fgng wrote:
The only one that is debatable is Ryun vs. Centro. Rupp, Flanagan, and Simpson easily beat their opponents here.
I agree with you on Rupp. Don't know much about the women.
But I think Ryun vs. Centrowitz is easy.
Per Track and Field News rankings, Ryun was #4 in the world in the 1500 in 1965, #1 in 1966, #1 in 1967, #2 in 1968, #7 in 1969, #6 in 1971, and #9 in 1972. That's two #1 rankings, one #2 ranking, and a total of 7 top ten rankings. He also set the WR in the mile (twice) and 1500. He won a silver medal at the Olympics in 1968 but might have won gold if the race had been at sea level.
Centrowitz world rankings: #8 in 2011, #5 in 2012, #8 in 2013, #10 in 2015, #5 in 2016. He never ranked higher than fifth and that's a total of 5 top ten rankings. He never ranked higher than #5. His PR in the 1500 (3:30.40) is the 151st all-time best performance. That's less than three seconds faster than Ryun ran a half century earlier. His PR in the mile (3:50.53) is the 219th fastest performance ever. It is about half a second faster than Ryun ran.
Ryun retired from running in the early 1970s. He was in his late 20s at the time. If he were running today, he could have continued for at least a few more years as a professional runner. (Centro will turn 31 this year.)
Finally, we are 100% sure that Ryun wasn't using EPO, because EPO wasn't invented until about 1990. Centro may be clean, but unfortunately in this day and age we can't be 100% sure.
I don't think it's even close ... and that's if we only consider the 1500/mile.
If we consider other events, the gap widens. Ryun ranked #1 in the world in the 800 in 1966. He set the WR in the 880y in a time that was equivalent to the WR for 800 meters at the time.
This is an easy call.