold against a stacked field.

HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM wrote:

So you also consider pre-1950s baseball players and baseketball players not worthy of the hall of fame?

Babe Ruth, Lou Gherig, Ted Williams - not hall of famers by your logic.

GBohannon wrote:

I personally do no feel comfortable listing anyone from pre-1960 as the best ever. That was before Bikila and the Africans really "crashed the party"... in other words, the competition was watered down back then.

Lou who? Is that a joke?

Also - you are probably right. The logic is faulty. It is just really hard to justify old-timers as possible GOAT contenders in sports such as running and swimming where "greatness" is so easily measured by the clock. Of course, you can't go solely based on time and that introduces subjectivity. Hence, no perfect way to do it.

I agree that Rupp could be ahead of Mills or even Ryun. I just know that both Mills and Ryun both had a solid stretch of 18+ months where they were the world's best in their event. A year after claiming gold, Mills ran 27:11 for 6 miles when the 10,000m record was still 28:15 (although Clark thrashed that time shortly thereafter).

To those suggesting I left off Bernie and Virgin - I know my post was long and I don't expect people to read the whole damn thing. Don't refute it if you didn't read it though.

Star wrote:

Good analysis but if you open it to World Championships and to American record holders it changes things.

One, it gets Alan Webb at least considered.

And for sure it puts Lagat on the list with 2 WC golds, a WC Silver, a WC bronze and an AR.

Steve Scott also gets in looked at with a WC silver and an AR.

You give Centro credit for a WC Silver and Bronze to go with his OG Gold

For me, if I took everything into consideration I'd put Galen Rupp #1.

Kind of hard with no Gold and no world record.

But his total body of work is more impressive to me than anyone else.

Thoughtful post and I agree with most of what you are saying. I still feel Shorter deserves the top spot, but Rupp certainly has a good claim. If Jager breaks 8:00, wins a DL title, and wins the 2020 gold he is the new #1. Lots of "ifs" obviously, but undoubtedly possible.

Star wrote:

Good analysis but if you open it to World Championships and to American record holders it changes things.

One, it gets Alan Webb at least considered.

And for sure it puts Lagat on the list with 2 WC golds, a WC Silver, a WC bronze and an AR.

Steve Scott also gets in looked at with a WC silver and an AR.

You give Centro credit for a WC Silver and Bronze to go with his OG Gold

For me, if I took everything into consideration I'd put Galen Rupp #1.

Kind of hard with no Gold and no world record.

But his total body of work is more impressive to me than anyone else.

Give Galen another few years and he will be #1. He needs more time to develop his marathon career. Once he gets a fast time and some wins his track career + marathon career will put him at #1

Not a joke - just a typo!The nature of running is to progress times faster. The best way to compare times now vs. then would be to chart % differences in major races vs. the current WR at the time or how much the WR time dropped % when it was broken. Training methods have changed so much. I remember reading The Perfect Mile and one of the training methods of the day was to walk a lot as workouts. Doing long training runs were not really a thing then. On LetsRun only fast times matter so I see why you wouldn't want to compare a guy from 60 years to a guy from today. If a guy wins 4 Olympic golds but hasn't went for a WR he's only an OK runner and doesn't merit GOAT talk. Which is stoopit!

err ever heard of Alberto Salazar?

Thanks for all the insight Gbohannon, but by the methodology you used to eliminate runners you should then change the title of the thread to who had the best 1 race every 4 years. The title asked for Greatest American Distance Runners, you hijacked that premise and made the only standard of greatness to be Olympic medals. I realize that this will require even more work and consideration to be put into what you have already done. It will undoubtedly bring more argument, theory and conjecture also. But if you want to rank who the greatest is, you have to look at the entire body of work. Take somebody like Pre for instance, how many distances did he hold the American record at during his career? Are those accomplishment diminished because of 1 race where he did not medal? And consider all runners from all eras based on how they ran against the competition of that time. You couldn't possibly know how somebody like Galen Rupp would have run had he lived and trained 100 years ago....

Here are my thoughts, based on where these guys stack up today. Of course, the currently active runners have the opportunity to move up (or down) the list based on peformances and/or busts.

1. Frank

2. Meb

3. Lagat

4. Galen

5. Centro