To those who are saying Euros was a joke - an in depth comparison in distance running

artojas wrote:

Yikes! wrote:

Yeah but you are comparing a CONTINENT to a country. Of course, there are going to be faster times when you have more people. Your argument is ridiculous.

Again, exactly the point. Winning Euros means being a champ of a continent and that, my friend, is no joke.

We are saying that Europe is a crappy continent. Why do you insist on comparing two things that are not equal?

artojas wrote:

mofong wrote:

If he beats Chelimo in the World Championships 5000m next year I will eat my shorts. Sad we can't find a way to wager on that.

Get smallest shorts you can find! Chelimo is not the brightest when it comes to tactical races and again, Jakob has that superior speed for the kick in him.

Chelimo closed in 53 to run 13:03 for silver at Rio. Jakob isn't on that level yet.

Yikes! wrote:

artojas wrote:

Again, exactly the point. Winning Euros means being a champ of a continent and that, my friend, is no joke.

We are saying that Europe is a crappy continent. Why do you insist on comparing two things that are not equal?

Nonetheless being a Euro champ means twice as much as being a USA champ. Also if you substract the disqualified russians from european population, the numbers are not that much higher here and still so much more quality.

mofong wrote:Chelimo closed in 53 to run 13:03 for silver at Rio. Jakob isn't on that level yet.

Absolutely right. Not yet.

But next year. Especially if Chelimo would be stupid enough to leave it for the kick. He better tries to dip under that 13:00 or he will be scalped by an 18 year old.

comparing to an off year US championships where a quarter of top athletes simply don’t come is hardly useful.

curiously, it isn't just the latest championship...

European champion / time / year / time / US Champion

Miklós Szabó (HUN) 1:52.00 1934 1:50.40 Ben Eastman (USA)

Rudolf Harbig (GER) 1:50.60 1938 1:51.50 Howard Borck (USA)

Rune Gustafsson (SWE) 1:51.00 1946 1:52.70 John Fulton (USA)

John Parlett (ENG) 1:50.50 1950 1:51.80 Mal Whitfield (USA)

Lajos Szentgali (HUN) 1:47.10 1954 1:50.80 Mal Whitfield (USA)

Michael Rawson (GBR) 1:47.80 1958 1:49.20 Thomas Courtney (USA)

Manfred Matuschewski (GDR) 1:50.50 1962 1:47.10 Jerry Siebert (USA)

Manfred Matuschewski (GDR) 1:45.90 1966 1:47.60 Tom Farrell (USA)

Dieter Fromm (GDR) 1:45.98 1969 1:46.60 Byron Dyce (JAM)

Yevgeniy Arzhanov (URS) 1:45.62 1971 1:47.10 Juris Luzins (USA)

Luciano Sušanj (YUG) 1:44.07 1974 1:43.90 Rick Wohlhuter (USA)

Olaf Beyer (GDR) 1:43.84 1978 1:45.47 James Robinson (USA)

Hans-Peter Ferner (FRG) 1:46.33 1982 1:46.12 James Robinson (USA)

Sebastian Coe (GBR) 1:44.50 1986 1:44.73 Johnny Gray (USA)

Tom McKean (GBR) 1:44.76 1990 1:45.01 Mark Everett (USA)

Andrea Benvenuti (ITA) 1:46.12 1994 1:46.08 Mark Everett (USA)

Nils Schumann (GER) 1:44.89 1998 1:45.28 Mark Everett (USA)

Wilson Kipketer (DEN) 1:47.25 2002 1:47.24 David Krummenacker (USA)

Bram Som (NED) 1:46.56 2006 1:44.13 Khadevis Robinson (USA)

Marcin Lewandowski (POL) 1:47.07 2010 1:45.98 Nick Symmonds (USA)

Yuriy Borzakovskiy (RUS) 1:48.61 2012 1:43.92 Nick Symmonds (USA)

Adam Kszczot (POL) 1:44.15 2014 1:44.30 Duane Solomon (USA)

Adam Kszczot (POL) 1:45.18 2016 1:44.76 Clayton Murphy (USA)

Adam Kszczot (POL) 1:44.59 2018 1:46.50 Clayton Murphy (USA)

I make that Euro 14 - 10 USA

cheers

artojas wrote:

uh huh wrote:

I thought your OP was excellent and convincing, but have to disagree with this one (later) statement.

Historically, the Euros were the second-most important competition in all of track and field. While that has been diluted by the addition of the world-championship meets, the Euros are still immensely important to Europeans themselves: bragging rights and income from sponsors.

European athletes really don't have an off year (at least to the degree that non-Europeans do): They've got the OG, Worlds, Euros, Worlds, OG . . . .

But are you trying to say that USAs are not important to american athletes?

No, I'm saying they're not AS important to American athletes as the Euros are to Europeans. In 2018, 2022, 2026..., USAs don't serve as a qualifying meet for any major championship meet.

My agreement with your main point (in the OP) stands: The EC was no joke, at least as compared to fairly feeble results in the USA meet. The European meet had distinctly better quality and quantity this year.

Congratulations you can count. Unfortunately, you and the other idiots on this thread are comparing a continent to a country. Pick a specific country in Europe and then do your comparison.

Of all the irritatingly dumb people on this site, you might be the person who makes the least logical arguments while still believing himself to be highly persuasive. “I see your discussion about the validity (or lack thereof) of comparing multiple results from these two specific meets. Now, allow me to make a completely irrelevant argument by narrowing the focus to one specific event that nobody else has been discussing, and then including results from many meets dating back to the depression era. I trust you see my point. Cheers.”

And don’t try to pretend that this is the only time you’ve done something like this. I remember a few months ago someone started a thread comparing the potential legacies of Alan Webb and Centro. Your brilliant argument was that Sydney McLaughlin would be more famous than either.

uh huh wrote:No, I'm saying they're not AS important to American athletes as the Euros are to Europeans. In 2018, 2022, 2026..., USAs don't serve as a qualifying meet for any major championship meet.

My agreement with your main point (in the OP) stands: The EC was no joke, at least as compared to fairly feeble results in the USA meet. The European meet had distinctly better quality and quantity this year.

This I can understand. Good point. Also kudos to you for agreeing on how tough Euros can be.

jeppers wrote:Unfortunately, you and the other idiots on this thread are comparing a continent to a country. Pick a specific country in Europe and then do your comparison.

You my stubborn friend fail to understand that it is very indeed reasonable to compare a continent to a country, given this country is, well, you know... huge.

Or do you want me to compare USAs achievements with those of Vatican?

If you really wanna be stupid, then let's do it your way. Poland beats USA in 4x800, Norway beats USA in

4x1500m, Great Britain beats USA in 4x800 and 4x1500m. You happy now?

artojas wrote:

jeppers wrote:Unfortunately, you and the other idiots on this thread are comparing a continent to a country. Pick a specific country in Europe and then do your comparison.

You my stubborn friend fail to understand that it is very indeed reasonable to compare a continent to a country, given this country is, well, you know... huge.

Or do you want me to compare USAs achievements with those of Vatican?

If you really wanna be stupid, then let's do it your way. Poland beats USA in 4x800, Norway beats USA in

4x1500m, Great Britain beats USA in 4x800 and 4x1500m. You happy now?

The USA has less than half as many people and athletics as a whole is significantly more popular in Europe.

Who cares about that kind of depth? It’s irrelevant to the discussion and whatever point you were trying to make is similarly unneeded.

Ehso said: you might be the person who makes the least logical arguments

or maybe it's just that you can't read.

If you read my post again you will see that I didn't "make an argument." all I did was provide some further data in response to your claim that 2018 "was an off year."

I'm not claiming the OP's point is valid, or that comparing the European Championships with the US Championships is, in and of itself, a valid comparison, but your attempted refutation of the OP's point falls flat when there is some actual data to hand. It is perfectly understandable that you would find this annoying.

by narrowing the focus to one specific event that nobody else has been discussing

this is incorrect. if you could read you would know that OP included the 800m in his post.

cheers.

Sanjay Gupta wrote:The USA has less than half as many people and athletics as a whole is significantly more popular in Europe.

Who cares about that kind of depth? It’s irrelevant to the discussion and whatever point you were trying to make is similarly unneeded.

Count out the DQ'd russians and Europe has less than twice as many people.

Who cares? I do. Being a european champion means twice as much being american champion, some people on this forum fail to understand that.

"Euros are soft" sounds pretty ironic coming from americans, when Poland, Great Britain and Norway can beat the whole USAs middle distance running elite. Especially given, that those 3 countrys have less than a third of population USA has.

artojas wrote:

Sanjay Gupta wrote:The USA has less than half as many people and athletics as a whole is significantly more popular in Europe.

Who cares about that kind of depth? It’s irrelevant to the discussion and whatever point you were trying to make is similarly unneeded.

Count out the DQ'd russians and Europe has less than twice as many people.

Who cares? I do. Being a european champion means twice as much being american champion, some people on this forum fail to understand that.

"Euros are soft" sounds pretty ironic coming from americans, when Poland, Great Britain and Norway can beat the whole USAs middle distance running elite. Especially given, that those 3 countrys have less than a third of population USA has.

No one has said that being a European champion was easy. Obviously, it is more difficult to be the champion of a continent than a country. You are the victim of a logical fallacy known as false equivalence.

artojas wrote:

Sanjay Gupta wrote:The USA has less than half as many people and athletics as a whole is significantly more popular in Europe.

Who cares about that kind of depth? It’s irrelevant to the discussion and whatever point you were trying to make is similarly unneeded.

Count out the DQ'd russians and Europe has less than twice as many people.

Who cares? I do. Being a european champion means twice as much being american champion, some people on this forum fail to understand that.

"Euros are soft" sounds pretty ironic coming from americans, when Poland, Great Britain and Norway can beat the whole USAs middle distance running elite. Especially given, that those 3 countrys have less than a third of population USA has.

Fair enough. Still, too large of a population gap to compare them as you have.

I asked why you care about distance relay depth, not why you care about the Euros. Euros is not twice as deep or twice as important as USAs, in any event.

Murphy and Chelimo in the 800 and 5k. Easy wins over Europe.

By your idiotic logic, China and India should be the best athletics countries in the world by a landslide.

That’s not how it works. Of course Euros were more competitive than USAs, especially in an off year.

I mean, the USA is better than any of those individual countries at the world champ/Olympic level, but when you have dozens of individual countries against one country, it’s obviously going to be superior.

Moran.

ThatAverageRunner wrote:

By your idiotic logic, China and India should be the best athletics countries in the world by a landslide.

That’s not how it works. Of course Euros were more competitive than USAs, especially in an off year.

I mean, the USA is better than any of those individual countries at the world champ/Olympic level, but when you have dozens of individual countries against one country, it’s obviously going to be superior.

Moran.

Exactly. He is so entrenched with his belief that he is willing to make crazy comparisons. It is really sad when someone cannot admit that they are wrong. It just goes to show how immature he is.

Of course europe is much better than the usa. Even much better than america. US. Americans mostly care about 15 year old high school girls running

Self important 'mericans think they're it. You might have one or another outlier in distance running, but REAL running happens in Europe. You know so little about the outside world, it's painful to watch. Putting Rupp on the pedestal, guess what, some random guy from Belgium just ran 2:09 at the Euros. Norwegian Sondre Moen ran 2:05 last year. Now it's only matter of time till Jakob rapes Chelimo and 'merican distance running goes back into oblivion.