And I suppose before anyone starts making any ridiculing accusations, no I do not believe the Chinese women had legitimate performances.
My opposition to the idea of a "short track" is that there are so many blatant impossibilities with it as outlined above.
If the track was short, then all of the following must be true:
** The Chinese women, aided by the short track, were world beaters, yet the Chinese men, aided by the short track, were slower than top US high schoolers.
** If the track was short in Beijing, then either China had a legitimate 3:51 runner in Shanghai in 1997 and slew of 3:5X runners along with her, or the track in Shanghai in 1997 was short exclusively for the female 1500m runners of the meet.
** Somehow, the relays of both the women and the men suffered the same fate as the men. Despite being on a short track.
In fact, the men ran 3:08 at the 1993 Chinese National Championships, but managed to run 3:04 at the 1993 East Asian Games just months later. So somehow, the men are faster on a regular track than a short track?
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I've said this before, but a FAR more likely explanation is that the Chinese women were simply drugged to the extreme. I'm not talking drugged like many runners do now. I have no idea as to what they could have been on, but ALL of them had extremely short careers, which is VERY characteristic of extreme PED overuse, and Ma Junren was banned for having his athletes caught with drugs years later.
Note that drugs alone are not likely to explain this. The other factor is below:
~~800m~~
- 1st Place - Liu Dong - 1992 World Junior 1500m Champion, 1993 World 1500m Champion
- 2nd Place - Qu Yunxia - **See Below**
- 3rd Place - Ling Li - 1990 World Junior 800m Champion, 1992 Olympic 800m 5th Place, 1993 World 800m 6th Place
~~1500m~~
- 1st Place - Qu Yunxia - 1990 World Junior 1500m Champion, 1993 World 3000m Champion, 1992 Olympic 1500m Bronze
- 2nd Place - Wang Junxia **See Below**
- 3rd Place - Zhang Linli - **See Below**
~~3000m~~
- 1st Place - Wang Junxia - 1993 World 10000m Champion, 1996 Olympic 10000m Champion, 1996 Olympic 5000m Silver
- 2nd Place - Qu Yunxia - **See Above**
- 3rd Place - Zhang Linli - 1992 World Junior 3000m Champion, 1993 World 3000m Silver, 1993 World Marathon Silver
~~10000m~~
- 1st Place - Wang Junxia **See Above**
- 2nd Place - Zhong Huangdi - 1988 World 15k Road Race 4th Place, 1989 World 15k Road Race 2nd Place, 1991 World 10000m Silver, 1991 World 15k Road Race 3rd Place, 1992 Olympic 10000m 4th Place, 1992 World Cup 10000m Silver, 1993 World 10000m Silver,
- 3rd Place - Zhang Lirong - 1992 World Junior 3000m Bronze, 1993 World 3000m Bronze, 1993 World Marathon Bronze,
This is the MOST decorated gathering of female athletes in track and field history. EVERY one of them is either a World or Olympic medalist, and there were even more of them finishing out of the podium. And just LOOK at the range on some of them. Zhang Lirong and Zhang Linli medaled in both the 3000m and Marathon at international championships in the SAME YEAR. An athlete like that doesn't even exist today.
And some of them were basically assigned to rabbit the others to world records.
Yes, it's still a long shot, but if you drug up a group of World Champions and have them acting as pacers for each other, a slew of records like we have isn't out of the question.
At the very least, it's much more likely than a track being selectively short for female athletes during one event, and a different track being selectively short for just the women's 1500m in another event 4 years later.