Abraham Kiptum WORLD RECORD 58:18 Half Marathon

Ha! That was an excellent effort at faux outrage. So I have a one track mind, solely focused on doping. Yet if you check, I also comment on the running shoe threads, the running history threads, the injury threads, movie threads, music threads, nutrition threads, exercise physiology and conditioning threads. Yet I only seem to see your posts these days in threads about Kenyan doping busts, where you always enter the debate and try and shut down the discussion by claiming there isn't a problem. If you are watching your athletes 24/7, 365 days in the year then you're obsessed. But the truth is you aren't. It is extremely doubtful that there has been a clean world record set in any event since the early-mid 1980s.

To be honest, it was a stupid comment, not to mention desperate. Participating in other threads doesn't make it less stupid and desperate.

Subway Surfers wrote:

Ha! That was an excellent effort at faux outrage. So I have a one track mind, solely focused on doping. Yet if you check, I also comment on the running shoe threads, the running history threads, the injury threads, movie threads, music threads, nutrition threads, exercise physiology and conditioning threads. Yet I only seem to see your posts these days in threads about Kenyan doping busts, where you always enter the debate and try and shut down the discussion by claiming there isn't a problem. If you are watching your athletes 24/7, 365 days in the year then you're obsessed. But the truth is you aren't. It is extremely doubtful that there has been a clean world record set in any event since the early-mid 1980s.

I guess this argument becomes important once we develop a shrink ray gun. Height plays a small role, but contrary to your suggestion, it is not important to include it in the discussion. Mass is important three ways: - The energy cost of moving a mass over any distance increases directly with more mass - Heat dissipation is a function of mass (volume) divided by skin surface (area) - Wind resistance is a function of frontal surface area Being smaller in height gives a small advantage, decreasing wind resistance. Being larger in height, for the same mass, gives a slight heat dissipation advantage, but for more mass, it becomes a disadvantage. But most important is possessing less mass (without sacrificing muscle strength) which decreases the total energy requirement, and decreases heat accumulation.

Can't Believe What I'm Hearing wrote:

Hall, Rupp & Moen are 5-10...shrink them down in height to the 5-5/5-6 frames of Wanjiru, Geb, Bekele, etc. and they would be similar in bodyweight. Solinsky may be a "hefty 160 pounds" but he's also over 6-1. If he carried 160 lbs on a 5-5 frame of the Bekele frames and still ran that fast...that would be miraculous!

OTOH, a couple of fast cats built identical to some E. Africans are Iguider (5-7,115) & Manzano (5-5, 125). And the two fastest Japanese marathoners are Yuta Shitara (5-6, 104) & Suguru Osako (5-7, 115).

It's important to include the height of distance runners and not just the weight when you're comparing body mass.

Snell. Smaller isn't always better.

I agree with your last point.

Armstronglivs wrote:

Subway Surfers wrote:

It is extremely doubtful that there has been a clean world record set in any event since the early-mid 1980s.

I agree with your last point.

Of course the two of you would.

That's when the records started to be constantly beaten by non-white people.

White middle/long-distance runners would NEVER dope! Right?

It's funny when we look at East African performances, and the big breakthroughs in the 1990s, the technique used is to compare their 3% gains against the previous era, and this is used to "prove" the 3% benefit, or the 1:00 benefit, that scientists predict. But when we use the same technique for non-Africans, and we come up with small figures, like 0.3%-0.8%, this is considered misleading. It looks like you are arguing that the natural limit for non-Africans for 10K is truly around 27:44-28:08, and runners like Barrios, Lopes, Mamede only achieved their best times because they were fully doped. While at the same time, the natural baselines for Africans were better than the times of Henry Rono's 27:22 of the '70s, and once the Africans really started doping, they could shatter previous records, bringing it down to 26:17. I've said it many times that this is really a concession that the East Africans are inherently physically superior, something I would not argue against. Once you've conceded that, it hardly matters whether doping is providing a 1 minute advantage or 10 seconds, because the significant factor is that Africans are simply physically superior than non-Africans by some 30-60 seconds. This better explains why Rosa, Hermans, and Brother Colm succeeded in Kenya and Ethiopia -- the depth of quality of the raw material was just that much better. But this is also pure speculation, playing out one possible scenario. We could speculate, as others do here, that Africans and non-Africans actually have the same baseline (a Wejo-esque 28:00), and the difference is just the quantities of drugs the Africans can get away with. This puts in doubt the assumptions of high doping prevalence with a large benefit, not to mention the intelligence of non-African athletes and their coaches, for being unable to figure out the doping combination in a way that many Kenyan schoolboys can, when they were getting their butts kicked for decades. Not sure why you want to place any importance in the Kenyan marathons of the 70s and 80s. The East African "explosion" in the marathon started in 2003 with Tergat, then really took off with Geb in 2007. Excluding Ryan Hall's wind-aided performance, Tergat's 2002 performance of 2:05:48 put the marathon world record out of every non-African's reach ever since, while Africans have brought it down a further 4 minutes.

Let's pretend for a moment that exceptions are not the same as generalizations. Smaller is always better, to a point, but though mass and size is important and often overlooked, it is not the only factor. These factors matter less for 800m and the mile. And Snell did not run the times the smaller Africans are running today. A better example would have been Solinsky's non-African milestone of sub-27:00, despite his large size. This was due in large part to the pace-making, and Solinsky running behind the pacemakers, Rupp, and Chelenga.

Armstronglivs wrote:

Snell. Smaller isn't always better.

Lots of nonsensical gibberish. Basically its the Africans use of EPO and the 5-8 minutes that it helps them in the marathon vs others that don't have that access.

Lol. Tergat's 2:05:48 put the marathon record out of reach for non-Africans? Do you realize a certain non-African just ran that exact time last year?

wait wait wait, I know that one! wrote:

Armstronglivs wrote:

I agree with your last point.

Of course the two of you would.

That's when the records started to be constantly beaten by non-white people.

White middle/long-distance runners would NEVER dope! Right?

Like m&w shot put, discuss, the women's 400m & 800m WRs. I have doubts about longer distances records set in the 1980s by white athletes or Paula's time which all smell of transfusions. Check the Houlihan thread. Check the Jager thread.

El Keniano wrote:

Sad to see Americans turn on and cannibalise the only truly talented American-born distance athlete over a dubious leak. Then again, loyalty isn't a big deal to you guys, is it?

Move to Iten, Evan. Kenyans admire you and will happily have you.

Ouch! That doesn't look good.

rekrunner wrote:

Let's pretend for a moment that exceptions are not the same as generalizations.

Smaller is always better, to a point, but though mass and size is important and often overlooked, it is not the only factor.

These factors matter less for 800m and the mile. And Snell did not run the times the smaller Africans are running today.

A better example would have been Solinsky's non-African milestone of sub-27:00, despite his large size.

This was due in large part to the pace-making, and Solinsky running behind the pacemakers, Rupp, and Chelenga.

Armstronglivs wrote:

Snell. Smaller isn't always better.

Lighter is generally better - hence smaller is favoured, as you say. But any generalisation will have its exceptions. The governing issue is probably power-to-wait ratio. Power is more important in the middle rather than the longer distances. Snell was not built to be a 1500-5k runner, like El G. Too big. (Clayton a possible exception in the marathon.) But his strength was an advantage over 800 and for kicking in the 1500. Taking into account different eras and tracks etc. I don't think the smaller Africans since were necessarily better at his specialty. Double Olympic champion.

wait wait wait, I know that one! wrote:

Armstronglivs wrote:

I agree with your last point.

Of course the two of you would.

That's when the records started to be constantly beaten by non-white people.

White middle/long-distance runners would NEVER dope! Right?

Actually - you know nothing, Jon Snow.

Everybody dopes. It isn't a racial issue - as much as you might like to make it one. But doping became much more widespread from the late 80's onwards.

rekrunner wrote:

It's funny when we look at East African performances, and the big breakthroughs in the 1990s, the technique used is to compare their 3% gains against the previous era, and this is used to "prove" the 3% benefit, or the 1:00 benefit, that scientists predict.

But when we use the same technique for non-Africans, and we come up with small figures, like 0.3%-0.8%, this is considered misleading.

This I don't understand: Are you assuming that all non-African runners were using EPO and/or other PEDs and therefore you come up with unexpectedly small figures matched against the E. African top times? If that's the case, I don't know how you can honestly conclude that every non-African was doping in the 90s & 00s, and therefore should have been improving more than "0.3%-0.8%" and setting WRs, and all that.

Since I don't feel comfortable lumping all non-Africans from the 90s & 00s in a doping presumptive category without some type of evidence (e.g., doping positive for EPO or any other PED, implicated in a doping ring, affiliation with a doping coach and/or doping doctor, etc.), I'll look at EPO positives, doping ring affiliations, previous PED history cases and analyze individual improvement.

What you'll see in the cases described above many times (but not always - there can be a fair amount of interindividual variation) is a ~3% improvement in time in the athlete's progression chart over a short period of time, irrespective of what their PB ends up to be. So, not every 02-vector doper is going to set WRs or run times better than the clean (?) benchmarks you have established pre-90's. An 02-vector doper who is a 13:30 runner tapped out clean isn't going to rocket to WR level times or even the sub-13 spectrum. Using the ~3% figure; you'd be looking at 20-21 secs or so improvement for our 13:30 runner. However, a faster more talented runner with a tapped out clean low-13 could break into sub-13 territory. Remember doper Mourhit? Look at his chart; he's stagnated at the 13:10 mark or so and then jettisons to his PB of 12:49 in 2 short years - all before his EPO positive. And did he run anything close that PB upon returning to competition post-ban? The answer is no and I don't think that's a coincidence.

I don't make assumptions about EPO use for anyone who hasn't been busted for it, but I've noticed that those who attempt to argue with me make assumptions that span the whole range. You just saw above that Barrios (and generally all the top non-Africans) could have used EPO and other doping methods and substances, when he ran 27:08, while others say all the best non-Africans in the three decades of EPO were clean because of higher morals, culture and ethics. What I assume, is that IF prevalence is HIGH (the assumption of others), and IF the effect is HIGH (the assumption of others), THEN we would have seen African-esque progress in the 1990s among the TOP non-Africans too, especially when they were starting to get beat so badly, and would have had a bigger incentive to try out this new undetectable endurance drug. Because we didn't, this makes me doubt the effect is HIGH for non-Africans, which makes me doubt the effect is HIGH for Africans, and their superior results are due to other non-doping factors. IF the effect is HIGH, African success could have been easily replicated way back in the 1990s. Your method suffers from many flaws I have already outlined. We've seen wejo improve by 7% after 5 years of college. I think what you will find is that clean athletes and dirty athletes alike generally make progress and often have breakthrough years. The ones who don't won't appear in the lists. It also looks like, from your analysis of the middle, combined with small progress at the top, we should conclude from it that EPO works in the middle, but not at the top.

That's a good title for your post. In the 1990s, everyone had access to EPO and it was untestable and highly abused worldwide. Look above and in previous threads -- I'm told non-Africans started using it as early as 1986 to replace the blood transfusions they were doing before. Access has never been a problem. That's why I picked Tergat in 2002 -- in 16 years that followed, one non-African finally tied it. You were right though, and I was wrong to use Tergat in 2002, I should have said Khannouchi's 1999 world record of 2:05:42.

Dopeydoo wrote Lots of nonsensical gibberish:

Basically its the Africans use of EPO and the 5-8 minutes that it helps them in the marathon vs others that don't have that access.

Lol. Tergat's 2:05:48 put the marathon record out of reach for non-Africans? Do you realize a certain non-African just ran that exact time last year?

You can also add Jepchumba & Yego to that list. So, you don't think those heavy hitters are any big deal? Imagine the chaos if several of the top male & female runners had tested positive in the U.S. or UK. Heads would roll and Congress would probably have an emergency session over it...and you think these BIG names from Kenyan are no BIG deal? Please rekrunner....you can do better than that. Lol.

Do you have a better way with dopers who don't want to reveal the specifics of their programs? Even if Ramzi never tested positive, or those insane off-scores of his from Helsinki were never revealed, any competent coach would see a BIG RED FLAG when he dramatically improved in one freaking year from 3:39.30 (03) to 3:30.25 (04)! He also improved his 800 proportional from 1:47.56 (03) to his PB of 1:44.24 @ Helinski! All this after he starting training with Boulami...had to been the fresh air of the Atlas mountains & fine Morrocan cusine. ? And don't forget that amazing double-gold where he easily wiped out a world-class field in both events:

"James Nolan was 100 per cent sure about Ramzi. Not only was he never taken in or mildly impressed, he knew from day one Ramzi was on drugs. When the Moroccan turned Bahraini first burst onto the scene at the 2005 World Championships in Helsinki, winning the 800-1,500 metre double, Nolan told us he was “doped up to his eyeballs” – but of course we never printed that. We were 99 per cent sure; we just didn’t have any hard evidence."

Who’s Jarod Word?