Who will be men's AOY runner-up?

[gh]

Any discussion of men's AOY this year would be a total bore. Ergo, we must amuse ourselves by making the choice of No. 2 as the most important!

[EPelle]

Kenenisa Bekele. Two Olympic races, two gold medals. Undefeated season, including WIR.

[joeltetreault]

Re: Who will be men's AOY runner-up?

Any discussion of men's AOY this year would be a total bore. Ergo, we must amuse ourselves by making the choice of No. 2 as the most important!

Without putting too much thought into it, I'll go with Bekele - undefeated this year, and two Oly golds. Fastest times this year for 5000 and 10000, second fastest over 3000...

[imaginative]

Robles is another very strong candidate.

[SQUACKEE]

Kenenisa Bekele. Two Olympic races, two gold medals. Undefeated season, including WIR.

I agree, who's third? That Cuban 110h dude?

[nevetsllim]

I think you cannot really argue with 1. Bolt 2. Bekele 3. Robles

[Half Miler]

I think you cannot really argue with 1. Bolt 2. Bekele 3. Robles

Completely agree. Unlike the women't debate (hey, whatever happened to that thread, anyway?), this one seems pretty clear cut.

Real question is: who's 4, 5, 6?

[26mi235]

KB has pretty good credentials. He won both golds, made both races, especially the 5000, ran pretty fast Championship times (records), ran by far the fastest 10,000 basically solo, was not defeated very often, and even had a good XC race, for what that is worth. What's not to like.

Maybe we should try Third? None of the field events had nearly as dominant a set of performances, with the HJ being the best of the events with some good competitions. I might be slighting the field events because my faulty memory and my lesser familiarity - I might need to be corrected, but you do not need to whack me on the head, ok?.

Robles is probably the strongest credentials, with a WR and very strong season, although he did falter a little bit and his #1 competition was out with injury to everyone's disappointment.

Clay deserves consideration

Merritt does also.

The 400h was a nice battle ground with good supporting performances in the 400 and 4x400 (these do count for AOY even if not for the event rankings)

Steeple #1 did not even get to run in the OGs after missing out at his trials. No Mark under 8:00

The 800 and 1500 are mixed; at least the 800 had some great performances and some very promising faces, but the 1500 lacked many things

[Marlow]

I think you cannot really argue with 1. Bolt 2. Bekele 3. Robles

Clay might be 4th, but has there even been another year where the top 3 seemed so obvious?

[joeltetreault]

Open-ended question to all: what would it take for Robles to get second over Bekele? Be undefeated? Win the 100m as well in the Olympics?

Now that I think of it more, Robles did run 7 times under 13.00 and ran the two fastest times ever (granted one was tied with Liu's old WR). Though he lost a few times, he did put run against his main competitors more than Bekele I think.

[gh]

I think you cannot really argue with 1. Bolt 2. Bekele 3. Robles

I could quote easily vote for Robles over Bekele.

[26mi235]

Open-ended question to all: what would it take for Robles to get second over Bekele? Be undefeated? Win the 100m as well in the Olympics?

Now that I think of it more, Robles did run 7 times under 13.00 and ran the two fastest times ever (granted one was tied with Liu's old WR). Though he lost a few times, he did put run against his main competitors more than Bekele I think.

Well, you can run a lot more 110h races than high-level 10,000's, which is KB's best distance if you do not count XC, where is has lost once in forever. I cannot remember all his races; did he dip down to the 3000 and 1500/2000 as well? Also, what was his indoor season like and does that count for AOY (vault/HJ/SP seem to be the events most similar, plus the horizontal jumps, I suppose).

[EPelle]

KB has pretty good credentials. ... was not defeated very often, and even had a good XC race, for what that is worth. What's not to like.

Bekele did not surrender a race this season; he won 10/10 track races and both cross country races he entered, including the world championships.

[imaginative]

Open-ended question to all: what would it take for Robles to get second over Bekele? Be undefeated? Win the 100m as well in the Olympics?

Now that I think of it more, Robles did run 7 times under 13.00 and ran the two fastest times ever (granted one was tied with Liu's old WR). Though he lost a few times, he did put run against his main competitors more than Bekele I think.

This brings us straight back to the women's AOY, which was eventually deleted.
(The deleted contents included a thorough and irresistable mathematical proof
by me that a 5000/1000 double is worth less than an 800m gold.)

[SQUACKEE]

Somewhere around 4,5 or 6th would be Sammy W.