I think “former” is incorrect in this usage. She is an Olympic champ, and the 1968 Olympic champ–always.
As we say in baseball, flags fly forever.
But, they’re not ignored… when they’re broken in the service of winning a gold medal and/or a world championship. When they’re, not, they’re still not “ignored” per se, but breaking a record isn’t the goal of the people competing in that sport, winning a championship/medal is. If you break a record, but don’t win anything, then when someone comes along in twelve years and demolishes your record, you fall into irrelevancy. But, if you win a gold medal, you’re always going to be a gold medalist.
You said that you don’t see any justification for why the value of medals over records isn’t closer to 55/45, instead of the 95/5 that you perceive it as. From my point of view, I can’t think of any justification for why the records should be valued anywhere close to 45 percent. Like that one football coach said, you play to win the game.
It was an interesting article, but it didn’t really explain why it’s taken so long to break the record. How hard would it be to hold a marathon on a flat course with gentle turns in cool weather?
Besides, it’s a two-hour event, so of course the variations are going to be larger than in a ten second sprint or whatever.
And besides all that, I think the marathon is obscure enough that it might be an exception to the rule. I think that whoever holds the world record, especially if it’s stood for so long, probably has more prestige than the guys who have won gold since then. But since I don’t follow it, I could easily be wrong.
I will cheerfully agree to disagree.
Well, that may be a saying, but it doesn’t make much sense to me. Are you saying that it’s perfectly reasonable to refer to the Cubs as “the World Series champion Chicago Cubs,” based on 1908 or whenever?
And everybody seems to be ignoring my point about how gold medals may be won against inferior competition compared to, say, a world championship (which typically gets very little press). Whoever wins gold in track events this year will do it against a Russian-less field. Whoever won anything in the 1980 Olympics did it with the US team absent.
How can that be better than beating every previous time ever recorded anywhere?
There’s no pacing or tactics in the 100m.
The Marathon is tactical because the medal is the goal. Because of the (relatively) slow pace, pacing errors are easy to make and out of proportion to the consequences. 2-3 seconds per mile is the difference between glory and a stumbling jog to the finish, even for a world-class runner.
If a runner aims for a world record and hits the wall, it’s a four year wait to the next chance if qualifying is even possible.
So setting a world record in the marathon is much harder than setting one in the 100m. Makes perfect sense. So why wouldn’t a world record be that much more prized because of that fact?
Because some day, someone will be faster. Even after a record is broken, the athlete will often still be referred to as “former world record holder [name].”
More lasting fame is if the record is under a specific mark, such as the four minute mile or 2:10 marathon.
Because you can break a world record at any officially sanctioned event, but you can only win a gold medal at the Olympics.
I said that in the OP. That makes a gold medal more rare, and that’s what the TV announcers hype. It’s exactly analogous to the heavily hyped four majors in golf having much more prestige than a regular PGA tour event, even though many regular PGA tour events had stronger fields than the British Open and PGA championship, for many years.
IMO the hype is wrong. But I’ve made my case as best I can, and I don’t seem to be getting anywhere, so thank you everyone for your responses.
It would be easy, but it’s not particularly desirable. The objective is not to get all-time record times under ideal conditions–it is to win that particular title race.
It is correct to call them the 1907 and 1908 champion club.
You’ve probably heard the Yankees called the 27-time champions, even in years like this one in which they are neither the last nor likely next winners.
I think it’s a little different when talking about a person rather than a team. To take another example, it’s common and usual to refer to “gold medal winner Carl Lewis” even though he hasn’t won a medal in 20 years. Once you win a gold medal, you are forever a gold medal winner.
Heh. I hadn’t realized it’s not hypothetical: at the 1964 Olympics, a javelin thrower set a world record in the qualification round that narrowed the competitors down from 16 to 12; those 12 then competed in the final – not on another day at another stadium, but then and there – and nobody could match Gorchakova’s earlier feat, and “nobody” includes Gorchakova, but two other folks missed it a bit closer than Gorchakova did, and so Gorchakova wound up with the bronze.
In 2001 the Seattle Mariners tied a record for the most wins in a season, winning 116 games. The previous record was set in 1906 so really it’s the modern record.
They didn’t win the World Series, though. Didn’t even make it. Now, do you think Seattle Mariners fans would rather than 116 wins, or do you think if given the opportunity to change history, they’d make them win 109 games and have them win the World Series?
It’s a silly question because everyone knows the answer.
That’s a perfect example. Sure, he should be disappointed he didn’t get the gold, but he should be elated that he got the world record, and if it were me, I’d rather have the world record.
I admit that my preference might change if it had been in a more marketable event than javelin. I also admit that my chances of setting a world record in any track and field event are below 50%.
WELL below.
It’s also a bad analogy, because it’s a team sport, and not measured against something objective like a clock or tape. Team sports, sports that are judged rather than measured, and sports where you can win with a mediocre performance if your opponent is even more mediocre, don’t really lend themselves to this question.
Uh, slight nitpick: that was for women’s javelin, which I now see I didn’t specify.
But that was four years before they started sex testing at the Olympics. 
ETA: Googling her, I see that she also won a bronze at the 1952 Olympics, so she had a pretty long peak.
I’d bet you a dollar that she wouldn’t… if she were still alive. Not only that, but she only held the record for eight years so, in the end, she didn’t have either.
Take the example of Peyton Manning. In his first couple years with the Broncos, he set all kinds of personal performance records at QB. Eye popping stats! But the Broncos did not win the Super Bowl, and so the achievement seemed somewhat empty.
In his final year, Manning’s stats were not so spectacular, but the team crushed the competition all the way through the Super Bowl. NOW Manning could retire confident that he’d made a bid for best of all time- he had the stats, but more importantly he had the ring.