Running used to represent the highest standards of purity, simplicity and ethics - I miss it

You should start watching race walking. The purity of running can be found in watching people waddle down the road and struggling to keep one foot on the ground at all times. There's no point in using PED's when your goal is an 8 min. mile.

Another option is nascar. Showcases the competitive nature of the human spirit at its finest.

yeah, but we still have curling & competitive eating, so shut your whiny pie-hole

Zatopek is the only one you listed whom I feel is certainly more clean than the runners of idea. What you say reminds me of the "when American was great" people. Nostalgia does not equal reality.

Oh how I miss the purity and character of men like Viren, Cierpinski, Salazar and Coe!

There have always been cheating b@st@rds, they just have better means today.

Vlad The Inhaler wrote:

Oh how I miss the purity and character of men like Viren, Cierpinski, Salazar and Coe!

There have always been cheating b@st@rds, they just have better means today.

+1

I personally enjoy HS and College running more than the Pros.

Don't get me wrong, College is becoming a bit of a wasteland with bringing in older foreign athletes and I'm sure there's PEDs there, too. But, grading on a curve, College running is more fun to watch. At least for me.

I do like the women pros but watching Jenny getting smoked has soured me on that, too.

Man on the sound wrote:

Nostalgia does not equal reality.

That is true, but not always. But in this case, the current competition to get the drug edge has become a huge part of the sport. It wasn't like that before. Its taken the heart out of the sport. Its changed the sport and not for the better.

People who don't see that are in denial. The plain truth is that it used to be better.

Stroller wrote:

You should start watching race walking. The purity of running can be found in watching people waddle down the road and struggling to keep one foot on the ground at all times. There's no point in using PED's when your goal is an 8 min. mile.

Yet they've been getting busted left and right the last five years. It might be the dirtiest event.

Except that it wasn't.

The testing was shit in the days of Coe. The athletes were doped to the gills.

But old men have falsely assumed the past to have been better than the present since the days of Plato, so everyone knows you won't change your mind and continue to worship your heroes of the past as clean, pure athletes they never were.

Nostalgia does not equal reality.[/quote]

It's not just nostalgia in this instance, it was different. You have to go back a while, but there was no money in the sport in the 60s, no big shoe deals, etc., so not as much incentive to cheat. If you read memoirs from that era written by the runners around Lydiard in New Zealand (Snell, Halberg, etc), Australians like Clark and Elliott, and Jim Ryun's stories from that era, it really was different. They did it because they loved it, and there was lot of friendships, traveling around Europe from meet to meet in a VW van with no money, etc. Not saying it was better or worse than today, but probably was more "pure"

PV runner wrote:

Nostalgia does not equal reality.

It's not just nostalgia in this instance, it was different. You have to go back a while, but there was no money in the sport in the 60s, no big shoe deals, etc., so not as much incentive to cheat. If you read memoirs from that era written by the runners around Lydiard in New Zealand (Snell, Halberg, etc), Australians like Clark and Elliott, and Jim Ryun's stories from that era, it really was different. They did it because they loved it, and there was lot of friendships, traveling around Europe from meet to meet in a VW van with no money, etc. Not saying it was better or worse than today, but probably was more "pure"[/quote]

Yes you are right in everything you wrote.

But when you say that you are not saying it was better or worse but that it was more "pure" I have to wonder why you wouldn't say it was better then.

Ovett & Coe doped to the gills?? Do you have any proof of that? Just because at times old men wrongly thought the good old days were better, doesn't mean every time they think that they are wrong. That would be a logical fallacy.

Realistist wrote:

Except that it wasn't.

The testing was shit in the days of Coe. The athletes were doped to the gills.

But old men have falsely assumed the past to have been better than the present since the days of Plato, so everyone knows you won't change your mind and continue to worship your heroes of the past as clean, pure athletes they never were.

Realistist wrote:

Except that it wasn't.

The testing was shit in the days of Coe. The athletes were doped to the gills.

But old men have falsely assumed the past to have been better than the present since the days of Plato, so everyone knows you won't change your mind and continue to worship your heroes of the past as clean, pure athletes they never were.

Sadly, I think this is true. Just like with crime and other quality of life indicators, we sometimes believe things to be getting worse while they've really never been better

Simplicity - yes

Purity - sortof yes - see below.

Ethics - never. 18th and 19th century races were fixed. My grandad was a sprinter in the 20's and the benefitted from under the table cash payments for all sorts of outcomes. Anytime betting is involved (eg Scottish Highland Games events) well, just imagine. Anytime after WW2 sprints could (but in the 40/50's only occasionally did) have PED's. After about 1960 forget it. Long Distances it's difficult to say whether Zatopek/Kuts took anything - I'd say not, but the science was known. I tend to regard anything after 1968 as PED/blood dope possible.

Pining for a drug free sport is like dreaming of world peace; nice thought, but people are people. Not gonna happen. I care much more about my own running and take the entertainment aspect with a pinch of salt. I'd rather the public watched doped up T and F athletes doing 'pure' esthetic events than watching moronic spectacles like WWF or NASCAR (the list is long!)

I was wrong to suggest running used to be perfect and beyond reproach. It wasn't. But the other posters here are wrong not to see how the sport has devolved with the high use of illegal drugs. Everyone trying to get an edge with increasing cheating. Some fixed old races is NOTHING like what is happening now.If you think its the same, you just fooling yourself.