Rojo's question to Ruth Chepngetich being widely reported on news sites

I'm saying there's a language barrier. English, at best is not even her second language. It's her third. Asking a question within a question would be difficult for many on this site to answer.

👍🏻 for Rojo addressing the issue

👎🏻 for not asking it in a way she could answer confidently

👍🏿 great run by a nice lady

You mean the locked thread on Hull's progression, right?

So why does he have to hide behind the name Coevett?

Thanks!

The thing is that people DO care about Jess Hull. Since her breakthrough and Oly silver she is getting TONS of articles on her, podcast online/podcast coverage etc, all of which rasies value to sponsors.

She's an also-ran no longer.

So it isn't trivial that she had a massive, late-career, Chepngetich-like improvement. Though I agree Hull is still a minor entry on the global elite list, ironically the same factors that give her 'extra' attention also give her 'extra' protection from scrutiny.

As I recall, many other people did raise suspicions about Radcliffe as a massive outlier.

But she never got "the Ruth question" from LRC that I can remember.

Are you sure about that? Reread your own post.

https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=4158101&page=4#post-83

And Wejo's take:

hhttps://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=4158101&page=1#post-32

Very good point. It is probably not possible to have a “normal trajectory” to 7:17 since it is not normal. But having said that, there have been 3 men other than Jakob who have run 3:26xx and none of them have come close to 7:17, with the great Hicham coming the closest with 7:23, and then Lagat at 7:29. So these people like “trackfangirl” see what they went to see, but it doesn’t comport with reality.

funny thing is, For everything he said in that post, we can remove Radcliffe's name and time and insert Ruth's. 😂

For example: 2:15:25 (2:09:56) seems suspicious mainly because it's such an outlier as no other woman has run under 2:18:47 (2:11:53). In my opinion, lots of women should be running in the 2:17 (2:10) range and will start doing so soon again if someone with say the talent of Dibaba (Hassan) ever moves up.

Just want to point out, someone running fast from a young age is NOT more evidence that they dope. It is precisely zero evidence that they dope. You're confusing personal speculation with evidence. What it IS evidence for is higher natural ability and starting training younger than most people. It says absolutely nothing about whether someone is doping or not. It's a 100% irrelevant data point for considering if someone is doping because it has zero ability to differentiate between dopers and naturally talented runners who start running early.

Alright, now continue with your arguments everybody.

Brojos have been super consistent in calling out all doping. Except for Paula, we don't talk about Paula.

Where we are now is that those of us who want to be "fair minded" or "decent" about this see plenty of performances we wonder about in terms of legitimacy. But because we want to be fair we want more than personal scepticism before we're going to accuse an athlete of cheating. I've seen plenty of eye rolling performances over the years. I don't buy most of them but I don't have anything more than an idea that the performance is questionable. But I don't ask the question.

And I think where it's left the sport is that there are just too many questionable performances today that too many of us accept because we feel uncomfortable asking those kinds of questions. And I think maybe what happened on Sunday shifted something. Maybe it's just too big a jump for those of us wanting to be fair and decent to think yet again, "Well, I don't really KNOW." Maybe it's time to demand some sort of indications that these performances really are legitimate and it's time we demand that the people administering the sports and paying the prizes do the same. No, I do not have a master plan for making this happen but I think it's past time for us to allow the sport to be destroyed because we're too polite to ask embarrassing questions that are demanding to be asked.

He should have asked her these questions in her native language of Swahili and let her respond in her native language, then have someone translate to English. Now that would be fair.

So where was this brave journalism when Ingebrigtsen ran 8:17, which is just as bonkers crazy of a performance?

At least with Hull there's a plausible mechanism of action- she's stopped trying to run 1500m-5km and focussed a lot more on speed. And this isn't just a convenient excuse, she demonstrated she's gone backwards at the longer events when she tried running a 3km in Feb 2024 and placed 8th- even losing to another Australian Georgia Griffith. Her 800m-2km times are faster, but she's slower at every distance longer than that.

Here you're talking about someone who essentially ran a few seconds off their half marathon PB, and one of the fastest ever recorded, then backed it up with a second one not too much slower.

omg Jessica hull is doping. "Focusing on speed" this late in her career isn't going to yield a 7 second PR and entry into a time zone so few have ever crossed.

While a 2:09:56 seems pretty unbelievable. Any sane person would have expected her to be in 2:11 high - 2:13 shape. Her progression is suspicious but coming out of nowhere is a bit of an overstatment. Having run 2:14, and going out at 2:10 pace half way one year to nearly still win it. She is the optimal age for marathoning at the moment at 30 having only started marathoning 7 years ago. No one has hever been so bold as to ask the male pacers to go out at this pace. Below is her progression.

2024: 2:09:56

2023: 2:15 marathon

2022: 2:14 marathon

2021: 64 half marathon

2020: 65 half marathon

2019: 65:30 half marathon

2018: 2:18:35 marathon (age 24)

Definitely suspicious progression, more so than Jakob for sure, but this didn't come out of nowhere.

In Rojo's defense, the question had to be asked by someone. We all wish we could go back in time and ask the Eastern Bloc (Communists era) runners and Ma's Army (China) these same questions. It isn't some anti-Africa agenda that we have here. After all, lots of people are fully accusing Jessica Hull and Georgia Bell of being doped too.

When you do something so unexpected in our sport, sorry, you have to answer these questions.

If you run tiny PRs for 15 years like Laura Muir or Nick Willis, you don't get as much heat (fair enough), but if you are Kiera D'Amato setting an out-of-the-blue American Record at age 37, then you'd better expect to talk to the skeptics without getting all defensive.

We (the fans) have been burned about 100 times by dopers, so pardon us for being suspicious of "unbelievable results."

Right. If only Rojo had been around to ask the tough questions during Bob Beamon's press conference after he'd jumped almost 2 feet farther than any man in history. Or David Moorcroft's press conference after he lopped almost 6 seconds off the 5,000 WR.

Maybe the reason Rojo is being criticized is that his question is so boringly predictable and unenlightening.