CalcuVenty wrote:
This thread is kept alive partly because of the calculo/Deano battle and partly because it was originally created because the OP knew some bad news about Kenyans was on the way (their Oly champ chick was caught). Threads like this are always put up when some E. African has landed in a situation that officials may not be able to initially cover up, although they'll work hard after the fact to come up with stories about false positives and mishandled samples.
Deano is right, Bile was at his best in '89. I'll dial it up by stating the un-PC truth, and that truth is that if Bile had been a European (or E. Asian for that matter) he would have been DQ'd for interfering with Coe as he did in the World Cup.
Not all great performers were sick with the flu or some other malady before their best 800s. Ryun's performance is notable because he ran 1:50.3y just under 90 minutes before running 1:44.9y. But he wasn't coming off some illness. Cruz wasn't coming off the flu when he ran 1:41, he was feeling 'spacey' as he said because he had run a string of fast races, and when he felt that way he said that he would always run fast even if physically he didn't feel as if he would be able to. Coe coming back and running so well in 1989 lends some evidence to the belief of many that he never really hit his full potential, nor did Ryun or even Cram for that matter, just like many, many other great athletes throughout history. Ryun didn't reach his potential at the 800/1500 (horrible training) and Cram had a lot more to go in the 1500 but the injuries really knocked him around, never mind that he was competing in an era where there weren't races every 4 days that had rabbits running at WR pace - same goes for Coe, Ovett, Maree, Scott, the whole 'crew' in the 1980's.
I think that the rampant EPO use in E. Africa has skewed things, where we now have the spectacle of talented athletes like say Kiprop who's surrounded by a bunch of guys who are great responders to the drug(s) but who wouldn't be able to crack 3:34-3:35 without them. Basically most records set after '87 or so are suspect. Anyone who thinks Noah Ngeny was clean is an idiot. Daniel Komen was a farce, so was El G. Look at Geb. He couldn't break 13 but once he got on the sauce it became ridiculous. There's a lot of talent in E. Africa, but not as much at we are seeing, heh.
Rudisha is a beast. Unfortunately, after his big injury and brother O'Connell remarking last year on the dodgy characters Rudisha was hanging and training with, I have to wonder if he was ever clean. For now I'll assume he was up until he decided to go with the rest of frauds in order to make sure his "recovery" was complete for Rio, but there's always going to be some nagging suspicions.
Calculo is a 'tard by the way. It was funny to see him chased off the TafNews board (he was under one of his many aliases) by a guy who called him out on a lie he was spewing about the Jim Ryun Dusseldorf video.
Interesting, pretty sure Bile and Jama Aden are linked (but that could be later through coaching). It was the Kim McDonald influence that distorted things, take his crew out of the equation and everything else looks more sensible (it is not a smear on Kenyans) though Hermens needs a second look. On the surface Rudisha looks shady, looking at him he might raise some eyebrows as well but he is tested regularly (if he did these times in 1998 or 2003 it would be dodgy) and he does have tremendous genetics.
