Can you imagine if LetsRun existed during LASSE Viren’s career?

If it's about the more knowledgeable fan that must exclude you. But if you had known about Viren you would have denied his blood doping. Even Dr Pangloss is more of a realist than you.

"Bellow"? You mean shouting? So why did you raise E Bloc doping in a thread about Viren? They are unrelated.

I raced Viren once at the Philadelphia Distance Run half-marathon. He only beat me by about a half hour, so I don't think he was doping.

I think about this all the time. Not just for Viren. The top runners raced more often and didn't always win, they often ran "slow" times. Jim Ryun went through a bad patch then came back. I remember him dropping out of races. No one told him to hang them up.

I remember Viren racing but racing slow and losing because the only race(s) that really mattered were the Olympics- they didn't have Worlds until his career was over.

Obviously, the losers hiding behind their keyboards didn't exist back then. But they probably would have if we had social media.

OP, I just want to give credit where credit is due. This is an EXCELLENT thread topic which is something that doesn't happen all that often. It shows knowledge on your part of Viren, of the posting habits of the Letsrun crowd, and thoughtfulness on your part to create an interesting topic. So, good show.

I was in high school and middle school in 72/76. The average fan DID speculate about steroids- especially the East German swimmers and the other Eastern Bloc/Soviet athletes.

People talked about Reindeer milk and blood doping but didn't really understand it.

Remember- there was less to watch back then. Once track started at the Olympics that was the bulk of the coverage (along with Basketball).

A lot of people associated blood "doping" with drugs because of the (misuse) of the word doping. They just thought he put some drug in his blood.

There was little knowledge of this because it was only talked about during the Olympics BUT soon after they started talking about NFL using steroids.

I stand corrected. Surely such gossip does not require any knowledge in order to create threads or participate in them, or to point out what is baseless speculation. That would be as true during Viren's career as it is today.

And surely by your reply, we are in agreement that it didn't really make much sense to talk about the "average fan", but just the ones with the motivation to join and participate in a running forum.

But even if you do move that goalpost, both the New York Times, and TV commentators, brought the specific allegation of Viren and blood transfusions to the attention of the lay public during the 1976 Olympics -- anyone following the Olympics would have known about blood doping allegations.

I know about Viren now, and allegations of his blood doping have not been admitted, nor established by anyone, with or without knowledge. Today it remains pure speculation. I would have joined the conversation to remind everyone that the New York Times, Rod Dixon, TV commentators, the lay public, knowledgeable letsrun posters alike, possess no relevant knowledge or basis for such speculation.

You are right. You are below average.

Hypotheticals need to be thought of in context. I remember Viren in 72, 76, and 80 and the blood doping rumor stuff was really confined to track circles, the average fan wasn't aware of it.

I was at CU many decades ago, and we had a newsletter for the summer months. The first showed up maybe the third week of June. Some of us wrote back with what we were doing, the second came out in early August, with our comments are more news. A lot of us didn't get those, we were back at school.

As I predicted, Dr Pangloss.

They still aren't, and those that are mostly prefer to deny it.

Go away, weakling. You are not wanted here.

Most would be saying it doesn't matter if Viren is doping, because 'everybody is', and especially the Brits, and Finns clearly have a genetic advantage anyway. Threads would quickly get Rekrunnered by longwinded discussion of whether reindeer milk actually aids performance. Canova would say it doesn't work on Finns.

Actually, Viren raced quite a bit. Except in the years he was injured - or semi-injured. So in 71, 72, and 76 he raced a lot. He'd typically run San Blas Half and a few other road races in the Winter, and he'd run track races as speed work. So he'd run a lot of 1500 and 3000 races at smallish meets in Scandinavia and Europe. He would usually run a few big races leading up to the games. Between 73 and 76 he had injuries and tried to run through them for the European championship which he wanted to do well at. But he finally had surgery right after the EU games. He did not race that much between 76 and 80. Not sure if it was injuries or just because he was married and living a life.

It's all very predictable.

First you pretend fantasy is fact, preaching that you believe in the fantasy because you believe that others believe fantasy, and that that is sufficient to produce a new fact. Then I will say, by the way, that is still fantasy, not fact. At this point, you've run out of intellectual options, so you resort to name calling, personal attacks on intelligence, obscure analogies and estoric references, occasionally using ancient words from middle English.

After all that waffle and flannel and sputtering, it remains fantasy and not fact.

You set a very low bar for average.

Whew. The word chaos is spectacular when a programme succumbs to a virus.

The past isn't always bad. In Viren's era we would never have heard from you.