We changed the thread titled to make it more descriptive. It was initially titled, "Ruthe and Tanner dead heat."
If you are unfamiliar with Ruthe, since the start of 2025, he has set World records for fastest 1500 (3:41.25), mile (4:01.72) and 3000 (7:56.18) ever run by someone at the age of 15 (he turns 16 on April 12). That being said, him tying Tanner is a shock as Tanner ran 3:51 in the mile for the win at BU on February 21 and has a 3:31 1500 pb from 2023.
We also merged a 2nd thread into this one. It was titled, "Sam Ruthe and Sam Tanner tie in NZ 1500m Champs!"
Sam Tanner was tasked with pacing his training partner, Sam Ruthe, to a reasonably fast time. He did a great job and Ruthe took the opportunity to go for the win.
Why did the kid lead the first lap in a pedestrian 64 seconds then?
I wonder if Armstrong considers teen phenomns in other sports to have been doping? Boris Becker, for example, or Mike Tyson?
Or Jim Ryun. It's curious that he bases his argument chiefly on comparison with Jim Ryun. Surely Jim Ryun must have been roided through the roof to be running five sub four minute miles in high school just 11 years after Roger Bannister ran the first, and not to mention beating a 'fully developed' Peter Snell too just one year after he had won Olympic gold.
I understand you're a latecomer to the sport. I have followed it since the early '60's. It is very much changed and one of the changes is that doping has become a dominant feature - in all sports. It was in its virtual infancy in distance running in the '60's.
Training changed a lot from the mid '50's to the '60's, which accelerated performances. If you seek to see doping in performances of that era you have to identify what was being used then that coaches and athletes knew about that aided endurance. Blood doping was pretty much unknown till the '70's and EPO hadn't been invented.
You mention other sportsmen. I don't know if they were doping but the general picture is that the practice has become pervasive in all sports in recent decades. That is what elite and pro sport is about now.
Well, I respect your knowledge of the history of the sport, but this seems to be a pretty poor 'argument from authority'. I've been following it since the 1970's, and have watched all the major races from the 60's that are available on YouTube and elsewhere, and read biographies and such, so there seems to be not much difference between us. And neither of us, to my knowledge has actual comeptitive track experience (I can't remember you claiming any). In fact, at least I do run these days. I think you admitted once that you have never even tried on a pair of super shoes, so your repeated claim that the new shoes make little or no difference, even going back to Zatopek's day, is based upon zero evidence or experience.
I've also clearly researched doping in all eras extensively. You may also have done this, but the fact that you watched athletics in the 60's doesn't give you any real insight into whether or not high school kids are doping today. A former elite runner like Malmo would have better insight into that, as would somebody who has been a high school coach for several decades.
In any case, I've been trying to criticize your argument chiefly on what appear to be glaring logical inconsistencies. For example, claiming that Sam Ruthe is doping because the mile age group world record has fallen further than the senior mile world record in the last 30 years. There's many fallacies involved with that argument, but just one is that we don't know what Sam Ruthe will be running when he is a senior - perhaps sub 3:40, who knows? Or Jakob could run 3:41 this year, and Laros 3:40 the next.
You seem unaware that there are enormous developmental changes that occur in the teens. If there weren't then we could expect a 14 year old - or a 13 year old - to run as fast as Ruthe is now. Barring injury he will be much faster at 17 than he is at 15. That is entirely natural. What I am sceptical of is that he is as now fast as an insanely gifted teenager was who was two years older - and on a fraction of the training.
Youngsters in sports aren't necessarily more physically developed today than in the '60's. Ryun was 6'1" at 17. He was taller than Ruthe. On the other hand, Coe was 5'8" and El G the same and Kipchoge 5'6". So what does it mean to be be "physically more developed" as a runner? Height isn't necessarily the measure but heart, muscles and lungs. These change through the teens. That's why we see age records. Furthermore, in a sport like running, which is much less technical than many other sports, athletes can progress very quickly when they reach physical maturity - 20 upwards.
Well as someone who has taught 14/15 year olds for 30+ years I can tell you when I came across Sam Ruthe in a call room in August of 2024 I knew immediately that this young man was a fairly developed young man and when the race started and he won fairly comfortable over the athlete that I coach (who has run 3:50 for 1500m at 15)it was clear that he had talent. There is always differences at the age of development. I once taught a young 15 year old and got him into cycling and within 6 months of training he was the U17 National Champion. As a pro a number of podium finishes at World Champs and a Tour de France Green Jersey to his name. Sam Ruthe is an exceptionally talented athlete who has found his sport. I also live in the same city where an 18 year old has run a 3:47 mile .
I look forward to seeing what Sam does in the future and you should try to enjoy the sport instead of looking at everything with drug tinted glasses.
I don't dispute he has exceptional talent. But all successful athletes do. However, some of them dope. It is also known by WADA to be present in schools. There are levels of achievement that invite scepticism in this era when nothing can be taken for what it seems.
I'll take the comment about Harris as a compliment, since the alternative is devoid of intellectual credibility.
It appears you in fact have no idea what I was saying. Your appearance at any given age is irrelevant and not an indicator of your physiological development, which is the factor that determines performance. It doesn't matter that at 22 you looked far younger - you were physiologically 22. Conversely, at 15 you weren't 18 physiologically, so you wouldn't have been able to perform at that level when you were 15. Teenagers are in a state of constant development. 15 is not 17 or 18. What I am sceptical of therefore is an athlete of 15 matching or even exceeding the very best athletes who were some years older. Or matching a 3:31 runner in competition.
Of course I have no idea what you're saying because like everyone of the endless threads you are involved in 24/7 365 days a year, with rest, you never make sense.
Your appearance at any given age IS the indicator of your physiological development. I wasn't physiologically 15 at 15, nor was I 22 at 22. Period. End of story.
Here's a photo of me at 15, actually 15y 10 months. So almost 16. Holy sh!t, they actually let little kids run the race, and I'm grateful. I was always chasing after the big kids. I'm no way physiologically close to 15 or 16.
And another photo of me at 22. Again nowhere near the physiological level of my peers. At 22 I looked 17.
What are you skeptical of with respect to Sam Ruthie? He is 15, and he did tie Sam Tanner. Those are indisputable facts. Sorry you cannot accept reality but ever since you've been on this message board you have been unable to accept reality. Just a word of advice, it's not too late: accept reality, you have no other choice. Some of these kids are really fast.
You were physiologically 15 at 15 - not 13 - even if you didn't look it. Period. You didn't simply leap from 13 to 17 or whatever. Some teens may develop faster than others but all are undergoing physiological development. Ruthe, however mature he looks, is still 15, not 22.
I don't dispute he tied with Tanner. That indeed is the point. How? What I am sceptical of is what he is running at his age and apparently on less training than great runners in the past who were older. How? You prefer to see nothing in it but if he was running 3:39 - as one commenter suggested, that he was in "that kind of shape" - or even 3:36 would you still be as sanguine?
This sport has shown us for decades it can't be trusted. That is regrettable but it raises questions about every achievement now.
I understand you're a latecomer to the sport. I have followed it since the early '60's. It is very much changed and one of the changes is that doping has become a dominant feature - in all sports. It was in its virtual infancy in distance running in the '60's.
Training changed a lot from the mid '50's to the '60's, which accelerated performances. If you seek to see doping in performances of that era you have to identify what was being used then that coaches and athletes knew about that aided endurance. Blood doping was pretty much unknown till the '70's and EPO hadn't been invented.
You mention other sportsmen. I don't know if they were doping but the general picture is that the practice has become pervasive in all sports in recent decades. That is what elite and pro sport is about now.
Well, I respect your knowledge of the history of the sport, but this seems to be a pretty poor 'argument from authority'. I've been following it since the 1970's, and have watched all the major races from the 60's that are available on YouTube and elsewhere, and read biographies and such, so there seems to be not much difference between us. And neither of us, to my knowledge has actual comeptitive track experience (I can't remember you claiming any). In fact, at least I do run these days. I think you admitted once that you have never even tried on a pair of super shoes, so your repeated claim that the new shoes make little or no difference, even going back to Zatopek's day, is based upon zero evidence or experience.
I've also clearly researched doping in all eras extensively. You may also have done this, but the fact that you watched athletics in the 60's doesn't give you any real insight into whether or not high school kids are doping today. A former elite runner like Malmo would have better insight into that, as would somebody who has been a high school coach for several decades.
In any case, I've been trying to criticize your argument chiefly on what appear to be glaring logical inconsistencies. For example, claiming that Sam Ruthe is doping because the mile age group world record has fallen further than the senior mile world record in the last 30 years. There's many fallacies involved with that argument, but just one is that we don't know what Sam Ruthe will be running when he is a senior - perhaps sub 3:40, who knows? Or Jakob could run 3:41 this year, and Laros 3:40 the next.
I'm not going to get into a debate about "who knows more"; what I am saying is that I both followed the sport since the early '60's and participated in it. I saw and got to meet a few of our top runners in the past and even got to interview some of them, like Snell. (That was a real privilege.)
However, I don't base my views solely on experience or even observation but on what others who are expert have to tell us. Some of it is bad news.
I saw how doping was becoming an issue in sports from the '60's onwards. In more recent years I read quite a bit about it and also got to know prominent antidoping officials. The unavoidable conclusion was that doping was increasingly sophisticated and was throughout elite and professional sport.
In that context, when I see youngsters (and he is only one of quite a few "prodigies" today) achieving what would have only been possible in much older athletes in the past I become sceptical about how it is possible. I know how it is possible.
I understand you're a latecomer to the sport. I have followed it since the early '60's. It is very much changed and one of the changes is that doping has become a dominant feature - in all sports. It was in its virtual infancy in distance running in the '60's.
Training changed a lot from the mid '50's to the '60's, which accelerated performances. If you seek to see doping in performances of that era you have to identify what was being used then that coaches and athletes knew about that aided endurance. Blood doping was pretty much unknown till the '70's and EPO hadn't been invented.
You mention other sportsmen. I don't know if they were doping but the general picture is that the practice has become pervasive in all sports in recent decades. That is what elite and pro sport is about now.
You may also have done this, but the fact that you watched athletics in the 60's doesn't give you any real insight into whether or not high school kids are doping today. A former elite runner like Malmo would have better insight into that, as would somebody who has been a high school coach for several decades.
Sorry, I dont have any insight at all for you. That seems to be your area of expertise? Other than than swimmer Rick DeMont testing for positive for ephedrine in his asthma medicine in 1972 no one ever heard of doping back then.
The first two people I knew who were on drugs were Mac Wilkins and Al Feuerbach, but those guys were throwers. That was 1978. Feuerbach, who plays guitar, even wrote a cute little song about it, "Diannabol". It was probably spelled "Diane Abol" but you get the drift.
Based on whatever I'm seeing that seems unbelievable at the time but I certainly don't find it at all unbelievable that a 15 year old kid can be as physically mature or more than a 17 year old.
You may also have done this, but the fact that you watched athletics in the 60's doesn't give you any real insight into whether or not high school kids are doping today. A former elite runner like Malmo would have better insight into that, as would somebody who has been a high school coach for several decades.
Sorry, I dont have any insight at all for you. That seems to be your area of expertise? Other than than swimmer Rick DeMont testing for positive for ephedrine in his asthma medicine in 1972 no one ever heard of doping back then.
The first two people I knew who were on drugs were Mac Wilkins and Al Feuerbach, but those guys were throwers. That was 1978. Feuerbach, who plays guitar, even wrote a cute little song about it, "Diannabol". It was probably spelled "Diane Abol" but you get the drift.
I know there was some suspicion that Kuts had been taking something but yeah, throwers were the people we talked about on the rare occasions we talked about doping then. Barry Magee told me that Robin Tate, who I believe won the shot or discus at the '74 Commonwealth Games, can't recall but am leaning toward discus, was on a lot of stuff. Barry thinks Tate's later health problems and early death were due to what he took as an athlete. But in those days we thought runners were clean because the PEDs we knew of bulked you up and slowed you. The idea that they'd let you train much harder wasn't around yet.
This post was edited 1 minute after it was posted.
Reason provided:
addition
Of course I have no idea what you're saying because like everyone of the endless threads you are involved in 24/7 365 days a year, with rest, you never make sense.
Your appearance at any given age IS the indicator of your physiological development. I wasn't physiologically 15 at 15, nor was I 22 at 22. Period. End of story.
Here's a photo of me at 15, actually 15y 10 months. So almost 16. Holy sh!t, they actually let little kids run the race, and I'm grateful. I was always chasing after the big kids. I'm no way physiologically close to 15 or 16.
And another photo of me at 22. Again nowhere near the physiological level of my peers. At 22 I looked 17.
What are you skeptical of with respect to Sam Ruthie? He is 15, and he did tie Sam Tanner. Those are indisputable facts. Sorry you cannot accept reality but ever since you've been on this message board you have been unable to accept reality. Just a word of advice, it's not too late: accept reality, you have no other choice. Some of these kids are really fast.
Sorry, I dont have any insight at all for you. That seems to be your area of expertise? Other than than swimmer Rick DeMont testing for positive for ephedrine in his asthma medicine in 1972 no one ever heard of doping back then.
The first two people I knew who were on drugs were Mac Wilkins and Al Feuerbach, but those guys were throwers. That was 1978. Feuerbach, who plays guitar, even wrote a cute little song about it, "Diannabol". It was probably spelled "Diane Abol" but you get the drift.
I know there was some suspicion that Kuts had been taking something but yeah, throwers were the people we talked about on the rare occasions we talked about doping then. Barry Magee told me that Robin Tate, who I believe won the shot or discus at the '74 Commonwealth Games, can't recall but am leaning toward discus, was on a lot of stuff. Barry thinks Tate's later health problems and early death were due to what he took as an athlete. But in those days we thought runners were clean because the PEDs we knew of bulked you up and slowed you. The idea that they'd let you train much harder wasn't around yet.
HRE, back in those days they were taking sh!t like strychnine because they thought it helped.
I know there was some suspicion that Kuts had been taking something but yeah, throwers were the people we talked about on the rare occasions we talked about doping then. Barry Magee told me that Robin Tate, who I believe won the shot or discus at the '74 Commonwealth Games, can't recall but am leaning toward discus, was on a lot of stuff. Barry thinks Tate's later health problems and early death were due to what he took as an athlete. But in those days we thought runners were clean because the PEDs we knew of bulked you up and slowed you. The idea that they'd let you train much harder wasn't around yet.
HRE, back in those days they were taking sh!t like strychnine because they thought it helped.
I understand you're a latecomer to the sport. I have followed it since the early '60's. It is very much changed and one of the changes is that doping has become a dominant feature - in all sports. It was in its virtual infancy in distance running in the '60's.
Training changed a lot from the mid '50's to the '60's, which accelerated performances. If you seek to see doping in performances of that era you have to identify what was being used then that coaches and athletes knew about that aided endurance. Blood doping was pretty much unknown till the '70's and EPO hadn't been invented.
You mention other sportsmen. I don't know if they were doping but the general picture is that the practice has become pervasive in all sports in recent decades. That is what elite and pro sport is about now.
Well, I respect your knowledge of the history of the sport, but this seems to be a pretty poor 'argument from authority'. I've been following it since the 1970's, and have watched all the major races from the 60's that are available on YouTube and elsewhere, and read biographies and such, so there seems to be not much difference between us. And neither of us, to my knowledge has actual comeptitive track experience (I can't remember you claiming any). In fact, at least I do run these days. I think you admitted once that you have never even tried on a pair of super shoes, so your repeated claim that the new shoes make little or no difference, even going back to Zatopek's day, is based upon zero evidence or experience.
I've also clearly researched doping in all eras extensively. You may also have done this, but the fact that you watched athletics in the 60's doesn't give you any real insight into whether or not high school kids are doping today. A former elite runner like Malmo would have better insight into that, as would somebody who has been a high school coach for several decades.
In any case, I've been trying to criticize your argument chiefly on what appear to be glaring logical inconsistencies. For example, claiming that Sam Ruthe is doping because the mile age group world record has fallen further than the senior mile world record in the last 30 years. There's many fallacies involved with that argument, but just one is that we don't know what Sam Ruthe will be running when he is a senior - perhaps sub 3:40, who knows? Or Jakob could run 3:41 this year, and Laros 3:40 the next.
Doping is a lot more hard core,and a lot more widespread now than its ever been. How can i tell? I look at the changed physiques of the athletes these days,compared to what they were in the 60s,70s and even 80s. Bulkier,way more muscled,more shredded,more dense muscle,different body shape.Even distance runners have wide shoulders,and dense muscle on skinny frames. Only drug cocktails do that,not hard training on its own. Athletes also worked out in the 70s,and they didnt look like that.I also watch a lot of old youtube athletics videos.As for sam ruthe,i have no idea. I suspect he'll be out of the sport at 20.
Based on whatever I'm seeing that seems unbelievable at the time but I certainly don't find it at all unbelievable that a 15 year old kid can be as physically mature or more than a 17 year old.
Not any 17 year old but one of the very best in history. So what will you think when a 14 year old runs the same time - or even a 13 year old?
You have no idea what you are talking about. If you coached teenagers you would understand.
Your appearance on any thread confirms I am on the right track. I was once a teenage athlete. I become very aware of developmental changes experienced by me and my peers.
This post was edited 9 minutes after it was posted.
Sorry, I dont have any insight at all for you. That seems to be your area of expertise? Other than than swimmer Rick DeMont testing for positive for ephedrine in his asthma medicine in 1972 no one ever heard of doping back then.
The first two people I knew who were on drugs were Mac Wilkins and Al Feuerbach, but those guys were throwers. That was 1978. Feuerbach, who plays guitar, even wrote a cute little song about it, "Diannabol". It was probably spelled "Diane Abol" but you get the drift.
I know there was some suspicion that Kuts had been taking something but yeah, throwers were the people we talked about on the rare occasions we talked about doping then. Barry Magee told me that Robin Tate, who I believe won the shot or discus at the '74 Commonwealth Games, can't recall but am leaning toward discus, was on a lot of stuff. Barry thinks Tate's later health problems and early death were due to what he took as an athlete. But in those days we thought runners were clean because the PEDs we knew of bulked you up and slowed you. The idea that they'd let you train much harder wasn't around yet.
I heard the same thing about Tait. He was known as "the doctor". He supplied the stuff to other athletes who wanted it. It wasn't illegal. But in the '60's we were aware that it was in the strength-related sports that drugs were being used - mainly steroids. Weightlifting was already notorious.
But at that time doping was unknown in distance running, as there was nothing available then that obviously helped. Blood-doping wasn't known of in sports till the late '60's, and that was in connection with skiing.
This post was edited 3 minutes after it was posted.
You may also have done this, but the fact that you watched athletics in the 60's doesn't give you any real insight into whether or not high school kids are doping today. A former elite runner like Malmo would have better insight into that, as would somebody who has been a high school coach for several decades.
Sorry, I dont have any insight at all for you. That seems to be your area of expertise? Other than than swimmer Rick DeMont testing for positive for ephedrine in his asthma medicine in 1972 no one ever heard of doping back then.
The first two people I knew who were on drugs were Mac Wilkins and Al Feuerbach, but those guys were throwers. That was 1978. Feuerbach, who plays guitar, even wrote a cute little song about it, "Diannabol". It was probably spelled "Diane Abol" but you get the drift.
There was very little known about drugs in sport in the '60's. I don't recall any scandals or revelations about teenage athletes, except for later information that the Chinese and Russians were doping gymnasts to suppress the onset of puberty.
However, the most striking thing about teenage athletes then is that none of their performances defied credulity. I mean, Bruce Kidd, the Canadian distance prodigy, was running 8:40 or so for 2 miles and 29 minutes for 6 miles in 1962 - which was regarded then as spectacular for a 19 year old.