Gjert Ingebrigtsen shares the secret to his sons' success - high mileage - and claims "they don’t have any natural speed."

Coevett wrote:

I have to side with Rekrunner over Armstrong on this one.

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It's not like Jakob is wiping the performances of Coe, Cram etc off the map as a teen (yet, anyway). It's perfectly reasonable to believe that Coe, Cram, Ovett, and for that matter, Elliott, Snell, Ryun could run sub 3:26 on the Monaco track in today's world. Coe and the Brits could well have gotten very close to that kind of time back in their day with just a little bit better pacemaking and competition or luck with injuries and health. So Jakob still has a bit to go.

If you believe Elliott, Snell, Ryun, and then the Brits were clean, I see no reason to doubt that (finally) a modern European descent athlete would emerge with the same talent. This talent is in the absolute perfect environment to flourish and reach full potential.

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And to make clear - I personally have no suspicions about Jakob at all.

Coevett wrote:

Armstronglivs wrote:

I wonder if Coevett would be saying that same things about Jakob if he were Kenyan, because exactly the same arguments could be made about them, that they were in the "perfect environment for their talent to flourish". And simply because he is European doesn't put him in the same competitive environment as Elliot and Snell, half a century earlier, when doping hardly existed in distance running. The East Germans and Russians have certainly showed how that environment has changed.

At 17, Jakob is running 3.31. If he reduces his times to 3.28 or better will that cause any of you to ask how "a naturally slow" runner is able to do that? (Or any naturally slow runner, for that matter. ) I would be very dubious about that if he wasn't any faster than he is today, and hadn't substantially cracked 50 for the quarter (incidentally, Centrowitz's last lap at Rio).

I stated clearly in response to Canova that I would suspect Jakob if he was Kenyan. That doesn't make me a 'racist', it's just a consequence of their being a massive and well documented doping problem in Kenya that has led to that country to being on the IAAF watch list and one step away from being banned from the sport. To your credit, I think in the past you've demonstrated you understood this and have even defended me from constant accusations of 'racism'.

I agree that there was less motivation to dope back in the days of Elliott and Snell. However, if you think any white guy who runs fast these days must be juiced to the gills, then you're left with explaining how Elliott could have ran a 3:35 solo 1500m in an Olympic final on a rubbish track at age 21 back in 1960 etc etc.

Kenyans do have huge advantages in terms of the environment they are in, but it's true of most Kenyans. The most talented runner in the most talented European family we've ever seen, with two older brothers to learn from, and with the father coach having his 3rd try to get the maximum out of a son he's been training since a kid. It doesn't seem preposterous to me at all that he can be doing this clean.

I agree it would be suspicious if Jakob ended his career with pbs of 1:46 and 3:25, but lets see what happens. Did Jakob even run the 800m last season? His pb is from 2017 when his 1500m pb was 3:39.92.

Armstronglivs wrote:

Coevett wrote:

I stated clearly in response to Canova that I would suspect Jakob if he was Kenyan. That doesn't make me a 'racist', it's just a consequence of their being a massive and well documented doping problem in Kenya that has led to that country to being on the IAAF watch list and one step away from being banned from the sport. To your credit, I think in the past you've demonstrated you understood this and have even defended me from constant accusations of 'racism'.

I agree that there was less motivation to dope back in the days of Elliott and Snell. However, if you think any white guy who runs fast these days must be juiced to the gills, then you're left with explaining how Elliott could have ran a 3:35 solo 1500m in an Olympic final on a rubbish track at age 21 back in 1960 etc etc.

Kenyans do have huge advantages in terms of the environment they are in, but it's true of most Kenyans. The most talented runner in the most talented European family we've ever seen, with two older brothers to learn from, and with the father coach having his 3rd try to get the maximum out of a son he's been training since a kid. It doesn't seem preposterous to me at all that he can be doing this clean.

I agree it would be suspicious if Jakob ended his career with pbs of 1:46 and 3:25, but lets see what happens. Did Jakob even run the 800m last season? His pb is from 2017 when his 1500m pb was 3:39.92.

I don't think you're a racist, but you do seem predisposed to think most Kenyans are doping, while tending to give a pass to European runners.

I wouldn't be so confident that non-African runners are clean.

If I have doubts about Jakob and his brothers that doesn't mean I think that every white runner who is - or was - doing well is likely to be doped. We have to look at the nature of their performances and how it fits in with what we know of their careers to come to a view about that. For instance, I don't think runners in the fifties and early sixties, such as Elliot and Snell, were doping, as there weren't the kind of ped's available to distance runners then that later appeared in the sport. It also doesn't fit with what we know about those champions personally, and their performances while brilliant at the time don't strike me as freakish.

If I have my doubts about runners like Jakob it is that, aged only 17, he is accomplishing times that would have made him a world record holder in Coe and Ovett's era. Yet those champions were naturally much faster runners, capable of sub-22 performances for 200. Jakob wouldn't be anywhere near them. Over the 400 he would be likely to be 30 metres back and half the straight behind over the 800. Yet he has caught them by the 1500m mark. So he apparently has more stamina by far than two of the greatest middle-distance runners in the history of the sport. That I find difficult to believe, and as he also has two brothers who appear equally talented seems to me to be all little too good to be true.

The last point I would make is that they are competing in an era when doping has become a commonplace in professional sport. Why would they be any different from so many others today? if they were doping they could easily do it and not get caught - most aren't.

Coevett wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

Sorry.

Arthur Newton predated Lydiard by several decades.

Lydiard's value added was the way he combined "anaerobic" and "aerobic" training, and timed the peak to the important goals -- periodization and peaking.

As we have seen, Jakob's 400m/800m cannot be compared to his 1500m.

3:31 is not quite caught up to sub-3:30.

But once again, in your world, over a period of three decades of aerobic training and 1 in 2 doping, the list of runners faster than Coe and Cram is remarkably small -- hardly a ringing endorsement for the power of drugs as the only path to produce "unusual" performances.

I have to side with Rekrunner over Armstrong on this one.

I'm not saying it's wrong to be suspicious of any amazing talent like Jakob. Nick Willis himself has said that it's right that everybody should be suspicious of all the top runners these days, sadly, including himself.

The reason Jakob is standing out is because of a number of things. First of all he (if clean) is obviously one of the greatest talents in history. Secondly he's white, and white middle and distance running has been abysmal for the last four decades, to the point where a consensus had almost been reached that East Africans are naturally superior and that even the likes of Coe only succeeded because there were few East Africans around at the time.

It's not like Jakob is wiping the performances of Coe, Cram etc off the map as a teen (yet, anyway). It's perfectly reasonable to believe that Coe, Cram, Ovett, and for that matter, Elliott, Snell, Ryun could run sub 3:26 on the Monaco track in today's world. Coe and the Brits could well have gotten very close to that kind of time back in their day with just a little bit better pacemaking and competition or luck with injuries and health. So Jakob still has a bit to go.

If you believe Elliott, Snell, Ryun, and then the Brits were clean, I see no reason to doubt that (finally) a modern European descent athlete would emerge with the same talent. This talent is in the absolute perfect environment to flourish and reach full potential.

As far as I know Jakob only runs one or two 800m each season. I think the last one was in the same weekend as competing in two other events at the Norwegian championships.

Another thing is that sports physiology and health care has improved massively since even the 80's. Maybe Coe, Cram, and Ovett would have handled more mileage as teens today, and not gotten injured so much later in their careers as well.

And to make clear - I personally have no suspicions about Jakob at all.