It's quite possible she's doping, just like it's possible for any other elite athlete. But people who think they can identify dopers based on their progression are fooling themselves. There are lots of reasons different runners progress at different rates.
Yes there are lots of reasons for differing progressions, however the obvious outliers that are so ludicrous as to strain credibility are rightly held to high skepticism.
Non-suspicious progression: Joe from Accounting, a former cross country All-American gets off his couch, gets back in shape and low and behold a few years later qualifies for the US Marathon Trials where he finishes a very respectable 38th.
Or…someone that was a promising junior athlete took another path, developed massive aerobic strength via cycling/duathlon, and then made a return to their first sport with fresh legs and a fresh mind?
I will grant that drugs are a huge problem in the sport and we always have to assume that big names will get popped. Hunter-Bell and Alex Yee offer some evidence that cross training offers benefits and that grinding out the traditional runner’s schedule is not the only path to success.
I will also posit that a big reason for Hunter-Bell’s success is that she worked a 9-5 in cyber security until recently. Having an income and skills outside of running very likely blunts many of the neurotic and anxiety driven behaviors that we see in many elites. If she never improves or gets a major injury, then back to the office! Many one dimensional elites are two years and some poor spending decisions away from poverty should their careers come to a halt. That keeps them up at night whenever they feel a niggle or a sore spot.
in closing, I am rather surprised that Hunter-Bell gets so much suspicion here. She should be an inspiration to you post-collegiate cubicle serfs that have the talent to get an OTQ or that want to give going pro one more try before settling into careers, families, and the inevitable dad bod phases of life.
If cycling for a decade and then getting back into running at 30 years old with fresh legs and a fresh mind was the optimal way to train for athletics, all would be doing so.
You make it sound like she got off the couch and gave it a shot - she ran 3:52 and became one of the fastest women in history. Your comparison to a cubicle serf who decides to try to qualify for the Olympic Trials would only be relevant if Joe from Accounting gave it one more shot at going pro and ran a 3:28 1500m at age 30.
She ran a 32 minute 10k in a duathlon championship. Do you even know which 2 sports duathlon involves? This stuff isn't difficult to find out.
I'm not suspicious of her but I wish she hadn't swiped that bronze from Welteji in the final two steps.
Once she ran 4th at world indoors and 2nd at European Championships it was a bit of a hint she could be competitive in Paris.
Very familiar to anyone who has followed horse racing. Class over speed. So many people here only look at final times and never bother to notice where the athlete is finishing in relation to their peers. Throughout 2024 Hunter-Bell's past performance chart had 1s and other high finishes all over the place, with only a couple of clunkers.
“Suspect progression” is an argument that gets used against anyone who runs a fast time at any point.
That's simply not true. At least, no credible questions about progression come up just because someone runs a fast time.
Running significant outlier times after years and years of training and racing at the top level, with great coaching, and access to altitude training, nutritionists, etc., at an age that would generally correlate with slowing down... that's a different story in terms of eye-popping progression.
Years and years of training and racing at the top level with great coaching?
Are you joking? SHe went to cal (sea -level) had was AWFUl with Shelby H's sister as her coach. Then she got a job.
Or…someone that was a promising junior athlete took another path, developed massive aerobic strength via cycling/duathlon, and then made a return to their first sport with fresh legs and a fresh mind?
I will grant that drugs are a huge problem in the sport and we always have to assume that big names will get popped. Hunter-Bell and Alex Yee offer some evidence that cross training offers benefits and that grinding out the traditional runner’s schedule is not the only path to success.
I will also posit that a big reason for Hunter-Bell’s success is that she worked a 9-5 in cyber security until recently. Having an income and skills outside of running very likely blunts many of the neurotic and anxiety driven behaviors that we see in many elites. If she never improves or gets a major injury, then back to the office! Many one dimensional elites are two years and some poor spending decisions away from poverty should their careers come to a halt. That keeps them up at night whenever they feel a niggle or a sore spot.
in closing, I am rather surprised that Hunter-Bell gets so much suspicion here. She should be an inspiration to you post-collegiate cubicle serfs that have the talent to get an OTQ or that want to give going pro one more try before settling into careers, families, and the inevitable dad bod phases of life.
The age argument is horsecrap until you reach 35-40. We see aerobic and strength/flexibility declines in NORMAL people at that age but there is mounting evidence that athletes defy those losses for up to a decade in comparison. It’s also about wear and tear. A 30 year old that does 70% of their aerobic work on a bicycle or ARC trainer is going to be fresher at that age than a pure runner with a decade of high mileage on their legs. Running middle distances doesn’t require super high mileage as there is minimal pounding and DOMS compared to longer distance athletes.
Training evolves. Once upon a time, it was orthodoxy to run nothing but reps/intervals to get “tough enough” to survive a distance race. Then it switched to LSD miles because aerobic development became king. Next, a balanced mix of big miles and speed. Now double threshold is all the rage. Perhaps heavy cross training and targeted quality is the next evolution? All of this works to some degree. Why do people become so disbelieving? I feel that it’s more a personal bias or affront because it contradicts the poster’s personal beliefs.
All these letsrun kids think early 30s is "old", but you are still practically at your peak physiologically until late 30s (a bit of variation depending on race distance here). The reason we don't see as many 30+ setting records or winning championships is mostly because it's very hard to stay that healthy and motivated for that long rather than being about physiology.
I was initially suspicious of her a for a while, but someone made a good point on these boards on another 'Georgie Bell is doping' thread - The standards in female mid-distance running is much poorer than the men.
Just from a personal perspective. I ran 3.44 for 1500 at 25, (1.50 800 at 19) I was quite talented. I stopped training properly for a few years at 28 and got pretty damn fat over covid. In summer of 2021 (age 31) I started training again and was running 14.30 for 5k by July of the next year, probably in 18 min shape when I started. Is that a competitive time? - no, but, it shows that talent stays with you and early-mid 30's not much changes physically. Georgia Bell was always a national standard runner, pretty much international, and when she was training at University in England she trained like a sprinter and barely did any running but because 2.03 got you pretty far she was winning medals and getting scholarships. She obviously fixed that huge weakness over the last few years and improved her endurance hugely, its paying dividends now. I think she's likely clean - potentially grey area like most top level runners now plus Maurten, bouncy shoes, bouncy tracks, wave lights, the best female middle distance group and coach in the world and this is the result. I think its much less likely that when she was working in cybersecurity sales in London she was secretly going to the bathroom and loading up on EPO.
You only have to look at the British cycling culture to answer the question. Froome and Wiggins were not dopers - it's unlikely athletics is any different. Or at this point actually worse.
FIFY
Froome was accused of doping by a bunch of French dopers as the one thing they couldn't stand was a Brit winning their race. He released his test results, but that would never be enough for you will it.
Yeah Froome and Wiggins were two of the greatest cyclists of all time. Having Lance conquer France for 7 years in a row was bad enough, but the French were simply unable to accept the toughness of the Brits in cycling who had a long history of dominating big Tours before Froome and Wiggins. Besides, as Wiggins honestly reported in his biography, the British Sky team had a no needles policy so none of their cyclists ever took an injection or infusion. How are you going to take any useful PEDs without injections? Froome was probably one of the toughest cyclists who ever lived. He pushed himself so hard in the Vuelta that his kidneys went into failure and started producing asthma drugs thereby artificially producing off-the-charts drugs tests results. But there was no real positive drugs test for anyone to see there.
As another testament to their toughness, is worth noting that both of these guys overcame dangerously life threatening asthma and they had to take high doses of steroids just to be able to get out of bed in the morning which did not give them any advantage against their competitors.
At 14 (UK year 9, US grade 8) she ran 208.81. Was the fastest that year by 3 secs and is the 13th fastest of all time at that age group in the UK. In her only official recorded 200m of the season ran a 26.5. How fast is that? well it is the same PB that year of Dina Asher-Smith!
Has built a huge aerobic base now and is coached by one of the best coaches in the world, in a group with the best 800m runner in the world.