Best Male Marathon Runner of the 1980's?

For comparison’s sake, I took all runners mentioned in this thread so far, and made a list of the marathons they WON in the 1980’s. Much can be said for podium and lower places and fast times, but I thought it would be interesting to look at wins only. Once again, these runners may have won marathons in the ‘70s or ‘90s, but I have only included WINS in the 1980’s :

DeCastella :

World Championships

Commonwealth Games (2 times)

Boston

Fukuoka

Rotterdam

Seko :

Boston (2 times)

Fukuoka (2times)

London

Tokyo

Chicago

Lake Biwa

Lopes :

Olympic Games

Rotterdam

Jones :

Chicago (2 times)

New York City

London

Salazar:

New York City (3 times)

Boston

Rodgers :

Boston

Melbourne

Toronto

Stockholm

Houston

Rio de Janeiro

Orange Bowl

Dinsamo :

Rotterdam (3 times)

All-Africa Games

Goodwill Games

and for your further consideration :

Juma Ikangaa (TAN) :

Tokyo (2 times)

New York City

Fukuoka

Melbourne (2 times)

African Championships

Beijing

Gelindo Bordin (ITA) :

Olympic Games

European Championships

Rome

Bordin does suffer a bit because he had a great year at the start of the next decade. Boston and a second Ero title.

Still, I think it comes down to the aforementioned three. Compare their actual head to head races and I think it's still reasonable to have Lopes, Jones and Deek in that order.

Deek over Lopes in Rotterdam

Lopes over everyone in LA

Jones, Lopes, Deek in Chicago

Lopes with the fastest time overall followed by Jones and Deek.

Maybe of the 70s wrote:

Tristate wrote:

Not Rodgers?

4x Boston, 4 X NYC

He'd have to actually win more than one of those in the 80s.

His 2:12 in Boston in '80 isn't quite enough to wrap up the best of the decade title.

Most of Rodgers' wins were in the 1970's though.

Fabrice Tourre wrote:

Maybe of the 70s wrote:

He'd have to actually win more than one of those in the 80s.

His 2:12 in Boston in '80 isn't quite enough to wrap up the best of the decade title.

Most of Rodgers' wins were in the 1970's though.

As noted....

De Castella is the most consistent out of all the runners.

The only other consistent runner was Seko but his major championship record was poor in comparison to De Castella.

https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/image/6709178-3x2-700x467.jpg

Steve Jones could have been the best if he ran strategically. He always wanted to destroy the field from the start.

He should have won the 1986 EC if he didn't go out a suicidal WR pace.

Nix wrote:

De Castella is the most consistent out of all the runners.

Not really. Lopes has a better record. Sure he raced them less but he was never out of the top two spots once he got serious about the event.

First or Second wrote:

Nix wrote:

De Castella is the most consistent out of all the runners.

Not really. Lopes has a better record. Sure he raced them less but he was never out of the top two spots once he got serious about the event.

Lopes raced 6 marathons that I know.

NYC 1982 - DNF

Rotterdam 1983 - 2nd

Rotterdam 1984 - DNF

Olympic Games 1984 - 1st

Chicago 1984 - 2nd

Rotterdam 1985 - 1st and WR

Tokyo 1986 - DNF

I would still say De Castella was more consistent and over more marathon races.

Lopes is the better runner given his track, XC and marathon range.

De Castella's marathon record in the 1980's.

Only 1 DNF in 17 major marathons. Unmatched.

Adelaide 1980 - 2nd

OG 1980 - 10th

Fukuoka 1980 - 8th

Fukuoka 1981 - 1st and WR

CG 1982 - 1st

Rotterdam 1983 - 1st

WC 1983 - 1st

OG 1984 - 5th

Chicago 1984 - 3rd

Chicago 1985 - 3rd

Boston 1986 - 1st and PB

CG 1986 - 1st

NYC 1986 - 2nd

Boston 1987 - 6th

WC 1987 - DNF

Tokyo 1988 - 4th

OG 1988 - 8th

Impressive.

No one rates Salazar?

Rob was the best.... Good bloke and lucky to have trained with him in Boulder and Canberra.

- Carlos Lopes

TatGm wrote:

- Carlos Lopes

Is there any footage from Lopes' 1985 Rotterdam win?

Marwan wrote:

TatGm wrote:

- Carlos Lopes

Is there any footage from Lopes' 1985 Rotterdam win?

De Castella proved himself he was the best at least in 1983 against Salazar.

Ustinov wrote:

Who was the best in the 1980's?

- Robert De Castella

- Steve Jones

- Toshihiko Seko

- Carlos Lopes

- Belayneh Dinsamo

There are a few things that work against Seko.

His PB is slower than all those runners. Also he seems to struggle in the heat.

USSR wrote:

Marwan wrote:

Is there any footage from Lopes' 1985 Rotterdam win?

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/Marathon_van_Rotterdam_finish_Carlos_Lopes_%28Portugal%29_in_nieuwe_wereldrecordtij%2C_Bestanddeelnr_933-3013.jpg

FFF wrote:

Les wrote:

Deke overall for the DECADE. Lopes great for two years. Same for Jones. Two years is not ten though. If they lined up and ran one race for all the marbles I pick Lopes but that's not what the OP asked.

Agreed.

Deek was 10th at Moscow in 80, and ran a 2:09 to win Rotterdam in 1991. He was there the entire decade, which was the question.

Many horse in the 70s raced for more years in that decade but Secretariat was the horse of that decade.

"Best" is always questionable but everyone favorite should be Jonesy.

The 1993 World Marathon champion Mark Plaatjes recalls a training session he did with Rob de Castella and Steve Jones:

“I remember the first time I did a workout with Steve and Deeks. We did a hill workout. After the first one there was Steve, hunched over at the top of the hill, vomiting. I looked over at Rob and said, “is he all right?”, “Oh yeah, that’s just Jonesy,” Deek said. And after each hill, Steve was there vomiting. He just runs so hard”