Sebastian Coe vs Said Aouita - 1500/mile race - Who would win?

Can't Believe What I'm Hearing wrote:

Lord Altrincham wrote:

Marita Koch, Wang Junxia and Lasse Viren are in the Hall of Fame though.

Say what?!? Koch, of the East Germany doping program, in the HOF? This is ridiculous putting someone like that in the HOF! Geez...why not just put Ramzi in HOF also. ?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marita_Kochhttp://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/world/article24780097.html

Those were the days when white woman could run 47s, boy how things have changed.

A bit like the days when Moroccans could easily run sub 13.

Lord Altrincham wrote:

Coeuita wrote:

There is an "obvious" reason why Aouita is not the IAAF Hall of Fame, even tough he meets the criteria.

Marita Koch, Wang Junxia and Lasse Viren are in the Hall of Fame though.

Viren belongs in the HOF, no question. I think he gets unfairly castigated over the alleged blood doping issue. He also had a better record between Olympics than generally recognized.

I agree re Viren. No evidence at all that he blood doped, simply rumour and the fact one of his teammates admitted to it later. In any case, as much as I morally disapprove of blood doping, it wasn’t actually illegal to do so at the time.

There is concrete evidence Koch doped, and If I recall, didn’t the Chinese coach say he doped his athletes ?

Deanouk wrote:

I agree re Viren. No evidence at all that he blood doped, simply rumour and the fact one of his teammates admitted to it later. In any case, as much as I morally disapprove of blood doping, it wasn’t actually illegal to do so at the time.

There is concrete evidence Koch doped, and If I recall, didn’t the Chinese coach say he doped his athletes ?

There's been interviews with Viren and I don't recall if he flat out denies it or sidesteps the question?

Koch was part of the East German steroid program that showed great success with their female athletes (see above links).

And I thought the Chinese coach had once said he used a special porridge containing turtle blood & herbs that was used by the ancient Chinese warriors in battle. ?

Deanouk wrote:

I agree re Viren. No evidence at all that he blood doped, simply rumour and the fact one of his teammates admitted to it later. In any case, as much as I morally disapprove of blood doping, it wasn’t actually illegal to do so at the time.

There is concrete evidence Koch doped, and If I recall, didn’t the Chinese coach say he doped his athletes ?

How about Aouita? Does he deserve to the be in the HoF?

He meets the criteria.

Lord Altrincham wrote:

Deanouk wrote:

I agree re Viren. No evidence at all that he blood doped, simply rumour and the fact one of his teammates admitted to it later. In any case, as much as I morally disapprove of blood doping, it wasn’t actually illegal to do so at the time.

There is concrete evidence Koch doped, and If I recall, didn’t the Chinese coach say he doped his athletes ?

How about Aouita? Does he deserve to the be in the HoF?

He meets the criteria.

I'll yes.

There is no direct proof Aouita ever cheated.

Long time ago, I decided not to read the posts of Coevett anymore for good reasons. But since all the threads regarding Coe/Cram/Ovett/Aouita are full of his posts (for sure he can do this) by mistake I couldn't completely avoid his posts. He pretends to be a fighter for some "clean" sport and to denounce any "doper" in the history of athletics (for sure he knows them exactly). When in fact his only interest is to show the world that his heros Coe, Cram, Ovett are the only great runners who ever stepped on an running track (and for sure did this "clean" while most of the others were heavily doped).

Well, for the few people on this board, who are not completely biased and are still able and willing to use their brain, here are a few FACTS regarding Coevett:

To denounce Aouita (and therefore to highten his heros Coe etc.) he accepts to lie in any sort.

Some examples:

He writes of Aouita as an 1:50/3:40 runner before his (middle distance) breakthrough, even after I have told him several times that this is completely wrong. But he is not interested in facts, when they just don't fit his agenda (that Aouita is one of the worst persons on this planet) enough.

I saw that he still writes that Aouita "dodged" Coe in Zürich 84, when in fact the opposite seems more probable (Coe:" It seems we can't have both..."). Analysing the two races from Zürich 84 (1500m with Coe and Mile with Aouita) shows a very small advantage of the splits of Coe's race (one or two tenths). Yet, for Coevett this is a "proof" that Coe would have beaten Aouita in LA.

In an unbelievable conversation with him some while ago, I just pointed on all the wrong numbers which Coevett gave (for example he didn't even know that Aouita was the first under 7:30 for 3000m - and for myself, I think I can say that with the pure facts regarding the "numbers" in athletics, not many will "beat" me). Yet, in almost any of these, he just was not able to just accept that (and maybe even to say a thank you to me for correcting him). He either continues with his wrong "facts", or you will not hear a single word about it again.

For Coevett, Steve Ovett is the greatest distance runner in history. A runner who has medaled in ONE global championships. He has Ovett at 12:55 (no PEDs) and 12:35 (with PEDs) over 5000m (very obvious where he got these numbers, the one betters Aouita's PB, the other the WR). A runner who has never beaten 13:20. For me. Ovett clearly is a "good one". I like his character and I think he is an very honest person (for sure I totaly can be wrong, since I don't know him personally). Yet, even when a "good one" does bad things, it's exactly that: bad. In the 1980 Olympic 800m final, Ovett has put both his hands on the shoulders of the two runners ahead of him in an (failed) attempt to pass them when in fact there was just no room to do so (the british commentator: "...and there he goes, bursting through..."). In another scene, Ovett puts Wagenknecht one meter adrift. He clearly should have been disqualified for this behavior. For Coevett: "In these days, this was normal...". His bias doesn't know any limit.

Sorry, when this is a little bit out of context, but I think for the unbiased people (not many in letsrun, I know) I think this is some important info.

What a race Coe-Aouita would have been, while both in prime! What an unbelievable shame for both of them, that they have not raced against each other at all.

And to the other subject, Coevett might think to be the Nr. 1 expert on this planet: For sure there are good arguments that Aouita may have used illegal methods to improve his performances. But not close to the 100%++ Coevett wants to convince anybody. But for sure, someone like him never puts a "in my opinion this is a good argument for..." or something like this in front of some reasoning. I'm pretty sure that a notorious lier like him is not at all really interested in some clean sport. His main interest seems to show that his three heros are the only great runners who ever lived. What a laughable standard.

Dude, that's why we come here... for dogmatic internet jihadism, conducted between warring factions whose positions will never change. We watch the spectacle with amusement.

But in this gladfest we're missing a key competitor - VENTO! Regardless of what Aouita, Cram, Coe and Ovett were capable of, none of them can match the epic DVTT(tm) of ~1.39 (which someone on another thread claimed has even been revised by Vento to ~1.38.9, although I cannot locate that comedic exegesis) and the classic marks of ~3.24/ ~3.41.

Therefore the question is moot because at best, we're discussing who might be the #2 1500 performer of all time.

If so then personally I believe Coe at his peak was simply too good for the others - there's a huge gulf between Aouita's km PR and the epic 2:12.18. You want DVTT(tm), well then perform the analysis on that kilo! Aouita had better range and would win at 3k and up, Cram was better at steady pace, but no MD runner ever could accelerate like Coe, or had a top speed to match his. Look at his 400m relay legs from 1981, they are simply amazing. And no I am not Deano posting in disguise.... he'll be here shortly in fact because he has his system set up to detect "DVTT" - for those new to this debate, that's a composite acronym for "Deano-VentolinTrueTime (tm)" which is the only real measure of athletic performance.

INTRINSIFY!!

Not much of your rambling makes sense.

You're in a small minority here who still hero worships Aouita. Even the cucks here recognize that Aouita very probably doped.

If any white athlete had been chased out of a country for repeatedly pressurising his young charges to take peds, they would be disgraced for all time. If it had been Coe, Cram, or Ovett, their reputations would be in tatters, and I'd be the first to disown them. Combined with links to doctors caught with peds, a quite ridiculous career progression which inovolved a near overnight transformation after moving to Italy and winter training in the USA (where he told his Australian athletes 'you go to get HGH'), most reasonable people would say he shouldn't even be given the benefit of the doubt. Then the fact that he was the first Moroccan 'great' and Morocco has clearly been shown to be the dirtiest athletics nation on Earth since him.

I notice you still haven't put up the list of Aouita's times on your site. Given that he's your all-time hero, that is rather peculiar. He rarely broke 1:50/3:40/14:00 before 1983, when he was suddenly running close to world records. These are the facts. In 1982 he ran 3:37 once, and that was his 'breakthrough'. This was a 23 year old who had already spent 3 years at the elite sporting academy in France and had had a couple of seasons on the B circuit in Europe.

You're the guy who hero worships a man involved in a major drugs scandal, had doctors who were linked to major drugs scandals, and who doged his greatest rivals again and again whilst constantly belittling them in the media.

Knocking people about in races was legal then, that's the way it was. There was no suggestion it was 'cheating'. To compare that to somebody who tells young athletes to take illegal peds shows the type of character you are.

As far as Zurich is concerned, Aouita had the chance to face Coe at LA when it mattered and bottled it. Coe wanted either WR attempt or a proper race. Contrary to what Deano said earlier, Coe's performance was significantly better that night. The pacing for Coe's race was awful as usual so after a couple of laps Coe settled for a race. Aouita was trying for a WR as he always does and had a reborn John Walker to push him all the way. Coe would clearly have outkicked Aouita that night and it would have looked embarrassingly easy.

Is that Aouita celebrating with Brahim Boulami at 2 min 27 secs of the video?

Boulami wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AatltvBv1Hw

Is that Aouita celebrating with Brahim Boulami at 2 min 27 secs of the video?

Yes, indeed it is Said Aouita celebrating with Brahim Boulami (like it is the best day of his life).

On getting caught Boulami stated:

"How can I be accused of taking a banned substance when I regularly undergo medical tests, the number of which have multiplied since I first beat the world record last year?" Boulami told MAP. "I train in high altitude in Ifrane (Morocco) four to five months a year, that's the only doping I could be accused of."

After one of his better races I recall commentator Steve Ovett passed a comment, like he had inside knowledge, 'whatever they injected into his leg' seemed to make the difference (I think this was 2001 but it could have been 2002).

The Australian scandal"

"Australian steeplechaser Melissa Rollison alleges the Moroccan Olympic 5,000m champion suggested she take human growth hormone (HGH).....Rollison said her 18 months as an athlete under Aouita were a nightmare, saying he recommended she take human growth hormone at a US training camp in 2003.

“He talked about it every day,” Rollison told Melbourne’s Herald Sun newspaper yesterday. “We had to go to America because that is where you get HGH.

“I said right at the start that I wasn’t interested and he said ‘everyone else is on it, so why wouldn’t you want to do it?’ I said I wanted to make it the proper way but he then tried to convince me HGH wasn’t illegal.”

Aouita was recently appointed an adviser to Qatar’s Academy for Sporting Excellenc based in Doha."

Wow and guess who runs for Qatar?.................................Saif Saaeed Shaheen

"The Moroccan also boasts an impressive coaching record, with six of his charges winning three Olympic gold medals and setting five world records between them."

SAID AOUITA

Coaching record:

Brahim Boutayeb, Morocco, 1988 Olympic gold, 10,000m

Khalid Skah, Morocco, 1992 Olympic gold, 10,000m

Venuste Niyongabo, Burundi, 1996 Olympic gold 5000m

Surely there couldn't be anymore:

"Many coaches who met him and worked with him during the Moroccan's time as national distance running coach relate how freely he gave his views that most of the current world records had been achieved with the help of drugs such as EPO."

And just for fun, this page has Deanouk and Calculo (Eldrick) on the same page and not Letsrun

Wow

"Ramzi came under the tutelage of Khalid Boulami." Wow the lines between Khalid Boulami, Said Aouita and lots of nasties is very blurred.

Yes it's true, I gave up being a track fan when the African EPO charade began, like millions of Europeans. I only recently renewed my passion in it, largely thanks to YouTube. When I had our first discussion on Aoutia, there were a lot of facts I didn't know.

For example that his Belgian doctor was arrested for supplying numerous athletes and cyclists with peds (how many doctors did Aoutia need for Christ's sake?). Or that his times actually went slighty backwards from 1980 to 1982 until he enlisted Italian and Belgian doctors to...clear his parasites whilst he discovered his 'secret methods'.

Steve Ovett medalled in one global championships as opposed to Said Aouita's three. Despite all his talk about being the greatest athlete in history at every event from 800 to 10000m, winning just one Gold, the same as Ovett. Ovett's performances in reaching the finals of both the 800 and 1500 in LA when he was seriously ill were greater than anything Aouita did in global championships. Ovett climbed out of the hospital bed suffering from heart problems to face Coe, Cruz, Cram et al, while Aouita was dodging them all in the 5000m. Any reasonable track fan would admit that if he hadn't been ill, Ovett would have certainly medalled in the 1500m and had a good chance in the 800m too.

Ovett's world cup wins in 1979 and 81 are worth more than any gold of Aouita. His 800m gold is of far more value than Aouita's 5000m gold in LA.

Ovett never ran under 13:20 for 5000m because he ran about ten 5000m races in his career, and only seriously trained for it when he was well past his best. On top of that, he wasn't a clock chaser. He ran 13:20 in one of his first attempts when he was still moving up from the 800m to 1500m. At the same age, Aouita wasn't breaking 14 minutes. You previously belittled his two mile world record, in which he defeated Rono enjoying one of the most incredible seasons of any distance runner ever. He could have ran much faster than he did, but it was a real race.

Yes, it's quite plausible to believe that Ovett could have been inside 13 minutes if he had taken it more seriously when he was at his peak. And it follows from that that he might have been capable of well under 13 minutes if was taking peds, which he clearly never was.

Ngugi destroying Aouita over 5000m in 1989 :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TA_mFkLOJ5Y

There was little to hint at Aouita's future prowess in 1978 when, for 4000m, he led the World Junior Cross Country Championships in the mud of Glasgow's Bellahouston Park before fading to finish thirty-fourth. ''It was very cold, and I was very unhappy because I wanted to win,'' he recalled. ''I vowed I would never run so badly again.'

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/12701148.Record_breaker_Aouita_takes_the_indoor_route_out_of_retirement___The_Moroccan_back_gravy_trail/

Coevett wrote:

Ngugi destroying Aouita over 5000m in 1989 :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TA_mFkLOJ5Y

Ondieki beat Aouita.

Khalid Boulami. A name I haven't heard it a while.

He had strong results in the 5000m during the mid to late 90's.

Schempp wrote:

ukathleticscoach wrote:

Check the 1984 Olympic 1500m entries and see what they both thought.

Aouita reached his peak after 1984. All his PBs were achieved 1985 onwards.

Coe probably would have won if they raced in the 1984 Olympics.

Aouita's 1500m PR was in 1985.

Coe's 1500m PR was in 1986.

Seems like they peaked at about the same time.

Star wrote:

Schempp wrote:

Aouita reached his peak after 1984. All his PBs were achieved 1985 onwards.

Coe probably would have won if they raced in the 1984 Olympics.

Aouita's 1500m PR was in 1985.

Coe's 1500m PR was in 1986.

Seems like they peaked at about the same time.

Wasn't Sebastian Coe at his absolute competitive peak in 1981?

Coe's 1981 mile WR run in Brussels was sublime.

Star wrote:

Schempp wrote:

Aouita reached his peak after 1984. All his PBs were achieved 1985 onwards.

Coe probably would have won if they raced in the 1984 Olympics.

Aouita's 1500m PR was in 1985.

Coe's 1500m PR was in 1986.

Seems like they peaked at about the same time.

Nope. Not many people think that Coe peaked in 1986. He ran his pb in 86 after his dad was furious at him for running a bad race in the 1500 in Stuttgart. I think I remember reading that he told Seb something like 'now go out and run the definitive 1500m of your life'.

Coe had bad pacing when he was at his peak in 81, and before. I think in his autobiography he claims that there were a couple of times he could have run at least 3:28 with decent pacing and quite a few here agree with that.

He did reach his peak again, or close to it in the 1500 in LA and Zurich. Unfortunately the pacing was off yet again in Zurich post LA,but he looked capable of running well under 3:30 that night, as his performance in LA suggested also.