Additionally, as everyone here probably knows, in August 1984 -
6 months before his win at world cross, Lopes won gold in Los Angeles
in Olympic record of 2:09:21 which still stands by the way, but what
people might not know is that 5 weeks prior to Olympic marathon, Lopes
ran 27:17 for 10,000 on the track, finishing behind co-patriot Fernando
Mamede (27:13), both well under former world record held by Henry Rono (27:22
set in 1978).
To sum it up:
July 2 1984 27:17.48 10,000m (2nd all-time best)
Aug.12 1984 2:09:21 Olympic marathon (gold medal and still standing OR)
Mar.24 1985 World Cross Championships
Apr.20 1985 2:07:12 marathon, WR.
All within 10 months at age 37/38.
Simply unbelievable. Tergat may hold 2nd all-time 10,000m time
and have a marathon world record at the same time as well some time in
the future, but both will not come less than
a year apart, and now it seems he will not be a World Cross champion either.
Oleg.
> Granted the level of competition world-wide might be a lot tougher these
> days but consider this back in 1985:
>
> On March 24, Carlos Lopes won the World Cross Country Championships by four
> seconds over Paul Kipkoech.
>
> Four weeks later, on April 20, Lopes took 52 seconds off the world record in
> the marathon, 2:07:12 in Rotterdam.
>
> Whatever training methods he was doing, worked for him.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tom Derderian [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Monday, February 26, 2001 1:07 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: t-and-f: Tergat Out Of World Cross!
>
>
> Referring to cross-country and the marathon:
>
> ``The training methods for the two events are very different and it would be
> pretentious to think I can handle both competently,'' Tergat said.
>
> Imagine an American athlete declining to be pretentious!
>
> humble Tom
>
