1977 World Cup 400m - men

Juantarena in the famous re-run

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• 1977
• World
• Cup
• 400m
• Juantarena
• Volker
• beck

[zednik771]

Daaaayyyuuuummm!!! look at that stride!!

[P27Barreta]

0:30 Holy God



[gakaface]

@gakaface ...Kipketer and Rudisha were/are essentially 400m runners who blast out the first 400m in 48.x seconds and hang on for a second lap of 53.x seconds in order to achieve their best times. Their second lap times are far inferior to Coe, Ovett and Juantarena thus far. Oh, and remember, here's the anomaly, Juantarena was also a 400m (44.28s) Olympic champion. Just imagine him being at his peak and racing Rudisha today, on a high grade tartan track!

[gakaface]

@gakaface ...To say Coe had great speed-endurance compared to Juantarena is not true. Juantarena ran just as fast as Coe ever did on the second lap of an 800m race, even in his short career, but he never had the races that Coe had. If he had, he might have been even better. Same applies for Steve Ovett. And what about the world beaters that followed? Wilson Kipketer and David Rudisha? How do their second laps compare? At present, not very favourably...

[gakaface]

@gakaface You have to remember that Juantarena raced very sparsely and had a very short career. Coe and Ovett also raced sparsely over long careers. Not only this but they were also very selective in their races, choosing to avoid quality competition at the peak of their careers until the major championships...

[gakaface]

@gakaface ...this is the fastest second lap of any 800 metres ever seen. Even if Coe had not got into so much tactical trouble, he would not have caught Ovett having given him a two metres head start at the bell. While I am a big fan of Coe's achievements, Ovett and Juantarena were also giants in the 800 metres event but their achievements are sometimes overshadowed and overlooked by what came afterwards...

[gakaface]

@gakaface ... on the first lap. So, on with the top 3 performances: in at number 3: Seb Coe, 1979 European Cup, Lap 2 = 51.4 secs, finish 1:47.27 great finish but the opposition was really mediocre and the first lap was really slow. In at number 2: Alberto Juantarena - 1977 World Cup, Lap 2 - 51.5, finish 1:44.03 incredible high quality race against Mike Boit with a fast first lap. And at number 1: Steve Ovett, 1980 800m Olympic Games, Lap 2 - 50.7, finish 1:45.40...

[gakaface]

@gakaface So whose second lap is better? That's not a simple question either, as you have to take into account the nature of the event (e.g. whether it is a major championship or just a low key event), and the level of the competition, after all any athlete can look good against crap opposition. You also have to take into account the final finishing time and the consequent lactic that must build up in the athlete's legs, after all, a 50 sec last lap is more likely if you took 60 secs ....

[gakaface]

@TheEctomorph A good analysis but it is difficult to make such comparisons. You can't take Coe's 1:41.73 800m world record, and divide it by 2 and say he ran 50.865 per lap as he did not. His first lap was about 50.0 seconds as the lap for Billy Konchellah, his pacemaker, was 49.86s with Coe about 1.2 metres behind him. Coe's second lap was therfore about 51.7 seconds. I have analysed a number of great and historic 800m performances and Coe's 51.7 seconds second lap was not the fastest ever ...

[linglingjr]

@TheBaptisia thats because it's not effective.

[TheBaptisia]

the best style of the world, nobody run like him

[222mozart]

Volker Beck