Cram 1:43 - Why Aren't 800's Run Like This Anymore?

whatadrick wrote:

Tyrone ReXXXing wrote:

I find it fascinating that despite Super Shoes, better tracks, altitude tents, more $, a greater influx of Africans and tons of other advantageous technology ....ALONG WITH... all the " doping that is EVERYwhere" in track, that the 800m times run by Ryun, Snell, Coe, Cram etc....a million years ago, would still easily compete and/ or beat the best curreny performances/performers [ last couple years].

Something doesn't add up. anyone care to explain this to me?

It's easy to explain.

Track, and especially the mile, was the number 1 non-team sport, and often made the front page news, let alone the back page. Somebody mentioned here recently that in the UK, both main TV channels (there were only 3 channels at the time) broadcast Cram's mile WR live, and something like 20 million (or over 1/3 of the entire population) were watching.

Then came Premier Leage football, as well as the EPO era which almost killed spectator interest in the West, with a corresponding decline in participation levels. For every talented British or European kid going in to track in 2012, there were 10 in 1972.

Recently, with the introduction of the ABP, and lately a WADA lab in Nairobi, and the consequent return to Earth of Kenyan times (Morrocco has almost fallen off the map completely), British, Australasian, and European kids have self-belief again, and spectator interest is slowly picking up.

So the Coes, Ovetts, Crams etc are returning to the sport, in the form of Jakob Ingebrigsten, followed by the next generation such as Max Burgin, Neils Lars, Ethan Hussey etc. And that's essentially because Africans can't cheat the way they used to.

whatadrick wrote:

Tyrone ReXXXing wrote:

I find it fascinating that despite Super Shoes, better tracks, altitude tents, more $, a greater influx of Africans and tons of other advantageous technology ....ALONG WITH... all the " doping that is EVERYwhere" in track, that the 800m times run by Ryun, Snell, Coe, Cram etc....a million years ago, would still easily compete and/ or beat the best curreny performances/performers [ last couple years].

Something doesn't add up. anyone care to explain this to me?

It's easy to explain.

Track, and especially the mile, was the number 1 non-team sport, and often made the front page news, let alone the back page. Somebody mentioned here recently that in the UK, both main TV channels (there were only 3 channels at the time) broadcast Cram's mile WR live, and something like 20 million (or over 1/3 of the entire population) were watching.

Then came Premier Leage football, as well as the EPO era which almost killed spectator interest in the West, with a corresponding decline in participation levels. For every talented British or European kid going in to track in 2012, there were 10 in 1972.

Recently, with the introduction of the ABP, and lately a WADA lab in Nairobi, and the consequent return to Earth of Kenyan times (Morrocco has almost fallen off the map completely), British, Australasian, and European kids have self-belief again, and spectator interest is slowly picking up.

So the Coes, Ovetts, Crams etc are returning to the sport, in the form of Jakob Ingebrigsten, followed by the next generation such as Max Burgin, Neils Lars, Ethan Hussey etc. And that's essentially because Africans can't cheat the way they used to.

whatadrick wrote:

Tyrone ReXXXing wrote:

I find it fascinating that despite Super Shoes, better tracks, altitude tents, more $, a greater influx of Africans and tons of other advantageous technology ....ALONG WITH... all the " doping that is EVERYwhere" in track, that the 800m times run by Ryun, Snell, Coe, Cram etc....a million years ago, would still easily compete and/ or beat the best curreny performances/performers [ last couple years].

Something doesn't add up. anyone care to explain this to me?

It's easy to explain.

Track, and especially the mile, was the number 1 non-team sport, and often made the front page news, let alone the back page. Somebody mentioned here recently that in the UK, both main TV channels (there were only 3 channels at the time) broadcast Cram's mile WR live, and something like 20 million (or over 1/3 of the entire population) were watching.

Then came Premier Leage football, as well as the EPO era which almost killed spectator interest in the West, with a corresponding decline in participation levels. For every talented British or European kid going in to track in 2012, there were 10 in 1972.

Recently, with the introduction of the ABP, and lately a WADA lab in Nairobi, and the consequent return to Earth of Kenyan times (Morrocco has almost fallen off the map completely), British, Australasian, and European kids have self-belief again, and spectator interest is slowly picking up.

So the Coes, Ovetts, Crams etc are returning to the sport, in the form of Jakob Ingebrigsten, followed by the next generation such as Max Burgin, Neils Lars, Ethan Hussey etc. And that's essentially because Africans can't cheat the way they used to.

Deanouk wrote:

the dingoo wrote:

If Snell, Ryun, Coe were clean, you definitely should expect many sub 1:40 if all of the best today are doping.

Not necessarily. Snell said that a good grass track was faster than a dirt one. I would imagine his 1:44.3 WR would have been about 1:43.3 on a 1980's synthetic track. There have been more than a dozen men who have subsequently run faster.

Ryun's 880yd WR of 1:44.9 (converted to 1:44.3 800m equivalent) was also set on a synthetic track, not dirt. Of course he ran negative splits and was also probably capable of 1:43 low with a faster first lap. Again, there were people running faster in the 80's.

The 800m is a distance that seems to require a very precarious balance of speed and endurance, which is why I think there has been such a diverse split inthe nationality of elites across many nations. Use of EPO and the science of understanding training at altitude has definitely had a huge impact on the WRs over distance events. Likewise with the short sprints: ever developing peds and faster tracks (that can be adapted for srint events or alternatively to aid distance runners) have enabled a gradual erosion of the WR down to around 9.6 and 19.2. However, the times for the best 800m and 400m runners seem to have hardly moved on at all.

The 400m WR in 68 was 43.86 and in the following 50 years it has moved on by less than 1 sec. A sub 44 is still very rare and special. But things can plateau out for quite some time, before someone comes along and moves the record to a new level. The 800m record was 1:44.3 in 62, and 17 years later it had moved on less than a second. Then, in 2 installments, Coe lowered it to 1:41.7, which, like Beamon's LJ, was ahead of its time. Well, then Cruz came along 3 years later and was within 0.1 sec of the record. Since then it has moved on by just 0.8secs. Thi year has been a particularly fallow one for 800m times, as currently the world lead is only 1:43.5. Last year 14 men ran under 1:44, compared to just 7 who managed it between 1978 and 1983. But then the following year (1984) 10 men broke 1:44! So it goes in waves.

I think the fact that the 400m WR has only improved by 0.15 in the last 23 years, or that the 800m WR has only improved by 0.82 is testament to the fact that sometimes you get extreme outliers who ran even above themselves on certain occasions, and that maybe the limit of human ability is approaching its limit.

I think people should have realised 30 years ago that a sub 1:40 800m was going to be far off, and certainly I wouldn't have expected many sub 1:40's today.

Deanouk wrote:

the dingoo wrote:

If Snell, Ryun, Coe were clean, you definitely should expect many sub 1:40 if all of the best today are doping.

Not necessarily. Snell said that a good grass track was faster than a dirt one. I would imagine his 1:44.3 WR would have been about 1:43.3 on a 1980's synthetic track. There have been more than a dozen men who have subsequently run faster.

Ryun's 880yd WR of 1:44.9 (converted to 1:44.3 800m equivalent) was also set on a synthetic track, not dirt. Of course he ran negative splits and was also probably capable of 1:43 low with a faster first lap. Again, there were people running faster in the 80's.

The 800m is a distance that seems to require a very precarious balance of speed and endurance, which is why I think there has been such a diverse split inthe nationality of elites across many nations. Use of EPO and the science of understanding training at altitude has definitely had a huge impact on the WRs over distance events. Likewise with the short sprints: ever developing peds and faster tracks (that can be adapted for srint events or alternatively to aid distance runners) have enabled a gradual erosion of the WR down to around 9.6 and 19.2. However, the times for the best 800m and 400m runners seem to have hardly moved on at all.

The 400m WR in 68 was 43.86 and in the following 50 years it has moved on by less than 1 sec. A sub 44 is still very rare and special. But things can plateau out for quite some time, before someone comes along and moves the record to a new level. The 800m record was 1:44.3 in 62, and 17 years later it had moved on less than a second. Then, in 2 installments, Coe lowered it to 1:41.7, which, like Beamon's LJ, was ahead of its time. Well, then Cruz came along 3 years later and was within 0.1 sec of the record. Since then it has moved on by just 0.8secs. This year has been a particularly fallow one for 800m times, as currently the world lead is only 1:43.5. Last year 14 men ran under 1:44, compared to just 7 who managed it between 1978 and 1983. But then the following year (1984) 10 men broke 1:44! So it goes in waves.

I think the fact that the 400m WR has only improved by 0.15 in the last 23 years, or that the 800m WR has only improved by 0.82 in 31 years is testament to the fact that sometimes you get extreme outliers who ran even above themselves on certain occasions, and that maybe the boundary of what is humanly possible is approaching its limit.

I think people should have realised 30 years ago that a sub 1:40 800m was going to be far off, and certainly I wouldn't have expected many sub 1:40's today.

Kdoer wrote:

Deanouk wrote:

Not necessarily. Snell said that a good grass track was faster than a dirt one. I would imagine his 1:44.3 WR would have been about 1:43.3 on a 1980's synthetic track. There have been more than a dozen men who have subsequently run faster.

Ryun's 880yd WR of 1:44.9 (converted to 1:44.3 800m equivalent) was also set on a synthetic track, not dirt. Of course he ran negative splits and was also probably capable of 1:43 low with a faster first lap. Again, there were people running faster in the 80's.

The 800m is a distance that seems to require a very precarious balance of speed and endurance, which is why I think there has been such a diverse split inthe nationality of elites across many nations. Use of EPO and the science of understanding training at altitude has definitely had a huge impact on the WRs over distance events. Likewise with the short sprints: ever developing peds and faster tracks (that can be adapted for srint events or alternatively to aid distance runners) have enabled a gradual erosion of the WR down to around 9.6 and 19.2. However, the times for the best 800m and 400m runners seem to have hardly moved on at all.

The 400m WR in 68 was 43.86 and in the following 50 years it has moved on by less than 1 sec. A sub 44 is still very rare and special. But things can plateau out for quite some time, before someone comes along and moves the record to a new level. The 800m record was 1:44.3 in 62, and 17 years later it had moved on less than a second. Then, in 2 installments, Coe lowered it to 1:41.7, which, like Beamon's LJ, was ahead of its time. Well, then Cruz came along 3 years later and was within 0.1 sec of the record. Since then it has moved on by just 0.8secs. Thi year has been a particularly fallow one for 800m times, as currently the world lead is only 1:43.5. Last year 14 men ran under 1:44, compared to just 7 who managed it between 1978 and 1983. But then the following year (1984) 10 men broke 1:44! So it goes in waves.

I think the fact that the 400m WR has only improved by 0.15 in the last 23 years, or that the 800m WR has only improved by 0.82 is testament to the fact that sometimes you get extreme outliers who ran even above themselves on certain occasions, and that maybe the limit of human ability is approaching its limit.

I think people should have realised 30 years ago that a sub 1:40 800m was going to be far off, and certainly I wouldn't have expected many sub 1:40's today.

The doping was so extensive already when Coe used it to run 1:41 is a huge part of the reason why the 800m record stagnated. Coe was a great talent who trained with advanced methods (including doping) so of course that is the reason his mark at 800m would be the fastest in the world in 2022. Let us NOT play dumb here in order to pay homage to our heroes.

Deanouk wrote:

Kdoer wrote:

The doping was so extensive already when Coe used it to run 1:41 is a huge part of the reason why the 800m record stagnated. Coe was a great talent who trained with advanced methods (including doping) so of course that is the reason his mark at 800m would be the fastest in the world in 2022. Let us NOT play dumb here in order to pay homage to our heroes.

You presume there was widespread doping. There seems to be a lot in the power events (throwing and sprints), mainly by the East European countries who were under state doping regimes. There was also a lot of evidence that these nations doped their female athletes. But if there was widespread doping in western nations of their middle distance runners, then why were they so far behind their East European peers in terms of time? The UK women’s records in 1980 were around 1:59 and 4:04, when the WR were 1:53 and 3:52. I think it’s pretty obvious the WR times were doped, but I would argue that what the British girls were running were clean; if they were doped too then the gap wouldn’t be so huge. We see a similar chasm in performance between the two in almost all Women’s events. There is a similar gap between UK men and US men in the sprints and in the field events. In fact the only events where the UK were at the top end of the world list were in middle and distance events. This is not that surprising for those who followed T&F at this time, because they would be fully aware of the great harrier tradition of club running and X country competitions.

You have absolutely no proof that Coe, Ovett, Cram were doping. There is not a shred of evidence, unless you can put forward some? Anyone can post anonymously on a message board and clam so and so doped as if it were a fact. It may be your opinion that a specific athlete doped, but unless you can offer some tangible proof, it is nothing more than rumour mongering!

it would seem highly unusual and unexplainable that just a few middle distance UK men doped at a time when all their fellow countrymen and women clearly didn’t!

Do you think Cruz doped to run 1:41.77? Or Koskei when he ran 1:42.28? Or Kipketer when he ran 1:41.11? Or Korir when he ran 1:42.02?