WHY JAKOB WILL GET THE 2 MILE WORLD RECORD

not really such a thing as microdosing.im pretty sure most doping is done full throttle.

Passing tests means nothing. Altitude training doesn't produce sub-8 performances as it was a commonplace in the late '60's amongst Kenyans - most of whom appear to supplement their training today with drugs, like all the best do now.

I guess that means doping is not commonplace, or that doping doesn't produce sub-8 performances either?

What is new is better pacing with the wavelights and advancement in shoes. Drafting and pacing are not only scientifically proven, these are things that millions of experienced and knowledgeable coaches and athletes have known "works" as far back as Roger Bannister first breaking the 4-minute mile.

Doping is a commonplace - now. It wasn't in the '60's. That's how altitude-trained athletes are far faster today than they were in the '60's and '70's. The clearest demonstration of the boost doping has given the sport is the difference in times with altitude-trained athletes since that time. Same talent, same training, and similar tracks. But nothing like the same times. That's doping.

This sport has become truly farcical. Filbert Bayi was a great runner. Not only was he the Moscow '80 3k steeple champion he was the world mile record holder in 1975, with 3.51 (and 1500 world record holder). He was also far faster than Jakob over the 800, as a 1.45 runner. Yet Ingebrigtsen was only 3 and a bit seconds slower for his second mile than Bayi's world mark for that distance. Bayi was a rigorously trained athlete. But he wasn't on whatever is clearly fuelling runners today.

So you are saying doping is commonplace, but just not powerful enough as the record stood for 26 years and Craig Mottram's 8:03.50 was the fastest attempt in the last 20 years.

And you are saying "Same talent, same training, and similar tracks."

I guess it must appear farcical to those believe "Same talent, same training, and similar tracks."

What shoes did Bayi wear in 1975? When did wavelight technology come to the track?

Doping is a commonplace. It has been so for years. But it has had to change, to become more sophisticated to stay ahead of antidoping. But recent weeks have shown unmistakably that it has. Records that seemed untouchable in an era when there was no test for EPO are now being absolutely demolished. If altitude-training is as effective as peds the best altitude-trained athletes of the 70's would have run today's times. Of course they weren't. It has taken drugs for that kind of off-the-scale improvement.

Filbert didn't need wave-light. He made his own pace. You are dreaming if you think something you put on your feet and an electronic pacer explain the difference in performance between an incredible talent like Bayi and the record-breakers of today. El G and Komen didn't have wave-light and "super-spikes" and are still faster than everyone today - with one specific exception. Shoes and wave-light make only a marginal difference. But not as much as drugs will.

So what you are saying is that doping is both commonplace and unquestionably powerful, but because of sophisticated anti-doping, it hasn't really "off-the-scale" worked for decades allowing Mottram to be the fastest 2-miler (clean?) in 20 years, and that drugs like EPO have really never worked for the best sea-level trained athletes to produce "off-the-scale" improvements, before Jakob's 2-mile record.

And furthermore that since the '70s, training has not changed, tracks have not changed, shoes haven't changed, professionalism hasn't changed, incentives haven't changed -- the only change since the 1970's is drugs.

Of course Filbert didn't need wavelights to beat his competitors in the 1970s. But already by the '80s, British stars like Coe, Ovett, and Cram were relegating Bayi's times to ancient history -- that was forty years ago.

Comparing Bayi to the records of today require considering shoes and wavelights, and a half dozen other improvements since the 1970s, like changes in training, tracks, professionalism, incentives, etc.

I can always count in you to misconstrue what anyone else says to fit your own internal dialogue.

Doping has been prevalent for decades and in an era when doping control was limited it allowed huge improvements in performance - particularly in the '90's with EPO. However, despite antidoping upping its game with improved testing and the biopassport it is apparent that doping has pulled well ahead again, as athletes are now easily surpassing the best doped performances of the past. Mottram was nearly 10 seconds slower than Jakob over two miles - whatever their differences in ability that also shows how far doping is well ahead of testing.

On your other points, tracks and training have changed little since the 70's. The best athletes were typically peaking in their early 20's, as athletes are today, on similar training. Distance running isn't tennis, basketball, golf or baseball - it isn't a technical sport; it's largely a combination of speed and endurance. Athletes have known how to maximize that for decades. But doping has dramatically changed their physiology and this is the greatest single factor in the differences in times between the 70's and 80's and today.

"Incentives"? Such meaningless waffle. Runners in the past were motivated to be the best they could and especially to win. You can go back to Lovelock and then Elliott and Snell to see that. Money made no difference to that kind of motivation. Money has only meant careers could last longer.

Nor are running shoes in a different realm to the 70's and 80's. (Or tracks.) We aren't talking devices like "blade-runner" here. Indeed, the extant world records of the 90's were all set in shoes that have supposedly been surpassed by the "latest thing". Shoe technology makes much less difference than many here think. If the data showed conclusively that they are effectively a form of mechanical doping they would likely have been banned - as "brush" spikes were in the late 60's.

I agree with you here. EPO/regular spikes will always produce better than results than clean/super spikes.

I thought I captured all of your beliefs accurately. You believe: Doping is commonplace and has been for many decades. Doping is unquestionably powerful. Its popularity proves its power. Questioning only proves ignorance. When doping is powerless, it is because anti-doping is temporarily more powerful. Performance since 1970, or the lack thereof, can only be explained by the combined efforts of doping and anti-doping. Nothing else matters.

You're better to simply understand what I say than attempt to paraphrase it to fit your own perceptions of what I have said.

I don't say "nothing else matters" but that the scale of improvement in performances in the decades since the '70's has more to do with drugs than shoes, tracks or training - even though these will likely have had some (but probably marginal) effect. But of themselves they do not explain the full extent of performance improvements, because they have changed little in that time and the scope for gains has consequently been reduced. But doping has always been developing and improving the capacity of human physiology, as doping does, will produce the biggest improvements. Physiological differences are what sets athletes apart, from the very best, to the pack to the hobby jogger - not the equipment they use or even the miles they run.

OK, I should understand what you say, rather than perceive what you say. Noted.

Sure, nothing is absolute. Everything matters along a sliding scale. And it is your strongly held belief that, since the 1970s, doping is the only thing you can find on the heavy end of your scale, while all these other factors combined may or may not be probably marginally on your scale at all.

You can't show that is wrong while the facts suggest it is probably true.

Hard to say what is more probable.

Other facts suggest that changes and advancements in training, tracks, opportunities, incentives, event specialization, professionalization, and most recently shoes and wavelights, have all benefitted performances since the 1970s.