I don't remember Ingebrigtsen lying sprawled on the track after running 3:28.32, 3:46.46, or 12:48.45.. in fact he made it look quite easy every time, he must be doping by your logic then.
The forgotten thing about Katir is his breakthrough as it was was between the indoor and outdoor season in 2021. He progressed nicely to that indoor season running 3:36 again and a pb to 7:35 backed up with a decent performance at euro indoors (heat win, 4th final). But that improvement and level of performance (like a Neil Gourley, Cooper Teare type deal) is nothing that would attract scrutiny. The real question is what happened between then and May where he ran 3:33 in a small Spanish meet and then dismantled Kimeli/Krop I believe running 13:08 in bad conditions. He’s been pretty much the same guy since that June/July where in perfect conditions he ran 3:28/7:27/12:50.
It was all sudden but all less easily explained (rocket fuel) and perhaps something less interesting (microdosing, sophisticated doping and development of a pretty talented athlete) or nefarious (legitimate breakthrough).
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Cacho: Improved his best from 3:32 to 3:28 at age 28 (wasn't sure whether to include, but I don't think he's technically been implicated in doping)
Eufemiano Fuentes basically came out a couple of years ago and said he doped Cacho for the 92 Olympics.
BTW, Katir has the same shady manager as Cacho had, a manager who has stated in an interview his sympathy for doping cheats, and his belief that they should be given 2nd, 3rd, and 4th chances.
This post was edited 12 minutes after it was posted.
I hate to say this man, but this post exposes a lack of understanding about this sport and event. Sometimes I get the feeling that a lot of people posting here have followed the sport for like 3 years or something.
Does Katir have shady connections? Yes. His agent is Miguel Mostaza who was the agent of Cacho, Estevez (two guys that took so many drugs they lost their hair) and Sergio Sanchez who was actually caught in 2013 after running 7.32 indoors and winning an indoor world silver back in 2010. He's been and is the primary agent for the top Spanish MD runners that especially in the 90's became extremely prevalent on the circuit after Barcelona (mostly due to their systemic doping program they had going on there that was basically exposed during Operation Puerto).
As for "Anyone with a positive test is of course more than suspicious" - well thanks for stating the obvious but of course "suspicion" can only apply to someone who hasn't tested positive anyway so let's be clear on that.
Of the view that 3.28 is a suspicious time? Well any time that fast raises eyebrows for a number of reasons and it definitely does when it comes from a guy who improves his PR from 3.36 to it - and yes it's significantly less when it comes from someone sporting a previous PR of say 3.30 even 3.31. I don't think you quite understand just how quick and difficult it is to run 3.28.
You talk about these "fall out of the sky" moments or "massive drops" - do you have any examples of these? I gave one - Rashid Ramzi. If you don't know who he is, then I suggest you google him. You mention a drop from 3.36 to 3.28 - how many exactly of these athletes over the course of history are there? I would challenge you to name them but I know the answer already. Of the 37 men that have broken 3.30 there are only 3 that ever made jumps like Katir did. There is of course Katir (3.36 to 3.28) and then there is Abel Kipsang (3.35.43 to 3.29.56) and Ronald Kwemoi (3.45.39 to 3.28.81). If you are putting Katir in the same category with Kipsang and Kwemoi then I think you really have a problem.
Is a drop from 3.52 to 3.40 suspicious? Short answer no. It's not implausible at all for someone with talent but mediocre training to do that. Also 3.40 for 1500m is a time that puts you 2257th on the all-time humankind list. Running under 3.29 puts you in a club of 16. So 12 seconds from 3.52 to 3.40 is numerically more than 3.36 to 3.28 but not even close in terms of relative difficulty and this is maybe the worst argument you gave.
Your final point - you think that if we studied guys that doped in 1500 you would see very little difference from their non-doped ability to their doped ability one year to the next? I think this was an inadvertently clever situation you framed up here because obviously doping impacts athletes differently and you could then simply point as say "well if it's not 8 seconds like Katir or 9 like Ramzi then it could be plausibly just natural progression. That's honestly an absurd claim or hypothesis and even if doping helps someone half a second, it's half a second they didn't have when they were clean. The time value is irrelevant but it's ridiculous to think that doping would actually ever make someone worse - that's not the point of doping.
Sorry to do that to you I really am, but it was a bad post.
Some of your post is quite good, but let's look at the sub-3:29 guys who have not been caught doping. Most of them have big jumps just like Katir. I'm looking at WA profiles, so maybe there are missing times. Ages are taken at the end of the year, which may be a year older than their age when they ran the time.
El G: 3:33 in his first year of running the event (age 20) Lagat: 3:41-3:34-3:30-3:28-3:26 over 4 years from ages 23-27 (positive A-sample, negative B-sample) Morceli: Fewer big drops, but still dropped 5 seconds (3:37-3:32) at age 20 Kiplagat: Dropped from 3:39 to 3:29 at age 20 Ngeny: Dropped from 3:42 to 3:32 at age 19 Cheruiyot: 3:34 in his first year of running the event (age 20) Ingebrigtsen: Dropped from 3:39 to 3:31 at age 18 Makhloufi: Another smoother progression, but he did go from a 3:32 best to a dominant Olympic gold at age 24. And do people consider him to be one of the less-suspicious runners? If anything, it seems like the opposite Katir: 3:36 to 3:28 at age 23 Iguider: First time under 3:31 was age 27 (3:29), then ran 3:28 the next year Farah: Improved his best from 3:33 to 3:28 at age 30 (similar improvement in his primary events at age 28) Kwemoi: 3:45 to 3:28 at age 19 Cacho: Improved his best from 3:32 to 3:28 at age 28 (wasn't sure whether to include, but I don't think he's technically been implicated in doping) Baala: 3:41 to 3:34 at age 21, then 3:31 best to 3:28 at age 25
I'm NOT saying that Katir, or anyone else on this list, is clean. But I am saying this: without considering other factors, take the 5 "most suspicious" progressions on this list and the 5 "least suspicious" progressions. How well does this actually match up with how suspicious you consider the runners? For me, it's not a good correlation. For instance, Kiplagat would make the "most suspicious" list, while Morceli and Makhloufi would make the "least suspicious" list.
Possible everyone sub-3:29 is just doping. Or maybe you have a more nuanced understanding of progressions than I do. I'm being serious here: if you have a specific rule for how to spot a suspicious progression, I'd like to know it. It seems to me, though, that calling someone out for a "suspicious progression" is much more about gut instinct than anything quantifiable about their actual progression.
Sorry, but you seem to making a case for Katir doping. The only people on your list with a bigger drop to get under 3:30 are Kiplagat, dropping 10 seconds at age 20, and Kwemoi dropping 17 seconds at age 19. Everyone else on this list is taking off maybe five seconds to get under 3:30, as opposed to Katir's eight. And almost all of these "big" drops are happening between 18 and 21, as opposed to Katir's 23.
Also, Makhloufi is very high on the list of suspected dopers, I don't know where you get people thinking he is less suspicious.
I'm fine with people defending Katir, but as far as why people suspect him, it's because he wasn't a promising, rising talent. Being in U20s, being an NCAA or even high school star, etc. And Katir isn't in Kenya or Ethiopia where there's tons of talent and very little infrastructure and people tend to pop up out of nowhere (but usually at 17-20), he's in Europe, in a country with a pretty decent running culture/history, especially in his chosen events (unfortunately also a bit of a doping history in these events). Hobbs Kessler just had a big, fairly out-of-the-blue PR but he's been a known quantity for two years and is still only 20. Nuguse is having a huge year at 24 but won NCAAs in 2019 an has two NCAA records. Jakob has been doing crazy stuff since he was 16 and his whole family consists of professional runners.
The rest of the runners on your list have quite logical progressions. You even point out that Lagat had a positive sample and yet he improves by eight seconds over four years (six seconds in three years to get under 3:30) instead of eight seconds over one year, so you're pointing out that Katir has a much more suspicious progression than someone with a positive test to their name.
I'm not even disappointed in Katir anymore, I'm disappointed in the people who make excuses and don't see how obvious this case is
Now do Grant Fisher.
LOL That shut him up. He won't 😂
There appears to be an Anglo-Saxon campaign (almost exclusively Brits and Americans) against Katir that seems founded in nothing concrete but jealousy.
A 4:06 / 9:06 HS guy is now a 3:47 / 7:28 world beater? GTFO. If you're going to point the doping finger, let's not ignore the anomalies in our own country.
First of all, I'm not American, as most people here know.
Secondly, do I think Nguse is a likely doper? Yes I do. I didn't even mention him in my reply.
Andrew Wheating is suspect as anybody is from that period who made a big improvement in one season, but I still don't think he's anywhere close to Katir level suspicion.
do your homework,
wheating, no, his profile isn't that of peds, rather no peds at all.
first, he was projected for 142 800 eventually in his soph year, by some, like me.
he raced in europe after college season, upped the mileage from a modest level, moved up to the 1500, and that was the end of him, period.
it was the wrong formula, he wasn't a typical 1500 mileage type,.
on peds, you don't have the one great year and die.
If you notice he doesn’t respond when I ask him when he last had an out of competition drug test. No one is going to fail at drug test AT a meet unless they’re an idiot. Far too easy to get around it.
But what else? His next best result in the 1.500 last year was 3,34 in the semi final. He also did a couple more 3,34s and 3,35s. That was all.
Yeah, he did great in the EC final in the 5.000. But besides that? A lacklustre 5.000 in the Spanish championship.
I don’t believe that guy.
He literally won the spanish Championships against Mechaal running the last 800m in 1'51. What do you mean by "lackluster 5000"? It was one of his best races ever
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Reason provided:
Fixed spelling
I don't remember Ingebrigtsen lying sprawled on the track after running 3:28.32, 3:46.46, or 12:48.45.. in fact he made it look quite easy every time, he must be doping by your logic then.
Maybe your memory is foggy.
Henrik, after Jakob broke the European 5000 record, extended a hand to Jakob, who couldn't lift himself off the track, and wasn't able to help Jakob get back on his feet. Contrast with Kitty who was teeming with life, smiling for the camera and giddy after his finish.
The trelling moment for me was when Jakob rightly pointed out that, "I did not expect this time and this record. I know from my training that I am able to run that fast but it is something different to know something and to do something,”
Kitty mysteriously trained at or near the same level to achieve and maintain this degree of fitness. During a period where it was less likely he would have his training regimen interrupted by anti doping agents.
Listen to commentary from Former British Olympians Steve Cram and Tim Hutchins.The Men’s 5000m Competition kicked off at 20:02 (local time) at the Gateshead ...
And here he is mocking those who say he is doping by pointing his fingers to his ears whilst hardly breathing after dropping a 7:27 3000m in cold and wet London. Only two years before this he was running 8:41 for the 3000m.
¡Mohamed Katir vuelve a conseguir RÉCORD NACIONAL! Tres récords en poco más de un mes:-Diamond League Roma - 5000m - 12:50"79-Diamond League Mónaco - 1500m -...
In response to a comment stating "No way Katir is clean," Katir replied:
"what hurts friend? while you criticize me that this is normal it is the nature of men when there is another man better than him they envy him, ask your wife if Katir is handsome or not 😼😼 surely your wife would be delighted to be with a winner not a loser."
Further down the thread, he claimed to have passed two drug tests yesterday.
"And here he is mocking those who say he is doping by pointing his fingers to his ears whilst hardly breathing after dropping a 7:27 3000m in cold and wet London."
Didn't Ovett use to smile and wave to the crowd while beating world records?
You cannot use statistics / progression the way you do -there are a hundreds reasons why progression can be uneven….
And you mentioned Jakob Ingebrigtsen, but forgot that he progressed even more in a span of less than a year than Katir (from high 3.39 to low 3.31) -close to 9 sec. OK -Ingebrigtsen was far younger, but Katir’s small step from 3.37 to 3.36 (one year before the year he dropped 8 sec) can be seen as a year his potential wasn’t realised (everything came as a flood the next year)..
I believe in increasing the testing regime. Not in increasing the speculations….
I can use these statistics/progression within this context because we have a significant sample size. When 33 of the 37 men to run under 3min30 in the history of our species only did so after running at least a season in the 3.32's prior, then that is a very good sample set/indicator with respect to how you "progress" at this level of athletic performance (btw this is a slight correction because Daniel Komen also "only" went from 3.34.1 to 3.29.4 from 1996 to 1997 but he of course had run 7.20 for 3000m at that stage so 3.34 was probably not indicative of his actual potential). 90% of these guys - including some of the greatest runners in the history of this event (El G, Morceli, Jakob, Coe, Cram) followed this path. You simply can't sit at 3.36-40 (where honestly the majority of runners are of the same ability and usually best times are more a function of opportunity than ability) and then make this kind of jump. It's unprecedented as the significant sample size shows.
The Ingebrigtsen example isn't a good one - he ran 6 races under 3.31.7 before finally breaking 3.30. That's six races under 3.32 v one race under 3.37 (3.36.59). You want to revise that comparison?
Yes we do have a significant sample size (see automorphic’s post)… And these samples show that Katir isn’t the outlier you keep on saying he is…
Yes the Ingebrigsten example is a good one (because I see no signs of doping in his progression, nor in Katir’s)… The Devil is in the details, and statistics (over progression and reasons) can never be detailed enough to judge any athlete at all -we simply don’t have the necessary facts detailed enough for each athlete…
Therefore you have to make your own weird short cuts in analysing the statistics: Since Jakob Ingebrigsten’s 9 sec progression ended at 3.31.18 you draw an artificial limit at 3.30.0 so you can exclude him as an outlier, choosing Katir’s 8 sec instead. But this is to manipulate the statistics the way it suits your own agenda! (We can all do that; that’s the reason statistics have to be treated with care, or else they will lead to conspiracy theories…)
Jakob I. ran 6 races under 3.31.7 before breaking 3.30 (you say), and that’s of course not strange at all, since a great improvement often is followed by smaller steps. -The same is to be said about Katir; his 3.28 is a kind of ( maybe intermediate) plateau surrounded by his 3,29 and 3.30s… (But even here your statistics could have been ruined if Jakob hadn’t eased up over the finish line in his 3.30.16 -shows how fragile statistics always are).
"And here he is mocking those who say he is doping by pointing his fingers to his ears whilst hardly breathing after dropping a 7:27 3000m in cold and wet London."
Didn't Ovett use to smile and wave to the crowd while beating world records?
No. The only time was the two mile WR, where he could have ran 5 or 6 seconds faster, and which is the equivalent of at least 10 seconds slower than Katir ran.
In response to a comment stating "No way Katir is clean," Katir replied:
"what hurts friend? while you criticize me that this is normal it is the nature of men when there is another man better than him they envy him, ask your wife if Katir is handsome or not 😼😼 surely your wife would be delighted to be with a winner not a loser."
Further down the thread, he claimed to have passed two drug tests yesterday.
THIS is why the moderators have to delete any threads or posts on threads that accuse an athlete of doping without evidence- like a failed test.
It's not free speech to accuse people of cheating.
Here Kitty, kitty, kitty...
Katir's rebuttal commits several fallacies, including a combination of ad hominem attack, appeal to envy, and false assumptions.
Instead of addressing the actual argument or topic at hand, Katir resorted to attacking the tweet personally by implying that the poster's wife would prefer someone else over him. This is a logical fallacy because it does not provide any valid rebuttal to the argument raised.
Katir claimed that when a man sees another man who is better than him, he automatically becomes envious. This is a hasty generalisation and an attempt to manipulate emotions rather than engaging in rational discourse. Envy isn't a universal characteristic of all men; individuals vary in their reactions to others' successes.
Finally, Katir assumed that the nature of men is to envy and that being with a "winner" is always preferred over being with a "loser." These assumptions oversimplify complex human emotions and preferences. People's attractions and choices in relationships are influenced by various factors beyond superficial judgments of success or physical appearance.
THIS is why the moderators have to delete any threads or posts on threads that accuse an athlete of doping without evidence- like a failed test.
It's not free speech to accuse people of cheating.
Here Kitty, kitty, kitty...
Katir's rebuttal commits several fallacies, including a combination of ad hominem attack, appeal to envy, and false assumptions.
Instead of addressing the actual argument or topic at hand, Katir resorted to attacking the tweet personally by implying that the poster's wife would prefer someone else over him. This is a logical fallacy because it does not provide any valid rebuttal to the argument raised.
Katir claimed that when a man sees another man who is better than him, he automatically becomes envious. This is a hasty generalisation and an attempt to manipulate emotions rather than engaging in rational discourse. Envy isn't a universal characteristic of all men; individuals vary in their reactions to others' successes.
Finally, Katir assumed that the nature of men is to envy and that being with a "winner" is always preferred over being with a "loser." These assumptions oversimplify complex human emotions and preferences. People's attractions and choices in relationships are influenced by various factors beyond superficial judgments of success or physical appearance.
Katir might be fast, but he's not very smart.
Yes and that's just the kind of mentality one would expect from a doper, to be frank.
There appears to be an Anglo-Saxon campaign (almost exclusively Brits and Americans) against Katir that seems founded in nothing concrete but jealousy.
Suppose what would happened in LRC and the Britannic medias if one of their runners run 7:24 or 7:23 in the 3000m.
Now they act as if nothing happened.
I could talk about Lamecha Girma or El Bakkali exploits, they do everything to forget them.
I'm glad Katir doped so obviously in an olympic year because the clueless odds makers distorted the olympic 5k bets and it made me a couple of bucks. Also only boomers could be impressed by some low-brow "i f*ck ur wife!!!" retort. Really showing his class. Hopefully that clown doesn't win anything major before he and his coach get lazy enough to get caught