1968 Olympic 1500m Final

Unbelievable that someone could look at this and denigrate Ryun. He was better than you know.  Keino ran the race of his life and anybody's life to that time. Ryun ran a great race at altitude. To sit on your duff and call him a pussy shows incredible ignorance. However, you are entitled to your opinion. Aside from being a great runner for 8 years, he is a remarkable human being. He was voted out of the House because he was so decent.

Ryun had no change to win - 2 seconds in 1500m is a lightyear

I was a huge Ryan fan for 30 years. However, in retrospect he was a pussy. That is why he never became the god he should have been.

aaaggghh ryun should have gone out faster.. oh well.. who am i to criticize one of the greatest milers ever?

the result was easy to see. the guy in first beat second by alot. no argument from this point of view.

Amazing how this race still creates arguments! To get Jim Ryun's view on the race, you can read his book "In Quest of Gold."

Amen.

I Never implied that there were "paid" rabbits. Ryun had an 'off' day. For the time, Ryun was undisputably the best of his day. Keino had to run the race of his life, which he did, to beat Ryun.

The point I am trying to make to you is that each runner in the "Olympic Final" earned his spot through a series of eliminations and that the best 12 runners in world survived for the final. Each one of them had a shot at winning the gold. It was NOTa Ryun vs. Keino race!

Rabbits are usually hired to enable the elite ahtletes break the world record. In any case all the 12 runners started together and whomever was leading could as well be considered as a rabbit to the other 11 if you like!

Maybe it was the race of his life, but he's hardly a one race wonder. Four Olympic medals to Ryun's one? Also three Commonwealth golds, including wins over Ron Clarke and Dick Quax, both world record breakers.