I'm thinking EPO was in existance in the early 1980s; maybe not for runners? Also there were reports of several East German sport doctors going to China when things fell apart in Germany, so who knows what was up. At the time of the fast Chinese performances, I remember more talk of the women being men than of anyone doping; I guess anything beyond normal progression will always be questioned.
video guy wrote:
No promises, but I'll see if I can unearth them. They're mainly from the 1997 National Champs, however, where Jiang Bo was tearing up the scene (she won the 15 and 5 at those championships, breaking the then-WR in the latter, narrowly missing it in the former). I'm still trying to get my hands on some of the '93 footage. Wish me luck in finding the vids. BTW, they're all in Mandarin, but all races are shown in their entirety.
That really would be fantastic. You would make me happy with this!
I thought by 96 she was clean ... the performances there were good, but "normal."
I still struggle with the 1993 Chinese performances. If they were doing something, what was it? How could they have been so much better than others (Russians, etc.) who were caught at or around that time? Short track? Will we ever know?
To the best of my knowledge, none of the Chinese women who put those performances down were ever found guilty of anything.
And now the Ethiopian and Kenyan women are starting to close in on the times the Chinese women were running back then.
I remember reading a lot about the Psychology/Sociology that could have contributed towards those runs. I am not naive about the possibilities, but I do remain uncertain about the % contribution of various options to that amazing week of running.