Decline of Distance running 1990s

If it was all about EPO, then why weren´t the Europeans/Americans running faster? Surely you aren´t going to claim that "white runners don´t take PED´s"?

Sports physiologist wrote:

The decline was due to the explosion of African runners. The absolute incrediable depth of the East African countries obliterated European and American runners, and it still is to this day.

Good heavens! I wonder, how many people still believe this garbage? In reality, the performances in the 800/1500 m declined in late 80's and early 90's. It was the sudden disappearance of white runners from track in mid 80's that made Africans look seemingly "superior". They were simply left on track alone. The onset of EPO around 1995 is another thing.

Man you are delusional. You think people just stopped running? No, the East africans came in and started running sub13 5ks and left the euros and americans standing mouth agape. THAT is what happened. The game freakin changed!

The depth they have is staggering. Look at the top 50 times in every distance event. Complete and total domination.

I think in the US one factor is that fewer young kids are going into distance running, so smaller pool to draw from later. A number of reasons for that, including:

1. Many other sports to choose from now, both inside and outside of school (soccer, volleyball, etc)

2. Kids are transported by their parents more, so they depend less on getting themselves around by walking and biking long distances. So when they then get into school and try running a mile race it is not fun, it's hard, unpleasant, they do not pursue it. By contrast, the African talk about having to walk to school 6 miles each way when they were kids and then going home and tending the goats out in the field. I think it makes a difference mentally and physically when they grow up.

I didn't say anything about who did or didn't use PEDS, I just stated that EPO was a contributing factor to some outrageous performances and drug tests have proven that over the last 15 years. EPO had a direct impact on the way the records and times changed overnight in the mid 90's. I'm not going to start naming countries and regions of the world wear drug-use is more prevelent, but I think people have a pretty good idea if you do your research.

About 20 years when you are a young 13:35-13:40 type guy then you think that maybe you can get down to 13:15-13:20 and compete internationally when the WR is about 13:00 or races are won in 13:10. But when everyone and their brother starts running 12:50, etc. then everything changes and less and less of those 13:35-13:40 type guys stay in the sport and develop (same can be said in the steeple and 10k, marathon, etc.) and that's what happened during that era. The gap exploded and the second tier guys disappeared.

Then people started hammering away at it around 2000 or so with a little post-college support here and there and now you have a lot of depth in the US at every event. Even the level it takes to be good in college is different. Sure, there were always international level guys competing in college, but now there are a lot more closer to that level. Just this year a sub 4:00 did not make the DI national field. Think about that for a moment.

In another chapter, but the same issue, look at some of the countries like Canada, NZ, Australia, etc. which have now set qualifying standards higher then the IAAF and IOC to compete at World Champs, Olympics, Commonwealth Games, etc. They have a few superstars, but no developing guys coming through because they can't see themselves realistically making that jump and it's discouraging. For example if you're a 22 year old guy running 8:35 in the steeple and the standard to compete in a championship is 8:25 then you have insentive to stay in it for 3-4 more years and go for. But if you're country is saying that doesn't matter, you need to run 8:15 and prove you will be top 12 or whatever then that guy will probably be done. He may be able to get to 8:15, but not straight from 8:35. And experience plays a big factor too.

All that to say that discouragement is a big reason people leave the sport, whether that's from lack of financial support, frustration with people who use PED's or just hassles and politics in their home federation. But usually if people see even a glimpse of light at the end of the tunnel then they will chase their dream for as long as they can.

Just an FYI, here are the "A" standards for the 1996 Olympics.

1500m 3:38.5

5000m 13:29

10,000m 28:10

Marathon 2:16

I can't remember the steeple, but I think it was 8:28 or 8:30.

"But when everyone and their brother starts running 12:50, etc. then everything changes and less and less of those 13:35-13:40 type guys stay in the sport and develop (same can be said in the steeple and 10k, marathon, etc.) and that's what happened during that era. The gap exploded and the second tier guys disappeared..."

Great post. And you can apply that to the marathon, 10k etc..

777 wrote:

two brief points:

1) for the UKers: Remember when Paula Radcliffe was the best marathoner (of any gender) in the United Kingdom? Wasn't that long ago.

2) For those on the other side of the pond:

http://img842.imageshack.us/f/hstimes.png/

I bet if you lay that HS times graph over HS participation rates for T & F and for population in that same age group its a prettty nice fit.

This is ridiculous

dsrunner has the day off wrote:

Actually not that great of a quote since Barnicle is completely wrong. You repeat a lie enough, someone is bound to believe it.

Here are the not so shabby US bests by runners training 80 or less miles/week:

800 1:42.6

1000m 2:13.9

1500m 3:29.3

2000m 4:52.4

3000m 7:29

Steeple 8:09

5000m 12:54.1

10000m 27:10.7

And our brightest hopes in the marathon?

Hall severely overtrained and has now cut back to < 100/week.

Ritz got injured again and has cut back to < 90.

And Gotcher ran mega-miles one more year and went from 2:10 back to 2:20.

What does ridiculous mean in this context? I have seen interviews by pretty much all of the guys (Not sure about Johnny) where they say they are running less than 80mpw. The exception would be Rupp where they say he averaged under 80 mpw for the year with a peak of 90 mpw for 10 weeks. I would call him a 90 mpw guy. It should be fun now that he is running 110mpw to see if he improves

Aghast wrote:

This is ridiculous

dsrunner has the day off wrote:

Actually not that great of a quote since Barnicle is completely wrong. You repeat a lie enough, someone is bound to believe it.

Here are the not so shabby US bests by runners training 80 or less miles/week:

800 1:42.6

1000m 2:13.9

1500m 3:29.3

2000m 4:52.4

3000m 7:29

Steeple 8:09

5000m 12:54.1

10000m 27:10.7

And our brightest hopes in the marathon?

Hall severely overtrained and has now cut back to < 100/week.

Ritz got injured again and has cut back to < 90.

And Gotcher ran mega-miles one more year and went from 2:10 back to 2:20.

It is ridiculous that this would be convincing evidence that high-mileage is counter-productive. Also where have you read that Hall is running less than 100 miles a week? How can you base the poor performance of Goucher on high mileage. There is no evidence one way or the other in the random stats sited here.

sdffsd wrote:

What does ridiculous mean in this context? I have seen interviews by pretty much all of the guys (Not sure about Johnny) where they say they are running less than 80mpw. The exception would be Rupp where they say he averaged under 80 mpw for the year with a peak of 90 mpw for 10 weeks. I would call him a 90 mpw guy. It should be fun now that he is running 110mpw to see if he improves

Aghast wrote:

This is ridiculous

A different time & place. wrote:Willis broke Walker's national record for 1500m and in 2008 Willis's best time for the season only placed him 19th on the world list. That shows how many guys in just that one event had a shot at an Olympic medal from that year alone

that's not an accurate representation

a doped ramzi was easily in 3'28 shape ( remember that ridiculous prelim with 53s finish ) & asbel likely 3'29 & willis certainly in 3'30/3'31 shape

there was no way there were 16 faster intrinsic 1500 guys than willis that year - nearer maybe a handful

lksjadflkj wrote:

Sprintphone wrote:

The decline was due to the explosion of African runners. It's easier to win gold medals and win big city marathons if you take (most) of them out of the picture.

The absolute incrediable depth of the East African countries obliterated European and American runners, and it still is to this day.

This is the correct answer. All the great non-African runners from the 70's and 80's wouldn't be competitive in the slightest given today's competition.

Please go somewhere with this crap! I could also say that "All the great non-African runners from the 50's wouldn't be competetive with all the great non-African runners from the 70's and 80's".

You have no idea about the development of times during the last 3 decades. By parroting this garbage, you only drive potential talents away from a running career.

Sprintphone wrote:

Sports physiologist wrote:

Good heavens! I wonder, how many people still believe this garbage? In reality, the performances in the 800/1500 m declined in late 80's and early 90's. It was the sudden disappearance of white runners from track in mid 80's that made Africans look seemingly "superior". They were simply left on track alone. The onset of EPO around 1995 is another thing.

Man you are delusional. You think people just stopped running? No, the East africans came in and started running sub13 5ks and left the euros and americans standing mouth agape. THAT is what happened. The game freakin changed!

The depth they have is staggering. Look at the top 50 times in every distance event. Complete and total domination.

Please! God! PLease, help me!!!

If it was all about EPO, then why weren´t the Europeans/Americans running faster? Surely you aren´t going to claim that "white runners don´t take PED´s"?

They took EPO. The problem is that those runners, who were willing to compete after 1985, belonged rather to C-performance category.

I remember an interesting conversation in 2008 when Nick Willis medaled in the 1500m in Beijing when someone pointed out that John Walker won the gold in 1976. But there was nowhere near the world-wide depth of guys racing at that level then and Walker held the world record in the mile...

There have always been great runners in different eras, but the depth is now beyond any other time in the sport.

Oh, really? And I thought that athletics was in the state of decay, because the development in the majority of field events shows slow decline, and without the help of doping, all track events below the 3000 m would have been stagnating since late 80's.

Or do you base your claims on performances that were not officially recorded in historical stats?

Without blood doping, the current performance level in the 800/1500 m is virtually the same like in 1985. In fact, the competition level at these distances is now the lowest in post-war history and becomes an utter joke.

Non-doping times in long distances have been slowly improving, which can be demonstrated in years, when a new anti-doping tests shows up on the scene and times drop dramatically on the natural level (e.g. 2000-2002 or 2006-2010). But the improvement is really gradual and slow, slower than before mid 80's. The natural maximum in the 5000 m is 12:50 something, and in the 10 000 m, I seriously doubt that anybody ran under 26:45 without EPO. Actually, it still may be a huge overstimation, because in 2000, when the first anti-EPO test was introduced, the best times dramatically declined to mere 27:00.

Do you really think that when only Africans compete and other nations leave the sport, the competition becomes tougher?

you are a f***ing moron

your plethora of drivel is unsurpassed

2008 Outdoor 1500 yearly list:

http://www.iaaf.org/statistics/toplists/inout=o/age=n/season=2008/sex=M/all=n/legal=A/disc=1500/detail.html

ventolin^3 wrote:

you are a f***ing moron

your plethora of drivel is unsurpassed

No way, man. My drivel EASILY surpasses that of this Sports Physiologist dude.

I agree, Peter Coe's quote "Long slow distance makes long slow runners" was a big factor. Coe's training was very misunderstood and copied incorrectly by many in the UK and the US.