The greatest performance in Athletics of all time

OK, to get the forum back talking about athletics, I thought I would start an open topic about the greatest performance of all time in Track/Field/Roadrunning. This is not the greatest athlete, but the single performance which in your opinion was the greatest.

I am torn between a few:
Beamon´s leap - 1968 which took the event to a totally new place
Radcliffes 2:15 Marathon which broke new ground
Bolt´s 9.58.... A massive fall in a record
Fosbury changing the way we do the high jump

There are many others, but what would you choose as the greatest single performance?
For me it is Beamon´s long jump... he took the event to a new place

Seb Coes world record 800m run

Allan Wells in Koblenz.

Proving people wrong since 1978.

Another shout could be Jonathon Edwards in the triple jump when he broke the WR twice in two jumps, awesome stuff!

I forgot about him, yes amazing jumping, as was sotomayors world record high jump and Bubka;s pole vault record, we will have to give a scor out of a hundred for each of our selections

Roger Bannister and the 4 Minute Mile

I'm too young to remember most of these unfortunately (in fact too young to have seen them), but they're some great shouts on here. Thing with Bolt's 9.58 run is we knew he had something like that in him after Beijing where he ran 9.69 despite celebrating thirty meters out. Thought his 200 run in Berlin was even more impressive.

Don Ritchie 100km 6:10.28 October 1978. 33 years and nobody has surpassed this epic performance. Sub 6 minute miles for over 60 miles.

Or perhaps Yiannis Kouros 303.506km in 24 hours. Simply unbelievable that a man can run 300km in one day, nobody else even comes close in that event.

This doesn't really count but I thought Ben Johnston's 100m Olympic gold was the most astonishing thing I ever saw on the track.

Of course, now we all know why...

Old yellow eyes

camerajuan wrote:Allan Wells in Koblenz.

Proving people wrong since 1978.

Good shout Camerajuan.

The Golden Sprints in Berlin was a similar moment for Wells. He beat most of the Americans who supposedly would have taken him to the cleaners in Moscow.

Good topic... well done. How about Christophe Lemaitre 9.95s? Fastest white man ever?

Could he turn the tide of people's thinking and people will see that the white men can run.... and jump (Wood Harrelson).

Beamon's leap. He really amazed everyone that day.

Biggut wrote:Don Ritchie 100km 6:10.28 October 1978. 33 years and nobody has surpassed this epic performance. Sub 6 minute miles for over 60 miles.

Or perhaps Yiannis Kouros 303.506km in 24 hours. Simply unbelievable that a man can run 300km in one day, nobody else even comes close in that event.

I have to say that 3 years ago, I looked up the distance records and these are absolutely incredible! I don´t know how to rank them which is why I did not mention them, but they are quite incredible (I can run sub 6´s for a half marathon, but 60 miles!!!)

Before Bolt I would have said without a doubt Michael Johnson's 19.32 a record I thought would never ever be broken until the return of Christ. Now I would have to go with the women's 400m record which will definitely never be broken. Yes I know why it cannot be broken but it is still a record.

Not a single performance - but in terms of achievements, how about Ed Moses' winning streak/unbeaten run?! Winning 122 races between 1977 and 1987...try beat that :run2:

What about performances that never were ( so to speak );

Triple Jump; Edwards' wind-assisted 18.43m

Or;

Mike Powell's first really, really long jump ( in that famous head-to-head with Carl Lewis ) - adjudged to have been over the board/plasticine, but seemed to be hard done by I believe; could've been longer than than his eventual world record ( really seriously close to 9m! )...

A great battle of the greats that was, make a good thread wouldn't it the best battle of the greats.

That is a definitely a good topic for a thread - the best or hardest fought haed-to-heads ever

Carl Lewis and Ben Johnson?! LOL

Coe and Ovett?!

Daley Thompson and jergen

all good shouts

a few others

the late wanijuri marathon time in bjeing olympics in the scorching heat - gharib astonsihing also behind him.

gebraillsee taking 11 seconds off the world 5000m record - brought it down from about 12.55 to 12.44 in 1 go (almost a second a lap)

renialdo nehemeiah in the 110m hurdles as a young man before he went to american football (colin jackson thinks he would still have had the record at about 12.75 had not a long hiatus)

zvelenys world record in the javelin (uwe hohn also broke the record with 100m plus a few decades ago - but eastern german performences are sceptical)

coe running 1,41 in the 800m and 2.12 in the 1000m when a whole host of africans wernt running fast all over europe all the time (1.43 may be common place now but it wasnt tehn and still coes times are way up there)


im leaving out leaving out possibly or definitely dodgy performances by flo-jo , some chinese distance runners, ben johnson and other 100m runners and a whole host of eastern europeans from a few decades ago

ah- coe was already mentioned .

how about michael johnson 19.32 in atlanta, he slipped slightly at the start and had already run several races that week in winning the 400m and getting to the 400m final in his home-town olympics with all the pressure to knock over a third of a second off the world record (frankie fredericks beat teh old record while way back in silver .)

the fact that bolt has beaten it over a decade later does not diminsh mj achievements