Popularity of WR vs Olympic titles: debate closed

Go lay down, bro.

To me this was never in question.

WR = At one time you were the best that ever was.

OlyGold = You won a very important race.

Who will you remember 20 years from now...Wilson Kipketer or Vebjorn Rodal?

i agree WR>OG medal

would you rather have had the career of Asafa Powell or Mo Farrah? I'm more of a fan of Powell, but I think Mo has left a bigger mark on the sport.

Jim Ryun wasn't simply a world record holder, he was ranked #1 in the world for two different seasons and ranked #2 in a season.

A season ranking shows a consistency of good performances over an entire season, not just one fast time or one winning race.

Centro's best world ranking was #5.

They both were world ranked in 5 different seasons.

https://trackandfieldnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/05-1500Rank.pdf

The best athletes have done both, WRs (often more than one) and Olympic Gold medal(s).

Just to name a few 800/1500/1 mile runners of the modern era (since 1960):

Herb Elliot, Peter Snell, Alberto Juantorena, John Walker, Sebastian Coe, Steve Ovett, Noureddine Morceli, Hicham El Guerrouj, David Rudisha. Ryun is close with a Silver medal at least and his record lasted for 7 years. But maybe this was just because the mile was still more popular and the 1500 was seldom run outside the Olympics.

Ryun and Shorter were also successful in a time when track and field and distance running were getting more mainstream coverage. Ryun was on the cover of SI 7 times.

Jayjow,

Hicham El Guerrouj would agree with you. Look at how he identifies himself on IG, "Current world record holder in the 1500 meters, mile, and 2000 meters." He don't care about his collection of Olympic Gold...

https://www.instagram.com/elguerroujhicham/

Hell, "boomer high school hero" probably counted just as much as "world record holder".

there was a bitter michael johnson article after asafa lost to gay in osaka about his world record being 'meaningless' and most people agreed. I disagree personally, wr>gold

joel wrote:

Who will you remember 20 years from now...Wilson Kipketer or Vebjorn Rodal?

I understand both arguments, but likewise who will most remember... Farah or Mamede?

Bio Dome wrote:

would you rather have had the career of Asafa Powell or Mo Farrah? I'm more of a fan of Powell, but I think Mo has left a bigger mark on the sport.

Well Mo has a lot more than "just" one Olympic Gold.

A better comparison would be between, say, Patrick Makau and Stephen Kiprotich.

rocky mtns wrote:

I understand both arguments, but likewise who will most remember... Farah or Mamede?

Bro, multiple Olympic golds spread over multiple events puts you in another stratosphere of rememberence (and all time ranking). Not a fair comparison at all.

Everyone knows that Centrowitz is the luckiest gold medallist ever.

Bracket proves nothing other than people being idiots.

OWL wrote:

Jayjow,

Hicham El Guerrouj would agree with you. Look at how he identifies himself on IG, "Current world record holder in the 1500 meters, mile, and 2000 meters." He don't care about his collection of Olympic Gold...

https://www.instagram.com/elguerroujhicham/

El Guerrouj cares a great deal about Olympic gold. He was tripped in 1996 and had to settle for silver in 2000. He continued his career to chase the Olympic gold. In 2004 he was passed by Lagat in his prime in the last 100 but searched within himself to retake the lead and finally earn his gold medal.

I've always seen world champs (and of course diamond league) as far more competitive than the Olympics.

Because they're every 4 years, the field in the oly has a lot of churn: the on-form guy 2 years before the olympics has more chance of getting injured / have a bad selection race / losing shape of momentum for any reason in the run up to the Olympics. It happens really often. Preparation over such a long period of time is really tough.

There's also lots of pressure on the athletes during the Olympics, so they tend to run tactical (dare I say boring) races to avoid throwing away 4 years of training in a bravado move. That's understandable but it also lessens the value of the Olympic gold, where athletes are theoretically expected t provide their best effort (for the whole race).

But back to the main topic, a world record is based on the notion of best effort. In fact of best effort ever. It is painful, unique, unreachable at the time and (except in doping cases) unquestionable.

An olympic gold defines the best athlete, in a particular field (not necessarily the fastest, or the deepest at the time), and with particular race conditions (not necessarily the best effort). In tactical races, even if a winner is clearly identified, there are still doubts whether this winner is really the best at the distance.

It’s not one or the other.

Steve Cram had the 1500 world record but no Olympic Gold medal.

Peter Rono did not approach any records but he did win an Olympic 1500m Gold.

Cram’s career was clearly better.

Sydney Maree had the 1500 world record but no Olympic Gold medal.

Fermin Cacho never had a world record but did win an Olympic 1500m Gold.

Most would rank Cacho above Maree.

You need to look at the collection of their achievements.

If I could only have one, I would take Oly Gold over a WR in a NY second.