Who kicked the hardest?

[tafnut]

Of course I got it - that's why I asked why we had taken it off the "track". YOU didn't get it.

[Guest]

>How did you construe that I had taken this off
>the track (pun)? Hayes got the baton and
>accelerated at the end of his race (i.e.,
>kicked). No one said how long the race was.

Hayes accelerated at the end of his race? Uh, no.

[tafnut]

Now we're really getting pedantic - a kick is at least 100 meters (otherwise it's a finishing 'burst'), so Hayes accelerated in his kick. I was being tongue in cheek to begin with, but if ya wanna fight, I can keep this up for a long time - I'm a teacher on summer break.

[Guest]

>Now we're really getting pedantic - a kick is at
>least 100 meters (otherwise it's a finishing
>'burst'), so Hayes accelerated in his kick. I was
>being tongue in cheek to begin with, but if ya
>wanna fight, I can keep this up for a long time -
>I'm a teacher on summer break.

I think we need you to cite the source that states unequivocally that a kick is at least 100 meters.

[tafnut]

Why, that's easy enough - I said so. Did you not see my name: tafnut, i.e., track and field nut, i.e., lunatic, i.e., delusional. QED.

[Guest]

Someone should start a thread on this great new defining craze.

A Kick now has to be at least 100 metres
anything less is a 'burst', what if its further than 200 metres is that a 'drive', and less than 30 a 'lunge'

Lets not get carried away with defining things

[tafnut]

Since it was tongue in cheek to begin with, isn't that the point?

[Guest]

What point?

[Guest]

Does this mean I have to alter my racing and training diary? Change "kick" to burst, burst to "drive", etc? Man, this is going to be a lot of work.

Peter Snell did have a very fast finishing burst. Er, kick. Well, drive! Hey, he had a fast finish. So did Ryun and Morceli.

[Guest]

Rev, if you want to see Ryun coast to a WR, go to this link. http://www.ryunrunning.com/video/Mile03.mov

The above posts are correct. He pretty much thought he was just bringing it in at a good clip to make sure he had the race won. With a crusing 53 + that night on the last lap, I wonder what he could have run that night with rabbits, etc., on dirt.

[Guest]

Cheers for posting the video look, it was great to watch. However I think we already had the confusion cleared up I had been referring to Ryuns first world record at Berkley, where he had gone through in 2.55 and thought he may be able to go under 3.50, but was unable to pull out his usual ridiculous fast last lap.
Indeed he did cruise to his latter record.

[Guest]

Cheers for posting the video look, it was great to watch. However I think we already had the confusion cleared up I had been referring to Ryuns first world record at Berkley, where he had gone through in 2.55 and thought he may be able to go under 3.50, but was unable to pull out his usual ridiculous fast last lap.
Indeed he did cruise to his latter record.

[Guest]

I find it hard to beleive that Ryun did'nt know how fast he was running. Like the commentators said, he was the best miler in the field if he was just running to win he could have just sat and kicked like he did in nearly every other race. No one runs 3.51 with out knowing it.

Also Walker in 76 OG in Montreal ran low 37's for final 300m.

[Guest]

I agree only an absolute dumbass runs 3.51 without knowing it!

[tandfman]

>I agree only an absolute dumbass runs 3.51
without knowing it!<

I suspect there are a lot of milers who would love to be dumb enough and talented enough to run 3:51 without knowing it.

[Guest]

Walker ran 37.9. That's not low 37's.

A dumbass running 3:51? No, just crusing along, if you're talented enough, which is probably why we are seeing jealous comments. Ryun said he heard 1:59 at the half, and didn't think about a record because he had gone out so slow. He was also for the most part deaf, and couldn't hear splits most of the time anyway. A lot of people forget Ryun had suffered 80% hearing loss as a child.

[Guest]

Ryun was running for the win in his 67 record. Watch America's Greatest Miler and listen to his comments. He looks like he easily had 4 seconds or more in him that night. The track looked like crap too. Chewed up.

Walker doesn't rate with fast finishers like Morceli, Ryun, Cram.

[Guest]

>The 40th anniversary of the Modesto mile was
>acknowledged in NZ recently with a screening of
>Snell's copy of the film of the race. There were
>also interviews with the runners including Beatty
>who claimed he would have won if he hadn't been
>injured. I seriously doubt it. In top form Snell
>could have run away from anyone, including Elliot
>and Ryun.

Snell might have outkicked Elliot in a slow race, but he couldn't have run with him in a fast one. Ryun would have kicked down Snell in any kind of race. Snell didn't finish slowly when a high school Ryun beat him, he ran 54.0 for his last lap, the second fastest last lap ever (at that time) in a fast race. It was just that Snell was outkicked by a high schooler who ran 53.9. Snell at his peak could never match Ryun at his peak over the last lap in any kind of race. Morceli, Cram, El G would have buried Snell. Snell probably couldn't run much faster than 3:35 no matter what, and couldn't finish faster than 52 or so at his best. His best race was the 800. He's one of the all time greats there. As good as anyone today.

[Guest]

I saw the Modesto Mile from the last turn, and had a chance to talk to Snell in London at a dinner honoring Roger Bannister on the 40th anniversary of the first sub-four minute mile. I told Snell that I thought that his acceleration with 200m left was one of the most memorable things I'd seen, and he replied that he'd been extremely eager to beat Beatty decisively that night because he'd felt that Beatty was cocky.
At the time the race took place, I knew Bob Seagren slightly ( he was Beatty's teamate, and trained under Igloi). Before the race, I watched the members of the LA Track Club warming up, and felt that they looked flat, and Seagren told me that Igloi had run hell out of them all week leading up to that race. Snell, on the other hand, looked fresh while warming up

[Guest]

Our man Elam kicked the hardest. 63 yards with a real foot, not a flat stump.

[Guest]

Seagren? You mean Seaman, don't you?

[Django]

You're right, of course--- it was Seaman. I should never post after two mojitos!
It'd really be interesting to see that program that was shown in NZ with the interviews from Snell and Beatty. I hope that there's a copy floating around somewhere that might surface in the US and perhaps be sold through T&F News

[gh]

Mojitos?! Found a great late-night food spot here in Sacto that also makes a pretty mean mojito. Of course, I can't disclose what it is, or else I'll find myself shut out by the crowds at the Trials next year. Sorry about that.

[Guest]

Mojitos? OH MAN! I'm in LA, but I know a place in Sacto that serves them up fine. Wonder if it's the same place.

The Supermilers video has the last 250 of that Modesto race on it. Snell blasted the field. Sure, an element of surprise was involved, but Beatty could never have hung with that kind of finish no matter what. Ryun was also blasting people off the track in the 60's. No substitute for hard work, even when it's as "primitive" as it was back then, and under less than optimal conditions compared to today. Seems like Snell and Ryun conciously worked on kicking, concentrated on it as an actual element of their training, rather than just worrying about "speed training". Just a thought.

[richardh]

I know this is some days after the last post, but as I've only focused on this board for a couple of days, I hope you'll excuse the tardiness. The hardest kick I can remember came from Jim Ryun's 3:38.2 in 1967. It was mentioned in one of the earlier posts. The siginificance of it was that he was facing the 2 best kickers in Europe - Bodo Tummler, who'd easily outkicked Michel Jazy for the European 1500 the previous year, and the cadaverous looking Harald Norpoth, who was famed for sitting and waiting before making his kick. When Ryun went, with 300 to go, he opened up an immediate gap and was 10m clear within about 60m. The last 300 of 36.1 is unmatched still. The effect of drastic acceleration is the key thing here. 2 other middle distance examples come to mind - Luciano Susanj, who beat an average field (Ovett, aged 18, was 2nd) to win the European 800 in 1974, with a sprinters burst 250m from the finish, and Ovett himself, who zipped away from John Walker and Thomas Wessinghage with 150m to go to win the 1977 World Cup 1500 in a then European record of 3:34.45.
Outside middle distance running, the best kicks were Tommie Smith's surge from 120m to 170m to win in Mexico in 1968 (he ran 10.6+9.2 from memory and eased off in the last 15m) when he took 3m out of John Carlos, and Bob Hayes's first 30m of his relay gold medal run in 1964 when he gained about 4m on the field (+ another 2 in the last 70m). In 1988 I was lucky enough to meet him when he was the guest of honnour to launch a TV series on the world's fastest man, and he reckoned that his run that day might have been worth 9.80 on today's tracks

[Guest]

... and the
>cadaverous looking Harald Norpoth, who was famed
>for sitting and waiting before making his kick.
>When Ryun went, with 300 to go, he opened up an
>immediate gap and was 10m clear within about 60m.
>The last 300 of 36.1 is unmatched still.

Perfect description of Norpoth. He resembled a vulture. Ryun was a freak of nature. One wonders what he would do today, with today's training, and without the misfortune of getting mono (which leaves many people not quite the same forever after).

[Guest]

. Ryun was a
>freak of nature. One wonders what he would do
>today, with today's training, and without the
>misfortune of getting mono (which leaves many
>people not quite the same forever after).

He'd probably have ended up playing Nintendo and never giving track a go.

[Guest]

Abraham Chebii, his kicks so far this year in 5kms which are quick have been outstanding.

[Guest]

Chebii is setting a new standard. He also looks like he's really working.

"The Milers" published by T&FNews says Coe ran 12.1 in the last 100 of the 1980 Oly Final, and 25.4 for the final 200. In 1984 he rinished in 26.1 -- "betters anyone's finish in such a fast 1500" but was slower than S.Scott's 25.9 in a 3:49 mile. FYI, has T&F ever updated this book, which carries things only through 1984?

[gh]

The 1985 version was an update of the original, which came out in '73. No plans for another.

[Guest]

If you want to talk about the kick from a single race, how about Mills 1964 Olympic 10000. Wasn't he 24 - 25 seconds in the last 200, shortly after being knocked / elbowed to the outside by Gammoudi? He destroyed everyone mostly in the last 100 though, so his last 100 split would probably be even more impressive. Here's the video clips from the last lap:

http://www.mines.edu/Outreach/k12/mathc ... .show.html

What's really neat about that race is that nobody expected Mills to amount to much that day.

[Guest]

It really is spectacular to see a distance runner go into another gear and blast away from every one. Along with Ryun, Snell et al two of the best at this were Myrus Yifter and Doug Padilla. They could accelerate from an already speedy 56 second (400) pace to 51-52 pace--this usually coming over the final 200-250 meters.