guy not from there wrote:
Another way of looking at it is this: Dave Moorcroft ran 13 flat 25 years ago and Derek Clayton ran 2:08 almost 40 years ago. Was that the very limit of human ability? Can no one run 12:50 or 2:06 without drugs?
And one more similar thought: only ONE human being on this planet has run faster than Seb Coe did for 800m since he set his PR over 1/4 century ago. Now although East Africans' best distances are 3k-10k, clearly they have had many, many top talents at 800m & 1500m (just look at the all-time list and they are all over them in those distances). So someone please explain to me how if these guys are all doped to the max (as 'EPO-ian' thinks they are), are all on steroids and EPO (that would be the perfect combo for 800, since it is both a power and endurance event, and yes, of course epo would help at 800, it is still a mostly aerobic event, and most of the top 800 runners have been miler types with great endurance), how haven't some of these super-talented, doped-out-of-their-minds on the best PED's ever available, not been able to beat Coe's time??? i mean, we know steroids help pure power and speed and recovery, and we know EPO helps aerobic ability, so...... surely if these super talents were all doped on the best drugs, at least a few would have run 1:39 by now, right? But they haven't. So how could that be?
There are only a few explanations for this:
1) They are doped, but PED's don't really work. But we know this to be false, and if it were true, then this whole debate would be moot anyway. Next..
2) Geb, Tergat, Bekele, Komen, El G etc all used tons of PED's, but for some strange reason, the conspiracy of doping African runners didn't reach down the 800. Silly. If the best african runners were all doped, their 800 guys would be too. Next...
3) Coe was doped to the max. Of course there is always speculation, but no one has ever even posited a serious plausible accusation of Coe and drugs. And EPO was not even around then, so even if he was using some PED's, he did not have access to what today's athletes have access to .
4) Maybe, just maybe, supreme physiological talent is better than any drug. Just as someone like me taking the best PED's in the world would still get annihilated by a clean Lance Armstrong every time, or never be as big and ripped as a clean Ahhnold Schwarzenegger, a clean Coe and a clean Geb and a clean Ryun can beat any very talented, but not as talented as them, athlete of their generation (and subsequent generations) who is on drugs. I would say that that is certainly the most logical explanation/answer for my question.
(and there is plenty of evidence that the East Africans do have a talent advantage for the distance races, due to their genetic adaptation to centuries of living at altitude and an active lifestyle. thus going a long way towards explaining their dominance of the distance events)