Kev2 wrote:
El G did not have as good top end as many of his competitors but he rarely lost. It only seems to matter in a slow, tactical race ---if you are the strongest in the field, you can take the sting out of the best of kickers.
That's true, but only for the 1500m. Guys like Ngeny had much more natural/raw speed, and even beat El G in the Olympics on his best distance.
However, in a 5000m Guerrouj had the strongest kick/speed of all, only way to beat him was to run out the kick of him. The difference to Hassan is, that she has the strongest kick in 1500, 3000, 5000, 10000 and even half-marathon. She doesn't have a best event, which makes her even more suspicious (range from 1:56, over 3:51/4:12, to 14:22 and finally 1:05:15, soon 1:03/1:04 if she races Valencia later this month).
She had a chance to legitimate herself as a runner, by simply not joining NOP which was under investigation and often related to doping. This hasn't just been made public since this year, since 2011 NOP already became suspicious and each year there were scandals that added to it.