There’s lot of track events, but there’s no doubt that these three are the glamour events of the track world. The 100m claims the “world’s fastest man”, the 1500m is the metric mile and the marathon, well it’s the marathon.
All things equal I consider the 1500 the “worlds’ most prestigious”. The 100m has been hyped up for so many years because it’s usually an “American event” and is there anybody who really believes any of the winners in the past thirty years haven’t been into the juice? The marathon has it’s historical roots this year, but IMO the 1500 is “the event”.
Your answer is indicative of your interest in endurance sport, but I think on the world stage it is more like:
100M
200M
4x100M
4x200M
I think there are 8 year olds who even today know who Carl Lewis is, and know what Ben Johnson did, but they likely aren’t aware that the 1500M is even an event.
I guess it depends on what you mean by prestigious. Do you mean best known by the general public world-wide? Or do you mean the most important and respected within the T&F and athletic community?
I agree w/ SuperDave. You will probably get a lot of 1500 and marathon responses due to this being an endurance sport forum, but IMO it’s 100m easy. Marathon second.
There’s lot of track events, but there’s no doubt that these three are the glamour events of the track world. The 100m claims the “world’s fastest man”, the 1500m is the metric mile and the marathon, well it’s the marathon.
All things equal I consider the 1500 the “worlds’ most prestigious”. The 100m has been hyped up for so many years because it’s usually an “American event” and is there anybody who really believes any of the winners in the past thirty years haven’t been into the juice? The marathon has it’s historical roots this year, but IMO the 1500 is “the event”.
That’s my opinion. What’s yours?
I also agree with SuperDave. Most non-endurance types could care less about any event longer than the 400 unless they’re just counting medals.
1500 of course. NZ has a great record in this race, so of course it must be the most important. Don’t think we’ve ever figured in the other two…(methinks)
I think that it depends what part of the world you are in. In North America it is the 100m since that event has been dominated by the US. Many other places equate the 1500m as being the most significant event. I certainly have a lot more respect for a great miler/1500m runner like Sebastian Coe than a whiner like Carl Lewis or braggart like Maurice Greene.
Well, if network coverage is any indicator, then the 100m sprint is the biggest event. In Canada, CBC’s coverage on Saturday and Sunday all day seemed to completely revolve around the women’s and men’s 100m sprint semi-finals and finals.
Ron McLean has these interesting comments, while we were waiting for the women’s 100m final to start: " We’ll just hold it here in the studio while we wait for the women’s 100m final to get going. There is only the semi-finals of the 3000m steeplechase going on right now on the track which is very insignificant"!! Insignificant?? If there is action happening on the track, why not show it? Better to see it than watch talking heads, talk some more.
Generally the CBC’s coverage is fair and even, but I was a bit surprised by the total focus on the 100m sprint finals to the exclusion of everything else.
However, earlier in the day on Sunday we were treated to live start-to-finish coverage of the woman’s marathon. Which was quite dramatic.