Quote Originally Posted by paulo View Post
I can hear distant echoes of the British climbers' refrain "but what's he ever done on grit?" Surely it's not possible or useful to compare the two and we should expect that today's top mountain runner will be able to beat Billy's times. I'd certainly be surprised if he can't but that doesn't detract at all from Billy's status and achievements from a certain never to be recaptured time and circumstance, some might even say "golden age" - I don't know, I wasn't there. It's like trying to compare Mummery with Steck, Hannibal with Napoleon or Elvis with Strummer - impossible, pointless, to the detriment of both parties, and better left to lie
I agree comparing the two is pretty pointless as there's no way meaningful way of doing so. However, I don't think the question of whether KJ would beat Billy's BG time is the same as asking is he better than Billy overall (whatever that might mean). It's a simply a case of could he do the BG, as is now, in the quickest time ever? One day he might have a pop at it and we'll find out. If he did and he beat it, it wouldn't be fair to criticise the achievement because he hadn't won Wasdale a week before or whatever. Nor would it be fair to criticise Billy for never having raced the SW100 or UTMB. Different people, different times. One record though!