How is someone being ethnocentric - you must have done well in your sociology 101 class - by pointing out that foreigners who train in the US are not subject to random, out of competition drug tests?
How is someone being ethnocentric - you must have done well in your sociology 101 class - by pointing out that foreigners who train in the US are not subject to random, out of competition drug tests?
You tell us, you are the one who stated that dirty athletes have dirty associations. Jos is dirty. Rosa is Dirty. Salazar is dirty.
It appears that you are also the one who was "on the fence" regarding Ben Johnson's ability to run 9.79 without the use of drugs.
give me a break... the kid looks at the world as if all americans are clean, because they are familiar to him and that is about the only reason, they are like him so he doesn't see how they could possibly be dirtythere are just as many arguments that would suggest americans are more likely to be dirty
Boulder Periphery wrote:
How is someone being ethnocentric - you must have done well in your sociology 101 class - by pointing out that foreigners who train in the US are not subject to random, out of competition drug tests?
Hahaha. Yeah, a stats class, that'll learn ya. Hahaha.
I think Alan is the closest to the truth so far. The fact of the matter is that testing is always behind development of drugs but the kind of drugs that were available and that you could get away with in the time period when these women’s records were set are simple not useable today. You would get caught. Hopefully this is a trend that continues. There are only so many epo's ect.. in the human system so the better the testing gets the fewer options dopers have and hopefully the less effective the doping options available will be. I think a surprising number of the world records are clean but most of the women’s sprint and md. records are from either proven cheaters or women who came out of the systematic doping of the German and Russian federations. Frankly if you used what they used then nowadays you would be caught immediately.nate
Runningart2004 wrote:
The Germans had a state run doping program.
The Chinese had an expertly organized doping program.
Today's doping is likely through individuals and their agents. There are less organized doping circles today.
Also, the steroids used back then are not easily found today. Good luck going out today and getting Winstrol without either getting caught by your federation or the Feds. Steroids were not put on the Controlled Substance Act until 1990.
Women are not breaking these drug tainted records because today's dopers do not have access to the same type of drugs.
Alan
I agree with Nate and Alan.
The anabolics that were the Eastern Bloc PED's of choice (dianabol, turinabol) in the 1970's-1980's are much harder to obtain now without someone noticing, at least in the US.
Also sometimes overlooked is the ability to enhance female performances with testosterone. Turn a woman into a dude with hormones and you get dramatic improvements. Men also benefit from additional testosterone I believe, but the benefit is much smaller than for women.
Why would any athlete choose to associate themselves either by being coached by or acting as an agent if they know full well they've got a very sketchy background?
Even if they have no intention of taking PEDs, surely they know fingers will end up being pointed, especially if progressions are made.
Anyone who chooses Hermanns is dodgy in my eyes, even the pretty white American ones.
Why would any athlete choose to associate themselves either by being coached by or acting as an agent if they know full well they've got a very sketchy background?
Even if they have no intention of taking PEDs, surely they know fingers will end up being pointed, especially if progressions are made.
Anyone who chooses Hermanns is dodgy in my eyes, even the pretty white American ones.
Now we're getting somewhere with this post. It illuminates the systemic problem of PED's. Of course nobody who wanted to train and race as clean as possible would associate with Rosa, Hermanns, Ferrari, Graham, and the list goes on and on. Just the mere fact that they are still involved in sport and athletes flock to them is mind numbing. It is the number one reason these guys should be banned for life. The problem with letting drug cheats back into the sport is that they have learned a lesson and are now bigger, better cheats. That isn't good for anybody, the fans, the athletes, the agents or the coaches.As much as I'd like to believe otherwise there is no way you can take the past 15 years in T&F and not put an asterisk on it just like MLB.Watching Bek trying to catch his world 10k record last summer only illustrated to me how out of control the situation had become. I was pleasantly surprised by how "slow" the world leaders had become last track season though. Gives me hope for the future.
trollism wrote:
Why would any athlete choose to associate themselves either by being coached by or acting as an agent if they know full well they've got a very sketchy background?
Even if they have no intention of taking PEDs, surely they know fingers will end up being pointed, especially if progressions are made.
Anyone who chooses Hermanns is dodgy in my eyes, even the pretty white American ones.
Bekele hasn't done anything superhuman. 26:22 was legit so 26:17 isn't that much of a stretch.
As to why do these guys go with these shady characters: ignorance plays a role. How many top tier runners are as into this as you are? The X-Man didn't know his 19.63 was the #2 time in history until someone told him later that night. You think he knew everything about Zhanna Block?
Dude, you are a great voice of reason here because 2 back to back 13:08s ain't nothing special.
mobile9 wrote:
Bekele hasn't done anything superhuman. 26:22 was legit so 26:17 isn't that much of a stretch.
As to why do these guys go with these shady characters: ignorance plays a role. How many top tier runners are as into this as you are? The X-Man didn't know his 19.63 was the #2 time in history until someone told him later that night. You think he knew everything about Zhanna Block?
trollism wrote:Why would any athlete choose to associate themselves either by being coached by or acting as an agent if they know full well they've got a very sketchy background?
Well, one obvious reason is that someone like Hermens is one of the most powerful people in the sport. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a lane in one of the big European meets -- the ones where you have a chance of getting vacuumed along to a career-making time? If Hermens agrees to take you on (and remember, he's an agent, not a coach), most people jump at the chance.
I'm not saying that's a good thing -- I'm not a big fan of having people with murky pasts playing key roles in the sport. But if you're an athlete trying to make it to the top levels -- cleanly -- there are some pretty powerful reasons to work with the top agents, and not worry too much about some ancient history that has nothing to do with you.
I also agree with Alan but to the point of the original post why does state sponsered doping work better with women than men?
Flo Jo had her own thing but the other records are mostly communist bloc. Marion Jones and Merlen Ottey just couldn't quite get to Flo Jo's times.
Maybe the answer is that the African women are currently behind the curve as the prestige is mostly for the men in their culture.
After all, with the exception of the 110 HH every male running world record is owned by someone from Africa or of African descent.
One thing that always puzzled me was the womens marathon.
30 years ago we all sat around confidently predicting 2:15 as a ho-hum time by 2000, and women likely to get close to 2:12.
What happened????
Times run in the '70's still look pretty good today!
did you see the TV show Space 1999? what happened to that?
same goes for popular mechanics - look back to 1970 to see what was predicted.
hold the phone wrote:
Well, one obvious reason is that someone like Hermens is one of the most powerful people in the sport. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a lane in one of the big European meets -- the ones where you have a chance of getting vacuumed along to a career-making time? If Hermens agrees to take you on (and remember, he's an agent, not a coach), most people jump at the chance.
Nah, if you're fast enough, you get your lane.
goducks wrote:
No Women are even coming close to flojo's 100 and 200 time, Marita Koch's 400 Jarmila's 800, while on the men's side the 100 record is being broken yearly, Wariner is knocking on the door of the 400 and the 800 record was set 10-11 years ago (I don't know enough to say if people are running realistically close to this record nowadays). But doesn't it seem like if the drugs are just as good if not better now than they were then, than people should be at least coming close to these records. The Women's heptathlon, discus, shot put, and 100 hurdles are similarly out of reach. Is HGH less effective than the anabolic steroids people were taking in the 80's?
There was no out of competition testing in Flojo's day. There was no testing at all in Koch's and Jarmila's day. I don't know about the effectiveness of today's drugs vis a vis then, but I think the fact that the old drug records still stand is a testament to testing procedures today, particularly out of competition testing. Back then, you could take as many drugs as you wanted whenever you wanted. Nowdays, the selection of drugs athletes can take is limited to HGH and drugs that clear the system quickly (or of course, new drugs). Those drugs may not be the most effective for performance enhancement.
Sure someone said it, but in the past they took anabolic steroids. Testosterone. These women turned into men. They ran very fast.
Nowadays, we can test for women turning into men. It's not allowed. We just can't test for people taking the stuff that makes them run very fast, regardless of whether they smile or come from poor countries. Or even the ones that take the stuff and are pretty white americans.
This is about the 5th time you've referenced "pretty white americans". So which ones do you find pretty? I mean Ritz is ok I guess and Hall - maybe if I was really drunk, Webb - not my type. I suppose you might have a man crush on Sell, but in reality, who doesn't around these parts.
trollism wrote:
Sure someone said it, but in the past they took anabolic steroids. Testosterone. These women turned into men. They ran very fast.
Nowadays, we can test for women turning into men. It's not allowed. We just can't test for people taking the stuff that makes them run very fast, regardless of whether they smile or come from poor countries. Or even the ones that take the stuff and are pretty white americans.
He means Suzy. I've never thought there were any clean sub-4:00 women either. Not that it's some magic cutoff point; it's just a round arbitrary number that's conveniently near the kind of times many convicted drug cheats have run.