Forgotten amidst all the Bannister hoopla?

[dl]

Daniel Komen's sub-8:00 2-mile. In fact, he did it twice. 7:58.61 in Hechtel in '97 and 7:58.91 in Sydney in '98.

I bet the average sports fan has no idea that the sub-8:00 has been run.

I would stop well short of labeling this as racism. Track & Field isn't in the average sports fan's life as much as it used to be. But this achievement never received the recognition it deserved, IMHO.

Of course, his 3000 record of 7:20.67 (my vote for the greatest track & field performance ever) is worth 7:55.93 according to our conversion factors.

[malmo]

Re: Forgotten amidst all the Bannister hoopla?

I like the factoid that Komen ran each of the two miles in under 4:00.

Did he do that in both races or just one?

[dl]

Re: Forgotten amidst all the Bannister hoopla?

Malmo - What, you don't have a collection of Track Newsletter going back that far on hand? :-)

The Hechtel race went 3:59.8/3:58.8.

Sydney was 4:01.44/3:57.47.

Kennedy set the current AR in 2nd in the Hechtel race, 8:11.59 (4:02.5/4:09.1). Ouch!

[EPelle]

Re: Forgotten amidst all the Bannister hoopla?

Incredible: Imagine today looking at splits of: 59,9-60,0 (1.59,9)-60,0 (2.59,9)-59,9 (3.59,8)-59,7 (4.59,5)-59,7 (5.59,2)-60,0 (6.59,2)-58,4 (7.58,6) [3.59,8/3,58,8].

Just imagine that Komen ran every single 400m split right at or under 60,0 for 8 consecutive laps and the extra yardage. You guys are right: there is no love for the man:s two feats, and there is no love for the 2-mile.

[tafnut]

Re: Forgotten amidst all the Bannister hoopla?

dl - I think you misperceive the hype that led to the first sub-4. People were actually saying it was a physical impossibility. Once the dam broke, it was anti-climactic that someone could do it twice in a row. Plus, the 2-mile has become a non-event. The bottom line is that it was simply not that big a deal outside of track circles anymore. The 7:20 3000 is indeed a huge accomplishment, but given where the 5 and 10K records are now, not that big a deal either (outside our little community).

[FrankS]

Re: Forgotten amidst all the Bannister hoopla?

This lack of mention of Komen's 2 mile runs struck me as odd. Infact, I was amazed, that back when he first did it, it got scant recognition in popular media generally. Indeed, when the 2 mile record was edging towards 8 mins, I was surprised that the media didn't pick up on the it ,and make a fuss about the race for the first sub-8min 2 mile.

[eldrick]

Re: Forgotten amidst all the Bannister hoopla?

it might be interesting to note that his 1500m / 5k times imply a 2 mile time of ~ 7'54.5, so his 3k WR is a lot more impressive

incidentally, i must point out that geb severely underperformed at 3k, & that his 1500mi/ 5k PB's indicate a time close to 7'21

komen's 7'20 is special, but likes of geb & el g really should have got close o it

[dl]

Re: Forgotten amidst all the Bannister hoopla?

tafnut - I didn't claim that Komen's sub-8 deserved the same kind of world recognition that Bannister's 3:59.4 did. Of course not. But I think the average person would still be amazed that someone can now run under 8:00 for 2 miles.

In my local fish wrap, the San Francisco Chronicle, John Crumpacker wrote an excellent remembrance piece about Bannister's feat. There was also a box with stats of other important miles, such as the US record, the collegiate record, the Cal and Stanford school records, first US sub-4, etc. Not to criticize Crumpacker, but I think he should've inlcluded the 2-mile record. I think the average sports fan would've seen that and been amazed.

Perhaps I'm making too big a deal of it. But I saw Komen do some amazing things (12:39), and seeing the guy at his very best stays with you.

[Two Tone]

Re: Forgotten amidst all the Bannister hoopla?

The average person can relate to the mile and the 100 - because generally most folks have at least had to run those events in PE class. At least before PE became PC. Notice all the fat kids these days?

Most other events aren't even on the average person's radar. Track is barely on their screens, if at all.

[EPelle]

Re: Forgotten amidst all the Bannister hoopla?

Hicham:s respect for Bannister:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.j ... thspt.html.