We like to have 1 thread per topic so we merged two threads together and kept the title of this thread. The other thread was entitled, "Assefa performance."
WR times are being run with alarming frequency. Is this natural progression or the the influence of drugs and supershoes?
It's inconclusive regarding foot wear. One-hundred meters to 800m, both genders cannot improve their performances.
Drugs? What drugs? I suspect graft & corruption in T&F at the highest level. I suspect there are some, "Too Big to Fail" athletes.
I don't place T Assefa in "Too Big to Fail" category. Why would S Coe fall on his sword for her?
I look at this in the same way I look at male one mile progression. From late 1930s, we had a handful of 1:46.xx & 1:47.xx 800m men. By the time we got to dozens of sub-1:49 800m men, sub-4 mile was going to occur.
For close to 60 years, men have been racing sub-2:12 Marathon. Most men in 2:11:30 to 2:12 Marathon range are men with one mile personal best in (4:05 to 4:20) range. We have about 25 women with sub-3:56 1500m. There are 6 women with outdoor sub-4:15 one mile (five of the six are also sub-3:56 1500m women). Not every woman with sub-4:15 1 mile ability is going to race sub-2:12 Marathon. Not every male with sub-4:15 one mile ability is going to race sub-2:12 Marathon. If there are enough women who could beat Bill Rogers & Dick Beardsley in 1 mile, some of the same women who could defeat Rogers and Beardsley, 1 mile are going to be able to race close to Rogers' & Beardsley's Marathon times.
I don't question the POTENTIAL for women to run a sub 2:12.. I question a particular athlete with no track record of success or ability in the longer distances to show up and destroy the WR.
If you don't fatigue that's even better. And that's what drugs can do.
This... train harder and longer, recover fast, repeat.. and avoid injury
To go further.. let's say if super shoes can give a "responsive" athlete an 8% improvement, you still need the athlete to be fast and in amazing shape to be competitive, because after all 8% of nothing is nothing. And there is one straight forward way that a previously unknown mildly successful 800m runner gets in that amazing shape quickly.
My question is what makes people so comfortable believing she's not doping? Criquets
This is again one of the most obvious doping performances you will ever see and the diehards who desperately cling to the notion that this and other performances are on the level are sad to watch. This is a fourth tier sport now, and rationalizing this kind of nonsense goes a long way in establishing why.
She's had the benefit of doping all year for several years now without worrying about getting caught and knowing exactly when she is racing and when she needs to come off the cycle. That means a hell of a lot of improvement from heavy training loads and quick recovery. Clearly she already had speed so there's your answer. She will only get caught if she's very careless or if there is some bigger raid on her team and they find the drugs. But you are all welcome to continue living in the rainbows with the unicorns.
Athletics has just become too bizarre.Im not surprised people have lost interest in it,or stopped competing.
In the eyes of the masses that are increasingly experiencing attention deficit and are bombarded with fast everything all day, distance running is probably the least interesting thing one could watch.
This is again one of the most obvious doping performances you will ever see and the diehards who desperately cling to the notion that this and other performances are on the level are sad to watch. This is a fourth tier sport now, and rationalizing this kind of nonsense goes a long way in establishing why.
I say they open it all up and stop pretending. I want to see a man run 1:50 and a woman break 2 hrs. Sure, depending on the dope some will have heart attacks in the middle of the race, but at least they die trying. Let them run with real springs or other apparatus in their shoes - could be highly entertaining. It could shift the sport to 2nd tier status.
This is again one of the most obvious doping performances you will ever see and the diehards who desperately cling to the notion that this and other performances are on the level are sad to watch. This is a fourth tier sport now, and rationalizing this kind of nonsense goes a long way in establishing why.
How do you rate a 1:41.73 in 1981 from WA president Coe?
todays tracks are worth - 1.5s?
current shoes - 0.5s?
wavelight - 0.3s?
various attempts in top shape like Kipketer and Rudisha and not just a single one in early season - 0.2s?
This would give Coe a 1:39.2 in 1981.
Have training and nutrition stagnated in the last 4 decades? Definitely not. So, how do you rate this performance?
Still 3rd best ever, after 42 years of progress, despite all the talented dopers... no way that was "clean" (yes, blood transfusion were legal in 1981, and yes, there was 0 out of competition testing)
Question for everyone else... what makes you confident that any top 3 WC/OG/major marathon/WR athlete is not clean?
You didn't address the meat of the question. You are claiming that there are no PEDs for the marathon. Where is your proof that coaches and athletes actually believe that? We have evidence of distance runners being caught doping. It doesn't matter if you believe they aren't effective - those athletes clearly believed it and they violated the rules.
Sorry I missed this response before. The meat of your question was why *I* have not believed (in doping), and then again what makes *me* confident athletes are clean -- it wasn't about what coaches and athletes believe. I gave you 7 reasons not to "believe".
But sure, like many fans "believe", many coaches/athletes also "believe". Some of them will try it, out of a lack of personal confidence, either in coaching or in personal talent, or in desperation as a last resort. Some of them will be caught. How many of them have run sub-2:05?
I do not claim that there are no PEDs, but that the alleged existence of a PED capable of producing these elite mararthon performances unnaturally is not based on substantial evidence. At best, it is a projected possibility based on lab results on amateurs who did not run marathons. This is why I am asked so often to look at other sports/events like cycling or baseball or chess or most recently horses.
This post was edited 7 minutes after it was posted.
Reason provided:
Double negative
Watched it properly last night. I am even more astounded now.
40km 2:05:13, 41km 2:08:16 (3:03), 42.195km 2:11:52 (3:36) , couldn't see the 42km sign for that last 200m split.
This is from someone that ran track, didn't advance out of rounds at OG, took break, then decided "I will do the marathon"...absolutely no progression through the distances that was required by Kipchoge, Bekele and everyone else that quick. First 'real' marathon 2:15, next one 2:11:52
If this is what she has done in this short space of time then it means she is likely still on the up, with big improvements possible.
...I have a Harbour Bridge for sale.
I like your assessment. The question I've been asking the "to the gills" crowd is: What time do they think is possible?
Then, work from there to determine how much she benefitted from the shoes and from (possible) PED use.
Some people seem to think that "we" have stopped "getting faster".
Is the limit 2:17? 2:19? 2:15? If so, the shoes may have enough effect to make 2:12 possible.
Don't forget that if she was wearing carbon plated shoes on her hard days she was running faster and recovering faster than with regular shoes.
What's the % improvement from that?
She MAY be using PED's, but there is also a possibility that her time is pharmaceutically possible.
"She MAY be using PED's, but there is also a possibility that her time is pharmaceutically possible."(quote)
That's saying the same thing.
Yes- actually I meant non-pharmaceutically possible.
Yes, it's unlikely, I get it. But when you look at the women's progression in the marathon and the % this is behind the men's record, it's possible.
Women didn't really start running the marathon until 1970ish, so it's going to improve drastically.
And, in a race like this, she had men with her and men to chase until the end.
The men don't get that anywhere except in the two 2 hour attempts.
Since it's highly likely the men's records are doped this absolutely puts her record in doping territory for a woman.
The other assumption made here is that there must be a constant and significant rate of progress, and this in a sport that depends essentially on physical capacity and not technique or dramatic changes in equipment (such as we have seen in motor racing with higher powered cars, and golf and tennis with higher powered clubs and racquets). The comparison I have made previously is with another sport involving running, and that is horse-racing where times have not improved in half a century. Since there only a few factors that will result in faster times overall in running the inference must be there is something at play which is significantly changing the physical capacity of athletes. That is doping.
There is no reason to assume that women's marathon times must improve because they came relatively late to the sport, unless it is being argued the early competitors were inherently inferior athletes. There isn't anything that suggests that. If we look at other events we see that women competitors were from the earliest much the same distance from male competition as they are today. If that gap is being closed in a sport like marathon running it raises the question of how is this possible.
Yes- actually I meant non-pharmaceutically possible.
Yes, it's unlikely, I get it. But when you look at the women's progression in the marathon and the % this is behind the men's record, it's possible.
Women didn't really start running the marathon until 1970ish, so it's going to improve drastically.
And, in a race like this, she had men with her and men to chase until the end.
The men don't get that anywhere except in the two 2 hour attempts.
Since it's highly likely the men's records are doped this absolutely puts her record in doping territory for a woman.
The other assumption made here is that there must be a constant and significant rate of progress, and this in a sport that depends essentially on physical capacity and not technique or dramatic changes in equipment (such as we have seen in motor racing with higher powered cars, and golf and tennis with higher powered clubs and racquets). The comparison I have made previously is with another sport involving running, and that is horse-racing where times have not improved in half a century. Since there only a few factors that will result in faster times overall in running the inference must be there is something at play which is significantly changing the physical capacity of athletes. That is doping.
There is no reason to assume that women's marathon times must improve because they came relatively late to the sport, unless it is being argued the early competitors were inherently inferior athletes. There isn't anything that suggests that. If we look at other events we see that women competitors were from the earliest much the same distance from male competition as they are today. If that gap is being closed in a sport like marathon running it raises the question of how is this possible.
So many words to repeat what you say every day. Funny how you choose to waste your life.
Since it's highly likely the men's records are doped this absolutely puts her record in doping territory for a woman.
The other assumption made here is that there must be a constant and significant rate of progress, and this in a sport that depends essentially on physical capacity and not technique or dramatic changes in equipment (such as we have seen in motor racing with higher powered cars, and golf and tennis with higher powered clubs and racquets). The comparison I have made previously is with another sport involving running, and that is horse-racing where times have not improved in half a century. Since there only a few factors that will result in faster times overall in running the inference must be there is something at play which is significantly changing the physical capacity of athletes. That is doping.
There is no reason to assume that women's marathon times must improve because they came relatively late to the sport, unless it is being argued the early competitors were inherently inferior athletes. There isn't anything that suggests that. If we look at other events we see that women competitors were from the earliest much the same distance from male competition as they are today. If that gap is being closed in a sport like marathon running it raises the question of how is this possible.
So many words to repeat what you say every day. Funny how you choose to waste your life.
Actually, I'm getting paid $157.00 a day to sit at a computer reading letsrun while the students in the classes I'm subbing for work on their computers.
Add that to my pension and my social security and it's not a waste at all.
Help us build the best running shoe review site for a chance to win a LetsRun t-shirt.Help us build the best running shoe review site for a chance to win one of 10 LetsRun t-shirts.