Craig Virgin's Terrible Decisions

If the 90's fast times are due to EPO, then I guess EPO is still widespread, because the times are still freaking fast.

Top 10 5k performers & year of best time:

Bekele 2004

Geb 1998

Komen 1997

Kipchoge 2004

Sihine 2004

Songok 2006

Shaheen 2003

Lahlafi 2000

Mourhit 2000

Tergat 1997

Bekele ran 12:50 as recently as 2008. Sihine 12:50 in 2007. Bekele also ran 26:25 in 2008.

Yes, the late 90's brought the times waaay down, but performances have largely stayed way down. In the marathon times have exploded just in the last 2-3 years. 14 of the top 16 marathon times ever are from 2007, 2008, or 2009.

If EPO is behind all this then it's had a pretty epic 13 year run and somehow we're still not catching everyone.

The scale of this is simply too large and the performances have been good for too long. And where are the armies of doping white guys running sub-12:50?

listening closely wrote:

E_Smith wrote:

Also, if it really had that big of an effect I would expect to see some more athletes mixing it up and setting records.

Not necessarily. If everyone in the world's top 10 or 20 is doping then there's a level playing field for those guys and the guy with the best talent still wins.

True. Perhaps there wouldn't be more guys setting records, but you would think there would be more guys from the 90s in the top 25 all time. As you have pointed out, the domination continued into this decade and the times didn't get slower.

Billy Pilgrim wrote:

it is hard to explain the correlation with the dramatic drop in WR's and the availability of Epo, then the subsequent slowing down of times with better testing.

What "subsequent slowing down of times with better testing" are you talking about? Look at top times in the marathon (which is the event in which EPO would likely have the greatest effect). They've gotten much faster since a test for exogenous EPO was developed and put into practice. Times in the 5k and 10k have been faster as well. And the one runner who was setting most of the world distance records fifteen years ago has barely slowed over the last ten years, since EPO testing went into effect, even though he's an old man now.

The top East Africans of the last twenty years are just flat-out better runners than the top Americans of the '70s and '80s. Guys like Virgin, Shorter, and Rodgers were terrific runners, but they were benefited tremendously by delays in the emergence of relatively systematic training and racing programs among East African runners.

Avocados Number wrote:

The top East Africans of the last twenty years are just flat-out better runners than the top Americans of the '70s and '80s. Guys like Virgin, Shorter, and Rodgers were terrific runners, but they were benefited tremendously by delays in the emergence of relatively systematic training and racing programs among East African runners.

Also, obviously, flat-out better than today's top Americans. They are flat-out better than everyone as it stands now. Virgin is still hanging on to the fantasy that he could compete with these runners; clearly he couldn't. I'm still waiting for an explanation from the pro-cheating crowd as to why non-African performances never significantly advanced from drug use. The top non-African 5K is 12:54, and the top non-African 10K is 27:08. The top non-African 5K pre-EPO was 13:00 (Moorcroft, GBR 1982) and the top non-African 10K pre-EPO was 27:13 (Mamede, POR 1984). So you are telling me this magical substance, that purportedly changed the face of distance running, only helped non-Africans 6 seconds and 7 seconds? Or are you telling me that only Africans would stoop to cheating, or that the top non-Africans wouldn't stoop to cheating? We know based on cycling where EPO use was widespread that this isn't just an African thing.

E Smith - its called testing! African countries don't do it, we do. That's why our results don't line up with theirs.

Whitesnake wrote:

E Smith - its called testing! African countries don't do it, we do. That's why our results don't line up with theirs.

Please explain. you are telling me Africans aren't subject to EPO testing but everyone else is? What about in competition testing?

I see that the thread police have struck again.

Are you naive or what? In-competition testing catches only the reckless and the stupid. It's out-of-competition where the PEDs can provide the greatest benefit. They have established protocols where they can cycle the PEDs so that they fall below the limit before they get to competition, often testing right before the competition to ensure that they don't get popped. Former pro cyclists who doped and got caught have provided details as to how close to a competition they could take EPO and still turn up clean. This is nothing new, go do a little research and become educated.

AlSal wrote:

Are you naive or what? In-competition testing catches only the reckless and the stupid. It's out-of-competition where the PEDs can provide the greatest benefit. They have established protocols where they can cycle the PEDs so that they fall below the limit before they get to competition, often testing right before the competition to ensure that they don't get popped. Former pro cyclists who doped and got caught have provided details as to how close to a competition they could take EPO and still turn up clean. This is nothing new, go do a little research and become educated.

For EPO, I believe that most benefit is in-competition, you need the increased carrying capacity during competition not training. Cyclists do stop using before the testing, but then during the race they re-inject. With running, obviously, you don't have breaks during the race to go inject yourself. So in-competition testing should be more effective for running. I admit I'm no expert on it and really don't follow the testing progression. Anyway, the claim that only Africans can evade testing seems ridiculous.

altoroad wrote:

I see that the thread police have struck again.

The thread would be 15 or 20 pages by now.

ha ha.... good posts by you and avocado (as usual). You guys are saying the exact same things I have posted on here for years. I agree with you 100%. Fans of non-african runners just can't except that the best 10k runner in the world is nearly a MINUTE faster than the best "white" euro-descended runners in history. And the funny thing is: many of those best euro descended runners (Italians, Spaniards) were more likely on EPO than the africans. But either way, it was an even playing field at worst, and they are still a minute back.Sorry Craig Virgin, but Bekele and Geb are/were just in another league compared to you and your peers. Whole 'nother universe really. Signed,Guess Who

E_Smith wrote:

Also, obviously, flat-out better than today's top Americans. They are flat-out better than everyone as it stands now. Virgin is still hanging on to the fantasy that he could compete with these runners; clearly he couldn't. I'm still waiting for an explanation from the pro-cheating crowd as to why non-African performances never significantly advanced from drug use. The top non-African 5K is 12:54, and the top non-African 10K is 27:08. The top non-African 5K pre-EPO was 13:00 (Moorcroft, GBR 1982) and the top non-African 10K pre-EPO was 27:13 (Mamede, POR 1984). So you are telling me this magical substance, that purportedly changed the face of distance running, only helped non-Africans 6 seconds and 7 seconds? Or are you telling me that only Africans would stoop to cheating, or that the top non-Africans wouldn't stoop to cheating? We know based on cycling where EPO use was widespread that this isn't just an African thing.

Good point, the Russian and Romanian women do it, too. Why do you think the Russians, the Romanians, and the Africans (especially groups like those managed/coached by the likes of Hellebuyck and Hogen) like to hide out in Albuquerque and Boulder, far away from the testing going on back home? WADA can only reach so far and test so many runners and their home federations aren't sending testers over to the US very often, if at all. Hell, Linford Christie used to get phone calls tipping him off to approaching WADA/IAAF/UKA testers. No other country has anything like USADA.

"My desire to win, no matter what the physical pain I had to endure, would be very

hard to ignore in the current age where many athletes feel it is impossible to be competitive

against the best in the world without doping. I believe that it is currently difficult to be

among the top 5 in the world in any of the distance events without using EPO or Human

Growth Hormone. While some of the top athletes may be clean, so many athletes are

running so fast that their performances are suspect. This is compounded for me by the fact

that the times these athletes are running just happen to coincide exactly with what top

exercise physiologists have calculated taking EPO would produce."

quote by Alberto Salazar

He said she said wrote:

"My desire to win, no matter what the physical pain I had to endure, would be very

hard to ignore in the current age where many athletes feel it is impossible to be competitive

against the best in the world without doping. I believe that it is currently difficult to be

among the top 5 in the world in any of the distance events without using EPO or Human

Growth Hormone. While some of the top athletes may be clean, so many athletes are

running so fast that their performances are suspect. This is compounded for me by the fact

that the times these athletes are running just happen to coincide exactly with what top

exercise physiologists have calculated taking EPO would produce."

quote by Alberto Salazar

OK, so Salazar is saying he would use drugs. But that doesn't explain why it would be so difficult to be in the top 5, is it because he isn't as good as the Africans or is it because the Africans are doping? "so many athletes are running so fast", but why do they all happen to be African? Who do these exercise physiologists estimate will run the times they end up running? How can an exercise physiologist calculate a time for an athlete he has never examined personally? Sounds like psuedo-science to me.

OK....I've read almost all of the posts in this thread. In case I missed it, has anyone called E_Smith an asshole? If not, may I be the first?! Happy to help!

Ok so I've read the thread (but obviously missed out on the deleted ones) and I'm guessing that this topic has been covered ad naseum on many other threads.The question posited by E_Smith is why are fast runners exclusively Africans? The answer appears to lie somewhere in between African doping and a steep US drop off of performances. So yes, EA's were a minute per 10k faster than our weakest decade and their fastest. Finally the US is closing the gap on EA's as they are slowing down (marathon excluded) and we are speeding up. I don't think that we need to look any further than the dramatic improvements in the quality and quantity of US performances from the age groupers to HS to College to the Pro's.So while I agree that the EA's are born to run it clearly does not mean that they are born to run 12:36. More like 12:50 and at that range we've got a shot.Blame it on doping, injuries, coaching, technological advances, etc., but I can say that this could be the most exciting T&F season in a long, long time for the US and that is probably thanks to better doping controls.

E_Smith wrote:

OK, so Salazar is saying he would use drugs. But that doesn't explain why it would be so difficult to be in the top 5, is it because he isn't as good as the Africans or is it because the Africans are doping? "so many athletes are running so fast", but why do they all happen to be African? Who do these exercise physiologists estimate will run the times they end up running? How can an exercise physiologist calculate a time for an athlete he has never examined personally? Sounds like psuedo-science to me.