Breaking: Marathon world record Ruth Chepngetich has tested positive - Will Kenya's Parliament apologize to yours truly?

There is a large portion of running media where you simply cannot have anything coming close to "bad vibes". You have to ignore the obvious for this kind of thing, you have to treat someone walking a marathon in 8 hours the same as someone doing it in 2.5 (and better than someone who runs a 5k in 14min), etc. etc.

idk. While I believe most top athletes are using pharmaceutical products to some extent. I do believe progress has been made over the year.

The proof is that no one has gotten within 0.5s of El g 3:26 even with the advent of superspikes, wavelight, bicarb, you name it, as well as lots of TT in the DL. Even the 5k/10k's WRs have been broken, that's only marginally and I suppose superspikes and wavelight have a bigger impact on longer distances. Put it another way, if Bekele had already had access to them in the "EPO era", the WRs would've been 12:32/26:05 minimum.

Is it all clean now? Hell no, but I just think it's gotten better, compared to the 90s/00s. Like they have to micro-dose now rather than "macro".

That said, the 7:17 and the sudden, sweep progress in the 800m are outliers that I can't explain.

FINALLY the TITAN has fallen.

I don't think its "remains royalty", but more like "returned to royalty". Like Armstrong he is great when playing, shunned when caught, but as more competitors get caught/retire/confess and still say he was the best he returns to being great. Athletics is missing that last step where tons of athletes agree everyone was on drugs. The whole "level playing field" idea.

This begs the larger question about the extent of prohibited substance abuse by Kenyan athletes. Besides matters of individual sanctions, there should be intense and independent official scrutiny of the Kenyan athletics program as a whole.

Feels like a separate thread but:

The EPO era as it were most definitively was felt in the 1500/mile. Morceli’s finishing speed, El Guerrouj’s time trial results, and Bernard Lagat’s top-end abilities just weren’t matched after 2004. It took a superspikes/bi-carb/wavelight leap forward to get close but not match them. Before this current moment we saw comparable if not better results in the 5,000/10,000/Steeple/Roads. You surely can be suspicious of Kipketer, Komen, Geb et al but they were then surpassed by others and now their marks are matched or neared by great but not generational athletes. 3:26.00 and Morceli kicking in 3:32 races in 50 or whatever are their own universe.

Diuretics, generally, can either alter the pH of your urine and/or can change/speed up how PEDs may be metabolized.

Did Sedjati run 1:40.00 and then struggle to break 1:45?

If you can replace the minerals and be hydrated enough, then the weight loss has a significant benefit. There is this equation I use. Not sure where I got it from, but it seems very accurate:

Optimum race weight is X, then above that you are penalized two seconds per mile per pound over X.

Ten pounds in a 10K is two minutes. Maybe at the very top end the elite field would be different. And I understand that very tall people are affected more by extra weight, than smaller and average-sized, but don't know. So, let's say she drops 4 or 5 pounds that's potentially a few minutes in a marathon. EPO, steroid, Bicarb, super shoes.....2:20 marathoner runs a 2:09.....I dunno...but it appears she wasn't clean and the main people calling it out immediately were Rojo, Amby Burfoot, and myself, while we took some shots for doing so....

Justice in the horizon?

That would be banning Kenya until they get their sh!t together.

To the person mentioning systematic doping. I don't think so. I think it is pure poverty-fuelled chaos and easy access. Nothing more.

and i accept the sites apology for the perma ban for "racism" for suggesting the 2;17 is still suspicious

Guess I was right all along despite the thousands of downvotes. Time to wake up.

This sport breaks all world records in desperate explanations for things that are utterly implausible.

Completely agree, my take was more geared towards achieving a short term kibosh, due mostly to limited roster limits, on the recruitment of older, established international athletes in the NCAA. Once that is accomplished and we've had some success in putting the fear of God into some of these programs then an NCAA wide testing program should be implemented.

She’s not the messiah, she’s a very naughty boy!

“The black guy” jfc you don’t know who Mr T is? Lmao

I think they were more making the point that those guys would be unlikely to have a black guy on their 'team', Mr T or otherwise.

I don't know how much cooperation between AK and the AIU exists, but did AK originally collect the sample? It says the sample was collected on March 14 and "reported" to the AIU on April 3, do they mean AK or the testing lab reported the positive to them?

Disgraceful. Running is morphing into a different version of Big Time Wrestling - results are unbelievable.

The least surprising doping news of all time. IT WAS SUB 2'10