Gabriel Tual progression

He seriously needs to hold off on the steroids,and HGH. Those shoulders look completely abnormal.

Perhaps he's on the anabolic sterpids/Epo combo.

Don't forget in Paris there is a new track, faster than all the other tracks of the past, and athletes can use new shoes. For what we saw in training, this new shoes allow the athletes (depending on their biomechanical action) to have advantages, per lap, between 5/10 and one sec.

This means that 1'41"5 is equivalent to about 1'43" in 2020, and that the current 3'30" in 1500m are the 3'33" of 2020.

In Letsrun the most part of posters continue to think the secret is doping, because are obsessed about this argument ; but really the biggest advantage in the results of 800m, 1500m, 400m HS and 5000m, is due to the new shoes. Not only : top athletes now know possible running faster, maybe attempted new WR in several events, and this means the organizers give a budget for the pacers (that after Bekele and El Guerrouj and Shaheen were no more used because no chances to better WR), races are faster not only for the winners, but for all the runners.

Some data : at 8th July, we have already this situation in different events :

800m Men

Year 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024

1'42" 0 0 0 0 3

1'43" 0 1 0 2 8

1'44" 2 15 9 13 16

1'45" 16 56 49 48 62

1500m Men

Year 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024

3'28" 0 0 0 1 0

3'30" 3 6 4 10 2

3'32" 5 15 11 26 12

3'34" 12 41 23 47 40

5000m Men

Year 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024

12'40" 1 0 0 0 2

12'45" 1 0 0 6 3

12'50" 4 2 3 8 5

13'00" 6 15 15 18 30

1500m Women

Year 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024

3'50" 0 0 0 1 1

3'55" 0 4 2 5 6

4'00" 4 14 16 25 34

4'05" 28 54 64 63 69

The last edition of new spikes started to be used in 2022, and currently are better than two years ago.

I think everybody needs to look at times in different way : my table of comparison is, at the moment, looking at performances in 2020 and in 2025, the following :

800m M : 1'42"0 is 1'43" / 1'43"5 5 years ago

1500m M : 3'30" is 3'32" / 3'33"

5000m M : 12'45" is 12'50" / 12'53"

800m W : 1'57" is 1'58"5 / 1'59"

1500m W : 3'55" is 3'58" / 3'59"

5000m W : 14'10" is 14'18" / 14'22"

I don't want to speak about 10000m, since there are max 2 competitions in one year, and one of them is tactical. However, when 10000m was event classic in some meeting (Hengelo, Bruxelles and Eugene), I had 9 athletes running between 26'30" and 27', and among them only two were really athletes with high talent, so I think there was no improvement because the race (such as steeple) step by step disappeared from the best meetings and was no more stimulated (replaced by the HM).

Always a pro say the truth, against the biased LRC posters.
Eugene is a fast track too.

Let me repeat myself:

While I've definitely heard/read something or another about PEDs
and your deltoids specifically, I will point out that Tual's pointy
shoulders are just his abnormally large acromion processes, a bony
protrusion.

Insane that people think a bone is a muscle here lmao

I can only reasonably assume that at some point in every endurance athlete's progression, they are either told or realize on their own that the best are doping and they have to make a decision if they really hope to win more money and medals at World's and the Olympics. I can also assume that professional athletes around the world have similar easy access to PEDs. With thst baseline view, I can enjoy the competition.

Renato coming to the defense of a blatant doper.......................DRINK!

It's too difficult for your brain look at the FACTS I posted, instead it's easy to create with your imagination something behind the scene. You are happy to shoot off your mouth....

How come Benjamin Robert didn't go crazy yesterday then? He ran 1:43.75, 1:43.48, and 1:44.30 in his last three races at this meet. Actually really consistent! Then his countryman drops from a 1:44.23 to a 1:41.61 and you're claiming it's the track/shoes? Get the eff outta here man. It's clear what happened with Tual. I hold no such reservations with Wanyoni and you can even convince Sedjati is doing it right (ex-footballer, didn't take running seriously until 21). But Tual? He's the most blatant doper out there in this event.

Sometimes I wonder if these folks in the sport have actually convinced themselves that it's clean, lolz.

I’ll use the language Salvatore used. It is a staggering performance just like Hull’s. Both were good athletes, making finals and sticking their noses in races. But you did not see them as historical talents or capable of making big jumps like they did. I was expecting high 1:42s for Tual. It is a fast track and was a fast race, but it is more about Tual going from a tier 3 level to right there with the far more seemingly talented top 2.

Renato, how much difference do you think the new track in Paris makes compared to a normal track?

The track of Paris can give advantages in middle distances, while the track in Tokyo gave more advantage to sprinters and especially 400 hurdlers.

Every kind of technological advantage can produce improvement of different level, depending on the morphology of the athlete, the reactivity of his feet, the technique of his running. In Tokyo, for example, the track allowed the specialists of 400 hs (men and women) to maintain, with the same frequency, a longer stride, and many athletes were able to use 13 steps (15 for women) for one or two espace more, but at the speed of middle distance there was a little bit decrement in the frequency.

I think that the combination of the advantages from shoes and track surface can be, how I already wrote, among 1" per lap + or - 20% depending on the athlete (8/10 to 1"2). Athletes a little more heavy and with big muscles can have more advantage than very slim and light athletes. But this is a my opinion only, since there were no researches about this situation with athletes of high international level.

Not saying that Tual isn't suspicious, but this is a weird comparison; like 90% of the posters on LR weren't alive the last time Coe ran.

Hoppel has PRr'd by less than half a second this year after finally utilizing altitude training and having better runners to train with (Kessler). Hardly suspicious compared to others mentioned in this thread.

While I greatly appreciate your insights on training, you just have no clue when it comes to the shoes. Heavier athletes don't benefit from the shoes at all. The shoes are too bouncy and don't provide enough of a coefficient of stiffness to generate energy return for a heavier runner. It ends up forcing a heavier runner to change their stride, and then injury is likely. They really do benefit lighter runners. I think, in general, they have helped women more as well as thinner long-distance men as the softness prevents muscle damage from accumulating. The energy return helps make up for the less muscle on a smaller runner. Name one "bigger" runner that is benefiting.

In regards to time reduction, Rojo has actually previously done the math on this. It's about 0.75 seconds per lap, or 1.5 seconds for the 800 and just under 3 seconds for the 1,500. Hence, 1:44.00 --> 1:42.50 and 3:33.00 --> 3:30.00. The last major championship for the 800 without any athletes wearing the super shoes was in 2017 (Brazier definitely was wearing them in 2019). Bosse won in 1:44.67. 1:45.21 medaled. Give those times 1.5 seconds and we have 1:43-low to 1:43-high for the medals.

Arop isn't running any faster either. Those two are probably the least suspicious of the top 800 runners, and I will give Wanyoni the benefit of the doubt since he's 19 (supposedly).

If not take that one race(in Covid year, which is not very relevant) his best result was 1:43.95 and he was always been 1:44 guy for last 5 years

And his 1:42.77 from US trails, after rounds, without pacers, in heat, with not optimal splits, it's equivalent to low 1:42 or even high 1:41 in Paris race. So it's also a drop of 2 seconds for him in terms of shape not real time

If Arop doesn’t run under 1:42.5 in Monaco, it’ll be panic time for him and his team. He is likely targeting 1:41.