What will it take for a new mile WR?

So we have it on the authority of rekrunner that 3.43 for the mile can be beaten clean because he sees no evidence to conclude the record might be doped. But he sees no evidence for any record being doped, even though official estimates are that up to 4 in 10 elite athletes dope. However in rekrunner's book it wouldn't make any difference if the record was doped because doping doesn't improve performance, athletes only misguidedly "believe" it does - he says altitude training is more effective than doping (even though altitude-trained athletes are also partial to doping) - and, in any case, he assures us that only the second-rate dope, hoping it will make them winners. This is what his "scientific" method tells us.

However, you have to wonder why no one, clean or doped, can get anywhere near a record set 20 years ago - the closest is 3 seconds slower (and the picture is much the same for the 1500). Did middle-distance talent suddenly and inexplicably disappear before the millennium?

These are all your words, so whatever you want to say, it is not by my authority.

Here is what I said back on page 4:

What would it take?

1) Talent, nurtured by effective training and coaching to reach its full potential. As we see, very few in history have demonstrated a talent greater than Cram's performances in the last 35 years.

2) An opportunity to attempt it at a runner's peak fitness

3) Incentive to attempt it

4) Rivalry among two or more talents will increase the chance

I require your "authority"? What a revealing term. Yet you don't refute anything that I attribute to you. You simply say that it is without your authority, Chairman Rekrunner. Perhaps so, but it is still what you say.

But to suggest, as you do, that runners in the last 20 years have not been at peak fitness, have not had the incentive, or lacked the necessary competition to make a successful attempt on the record is bizarre. How does one explain the constant chiseling away at the record (and so many others) in the years - decades - before 1999? One can only conclude that the sport is in serious decline.

And let's not forget - as rekrunner further reminds us - that there have been few runners of Cram's talent in the last 35 years - even though he was 3 seconds slower than the record which was last set by in 1999. Surely the point should be that there have been none of El Guerrouj's ability since then?

It is always instructive to see the scientific method demonstrated as rekrunner does.

You do not require it, but you also do not "have it". I stand by my words, in the context I expressed them. I do not recognize your words.

I see you also don't refute any of my words. It seems your approach is to restate, I guess what you understood, or what you cannot refute, and then show how ridiculous your restated words are. These are techniques with names like "red-herring" or "strawman". They can sometimes be persuasive, especially among like minded believers, or those lacking knowledge, but these arguments remain fundamentally flawed.

In the spirit of discussion, I would welcome a rationally supported argument that shows it will not take talent, it will not take nurturing that talent, or it will not take opportunity, or it will not take incentive, or it will not take an athlete at his peak fitness in order to attempt it.

casual obsever wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

From the example with the women and the 1500m, we can how significant the eastern-bloc and Russian performances pre-EPO era were, and still are today, with Kanzankina from 1980 still ranked #7 all time.

Yeah mid-distances in the 80s, a freak show...

Decker is also #7 all time in the mile, and Coe even #3! (ok 800, so also mid-distance but not mile)

The 800 and mile require different training focuses. Blood doping isn’t going to offer much of an advantage over an extended sprint. Moreover, Cruz ran within 0.1 secs just 3 years later. Or are you staying all sub 1:42 runners dope?

Surely if Snell, with inferior 400 speed and inferior mile ability, can run 1:44.3 on a grass track almost 60 years ago, before blood doping was practiced, which conservatively equates to a 1:43 low on a 70’s synthetic track, then those that came 20 years later, with faster shoes and tracks and better training, should be able to run 1.5 secs faster!

Decker and Kazankina were more 1500/ 3000m runners, running for countries with a record of drug taking, performing over distances that were relatively new for women. They were also both banned for doping violations.

Your ‘casual’ (pardon the pun) lumping Coe’s name to those of Decker and Kazankina is unwarranted as there is no link except the fact they set very fast times.

There will always be anomalies in sport and someone has to be the fastest or best in each discipline. Your analysis here is flawed.

Deanouk wrote:

The 800 and mile require different training focuses. Blood doping isn’t going to offer much of an advantage over an extended sprint.

...

Your analysis here is flawed.

Lol. Tell that to Ramzi and all the others. Or let's look at the Sunday Times review of the IAAF scandal, where you can find a comparison of the suspicious medals (blood doping only, 2001 - 2012):

1500 m: 54%

3000 steeple: 33%

800 m: 30%

5000 m: 28%

10000 m: 28%

The 800 isn't exactly clean either when it comes to blood doping.

For context, these numbers are somewhat low, based on the high threshold of the blood passport. With that threshold:

"15% of all athletes in the database had abnormal tests"

whereas Saugy et al. showed that based on the actual data, the "minimal estimate" is already 18%. But ok, the ballpark seems to be alright.

casual obsever wrote:

Deanouk wrote:

The 800 and mile require different training focuses. Blood doping isn’t going to offer much of an advantage over an extended sprint.

...

Your analysis here is flawed.

Lol. Tell that to Ramzi and all the others. Or let's look at the Sunday Times review of the IAAF scandal, where you can find a comparison of the suspicious medals (blood doping only, 2001 - 2012):

1500 m: 54%

3000 steeple: 33%

800 m: 30%

5000 m: 28%

10000 m: 28%

The 800 isn't exactly clean either when it comes to blood doping.

For context, these numbers are somewhat low, based on the high threshold of the blood passport. With that threshold:

"15% of all athletes in the database had abnormal tests"

whereas Saugy et al. showed that based on the actual data, the "minimal estimate" is already 18%. But ok, the ballpark seems to be alright.

This relates to EPO in the ‘00’s, not blood transfusions in the early 80’s, which is far more sophisticated and effective than autologous blood transfers from 40+ years ago. We have various cases of all sorts using EPO, but the only documented cases of blood doping in the 70’s and early 80’s, are a couple of long distance Finnish and Italian runners. There is no evidence of 800 or 1500 men from that era indulging in blood transfusions. The women from that era were not banned for blood doping but for steroid use, which was known to have a significantly greater effect on all women, regardless of event, than men!

I was disproving your unsupported remark:

Deanouk wrote:

Blood doping isn’t going to offer much of an advantage over an extended sprint.

casual obsever wrote:

I was disproving your unsupported remark:

Deanouk wrote:

Blood doping isn’t going to offer much of an advantage over an extended sprint.

Ok, but the data you offer under the heading, “blood doping “ for that time period, 2001 - 2012, in essence means EPO. By that time many athletes believed that microdosing would be of some benefit, even to 800m runners.

But the term, blood doping in the 70’s and 80’s, meant autologous blood transfusions of the athlete’s own blood. And the current thinking back then was that it was beneficial to distance runners. The few known cases from then were 10k runners. There are no cases of 800/1500 male runners from that era who had blood transfusions. You are making an unsubstantiated claim based on specific data from a different period.

Showing that an event isn't clean is evidence of prevalence, not advantage caused by blood-doping.

Although the Sunday Times percentages by event is highly informative, especially when comparing the different events with the same measure, there are reasons to be cautious from inferring too much from these medal win percentage values relative to different percentages from a different measure for the whole population of samples/athletes. Just to name a few ...

One issue with the Sunday Times medal count statistic, is that other factors besides blood-doping, which were not measured, could account for the higher medal win percentage, e.g. steroid use among the women in the shorter distance events, artificially inflating the role of blood doping as conferring an advantage.

Another issue is the "once in a lifetime" criteria they used to consider a "medal won" suspicious, where the suspicion was not necessarily linked in time with the medal win.

Another issue that makes it worse is the way they combined "likely doping" with "at the very least abnormal" together, making the previous issue more likely by including borderline readings which might be false positives.

Another issue is that men and women were combined masking any gender specific differences.

And finally, these are combined with the fact that medal winners likely have more blood samples in the database, making the risk of the above issues more likely for medal winners.

As a side note, the period of 2001-2012 wasn't particular fast period for women in the 800m, with the some standouts being Jelimo, Semenya, and Niyonsaba, at least two of which are suspected to naturally possess high levels of testosterone.

The men's side was relatively faster in this period versus the women, thanks to David Rudisha, but still the sub-1:42 1980s times of Coe and Cruz remain near the top of the all time list.

It will take all of the above but in view of the fact that no one one has gotten near it in over 20 years it will also require doping, as it is in all likelihood a doped record or it would have been surpassed long ago.

I can understand why you don't like your views reduced to their essence; they are revealed as the absurdities they are, and the antithesis of scientific inquiry.

Your first sentence, that effectively denies the performance enhancing capacity of blood doping, renders the rest of your commentary irrelevant. You are no less a doping denier than the commenter who waxes on about thermodynamics to come to the same equally false conclusion.

Armstronglivs wrote:

It will take all of the above but in view of the fact that no one one has gotten near it in over 20 years it will also require doping, as it is in all likelihood a doped record or it would have been surpassed long ago.

I can understand why you don't like your views reduced to their essence; they are revealed as the absurdities they are, and the antithesis of scientific inquiry.

Yes because we all know that doping was eradicated 20 years ago.

Armstronglivs wrote:

Your first sentence, that effectively denies the performance enhancing capacity of blood doping, renders the rest of your commentary irrelevant. You are no less a doping denier than the commenter who waxes on about thermodynamics to come to the same equally false conclusion.

My first sentence was a comment on what "casual obsever" purported to disprove.

It doesn't effectively deny anything, because nothing was effectively established to be denied.

The rest of the commentary was an explanation about how the Sunday Times numbers were derived, and what they mean. This is relevant on its own, regardless of the status of my first sentence.

rekrunner wrote:

Armstronglivs wrote:

Your first sentence, that effectively denies the performance enhancing capacity of blood doping, renders the rest of your commentary irrelevant. You are no less a doping denier than the commenter who waxes on about thermodynamics to come to the same equally false conclusion.

My first sentence was a comment on what "casual obsever" purported to disprove.

It doesn't effectively deny anything, because nothing was effectively established to be denied.

The rest of the commentary was an explanation about how the Sunday Times numbers were derived, and what they mean. This is relevant on its own, regardless of the status of my first sentence.

You show again that your arguments are merely contrived explanations about the process of who you are responding to and why - it is irrelevant, no one cares what you are trying to do - but never contain meaningful content. You never say what you say, so that your comments can be properly understood - it is always what you "mean to say", which is the art of evasiveness, one of your practised specialties so that your arguments don't stand revealed in their transparent absurdity.

Responding to casual observer, you commented that evidence that a sport isn't clean is only proof of prevalence of blood doping and not of advantage. What else can be inferred from that comment except that you are denying that blood doping may confer advantage? It is a given, except to a doping denier, that implicit in doping prevalence is the existence of advantage also. Only a doping denier would make the point that you did. By failing to see your own necessary inference it shows that logic is not your strong point and the waffle by which you seek to cover your tracks is little more than the emperor's new clothes.

Evidently you seem to care a great deal what I am trying to do, or else why spend the last 7 pages with petty personal attacks.

The only thing you can and should infer is my argument, based on the supporting reasons I gave, that a specific disproof in this context falls short of what is purported to disprove. You may agree or disagree, but if there is a flaw in my reasoning, or my interpretation of the data, you have failed to engage at that level.

It would be just plain wrong, intellectually, to infer a general or universal denial of any advantage for the sport, particularly when the context here is explicitly "not much of an advantage" for the 800m event.

If needed for the argumentation, Coe could have run 1:41 and would have beaten any runner in history including Rudisha, but if it's helping the own point, others were already as good in the 60s. Must be great to live in fantasy world.

rekrunner wrote:

Evidently you seem to care a great deal what I am trying to do, or else why spend the last 7 pages with petty personal attacks.

The only thing you can and should infer is my argument, based on the supporting reasons I gave, that a specific disproof in this context falls short of what is purported to disprove. You may agree or disagree, but if there is a flaw in my reasoning, or my interpretation of the data, you have failed to engage at that level.

It would be just plain wrong, intellectually, to infer a general or universal denial of any advantage for the sport, particularly when the context here is explicitly "not much of an advantage" for the 800m event.

I pointed out the obvious inference in your argument but you are unable or unwilling to see it. There are elephant turds in the room but you are still unable to acknowledge they were deposited there by an elephant.

To accept evidence of the prevalence of doping but not to accept that it also shows evidence of advantage is denial that doping works. If it didn't create advantage then no one need have any objection to doping as cheating. And that is your position.

They are straw elephant turds of your own making. Your obvious inference arises directly and solely from your obvious non-understanding of what two other adults were talking about.

Two things you got demonstrably wrong:

1) We were talking about blood doping, not all doping.

2) We were talking about the 800m, and not the whole sport.

If you actually read my "argument" carefully, with the goal of comprehension, the very first one of them was that the medal win percentages were likely inflated by doping, which is not blood doping. The obvious inference should have been my explicit and stated acceptance that doping works, just not blood doping very much for the 800m.

How you infer a "denial that doping works" from an argument that starts out suggesting "doping works" is really not obvious to me.