Jim Ryun calls out Hicham El Guerrouj!!

casual obsever wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

5K and 10K saw:

- great advancements from East Africans from 1993 onwards, to the present

To the present? Looks to me as if the guys are plateauing or even slowing down since a decade.

rekrunner wrote:

- non-Africans with a rapid improvement until the mid-1980s, then only very modest improvements ending around 2012

Yes. With - after decades of optimizing - better training, better shoes, better tracks, more time trials, and drafting all the way to the finish line.

In the 5000m, the times jumped drastically, by 1996, peaked and plateaued around 2000, maintained the same high level through 2012, dipping slightly below 1996 levels in 2016, and rebounded backup up by 2018 (despite data being incomplete).

In the 10000m , the best performances have dropped in the last decade by about 15 seconds compared to the period ending 2008, dominated by Geb, then Bekele, but not below the level of 1996, which was some 23 seconds above your dirty '80s. This decade coincides with injury, then departure of Bekele, the removal of 10000m from most meets, and the transition of runners from the track to the marathon.

running math prof wrote:

As for cycling, I believe EPO is used in conjunction with other PED' s.

Your original assessment of the mile record progression is faulty, by the way. You assume if a progression is linear or close to it, then PED's have no effect. How is that? If the mile record fell at a constant rate of 1 sec per year, wouldn't artificial means be necessary at some point?

I have never made an assessment of the mile record progression.

For my purposes, I count Mehdi Baala as Algerian (North African). But nevermind -- for runners about as fast there are several more like Wheating and Leo Manzano and Centrowitz. This appears to be close to some kind of plateau or ceiling for non-Africans.

I've seen this argument about US and Europeans going to other sports like soccer, without any real data to support soccer was poaching the best runners, but when I looked at quantity of runners on the all-time lists, the numbers have slightly declined from the '80s until 2008, and then afterwards increased significantly. There are no shortages of non-Africans running all-time fast times today.

Looking at 'all-time' lists sure distorts the bigger picture somewhat because great performances from decades ago will always be ther and simply added to, if you follow my train of thought. Wouldn't it be better to look at % of European/US men in yearly lists of top 20 or 30?

As a teacher of 25 years who takes an after school Athletics club, I've seen very talented 10 and 11 year old middle distance runners choose to drop running for football when going to Secondary schools, in order to fulfill their ambition of being a rich and famous footballer, despite having less talent in that sphere than with their running. I know that's a rather crude and basic example, but I'm sure it's repeated up and down the country.

When I was a similar school age everyone knew the names of many current UK athletes. Today, maybe half would know just Mo Farrah. Most of the boys would know who Beckham, Linekar, Pele, even Charlton were, but their only knowledge of Coe, Ovett, Thompson, etc, would be acquired by having the misfortune of being in my class for a year! lol

Deanouk wrote:

I have seen this before and it simply represents one person’s opinion.

Or rather, a committee of the Australian Senate in the 80s. Sounds like experts to me, but sure, just an informed opinion.

Deanouk wrote:

Moreover, surely the Russians would have loved the scenario of catching a big western name and revealing it to the world’s media, thus reinforcing the superiority of communism over free market ideology! They would surely have tested and scrutinised the likes of Coe’s and Ovett’s samples and seized upon any irregularities.

So many exclamation marks... but do you have to bring up Coe in every thread? There are enough going on right now with Lord Conflict-of-Interest with his murky deals.

"tested and scrutinised", LOL. a) There were no tests for blood transfusions in 1980, and b) no Brit could possibly have been so stupid to travel to Moscow in 1980 while still glowing from steroid use.

:(

It makes me sad that people are still having this argument. Whether or not El G doped, I still believe that he was the best at what he did. He has an inspiring story, and that is what matters..

His story inspired me to start running, and I hope one day I will be able to inspire another person to start running. He made his mark on history, which is the biggest goal in running, is it not?

casual obsever wrote:

So many exclamation marks... but do you have to bring up Coe in every thread? .

simple answer: yes - it's in my genes.

Then how on earth can politicians discern from negative drug samples that ‘all gold medalists’ were on steroids? A ridiculous generalisation to make. If testing improved and they were able to retest and find traces of steroid use then publish/reveal results. Otherwise their comments are just opinions, not even informed ones, unless you can reveal what additional information they were able to glean from the samples?

If interested, read the thesis that wiki is referencing there. Informative tidbits about doping at the 1974 British Commonwealth Games, the USOC response by Dardik, Donike's tests, Shorter about the need of "good doctors" etc.

Of course that's not really news for those of us who were around in the 80s.

That Australian committee, whose findings you disagree with, was created because of all the doping in Australia in the 80s, most famously by Sue Howland. Their 500 pages report is now also available online. History with links here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drugs_in_sport_in_Australia