ex-runner wrote:
He said he wants to be the best in the world, was unaware he was the fastest non-African over 13.1 miles and didn't care that he was as his aim is to be the best.
That is the right attitude. The one that LRC should be promoting.
Editor's note. We are promoting it as it's the QOD of the right now.
https://youtu.be/My5AZ29TFpE?t=79http://www.letsrun.com/news/2019/02/julien-wanders-reacts-after-smashing-european-half-marathon-record-with-a-5913/
First of all, everyone in this thread should be aware that the OP has stated that 'everybody cheats given an opportunity', and he himself claims to be a retired 800m British sub-elite runner who competed in events where he boasted there was no testing. I've had to deal with him many times in the past here. He also has a history of screaming racist at anyone who suggests that there is a greater doping problem in Kenya than other countries. That there is a huge doping problem in Kenya is accepted by the IAAF, the Kenyan Athletics authorities, the Kenyan government, and judging by the comments left underneath Kenyan articles on doping busts, the general Kenyan population. Ex-Runner, apparently a British doper, doesn't accept this.
When the football/soccer World Cup was taking place in Russia last summer, ex-runner was ending every post he made on whatever topic with the mantra - 'it's coming home' (meaning England were going to win). So he accepts one can be patriotic in football, but not it appears in athletics.
The fact is, there's one thread on the front page of this board right at this moment explicitly claiming that East Africans and even North Africans are genetically advantaged for distance running. It's a common view, and a regularly expressed view here, that Africans do have a natural advantage at running. It's a good thing when a non-african runner disproves this, or at least shows that non-Africans can compete and that encourages other non-African young runners to compete, or even take up the sport in the first place. If Chinese were dominating distance running as East Africans had been for the last 20 years, nobody would be screaming racism if a non-Chinese winner occasionally won and it was pointed out.
Ex-Runner might have a point in that Wender's attitude is the right one to take for runners like him and the Ingebrigtsens who are competing against mainly Africans, but when he says it's the right attitude that LetsRun should take, we know he's just being an SJW a$$hat.
Further, it's in bad taste really the same day that yet another Kenyan distance runner has been suspended. It's good new when a non-African is reaching the top of the sport these days, because it means better testing in Africa is slowly having an effect and making the sport more of a level playing field. Although I have to agree, the fact that Wenders lives full time in Iten would suggest he' s no more or less likely to be doping than the athletes he trains with.
