dssf wrote:Here is the progression in the 100 meter world record, starting with Calvin Smith in 1983. What you will notice is that almost everyone on the list either has served a doping ban or has been implicated in doping. For instance, Lewis tested positive for stimulants at the 88 Olympic trials, but the results were covered up. And it's hard to believe Bailey was clean--he had the puffy physique of someone on steroids--but there is no hard evidence.
The mark steadily improves by about a tenth through the 80s and 90s, and then comes the in-your-face doping era, when Greene, Montgomery, Gatlin, and Powell take a tenth off the record in a decade. The progression is actually pretty linear through that entire time.
And then Bolt comes along, and chops 16 hundredths off the record in a little over a year. Bang.
Assume Bailey is the last know clean sprinter on the list. Bolt improved Bailey's mark by 2.5%. Let's assume Steve Cram was the last clean mile record holder at 3:46. It would be like someone coming along and running 3:40, breaking Hicham's record by a full three seconds. Would you think someone running 3:40 was clean?
Or let's just look at how he improved on Powell's mark. If you apply that percentage improvement to Hicham's mile record, it's as if someone came along and ran 3:40. Either way, the point stands.
Now let's consider the number of Jamaican sprinters who have served doping bans or who have been otherwise implicated: Asafa Powell, Nesta Carter, Sheri-Ann Brooks (got off on B test technicality), Donovan Powell, Marvin Anderson, Dominqiue Blake, Julien Dunkley, Shelly Ann Fraser, Steve Mullins, Sherone Simpson, Landsford Spence, Allodin Fothergill, etc.
Add to that that it's now come to light that the level of corruption in the sport is so rampant that countries have been paying to cover up positive tests.
So you have a situation where an athlete is beating other athletes who have been caught using by a margin so big that it would be like someone coming along and dropping a 3:40 mile, and meanwhile a host of his teammates have been popped, and we know if he ever popped a positive there would be so much incentive to cover it up and keep the gravy train flowing.
And the best arguments you have for why he's clean are that he's tall and eats yams and was lazy early in his career and is some sort of genetic freak?
Weak sauce. He's as dirty as the rest of the lot. I believe in outliers, not in aliens, which is what you'd need to be to do what Bolt is doing clean.
9.93 Calvin Smith July 3, 1983
9.83 Ben Johnson August 30, 1987 (His eyeballs were yellow)
9.93 Carl Lewis August 30, 1987 (Three failed drug tests 88 trials)
9.92 Carl Lewis September 24, 1988 (See above)
9.90 Leroy Burrell June 14, 1991
9.86 Carl Lewis August 25, 1991 (See above)
9.85 Leroy Burrell July 6, 1994
9.84 Donovan Bailey July 27, 1996 ???
9.79 Maurice Greene June 16, 1999 (paper trail of drug use)
9.78 Tim Montgomery September 14, 2002 (BALCO)
9.77 Asafa Powell June 14, 2005 (Banned 18 month for doping in 2014)
9.76 Justin Gatlin May 12, 2006 (Served doping ban)
9.76 Asafa Powell June 11, 2006 (See above)
9.74 Asafa Powell September 9, 2007 (see above)
9.72 Usain Bolt May 31, 2008 ???
9.69 Bolt August 16, 2008 ???
9.58 Bolt August 16, 2009 ???