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Run with the Wind in my honest opinion trumps every single sports anime out there.
Why is this?

Run with the Wind is the purest form of the sports anime genre. There's no superpowers or hidden ability from the main characters, no successes by chance that help the team make it through, no expectations or incredible history of Aotake, and no unnecessary characters with an extensively explained backstory.

I loved Run with the Wind from a Sports Anime perspective. You can watch and see and hear and feel the pain and effort they take to reach the top. The pained expressions, the ragged breaths, the faces ... drenched in sweat; all of it.
You have a definitive GOAL that the team chases after - there's no successively introduced title or competition they reach. From the very beginning it's Hakune-or-nothing.
You see the impact of sports on the lives of the members because they're REAL PEOPLE, with lives and commitments outside of the sport. You see the characters become conflicted between the choice to run or to quit.
You see them gain a following, becoming recognized by the community of their efforts and become rewarded through the support of their fans.
But most importantly, you see them make it. You see them train and practice, over and over and over, and one by one you see them succeed. You see them take the grueling steps to begin running and you see them improve, reaching greater heights than before. And each goal is met not because of some ridiculous ability or because the opponents dropped out (see that too often), but because of the HARD WORK and preservation of each and every member of the team.
And it is through this combined effort, the persistence and encouragement of one another, that they discover what it means, to run.