ukathleticscoach wrote:
Too many doping cases to list but the cat is out of the bag.
Yes.
Certainly anyone at this stage who believes that they have any kind of superiority over middle-distances simply has some weird psychological need to believe that. It is not evidence based.
It's quite plausible that virtually every Kenyan elite runner is doping. And at this stage it's no more 'racist' to say or think that than it is to believe that all Russian elite performances are currently suspect.
There's a hardcore of fanatics here, either real SJW extreme left types or else perhaps connected with financial interests in the Kenyan doping system, who do not appear to have softened their stance at all in the last couple of months, where have had the bust of Kiprop, four further failed tests in the space of 3 weeks or so (including a world 800m bronze medallist), and revelations as to the corrupt state of 'testing' in Kenya coming from Kiprop himself and admitted too by Kenyan Athletics.
Given the passion for the sport, the size of their (young) population, the fact that all their elite athletes get funnelled into middle and long distance running, the Kenyans haven't actually even been dominant in middle-distance. Running no faster than the top 70's and 80's guys would be expected to run in modern shoes and Mondo tracks, only one 1500m runner pumped full of EPO able to get close to EL G's 20 year old record, and now likely to be blown away in the coming years by a white kid from Norway (and perhaps Max Burgin and a crop of talented middle-distance runners from GB).
They will probably still be able to microdose EPO for a few years yet given the corrupt Kenyan testers giving advance warning, but that probably wont be enough to avoid regular busts or prevent the steady decline in times and performances. It's possible we might have seen the last Kenyan Olympic Gold Medallists.