Webb/Aouita - only two ever sub-27:40/sub-1:44??

the former mobile9 wrote:The difference is that Geb is just shorter, faster and older.

Exactly. I'd like to hear from mr know-it-all 'EPOian' if he is 100% certain that Hall and Webb are on drugs too? Because they've done some things nearly as good as the best ethiopians. Hall ran a 59:4x in his DEBUT 1/2 marathon running the whole way by himself over a hilly course. I think this is faster than Geb's debut 1/2 marathon, and if Hall had run that race on a perfectly flat course, with the perfect pacer, might he have run close to 59-flat?? That is as good as Geb and better than any other EPO-ian has ever run.

So "EPO-ian", let's hear you say: Hall and Webb are disgusting drug cheats....?

Another way of looking at it is this: Dave Moorcroft ran 13 flat 25 years ago and Derek Clayton ran 2:08 almost 40 years ago. Was that the very limit of human ability? Can no one run 12:50 or 2:06 without drugs?

And Moorcroft was injured ALL THE TIME.

guy not from there wrote:

Another way of looking at it is this: Dave Moorcroft ran 13 flat 25 years ago and Derek Clayton ran 2:08 almost 40 years ago. Was that the very limit of human ability? Can no one run 12:50 or 2:06 without drugs?

And one more similar thought: only ONE human being on this planet has run faster than Seb Coe did for 800m since he set his PR over 1/4 century ago. Now although East Africans' best distances are 3k-10k, clearly they have had many, many top talents at 800m & 1500m (just look at the all-time list and they are all over them in those distances). So someone please explain to me how if these guys are all doped to the max (as 'EPO-ian' thinks they are), are all on steroids and EPO (that would be the perfect combo for 800, since it is both a power and endurance event, and yes, of course epo would help at 800, it is still a mostly aerobic event, and most of the top 800 runners have been miler types with great endurance), how haven't some of these super-talented, doped-out-of-their-minds on the best PED's ever available, not been able to beat Coe's time??? i mean, we know steroids help pure power and speed and recovery, and we know EPO helps aerobic ability, so...... surely if these super talents were all doped on the best drugs, at least a few would have run 1:39 by now, right? But they haven't. So how could that be?

There are only a few explanations for this:

1) They are doped, but PED's don't really work. But we know this to be false, and if it were true, then this whole debate would be moot anyway. Next..

2) Geb, Tergat, Bekele, Komen, El G etc all used tons of PED's, but for some strange reason, the conspiracy of doping African runners didn't reach down the 800. Silly. If the best african runners were all doped, their 800 guys would be too. Next...

3) Coe was doped to the max. Of course there is always speculation, but no one has ever even posited a serious plausible accusation of Coe and drugs. And EPO was not even around then, so even if he was using some PED's, he did not have access to what today's athletes have access to .

4) Maybe, just maybe, supreme physiological talent is better than any drug. Just as someone like me taking the best PED's in the world would still get annihilated by a clean Lance Armstrong every time, or never be as big and ripped as a clean Ahhnold Schwarzenegger, a clean Coe and a clean Geb and a clean Ryun can beat any very talented, but not as talented as them, athlete of their generation (and subsequent generations) who is on drugs. I would say that that is certainly the most logical explanation/answer for my question.

(and there is plenty of evidence that the East Africans do have a talent advantage for the distance races, due to their genetic adaptation to centuries of living at altitude and an active lifestyle. thus going a long way towards explaining their dominance of the distance events)

Another explanation: the accusations of Africans being doped comes from anonymous posters who can say waht they want to because no one will ever know who they are.

Two things:

1.How many of these anonymous cowards would face Geb, Bekele, etc and tell them they were on Steroids and EPO? None of them.

2. As people are getting fed up with anonymous cowards making all kinds of slanderous statements on the internet the government will be cracking down on eliminating that anonymity.

Then, this message board can be limited to people like Sir Lance a lot, who have intelligent things to say.

ventolin wrote:

EPOian wrote:2)Ryun's training was, if anything, simply too intense for too long. It's exceedingly similar to the training of Coe and El G; a lot of fast running and a lot of volume. As with Salazar, his career may have been shortened by overtraining, but I'm not sure he would have run much faster .

3)The track was not dirt, it was cinder. At their best, in good conditions, cinder tracks were not significantly slower than early synthetic tracks. When Ryun ran his 3:51.1 it was, IIRC, in good condition. FWIW, He never approached his 1500, mile or 800 (run on a very early synthetic surface, IIRC)

no

- he ran his 3'33.1 on a dirt track :

That's not dirt, that's cinder. Cinder is much, much faster than dirt. That was the LA Coliseum track, remember, one of the most famous CINDER tracks on earth.

I know you must be new to track and field, so here's a helpful article:

Okay, so, where can we draw the line in between Derek Clayton and Haile Gebrselassie? That's four minutes in the marathon, between 2:08 and 2:04. If Hall runs 2:06, does that suggest he's doping? 2:05?

So, when Hall has his second go around at the half and runs say 59:16 (a 0.6% improvement) and is thus faster than Tergat, has he crossed youe invisible and arbitrary line?

Quit acting like a dumbass! You're setting arbitrary numbers based on who you think is doing what.

I mean do you know Geb? I don't know him all that well, but as I've said before, Mike Long from Elite Racing knew him very well, and Geb took the front seat in Mike's memorial photo last year. Why would Long, the same guy who tossed the Moroccan cheat from his race, have himself as a friend of Geb if he had any reason to suspect him of cheating? Or do you have a better connection than he did?

Kenya broke into the world running scene after about 1968 (Mexico City Olympics with Keino winning), then the Ethiopians were inspired by Yifter in 1980 in Moscow. The Kenyans were not organized or trained in an organized and scientific fashion until foreigners like Gabriele Rosa, Brother Colm, Canova came in to coach them in the late 80s. Also, the amount of prize money in the 90's went way up compared to the 70's.

It'd not like Europeans and American's were the ones running loads faster-it was the talented African's who pretty much came out of nowhere.

For example: The last non-African born runner to hold the 10000m record was Arturo Barrios in a time of 27:08, almost two decades ago. There are now 90 performances better then that, and not one of them is by a non-African born runner.

fUrCeOsNhN wrote:Times seem slow this year for 800-10000 compared to some years too.

That's not true.

There have been 55 sub-27 performances. Ranked by the number per year:

2007 - 9

2005 - 9

2003 - 9

2004 - 6

2002 - 5

2006 - 3

1998 - 3

1997 - 3

1996 - 3

1999 - 2

1995 - 1

1994 - 1

1993 - 1

2001 - 0

Two-thirds of all the sub-27s ever have been in the last five years. If doping was so prevalent in the early and mid-90s, we don't see it in the records.

Of the 20 sub-12:50 performances ever, 9 have been in the last 5 years. There was a lull after the Geb-Komen era, but that shows the importance of competition to making big drops in time.

Aouita was one of the original epo guys, came out of Morocco and trained in Italy with the doped up Itanlians,,,,

epo was in Italian cycling 5 yrs before the track world got turned on.....

joiwsyll wrote:

Aouita was one of the original epo guys, came out of Morocco and trained in Italy with the doped up Itanlians,,,,

Actually, wasn't Moorcroft doped up too? And Clayton and Zatopek and Nuurmi and Walter George and Pheideppides.

guy not from there wrote:

fUrCeOsNhN wrote:Times seem slow this year for 800-10000 compared to some years too.

That's not true.

There have been 55 sub-27 performances. Ranked by the number per year:

2007 - 9

2005 - 9

2003 - 9

2004 - 6

2002 - 5

2006 - 3

1998 - 3

1997 - 3

1996 - 3

1999 - 2

1995 - 1

1994 - 1

1993 - 1

2001 - 0

Two-thirds of all the sub-27s ever have been in the last five years. If doping was so prevalent in the early and mid-90s, we don't see it in the records.

Of the 20 sub-12:50 performances ever, 9 have been in the last 5 years. There was a lull after the Geb-Komen era, but that shows the importance of competition to making big drops in time.

Interesting I was looking only at the very top like so no top 20 performances in 800/1500 in the past 3 years. I guess the 3k/5k and 10k are exceptions mainly because of bekele.

You could attribute slow times in the 1500 to the retirement of El Guerrouj and the aging of Bernard Lagat. El G has 21 of the 37 fastest performances ever.

this thread is 1/2 about webb, so it's worth putting on the record about his potential

trouble is his 1'43.84 & 27'34 weren't in same season so we are being highly speculative whether he had concurrent ability at any 1 given point in time

if so :

1'43.84 / 27'34 -> ~

48.01

2'12.95

3'27.99

3'44.75

7'25.29

12'58.15

so it's unlikely he had 27'34 endurance last year

looking in optimistic side, he may get to a point where he does have the 800 speed & 10k endurance concurrently ( hopefully for him this year )

for arguments sake, shall we say 1'43.25 - 1'43.75 / 27'20 - 27'40 ?

slowest distance times off

1'43.75 / 27'40 -> ~

47.89

2'12.90

3'28.09

3'44.88

7'26.07

13'00.17

quickest off

1'43.25 / 27'20 -> ~

47.79

2'12.15

3'26.64

3'43.27

7'22.04

12'52.06

the latter look fabulously fast, but it just shows that the guy really does have fantastic potential/ability

i'd be very surprised if he doesn't at least go a 3'28 this year

I would say better predictions would be

48

1:42.5

2:13

3:28

3:45

7:30

12:55

27:10

Probably similar to Cram in terms of Pr's or a little better.

I really don't see webb going 7:22 anytime soon...or ever

fUrCeOsNhN wrote:

I would say better predictions would be

48

1:42.5

2:13

3:28

3:45

7:30

12:55

27:10

Probably similar to Cram in terms of Pr's or a little better.

I really don't see webb going 7:22 anytime soon...or ever

If hed go as fast on the Mile & the 5 K hed be much faster than 7'30 on the 3K.

Sure Bob Kennedy or Mark Carroll were slower on the 5000 & obviously the 1500 & ran 7'30.