Not saying your point is wrong but this is the general view of most on this website. Doping isn't the be all end all. Aging, stress from kiptum, pain or just a bad day. Doping doesn't make a hobby jogger superhuman and it's not the only factor at play.
I am in full agreement with the OP. It's good to always have a healthy dose of suspicion and paranoia when looking at these athletes from African countries
Damned if he does / doesn't. If he performs well, it's more evidence of juice. If he doesn't, he's "embarrassing himself". There's an awful lot of posters on this site that sling crap because of their own inadequacies.
True. Lots of jealousies on this site, and fanboys who try to discredit anyone who beats their love interest. Why can't people just celebrate a good performance on here?
Kipchoge is not only several years older than he claims to be, but he was obviously on some company-sponsored nuclear dope during training for both of his breaking-2 attempts, and was allowed to juice big time during the peak of his career. He's obviously gotten off the gas as father time has come for his general health, and while he can still be a good marathoner he's never again going to be the no doubt world champion he had been for several years. Never mind the Olympics... Kipchoge is probably going to run a ceremonial farewell marathon in the next year or two and become another Wilson Kipsang, a highly regarded elder stateman back in his homeland.
His pretty rapid and unexpected decline over the past few years is set against a back drop of a doping bust bonanza in Kenya and his training group. Why have has his performances tailed off so quickly and at the same time of so many drug busts? The two seem too intertwined to me
I don't know, seems just as likely this is what natural aging looks like.
Getting old just sucks
You're probably the same type of poster who was claiming that there was nothing crazy about him breaking the WR at 37, which was just 2 years ago.
My own experience as a rather dedicated hobbyjoger matches very well. I was born in 1983, so ~1 year older than Eliud, and my marathon results kept improving for over a decade with only minor setbacks and no DNFs until 2021 – that is, age 37, when I got my personal best. After that I declined very quickly despite still training hard, had some DNFs and never came within 5 minutes of my best time. Granted, my undefeated number was 2:30, not 2:00, but now aged 40 years 11 months I doubt I'll ever break 2:40 again. On the other hand, the paces I was used to at my top shape still feel very familiar and I keep doing stuff like opening a half marathon with 17:20 5K (~ my pb half pace) only to blow up spectacularly.
It's kind of awkward to compare myself to a long distance GOAT but he's also human so aging might work the same for him.
His pretty rapid and unexpected decline over the past few years is set against a back drop of a doping bust bonanza in Kenya and his training group. Why have has his performances tailed off so quickly and at the same time of so many drug busts? The two seem too intertwined to me
wouldn't his ABP show this if he came off the juice in a big way? genuinely curious.
maybe I'm naive about ABPs
it would seem to be you can microdose your way around them, but if you were on 1:59 super-juice then came off, surely it could catch that
Here's a possibility: In the broadcast I was watching/listening to, when Kipchoge dropped out (but was waiting/interacting with the spectators), the announcer said Kipchoge had "taken off his spikes." I'm thinking 31km on pavement in spikes had to be painful. :)
His pretty rapid and unexpected decline over the past few years is set against a back drop of a doping bust bonanza in Kenya and his training group. Why have has his performances tailed off so quickly and at the same time of so many drug busts? The two seem too intertwined to me
Please does not spread hate, bigotry, racism, xenophobia and misinformation. Please does not. We is not need misinformation and hate on LRC.
You're probably the same type of poster who was claiming that there was nothing crazy about him breaking the WR at 37, which was just 2 years ago.
My own experience as a rather dedicated hobbyjoger matches very well. I was born in 1983, so ~1 year older than Eliud, and my marathon results kept improving for over a decade with only minor setbacks and no DNFs until 2021 – that is, age 37, when I got my personal best. After that I declined very quickly despite still training hard, had some DNFs and never came within 5 minutes of my best time. Granted, my undefeated number was 2:30, not 2:00, but now aged 40 years 11 months I doubt I'll ever break 2:40 again. On the other hand, the paces I was used to at my top shape still feel very familiar and I keep doing stuff like opening a half marathon with 17:20 5K (~ my pb half pace) only to blow up spectacularly.
It's kind of awkward to compare myself to a long distance GOAT but he's also human so aging might work the same for him.
I’m just a year older than you (probably close to Kipchoge’s true age) and this kind of mirrors my experience as well. I could still pretty consistently run close to my PR’s in the half and full until about age 37. Then, it wasn’t like I just fell strait off a cliff after that. Instead, for the next few years I could still do the exact same training, but come race day sometimes I would “still have it” and sometimes I just wouldn’t
I’m not saying Kipchoge is or isn’t doping, but the inconsistency he’s shown over the past few years is a classic initial sign of totally normal aging that I’m sure a lot of people who have tried to continue performing at a high level up to and past age 40 can relate to. So I wouldn’t interpret it as indicative of doping one way or the other.
His pretty rapid and unexpected decline over the past few years is set against a back drop of a doping bust bonanza in Kenya and his training group. Why have has his performances tailed off so quickly and at the same time of so many drug busts? The two seem too intertwined to me
Your ppl always make the mistake of assume YOUR expectations matter.
Well, they don't.
Maybe he was doping, maybe he wasn't.
Regardless, what you expect or don't expect has literally NOTHING to do with whether he was doping or not.
Ones performance can drop of for a number of reason. A performance drop of isn't evidence of any particular reason for that drop off one way or another.
Why is this place so full of wannabe anti-doping officials? If you wanna bust dopers, then go to an anti-doping situation and do investigations. Pissing accusations into the wind of everyone isn't helping stopping the problem.
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