Team GB has 7 men below 3:32.00 over 1500m. How?

You should go off Cram not Ovett. His PBS are more reflective of his true abilities at 3:29.67/3:46.32. From those you’d suspect the adjustment is more like 1-1.5 seconds as pacing/track differences are narrower in 1985 than 1978-1981 (Coe/Ovetts physical peak). Superspikes and a small wavelength factor are most of it from there.

What?? So when George Mills runs in continental tour races and runs 3:33, he is in races specifically set up for him to run 3:33, and Kenyans don't have that privilege, even though they are also running in European continental tour races, and sometimes in the very same continental tour races Mills is running, and getting beaten by 5 seconds by him?

I'm disputing your assertion that George Mills was somehow lucky to get into Diamond Leage races and that there were just as deserving Kenyans who would also have ran 3:30 at 24 hours notice. Not sure why that upsets you.

It's freaking weird that you think a Spanish Moroccan who suddenly turns from b level to all-time European great at 1500, 3000, and 5000 at the age of 23 is less suspicious than a Norwegian guy who switches from the 5000 to the 1500 under the guidances of clearly one of the greatest ever coaches, and runs the same improvement as Katir did. Katir has not proved himself, he has barely improved after his crazy breakthough when he looked set to be the new El G. That has all the hallmarks of somebody who went full throttle on EPO and other peds during the lockdown when he wasn't even in the testing pool, and has been microdosing since. Explain to me how a change of training enables you to improve 8 seconds over 1500m in 12 months, and then just maintain that (very inconsistently) for the next 2 years?

He won in 3:34 again tonight in Berlin.

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Thank you for displaying your complete ignorance and racism.

It's not random. You don't go 40 years with nothing and then 8 sub 3:32 men, two consecutive world champions, a batch of world class 800m men.

The resurgence in middle-distance running has been across multiple nations and continents outside of Africa. Britain has always been one of the top non-African nations at middle-distance. Obviously the better testing in Africa is a huge reason.

No,better testing in africa is not the reason.The real reason is the other nations are playing catch up,by doping, so they can compete with the doped africans.

None of these guys can touch Coe's 800m speed. And he certainly doesn't believe they are training smarter or harder than he did.

So why can these Tom, Dick and Harrys run 1500m just as fast as Coe did. What factor has changed the speed/endurance relationship, not just for Brit mid-distance runners, but more generally?

Coe knows what it is. And it's not the shoes, or we would be seeing proportionally faster 800m times.

And although Coe knows the answer, in his heart of hearts, he can genuinely, authentically, work himself into a rage over an American "cheater" such as Justin Gatlin.

The human capacity for self-serving rationalization is a remarkable thing.

Kerr, Wightman, Gourley, Giles, Mills, Heyward, Stonier - who is no. 8? 3:30-to-3:40-in-two-years Charlie?

Catching people doping doesn't bring anyone new into the sport. Seeing people from your region inspires you because you think if they can do it maybe I can too. Watching Mo Farah win gold after gold after gold in the 2010s didn't seem to inspire anyone to get into the 5 or 10 in Europe, but the rise of the Brits from somewhat moderately promising youth to stars and DL roster filler tracks Jakob's rise. Michael East ran 3:32.37 in 2004, John Mayock ran 3:31.86 in 1996 or 1997, and there were no other Brits below 3:32.4 between the 1980s and 2018 (Chris O'Hare), except for Mo Farah, who ran twice under 3:29 and who either didn't inspire anyone or inspired his generation after he was done. In 2018, you had O'Hare. In 2019, you had Charles Da'vall Grice at 3:30.6 and Wightman, at 25 years old already with a pr of 3:31, and then in 2021-23, are all the rest of the British top times since the 1980s, except for Mo's. Something changed. The Brits started to believe they could do it in the 1500m as Jakob rose in 2019-20.

Really? Like who? I know only of Tyrone Mings and Patrick Bamford, and he's nowhere near the England squad.

Nothing upset me, you are the one getting emotional. Both the Kenyans and George Mills have run 3:33-34 to win Gold/Silver races. But only Mills is based in Europe and full credit to him for getting added to fields last-minute and running fast in faster races. Not luck, just his training situation vs theirs. They’d call the Kenyans if they were there, but they are not typically or they are getting pacing assignments, which are more valuable to them for income than the money is for Mills.

As for Nordas vs Katir:

-Katir was younger at his improvement (age 22-23 vs 24)

-Not running in DL/global races until 2021

-Got benefit of superspikes

-Got a new coach

-Started training with a track as opposed to grass fields in Mula

-Began altitude training

Whereas, Nordas got more face-time with Gjert, and started running more 1500s. After declaring himself talentless and slow, doing the exact same training turned him into a 3:29 athlete with a 52-second last lap. The one thing may be altitude training. Unlike Katir who had a rude awakening with his first global champs, he’s immediately .03 from Silver.
Katir has barely improved despite:

-being 5 steps from global gold in the 5k after getting dropped in Tokyo

-setting substantial personal records at 3k/5k (3 and 5.7 seconds respectively)

-placing higher in loaded DL fields in Florence, Oslo

Just because you and some others overreacted to him winning some watered-down DL races in England and running fast in Monaco to beat a sick Jakob doesn’t mean he was the next El Guerrouj.

Above started to get to a few points I was going to make …

1- coming through in late 90’s the standard was dire - there was several years where there was mayock at 331-333 and whiteman at 332-335 and it seemed like anyone else under 340 had a shot of a AAA title. the legacy of Coe and cram etc did nothing at this time.
2- to the comments on state sponsored doping 2 of the top 3 are us based and coached athletes.
3- I almost wonder has a resurgence of Athletes going to the us helped. I think in the 90’s there was brown and nuttal and that was like it in terms of athletes that went to the us on scholarships. Everyone else ran sessions on a Tuesday and Thursday night after long working day. I think I’d say then PC and New Mexico and butler and Iona started recruiting in the uk and many how now taken that option (including Kerr and gourley) - this was at same time as training in the us was turning a corner as well.
4- success breeds success. You now have to be in 336 shape to make AAA final. 332 to make team. easier to believe you can do that when 10 people from your country are doing it.
5- to comment about 5k success. I don’t think he Will or should but Neil gourley ran 13.11 based on base 1500 training. Given how hard uk team will be - would be train for 5k get in 12.55-13.00 shape and have easier route to Olympics and be dangerous in slow race? This is the same way Kenyan marathon dominance started when 5k team got in too hard to make.
6- unrelated to above - will it hurt kerr and weightman having to get in 330 shape a month before Olympics to make that uk team? Can they both get w pass. 7- lottery funding no impact. Goes to already established athletes and few lucky folks in the in crowd.

Why no mention of the BMC? This has a huge influence on young and not-so-young athletes' development, offering the chance to chase times with seeding and appropriate pacemaking. There appear to be whopping great entries in recent seasons, even out here in the sticks.

Agree BMC does fantastic job. But they were there in the late 80’s and 90’s. Did they change something in the early 2010’s that you think leads to what we see now?

Absolutely. There was no doping in cycling until GB started handing out TUEs. Imagine what all-American heroes like Lance Armstrong could have achieved if they had gone down the cheating Brit's route?

To be honest, the question is really -why does GB have all these fast times with super shoes, yet USA and Kenya are actually getting slower?

Well why did Britain's times get slower during the EPO era while Kenya and the USA's rocketed, and both declined withbtesting and the ABP while GB has gotten better? We can only guess... :)

Shelby and that other US runner ('tainted gym preworkout") who got busted probably had a chilling effect on the likes of Hocker and Kessler.

The UK has always been good at middle distance running, apart from a relatively brief period in the 90s/2000s.

Taking anti-doping relatively seriously while other nations only pretended to do it probably accounts for a big part of it. Not that there wasn't doping in the UK at that time. There definitely was, and it probably led to some of the rare good performances, though pinning it on anyone in particular isn't possible at this stage.

The thing to remember is that professional sport in the UK is football (soccer). Everything else is a rounding error. The Premier League in particular (and the rest of UK pro football to some extent) experienced a huge influx of money around this time. Football is what you did if you were a sporty boy and wanted to make your fortune. Competition from football might explain some of the particular uselessness of male athletes in the 90s/2000s. The women's side was relatively less pathetic.

Now the EPL is so huge that most of the players are from overseas and the path to glory for a young British kid has kind of evened out again. Though could it still explain some of the slight over-representation of non-English middle-distance runners?

I’m glad you did mention there was few dopers in UK at this time or your otherwise sensible post would have had to be ridiculed.

The Premier League thing makes a lot more sense than taking anti-doping relatively seriously. That might explain not having medalists, but wouldn't explain not having guys who could run 3:32-3:34. It was a drought plain and simple. Just as there is a boom right now.