Now is that so? wrote:
Is that so? wrote:Yes, you're right. Never mind Yifter or El G or Morceli or Konchellah or Ruto or Bile or Boulami or Ngeny or Geb or Lagat or Ereng or Komen or Kirui or Aouita or Bitok or Tanui or Bayisa or any of the MANY other Africans who were winning Olympic and world championship medals at every event from 800-10000 in the 1980s-2004. Since a few white guys won the Olympic 800 for a short stretch, it's like the Africans weren't even there yet!
Oh yeah, absolutely! Never mind Cacho, Ovett, Cruz, Coe, Walker, Vasala, Baumann, Viren, Cova, Baldini, Young-Cho, Bordin, Lopes, Cierpinksi or MANY others who were winning in the last few decades! Yeah, some African domination. Face it, its really the last 5-10 years that doping has really gotten out of control in Africa as far as mid and distance events. Out of control!! and its sad. Same thing that was happening with China and E. Germany a couple of decades ago.
Your two basic ideas are that Africans have only come to the top recently, and that their preeminence is due to PEDs. The first is nonsense; there have been African runners at or near the top of distance running since the '60s-guys like Kip Keino, Abebe Bikila, Mamo Wolde all won gold in that decade. Since at least the mid-late '80s, African runners have been at the very top more often than not-a short skim of the world championships and Olympic medal tables will confirm this.
If you want to believe that all of the top Africans today are doping, that's on you, but it's curious, then, that they can't match the best times run by men in the 1990s and early 2000s-which, as you say, was before doping got "out of control". Either they were doping even then, or they just really do tend to be better than the rest of the world.