Except, of course, for the 2:15 Berlin marathon record she ran last year. Maybe it just took her a few years to find her event. Then there were injuries and Covid in there.
What is she - in her late twenties? It takes that long to discover as an 800m runner that you're really a marathon runner? I'm surprised she didn't discover that she should probably be a gymnast or some such. The rationalisation of the implausible never ceases here.
She switched to road running in 2018, at around age 21. Most American women don't move up to the roads until after NCAA or well later, so it isn't totally inconcievable
2018: 34 min 10k debut in dubai (2nd),
2019: she ran three road 10ks in germany, winning one in 31:45 (still slower than her current marathon pace, but without super shoes). She made her half marathon debut in Valencia, 5th in a time of 1:08.24 (great time for a debut, but still slower than this full marathon by a lot)
COVID hits, not results till 2022
2022: wins three 10ks and 3 half marathons, with a PB of 30:52 (not so much faster than her marathon pace) and 1:07:28 respectively (still slower than this marathon). She makers her marathon debut and bombs, but runs Berlin in 2:15:37 for the win. In some respects this was quite shocking, she just ran a full marathon at half marathon PB pace. Very few people had heard of her before this race, despite a few minor half wins
2023: her crazy 2:11:53
The progression is kind of crazy. The fact she moved from the 800 to the roads at age 21 is the least suspicious and most normal part.
This is the kind of post that should be bumped when a woman runs sub-2:10, and then 2:07, and so on. All previous bests are "soft", and everything is normal no matter how extreme.
Are you trying to say a 2:14 marathon is better than a 62:52 half-marathon and a 29:01 10k? The 2:14 was soft, relative to those other times, that's pretty much a fact.
You are trying to argue with someone who states that all WRs are equally strong (women's hammer as strong as Bolt's 100m).
Someone who prays day in day out that any top performance today is the result of doping. Someone who also says that Snell's 1:44.3 61 years ago would be worth a couple of seconds (!!) faster on todays tracks - not to mention shoes, nutrition and so on. But for him Snell was clean.
Someone who now has pointed on Ingebrigtsen's "loss" at age 18 at the world champs dozens of times (and regards him as a "loser" therefor).
That's bollocks. In 1960 these amateur athletes - as Snell was - in a relative backwater, would have had had no idea what steroids were. He was also big as a youngster - he didn't suddenly develop a muscled physique. He was a Lydiard protege. There has never been a whisper that any of Lydiard's Kiwi athletes doped. He was no Salazar or Francis. (Incidentally, in all the years since only 2 NZ distance runners have been busted - one in the early 2000's while in Mexico, and the other was Robertson while in Kenya.)
It might be bollocks to you,but i know for a fact that i read it.Im not making it up,but i cant prove that i read it,or where i read it.Maybe i just read an unfounded rumour.Im sure some new zealanders have doped,just as aussies do.I remember a decathlete in the late 80s who looked totally roided out of his skull,but he trained in america.And ive seen some top nz women in various events who have looked a bit manly,or way too muscled.I think they trained in australia.
The '80's were not the '60's. Doping had changed everywhere by then. But I was there in the '60's and most Kiwi athletes knew nothing about it then. It also entered field events - strength-related events long before they found drugs that helped distance runners. I am not saying doping was or is non-existent in NZ but there is absolutely no evidence that Snell and his contemporaries juiced. If he had he would have been running a 3.43 mile or some such, like the doped athletes of the '90s and today.
Are you trying to say a 2:14 marathon is better than a 62:52 half-marathon and a 29:01 10k? The 2:14 was soft, relative to those other times, that's pretty much a fact.
You are trying to argue with someone who states that all WRs are equally strong (women's hammer as strong as Bolt's 100m).
Someone who prays day in day out that any top performance today is the result of doping. Someone who also says that Snell's 1:44.3 61 years ago would be worth a couple of seconds (!!) faster on todays tracks - not to mention shoes, nutrition and so on. But for him Snell was clean.
Someone who now has pointed on Ingebrigtsen's "loss" at age 18 at the world champs dozens of times (and regards him as a "loser" therefor).
Someone who is totally immune to arguments.
I'm immune to yours. That's because they aren't arguments but merely dribble on your chin.
This is the kind of post that should be bumped when a woman runs sub-2:10, and then 2:07, and so on. All previous bests are "soft", and everything is normal no matter how extreme.
Are you trying to say a 2:14 marathon is better than a 62:52 half-marathon and a 29:01 10k? The 2:14 was soft, relative to those other times, that's pretty much a fact. No, I would no longer say a 2:11:53 is soft, because it isn't. Just do your research if you are confused why true distance fans understood why the 2:14 was the softest of the long distance records.
You guys are fantasists. None of these doped records - as they are - is "soft".
You don't have to, but then it carries no weight because you cannot connect it to the real world.
This broad claim is not your only claim. For example you claim that doping is more powerful than the new shoes, without any basis.
And without any basis, your umbrella statement is a rather meaningless claim, as "throughout the sport" is rather vague and pliable, leaving the interpretation to the reader, and it doesn't really indicate who is using what kind of doping when and how many. There is also no connection to improved performances linked to the doping throughout the sport. It would gain more meaning if you could provide the specific data backing that up.
But you cannot.
Drugs are banned but the shoes are not. Gee, I wonder which might be more performance enhancing?
Ross Tucker made a great observation on his podcast that it very well could be the shoes based on the research. That assumes that Assefa is a positive responder to supershoes. He thinks it is more likely that than drugs, as she would have to have access to something nobody else does. He did add that he can't discount doping and that we will know if she never busts out a sub 215 again.
Sigh. They aren't "baseless" accusations except to one who has never actually progressed past 1970, when doping had yet to become what it has in the sport - when it is effectively the sport. Ironically, that is you, not me.
Sigh? Just provide the basis then.
More projection -- you are the one stuck in the 1960s, constantly bringing up Lydiard and Snell and Bikila, and shortly after I pointed that out, you predictably accuse me of possessing your ignorance of anything since.
As you can see if you only read the posts you respond to, I said "without any specific basis".
They are baseless because you have provided no basis, and you cannot provide any basis. Your failure has nothing to do with me and my knowledge of post-1970s. Giving me god-like knowledge will not cure your failure.
If there were any real basis in fact, you would have shared it by now.
Without any conclusive evidence that doping can even cause these unnatural elite performances, you have imagined that doping can be the only cause of the fastest performances, above some arbitrary limit.
By your own estimates, you have narrowed doping prevelance to somewhere between 10-80%, and have imagined that that can only mean 100% of the fastest times are doped.
Arbitrary and baseless.
"Baseless" is only a term used by someone wilfully oblivious to what has happened to the sport in the last half century.
Ross Tucker made a great observation on his podcast that it very well could be the shoes based on the research. That assumes that Assefa is a positive responder to supershoes. He thinks it is more likely that than drugs, as she would have to have access to something nobody else does. He did add that he can't discount doping and that we will know if she never busts out a sub 215 again.
So shoes can even outperform the most powerful drugs - beyond EPO etc - that the doped athletes are using? Yet other athletes using the same shoes had nothing like the same results - not even a pr - as Assefa. An argument of monumental blindness.
Drugs are banned but the shoes are not. Gee, I wonder which might be more performance enhancing?
I'm sure you wonder because you don't really know any relevant facts. If there are too many words, you don't read them, and therefore remain ignorant to what the words say.
Drugs are banned by an anti-doping agency. There is no comparable anti-shoe agency. Shoes are not considered harmful to health, nor against the spirit of the sport, but the last 5 years of performances show that they are definitely performance enhancing *worldwide*, contrary to the previous 28 years of doping "throughout" athletics.
