The marathon world record has been broken numerous times in the last 40 years. It’s been 40 years since the record was broken at the Olympics.
And the Olympic record was set in 2008.
I don’t think there is a right answer here particularly. I’d probably side on the Gold Medal for reasons outlined better by others but, as you can always create an edge case, it’s not clear cut.
What sort of edge case? Roger Bannister didn’t win an Olympic Gold Medal - but he did break the 4 minute mile (a time now regularly broken by any half decent middle distance runner). I’d need to look up who won the 1956 Olympic Mile but I don’t need to look up Roger Bannister. Similarly, Bob Beamon did win a Gold Medal in 1968, but he’s primarily remembered for blowing the world record out of the water in the Long Jump. The longer Mike Powell owns that World Record (no Olympic Gold for him either), the more the man who breaks it is going to go down in history for breaking a seemingly unbreakable barrier. Good chance that Usain Bolt is going to be in this category too - the Gold Medals are part of his mystique but he’s going to be remembered for blowing the World Record into a time that no one thought possible.
So I guess, for me, there’s World Records and there’s World Records. Some WRs, in some events, get broken with regularity and, in those, I wouldn’t want to change it for a Gold Medal - someone will be along in a minute to wipe you off the books and over time, you’ll be forgotten - the Gold is more permanent. If you offered me the choice between a marathon Gold Medal and being the first man to break the 2 hr barrier for the marathon though, I’d probably take the latter.
Another real-world example: Kendra Harrison (USA) set the world record in the women’s 100m hurdles in July, at the London Müller Anniversary Games, but finished sixth in the US Olympic Trials two weeks earlier, and didn’t even make the team. You think she’s consoling herself with her record right now?
I would think the honor of winning while representing your country is also a factor.
Not sure if anyone else in the thread has already said this, but I think it boils down to the fact that time and place matter a lot.
You can set a world record when training in your home venue, you can do it in a qualifying meet, you can do it in a national competition, and those are all commendable, but there’s something to be said for doing on the biggest stage when it matters the most and the competition is the best. The Olympics are the biggest stage with the most pressure and for most people that pressure is a real factor and a challenge to overcome.
Even if the track/pool/course are identical in every way, even if the climate conditions are identical, the fact that hundreds of millions of people are watching and you are going against the best of the best with the hopes of your entire nation on you back makes winning harder and more of an accomplishment than shaving 1% off your time for a Wold Record.
For some events like the 100m dash and the 50m swim there’s not a ton of tactics, you’re just balling out, but those are the vast minority. Even in relatively short events like the 200m medley and the 400m relay there’s in-race strategy where going all-out for a WR isn’t the best strategy for winning. In longer events like the 10000m and the 1500m swim strategy is everything, just ask Mo Farah. If Farah sought the WR in every race he’d probably be less successful, he might hold the WR until the next guy breaks it, but he’d have fewer medals, fewer trophies and a smaller checking account. That matters.
You can draw analogies all day long. Who are you more likely to remember and who’s more likely to carry a team to a World Series, the guy who hit the longest HR in history, or the guy who hit the most HRs in history? The guy who throws the fastest, or the guy who strikes out the most guys? In basketball can you name the team from memory who scored the most points in a single game or the team that won by the largest margin? I doubt it. Most fans can tell you who won the most games in a season and who has won the most NBA titles though.
Again though, it isn’t really the world record that makes it memorable. It is the achievement of a specific round number. Much like the gold metal, being the first to hit 4:00 minutes can never be taken away.
And that would be Derek Ibbotson on Sept. 3 1958.
Recorded time-4:00.00
Well, quite. That is my point. If you want immortality (and having an ego, that’s what I would gun for), it’s not as clear cut as just saying “gold medal please” (though as I note at the beginning of my comment, I would go for gold in most cases). You can achieve this via a world record, hence my essentially saying “which world record?”
I would reiterate though, that it is not just round numbers though. Beamon wasn’t a round number. Neither is Bolt. It can also be how you do it and by how much that defines it. Michael Johnson is a good example here. The golds are part of the narrative but what I will remember is how he DESTROYED the field to break his world records.
I would be. A world record is a very big deal, although you wouldn’t know it by many of the posts here.
Yes, a gold medal is more marketable, and yes, you’ll certainly get more publicity by winning on network prime time TV than in a meet that isn’t even televised.
But take the long view. 50 years from now, when you’re telling your grandkids about it, the money and publicity are long gone, and Google (or whatever your implanted chip uses) will be just as necessary to find gold medal winners from 50 years ago as it is to find world record holders from 50 years ago. If your grandkids are intelligent, there’s a pretty good chance that they will see that beating everyone who ever raced anywhere (up to that time) is harder to do than beating the other seven people who were allowed to compete in one particular race, no matter what kind of ratings it got.
ETA: and just by the way, unless she is injured or something, I think it’s insane to not give someone who sets a world record a few weeks before the Olympics an automatic spot on the team, even if you have to bump someone else.
Honestly, I’m with (most) everyone else-- World Records are Cool, but they aren’t that big a deal. What matters is what you do when it matters, and so people who have an off day at the Olympic Trials don’t get to go to the Olympics, and often Medals are won by people who might not win a medal if you ran the same race with the same runners (or swam the same race with the same swimmers) multiple times.
Not necessarily. In sports like track and field, swimming, cycling, weightlifting (unsure how many other sports apply), achieving a WR a few weeks before the Olympics means you peaked too soon. It’s difficult to maintain that high a peak for more than a few weeks.
The Iranian weightlifter just broke the world record but didn’t get a medal. He didn’t seem happy about it…
The grandkids will inherit the actual gold medal though - a memento and reminder of how their frail old granny once stood on a podium, having beaten all-comers, and cried with pride and joy as her country’s flag was raised.
An entry in an ever-changing list of world record holders doesn’t even compete, apart from a very,very few game-changers, as discussed.
It’s kind of an interesting point: if you win an Olympic gold medal, you’re the champion for at least four years. But if you break a world record, someone else might break your record minutes later – or maybe it stands for decades.
One of us is crazy. And the voices in my head say it’s you.
But even if it’s broken minutes later, there was a time when you were better than anyone has ever been.
Yeah, we’ve established that you would be. We’ve also established that most of the people posting in this thread think that you’re nuts. The same way that they think that I’m nuts in my stance about “sportsmanship” and “cowardice.” At some point, you’ve got to stop digging, dude; let it be stipulated that you’re not changing your mind, and keep it moving.
Kendra Harrison didn’t break the record before the trials, she broke it at an invitational, after she’d already failed at the trials. So, since she already had her chance, and blew it, they should absolutely not bump anybody off the team to put her on it.
Which means jack shit, once the record is broken. A medal means permanence: a record can be broken in the heat right after yours.
The shortest-lived world record in sports is believed to have lasted 0.2 secs.
It was in a Modern Pentathlon. Points are awarded for each of the five disciplines - equestrian, swimming, shooting, fencing and running - highest overall points wins.
The last event (in this case) was a 3000-metre run. The first guy to cross the line finished with a Points total that was a new World record. But the guy who finished 2nd in the run (0.2 secs behind), wound up with a higher overall Points total (because he had performed better in the earlier events).
So you could argue that - for a brief 0.2 secs - you were the World record holder.
Actually, you’re not the record holder until the paperwork is submitted and the record is ratified.