Lukas Verzbicas in Historical Context

Parksy wrote:

Were talking Cross Country here not Track!

Simon Bairu was a beast in Cross Country but never did much on the Track. Don't compare track times to decide who the best cross runner of all time was in high school.

Ritz is hands down the best. He destroyed a highly competitive field 2 years in a row.

Yeah, and Luke has absolutely no chance of doing that. Lol.

And its funny how how describe the field that Ritz was in as highly competitive right after you mention that "we're talking cross country and not track. Tell me, what has anyone in that field ever done in international cross country?

There was Lindgren, Pre and Virgin over 30 years ago, and a few lone stalwarts like Bob Kennedy. Now we are talking about Ritz, Rupp, Webb, Solinsky, Hall, Fernandez, Derrick and Verzbicas all in one decade? Boy, running has changed a lot in the last 30 years. There was a time when a 13:20 5K was world class.

There is never a way to compare the best from different decades, but the runners today are ultimately achieving much faster times than past runners from 30 years ago ever imagined possible. Let's just agree that we have more great HS runners this decade than ever before and if they run as professionals, they will make the best times of Lindgren, Pre and Virgin look relatively slow.

Rad Raz wrote:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0g91zucNxg

Here you go!

Lol at how Ritz talks about 95 miles a week and at the way he stumbles like a boneless chicken at the finish line.

Compare that to Luke cantering to a twenty-second win off off 45 miles a week.

Wow.

DaveW wrote:

There is never a way to compare the best from different decades ...

Right. There's no way to be sure about what would happen if everybody raced in the same era. Just because somebody was vastly slower half a century ago doesn't mean they might not have upped their game if they were running today. Obviously, most people would agree that Hicham El Guerrouj was a better miler than John Paul Jones ever was. And based on how fast they ultimately ran, El G was probably better than some of the great prolific champs of the 1960s-1980s, like Elliott, Snell, Walker and Coe. But who's to say that those guys couldn't have risen to the challenge in the era El G was in? We can't know.

But being a champion in your own era is probably more indicative of how you rank as a runner than how fast people were running then. When you try to compare runners from different generations, don't underestimate the importance of being a champion and realize that many of those former greats could probably perform at a even higher level than they did if that was required of them. Chris Solinsky has run around 20 seconds faster than Lasse Viren ever ran at 5,000 and around 40 seconds faster at 10,000. But not only would I call Viren a better runner in terms of accolades (which should be obvious); I think the Viren of 1972 and 1976 would beat Solinsky outright in championship events at least 7 times out of 10. Even against 13:20/27:40 opponents, could Solinsky actually run qualifying rounds of both the 5,000 and 10,000 then come back and win a 27:38 race (after falling) and win a 13:26 race with a 3:59 final 4 laps? Could he duplicate the feat (outlasting fearsome kickers in the 5,000) in the next big championship and tack on a 2:13 marathon at the end of it all? I say no. I think Viren would beat Solinsky in most (admittedly probably not all) championship settings, despite the latter being a sub-13:00/sub-27:00 runner.

The message is don't underestimate guys like Lindgren, Prefontaine, Virgin and Hulst (RIP). Would Lukas Verzbicas beat the Eric Hulst of 1975/1976? I wouldn't doubt it. Several other recent non-winners at FLCC might be able too as well (Rupp and Fernandez come to mind). But Hulst was World Junior champ in high school and you can't nullify that accomplishment or penalize him because he faced weaker competition than the juniors face these days. And the fact that he was a winner at the world level means he'd probably surprise a lot of people if he was running today.

The best US high school cross-country runners? Remember - don't count track accomplishments and definitely don't count post-high school accomplishments. Something like this:

Ritzenhein

Virgin

Hulst

Lindgren

Prefontaine

Goucher

Solinsky

Put Lukas V. somewhere in the middle of that group if he wins at FLCC a few hours from now.

Bump.