I would love for next year BU valentine meet posted, “no super spikes allowed” just to watch the massive fluctuations in performances. Yet armstrong would say “doping”
Howman doesn't talk about performance gains because they are a given. If they weren't doping wouldn't exist and WADA would not be concerned about unfair advantage.
El G wasn't such an outlier. The next best athletes were a fraction of a second behind his records and he was beaten by one of those athletes at the 2000 Olympics. He also won at Athens by the hairs on his chest. By contrast Elliott was an outlier, who never lost at his main event, whose records were far and away faster than anyone else in his era, and won an Olympic title by a massive margin. Without super spikes.
In fundamental logic, "givens" aren't necessarily true and can be false, consistently producing proofs which are also false. As long as the belief in potential improvement is strong and widespread, doping will continue to exist, and moreso when confirmed by non-blinded placebo effect. WADA is also concerned about athletes' health and the spirit of the sport.
El G was a massive outlier. Name any other athlete who ever held the 33 of the top-100 all time performances. Many of these next best athletes were pulled to fast times by El G, who set a fast pace from the start and drafted the runners who could hang on who finished at his heels.
This post was edited 9 minutes after it was posted.
The features other than the plate are also part of shoes before super spikes, which includes cushioning and support. So although the plate works with the shoe as a whole it is the essential distinguishing feature that is supposed to be making all the difference to running times. So much from so little.
Furthermore, there is no exact and reliable measure of how the shoes increase efficiency and by how much (some studies say they are unsure how the shoes work) which is why the studies have chiefly based their findings on historical comparisons of times.
Many of the individual elements existed before, but no one combined the plate, the shape, and the thickness of lightweight foam all together before Nike.
Your focus on how is not particularly relevant, when a side-by-side comparison shows a huge improvement in running economy -- one of the best predictors of endurance performance.
Note these controlled running economy studies are not based on historical comparisons of times, and if properly controlled, cannot be influenced by doping, unless only the subjects who wear the supershoes/spikes are the ones doping.
We are discussing times on the track, which means the spikes. The road shoes are another question. The study you posted indicates that the spikes are likely to produce reduced returns for lower level athletes.
Except the lower level athletes you refer to are recreational marathon runners, and not "times on the track".
For the third time:
At the bullseye in the smack dab center of the mulberry bush we find: "The greatest RE improvements (~4%) have been reported at submaximal intensities of 14–18 km/h".
Running economy improvement is a function of speed, and the sweet spot of greatest gains is 14-18 km/h. Anything faster, or slower, will be less than "the greatest". Elite athletes will not achieve these greatest gains, nor will recreational marathoners.
I don't have to name a particular drug. There are countless possibilities available that can't be detected. This is acknowledged by antidoping and was reported in the Al Jazeera investigation. Howman is the former head of WADA. You don't seem to know that.
The figures have shown that only 1% of doping tests return a positive yet it is known that a far higher number of athletes dope. That means most are getting away with it. That is what Howman has acknowledged. It means that at every level the incentive to dope is present with little likelihood of being caught. Doping is known to exist in schools and testing at that level is virtually non-existent.
As this discussion indicates, the shoes may have contributed to performance gains. But so have drugs. We can't credibly separate them now.
According to your standard of "exact and reliable measure of how", not only do you have to name a drug, but you have to name the new drug(s) since 2017, and 2021, and then explain how and reliably measure it. A bonus would be how so many in high school know about these drugs, but Howman and Al Jazeera and Armstronglivs don't.
Neither you, nor Howman, nor Al Jazeera, are able to name one single drug that meets your standard of "exact and reliable measure of how". For that matter, at this point, we still don't know how EPO really works (assuming it does), with speculative arguments flip-flopping between extra red-blood-cells and oxygen during racing, and protective improved recovery and delayed breakdown (both protective effects are largely unstudied) in the off-season. And unlike shoes, we don't really have enough data to show that those who ran fast in the EPO-era took EPO, and that those who took EPO in the EPO-era ran faster.
We are discussing times on the track, which means the spikes. The road shoes are another question. The study you posted indicates that the spikes are likely to produce reduced returns for lower level athletes.
Except the lower level athletes you refer to are recreational marathon runners, and not "times on the track".
For the third time:
At the bullseye in the smack dab center of the mulberry bush we find: "The greatest RE improvements (~4%) have been reported at submaximal intensities of 14–18 km/h".
Running economy improvement is a function of speed, and the sweet spot of greatest gains is 14-18 km/h. Anything faster, or slower, will be less than "the greatest". Elite athletes will not achieve these greatest gains, nor will recreational marathoners.
So why do the shoes work best at a given band of a speed and less above that or below that? I can't wait for your explanation about how a piece of carbon is only effective when running within a given speed limit. How in earth were shoes designed to do that? And why?
This post was edited 18 seconds after it was posted.
I don't have to name a particular drug. There are countless possibilities available that can't be detected. This is acknowledged by antidoping and was reported in the Al Jazeera investigation. Howman is the former head of WADA. You don't seem to know that.
The figures have shown that only 1% of doping tests return a positive yet it is known that a far higher number of athletes dope. That means most are getting away with it. That is what Howman has acknowledged. It means that at every level the incentive to dope is present with little likelihood of being caught. Doping is known to exist in schools and testing at that level is virtually non-existent.
As this discussion indicates, the shoes may have contributed to performance gains. But so have drugs. We can't credibly separate them now.
According to your standard of "exact and reliable measure of how", not only do you have to name a drug, but you have to name the new drug(s) since 2017, and 2021, and then explain how and reliably measure it. A bonus would be how so many in high school know about these drugs, but Howman and Al Jazeera and Armstronglivs don't.
Neither you, nor Howman, nor Al Jazeera, are able to name one single drug that meets your standard of "exact and reliable measure of how". For that matter, at this point, we still don't know how EPO really works (assuming it does), with speculative arguments flip-flopping between extra red-blood-cells and oxygen during racing, and protective improved recovery and delayed breakdown (both protective effects are largely unstudied) in the off-season. And unlike shoes, we don't really have enough data to show that those who ran fast in the EPO-era took EPO, and that those who took EPO in the EPO-era ran faster.
Howman says athletes continue to get away with doping. The view of antidoping is that drugs will aid performance. The only way you can discount drugs from contributing to the times you say the shoes are responsible for is if drugs are not present in the sport or if they are they don't contribute to performance gains. You won't find any expert in antidoping who will agree with that.
I can guarantee it. I have seen it happen hundreds of times over the past 5 years with my guys. I wish that other coaches would chime in with their own data.
I can guarantee it. I have seen it happen hundreds of times over the past 5 years with my guys. I wish that other coaches would chime in with their own data.
If you can "guarantee" it you can guarantee no athlete using superspikes is also doping.
I'm still waiting to see whether those maintaining the superspikes enable a 5 seconds improvement over a mile would accept that the athletes in the '90s who ran 3:26x for the 1500 and 3:43x for the mile would run 3:21x and 3:38x today. If they could have then that also means that the best today are only worth 3:31x and 3:48x without super spikes. So all the best in this era are nowhere near the ability of El G, Lagat, Ngeny (and Komen)? And of course Kiprop, who ran 3:26x without superspikes.
See? For years you protested and foamed but you were wrong. Now you have finally learnt how to write decades.
The countless hours you spend here have actually been worth something. You learnt to write times, then you learnt that cross training doesn't mean treadmill running, and now decades!
You never admit when you are wrong, but we notice it. You are like a small child.