2:11:53 - not possible w/o drugs, supershoes?

Do you think, period?

I've almost become numb to WRs at this point. Especially on the women's side. I'll be like "meh" when we see the first woman's sub-4 mile in the next couple years.

You haven't a clue. Social and political progress for women does not eradicate biological differences between the sexes. The best women athletes cannot reduce the gap that separates them from the best males. Abebe Bikila was no hobbyist but a highly-trained full-time athlete. She is faster than he was. That is drugs. That is the sport today - and has been so for years.

Yeah, can’t help but be skeptical of such a result. Either there is a clear genetic advantage or…you know, pump someone a pharmacy full of drugs and they grow wings to start flying. No way is this result legitimate.

No, I tend to think Assefa's performance today is within the realm of possibility without the need for drugs yet. I defer as usual to supershoes for my confidence, and this shoe no less only newly manufactured and sold for 1 month. I don't think it's a coincidence and great weighting should be given to the shoes and the rivalry between Addidas and Nike.

My only worry is that she has relatively strange improvement trajectory going from 2:34 to 2:15 to finally 2:11 and even then she seems too effortless in this 2:11 which makes me think that she could even have ran 2:10? It's bewildering to think that a second half split of 1:05 wasn't tiring enough for her.

So yes while her 2:11 performance in and of itself per se isn't all that suspicious, the relative manner in which she arrive there based off her own spatio-temporal history in the event is suspicious.

It’s more the shoes. Almost everyone is running faster with them.

It's the dope. Everyone is running faster because of it.

Maybe you just answer?

Perhaps you need to do some research into the world of performance enhancing drugs before you pronounce her record is clean.

You've answered my question. No.

I really think people aren't quite realising how important lightweight shoes are in a marathon. It's at least 2-3 minutes per ounce.

In 2009, somebody posted an English translation of the Der Spiegel interview with Angel Heredia:

SPIEGEL: Are there still any clean disciplines?

Heredia: Track and field, swimming, cross-country skiing and cycling can no longer be saved. Golf? Not clean either. Soccer? Soccer players come to me and say they have to be able to run up and down the touchline without becoming tired, and they have to play every three days. Basketball players take fat burners – amphetamines, ephedrin. Baseball? Haha. Steroids in pre-season, amphetamines during the games. Even archers take downers so that their arm remains steady. Everyone dopes.

I think there can be outlier performers who are clean and still think there are many elite competitors who are within the rules. I get skeptical when there are large numbers of people performing at super high levels especially without decent testing. It’s hard to say which individual is not an outlier but I’m at the point where I’m not terribly surprised by any doping revelation from any country or training group. I’m glad there has been more testing and the US and Kenya have caught more people.

In the endurance events like marathon and ultra-marathon, I'm willing to give generous coefficients of improvement for women over the men because less high-end raw speed, power and strength is needed against the backdrop of increasing shoe spring, increasing psycho-social expectations and hopes, better nutrition/recovery. These may converge and intersect at a point in space-time to bring the women very close to the men in the very long distance events. I think this is already achieved in the ultra-marathons beyond 42km. Women are now running almost as fast as the men as early as the last decade and not from 1964.

I'm sitting on the fence here but tend towards her being cleaner than not. I'm mainly dissatisfied with the relative aspects of her improvement in the marathon which indeed as you say could point towards doping. But 2:11 itself is not doping per se. You must always look at the relativity of things with respect to the athlete herself to inquire about doping. Let's not compare her to Bikila just yet if she can't even be compared to herself without raising doubts about herself! She needs to take care of her own argument before Bikila can come into the picture.

Was she the only one wearing $500 Adidas Super Duper shoes? Were rest of Africans sponsored by Adidas wearing Pro 3?

Is Chepkurui doped? Shauri from Tansania? Yimer? Three Eritrean born runners have bettered the German und Suisse records by big margins. Are they doping? Are the best US runners clean?

If this even helped 50% of her time improvement from 2022, us slowpokes will get even more use of this $500 super boing paperweight shoes.

If you hold the view in bold, then you are on the right path. I hold similar views actually in contrary to what people may think about me. I also subscribe religiously to Ethical Theory which states that the collective ethics of society tends to slip and slide down a moral slippery slope in time in order to come to equilibrium with their increase lust for success and riches also in time. And this only tends to worsens with time and never gets better, so the same have to applied to doping and we must expect doping to increase no matter how virtuous its antidoping education. All physical systems which are also moral systems tend towards disorderly behavior with time. So your words in bold is in keeping with reality!