World Champion Emma Coburn Expresses Doubt that Beatrice Chepkoech's World Record in Steeple is Clean

fixed + rigged wrote:

More likely IMO, the numerous Kenyans with better PBs were paid off to let her win. Everyone knows that shoe sponsors will give white USA women more money, so the new balance is attained.

yep, timing is perfect, as LRC front page has Emma smiling at us from her likely hefty $$$ shoe dollars.

Investigative reporting could easily put 2+2 together, but there's a reason that media covers up the news.

Emmas just trying to stay relevant now that she isn’t even the top American in a watered-down event...

The major difference between Emma Coburn and Beatrice Chepkoech is that Chepkoech is a fast flat 3000 runner and Emma Coburn is not.

Look, Chepkoech is the fastest flat runner to ever take a serious go at the women's steeplechase and work on improving her hurdling form. She could legit qualify for major champs in a flat race for Kenya. The rest of the African women steeplechasers could not qualify in the flat races so they gave it a go at the steeplechase.

Did Emma really "Jimmyj" herself?

She must not have watched any Seinfeld.

stir the pot wrote:

How is it that a career non-champion is suddenly "World Champion" as an outlier to her trends and history of performances?

Obviously she was talking about herself, and others like Webb.

When directly asked if she thought Chepkoech’s record was legitimate, Coburn said, “I shouldn’t comment because there is no proof to prove otherwise, but I think it’s important to look at trends and history of performances and where there’s big outliers we might need to pause.”

I shouldn't comment either, but I think it's important to ask her about other famous records (like F Griffith-Joyner, or P Radcliffe), and if we need to pause about such big outliers.

rojo wrote:

The reality is people were talking about white runners from the West being doped on here from this site's earliest days. The site started in 2000. In 2002, I started coaching at Cornell and probably during the first month of practice, a freshman on the team from Oregon who worked with Salazar in HS came up to me wand told me that Salazar hated me/LetsRun and the reasoning was we allowed people to talk about doping with Athletics West on here.

Correct. Yet you gotta admit that the mods routinely deleted posts pointing out that Jager was ranked as the most likely doper by the IAAF in 2016, more suspicious than Rupp and Kiprop, and that he then lied about it, with two different lies.

You obviously have preferences here.

This is a tough topic for a letsrun troll like me. Do I let my incel instincts take over and use this opportunity to call an attractive woman with an opinion a lazy, entitled crybaby, or should I channel my inner bigot and accuse every person from Africa of being a doper?

so Chepkoech was running 9s consistently this season before she dropped the 8:44.

does Coburn think she just took some magic pill that made her 15 seconds faster overnight?

also, Coburn refers to herself as one of the heroes of the event...lost all credibility right there

Jonathan Gault wrote:

stir the pot wrote:

Of course, LRC would never print rumours about whether USA Westerners like Emma Coburn is "clean".

How is it that a career non-champion is suddenly "World Champion" as an outlier to her trends and history of performances?

If Beatrice Chepkoech came out and said what Emma Coburn said yesterday, you can be damn sure we'd run it on the front page.

Bull crap jon. You know it.

LR is too busy trying to be American runners buddies instead of being journalists

There isn't a clean world record in track. Why would there be, when there is every incentive for elites to dope and has been so for years? WADA catches 1% of professional athletes, when their estimates are that up to 40% may be doping. The best clean athletes won't beat the best dopers. Most dopers aren't being caught and will not be caught. When was the last time a world record holder was busted? Gatlin? And before him Ben Johnson in '88? Track will be absolutely no different from that wonderful sport, cycling. Welcome to your reality.

Emma Coburn is a NPC!

Livstrong7 wrote:

There isn't a clean world record in track. Why would there be, when there is every incentive for elites to dope and has been so for years? WADA catches 1% of professional athletes, when their estimates are that up to 40% may be doping. The best clean athletes won't beat the best dopers. Most dopers aren't being caught and will not be caught. When was the last time a world record holder was busted? Gatlin? And before him Ben Johnson in '88? Track will be absolutely no different from that wonderful sport, cycling. Welcome to your reality.

I respectfully disagree, Bekele is clean.

mmb wrote:

Coburn picked the weakest event in track in which to specialize, then expresses doubt when someone with faster 1500/5000 times who can hurdle properly puts the record away for a while. Chepkoech's flat times are good, but not great. Coburn got lucky to win the WC. Just wait until someone with real talent tackles the steeplechase.

Correct. Women's distance events in track and swimming have fielded the weakest crop of athletes imaginable. That has been glaring for years. Just look at them, especially the track athletes. And when you limit it to steeplechase then it gets even more ridiculous because not many of them can even hurdle competently, except the American stiffs.

No kidding there is massive room for improvement. Chepkoeach is the first taller sleek looking athlete to enter that event. It was evident in 2017 that she had easily the most upside, especially given the decent hurdling form.

I never would have predicted 8:44 but the way she did it enabled it to happen. Emma Coburn is remarkably ignorant to doubt a performance like that, just like the Almaz Ayana skeptics make fools of themselves. Anyone who follows horse racing knows that early relaxed leads can enable a performance that far surpasses the norm. You never tighten up and just keep going and going. Once extreme talent level combines with a scenario like that, prior barriers mean very little.

aewfawefawf wrote:

I don't get what Coburn's supposed narrative is, does she think Chepkoech decided she wanted a WR and took a ton of drugs before Monaco, then backed off for the rest of the season? (And we're supposed to believe she's the only one taking drugs?)

I get that she's frustrated.

Emma likely had suspicions about Ruth Jebet coming out of nowhere so she is suspicious of women who burst onto the steeple scene but as some have pointed out Beatrice has run 8:28 for 3k. She's a very good flat runner.

And I've never really bought the idea that people dope up for one race. So everyone roided up for the 12:43 5k ?

I can see how Emma is suspicious of course of the world record holder. I'm very surprised she expressed her suspicions publicly.

tartarm wrote:

Jonathan Gault wrote:

If Beatrice Chepkoech came out and said what Emma Coburn said yesterday, you can be damn sure we'd run it on the front page.

Bull crap jon. You know it.

LR is too busy trying to be American runners buddies instead of being journalists

Totally false. We're constantly accused of having an anti-NOP bias and anti-Galen Rupp bias because we let people question whether there performances are dirty.

I'm glad she went public with what is the likeliest scenario regarding Chepkoech. Takes guts to say that.

It's funny how Flanagan and Meb announce their suspicions about Rupp publicly and some of these same deranged LRC trolls love it, yet here is Coburn doing the same thing with a far more suspicious package and look what we have here. Hate on Coburn. Wow. Well, go f yourselves, I'm 100% behind her.

I think a missed point would is that if both Chepkoech and Jebet are dirty, then the next best runner is 8:58. This would mean that the top American is only 2 seconds or ~1 second per mile slower than the best in the world. Never is this true. In the 1500m, Americans are 6 seconds behind, in the 3000m Americans are about 20 seconds behind, or if you look at results in the past decade, Americans are still 10 seconds behind. The 5000m has Americans 23 seconds behind also. So to me this result seems perfectly valid at 16 seconds faster than the fastest American. On top of that, the Americans record holder runs 8:53 flat vs Chepkoech’s 8:28 flat and Frerichs struggles to even break 60 in a 400.

Only thing you fail to mention is that all of those WR records are doped records and mean nothing.