Peach Pit wrote:
And why can Sumner do 1:46 to 1:44 with a huge negative split from 18-19, but Hoey must be doping?
Hoey set a HS indoor record that stood till Lutkenhaus broke it a few weeks ago. Wouldn't the person you'd most expect to break a middle distance AR be a 24-25 year old who set the national HS record in that same event?
Is his progression of 4s in 6 years more unbelievable than Brazier's progression of 4s in 1 year? Why? Because he stagnated for a few years? You know who else has stagnated for a few years? Donavan Brazier. His last SB was a 1:46.49 from 2022. Why is Hoey's more suspicious just because he did his stagnation years in a different order than Brazier?
Is it really so surprising that a huge talent, after stagnating for a few years, would switch coaches, do new training (obviously much stronger given his mile PB drop), and become top 5 in the country? Didn't we see Drew Hunter do that? And do you know what people have been telling Brazier to do for years? CHANGE COACHES! How are you gonna say on one hand that changing coaches would totally change Brazier from a mediocre 1:46 guy to someone who could be medaling, then on the other hand say Hoey changing coaches absolutely could not take him from a mediocre 1:47 guy to someone who could compete at the national level?
Also Hoey ran 1:47i in HS without supershoes. Now he's at the age for prime mid-d running and he has supershoes.
If you wanna say Hoey is doping but also everyone else, a la Hoppel, Kessler, and all the guys who beat them at the Olympics, are also doping, then that's dumb, but at least it's consistent. But you shouldn't be crying about Hoey any more than you do any other athlete. But that's not the majority of people, because EVERYONE is upvoting the Josh Hoey is doping posts, but when Jakob, Nuguse, Kessler, Hocker, and Fisher ran fast, anyone who said they were doping got downvoted a ton.
Josh Hoey isn't doping.
1. He can and he did.
2. There is too much room for doubt in this sport and the naysayers have to constantly bring it up.
3. I think that people see the improvement as suspect if it happens in an athlete's mid 20's as opposed to 18-21/22.
There are so many legitimate factors that can account for an athlete's dramatic improvement but the single, suspect factor overrides the.
I admit that even I now have my doubts and I have always been (and will continue to be) one who gives the benefit of the doubt to the athlete until they fail a drug test.