SJ_1mile wrote:
SJ is on the entry list for the W's 1 mile at London
Addy, Laura, Jemma and Georgia in the 8.
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bigmig19 wrote:
McRunnin wrote:
She ran 2:03 a week ago. 2:00 is much better than 2:03.
The 203 was a 200 with a shut down in the last 30-50m. She jogged in.
At the end of the day we need to remember who we are talking about. Saying 6th place is wonderful is crazy. Do we remember this gal dominating everyone? It seemed one of the biggest locks in track and filed for a while that she would win, right up there with Syd. She's a different athlete right now. Not sure I know why.
I don't see anyone saying 6th place for a runner of Athing's caliber is wonderful; that's certainly not what I'm saying. Obviously, she's not where she should be, and I'm one of many people here who've called for her to ditch Kersee and reunite with her college coach who's now at USC, Milton Mallard. (side note: after seeing how well Hoey and P. Bol ran in Monaco, I'd also be in favor of Athing joining Justin Rinaldi's Fast 8 Track Club!).
All I'm saying is Athing ran better in Memphis than she did in Eugene. You may believe the only difference between the two races is that she ran all the way through the line in Memphis. Knowing that she's had mental challenges, that's still objectively better than jogging it in.
When an athlete reaches a low point in their career like Athing has been in, it doesn't make sense to compare them to their high points when they were dominating everyone. We can only hope for incremental progress from where they're at currently/recently. I believe she ran better in Memphis than she did in Eugene. I hope she continues to make progress from there.
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McRunnin wrote:
We can only hope for incremental progress from where they're at currently/recently. I believe she ran better in Memphis than she did in Eugene. I hope she continues to make progress from there.
I agree with you.
The thing is that some people really love to hate. It's kind of sad.
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McRunnin wrote:
(side note: after seeing how well Hoey and P. Bol ran in Monaco, I'd also be in favor of Athing joining Justin Rinaldi's Fast 8 Track Club!).
I agree, though I would have said this long before Monaco 2025 as Justin has been doing great things with his squad.
Fast8 appears to program a really nice varied program, which could be GREAT for a runner prone to getting burnt out. They never seem to be too far from accessing some speed in a given week.
Is Hoey based in the US while executing Justin's training? Does he connect with the AUS-based group for camps? I know that coach is on Letsrun from time to time and wish I could tag him!
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Was there ever any explanation as to why Bol was researching EPO?
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slowdude wrote:
Was there ever any explanation as to why Bol was researching EPO?
I went looking for interviews given around the time and couldn't find an answer. I wasn't aware of the following,
For Bol, an indication that he was on the radar started in 2022 when he had 26 tests – a mix of urine and blood tests.
“To put it in perspective, I think one week, I had four tests. In the space of 24 hours, I had three. I think it was at 6am, 10pm and that’s 6am the next day.”
Peter’s coach Justin Rinaldi says the rigorous testing was probably a result of a close test back in 2021.
“They were target-testing Peter because they believed that Peter was cheating, and they wanted to catch him.” Rinaldi said.The articles written around the time were unsatisfactory, as there was too much speculation and not enough science. Allowing Bol to speculate on genetics instead of an expert is not high-level journalism. Note that Dr Catherine Ordway, sport integrity research lead at the University of Canberra, is not a genetics expert either.
Dr Catherine Ordway wrote:
“Scientists tell me that there is nothing that’s black and white in science. And so that was a frustration for me when I worked as a prosecutor doing anti-doping cases in the lead up to the Sydney Olympics, where they’d say, “Well, we’re 99 per cent sure … there are multiple grey areas in this whole process.”The article continues,
Some scientists believe – and some data suggests - that ethnicity can influence an athlete’s results. Where you are born, and your genetic makeup may result in elevated readings that are entirely natural.
Could this be the case for Bol, who is of Sudanese descent?
“Well, I just don’t know. And that’s what I’m hoping that we’ll see through this further investigation. It’s not impossible,” Ordway said.
“That’s absolutely the point of elite athletes is that they are a bit unusual, and in the best possible way. And so, genetically, we’ve seen athletes have wingspans that are wider than their height. We’ve seen athletes with enormous feet. We’ve seen them being double-jointed in every joint. We’ve seen all kinds of variations in the human population. And that’s what’s wonderful about elite sport is that it brings it all out. And so, from a DNA perspective, it’s not impossible that the normal range for Peter Bol is different to our normal range.”
Bol believes his DNA could have played a part in his high level of EPO.
“It’s in our genetics, of course. We’re fitter, we’re faster, we’re more resilient because of how much we’ve been through and gone through. It’s our genetics, it’s who we are. We can get back in shape pretty fast, doesn’t mean we’re cheating. It’s how we’re born.”Regarding the phone evidence,
The ongoing skirmish between global anti-doping authorities and Bol occurred during a hearing involving a Croatian soccer player, also represented by Greene, who is also fighting an EPO doping charge. Greene told this masthead the Australian Olympian had “graciously allowed” footballer Mario Vuskovic to use details from Bol’s collapsed doping case to prove his own innocence.Greene accused WADA of continuing to defame Bol in the hearing, saying the position they had taken had no credibility, no support, and they were incapable of admitting mistakes.
“WADA would never have agreed to a review and to strengthen EPO testing and procedures in light of the Bol outcome if there was degradation of the sample. They are still defaming Mr Bol in this hearing and it’s just a total disgrace,” Greene said.
WADA argued it was Greene who had introduced the issue of Bol’s seized computer and phone being found to be “clean” and they were only responding to an inaccurate assertion.“There was a screenshot found on Mr Bol’s phone which was an article which included a letter from Victor Conte to [former UK Sprinter] Dwain Chambers discussing micro-dosing with EPO in the off-season and there was also discussion [of] various techniques to game the whereabouts system, putting in inaccurate information, making sure your voicemail was full,” WADA’s general counsel Ross Wenzel said. The whereabouts system requires athletes to report where they can be located for out-of-competition drug testing.
“This is an article about using EPO, how to use it in the off-season and the screenshot was opened on Mr Bol’s phone on the sixth of September 2022, a month and five days before a sample initially categorised as positive was collected on the 11th of October 2022,” Wenzel said.
“When he was interviewed about this and asked about the screenshot which was on his phone – it was not in his search history it was actually something that had been saved on his phone – the answer was, ‘oh I read a lot of things, I am interested in learning and all that’.
“I make no comment and do not ask the panel to draw any conclusions about whether or not there was endogenous EPO in the [Bol] sample. I only raise that because of what was said in Mr Greene’s closing”.00 -
McRunnin wrote:
bigmig19 wrote:
The 203 was a 200 with a shut down in the last 30-50m. She jogged in.
At the end of the day we need to remember who we are talking about. Saying 6th place is wonderful is crazy. Do we remember this gal dominating everyone? It seemed one of the biggest locks in track and filed for a while that she would win, right up there with Syd. She's a different athlete right now. Not sure I know why.
I'm one of many people here who've called for her to ditch Kersee and reunite with her college coach who's now at USC, Milton Mallard.
(side note: after seeing how well Hoey and P. Bol ran in Monaco, I'd also be in favor of Athing joining Justin Rinaldi's Fast 8 Track Club!).
Milton Mallard has just left USC and has supposedly moved to Arizona to coach at ASU, so that option is no longer available for Athing Mu.
And if she was coached by Justin Rinaldi she would either have to be coached remotely or she would have to leave Los Angeles, and I don't think she wants to leave Los Angeles.
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Probably not the same mutation, but this guy had a genetic mutation that gave unusually high EPO.
Italian cyclist, Damiano Cugego, had natural abnormal levels for hemoglobin or red blood cell count, and was given an exemption.
In England in 1960s, the horse, Hill House, was found to be manufacturing a steroid within his own body (which led to the reinstatement of his trainer who had been banned, following a major win by the horse).
It's not impossible that a group of people, particularly from a small population (village, tribe) can have a mutation that has spread through a proportion of that population.
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Pretty fast runners wrote:
McRunnin wrote:
I'm one of many people here who've called for her to ditch Kersee and reunite with her college coach who's now at USC, Milton Mallard.
(side note: after seeing how well Hoey and P. Bol ran in Monaco, I'd also be in favor of Athing joining Justin Rinaldi's Fast 8 Track Club!).
Milton Mallard has just left USC and has supposedly moved to Arizona to coach at ASU, so that option is no longer available for Athing Mu.
And if she was coached by Justin Rinaldi she would either have to be coached remotely or she would have to leave Los Angeles, and I don't think she wants to leave Los Angeles.
If it's true that Mallard is now going to be based in Tempe, I agree it's unlikely that Athing would join him there. But it's not out of the question. When ASU hired Bob Bowman to be their head swim coach, Michael Phelps and other top pros followed him there.
If Athing doesn't make the US world championship team for Tokyo, it will be time for her to do some serious soul searching and ask herself if Bobby Kersee is the right coach for her. I would also think it would be time for Nike to step in. They can't be happy that Kersee has prioritized a New Balance athlete over someone who's supposed to be one of their top track stars.
With the LA Olympics coming up in just a few years, I would think Nike would want to do everything in its power to make sure Athing is in a good training situation after this season.
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McRunnin wrote:
Pretty fast runners wrote:
Milton Mallard has just left USC and has supposedly moved to Arizona to coach at ASU, so that option is no longer available for Athing Mu.
And if she was coached by Justin Rinaldi she would either have to be coached remotely or she would have to leave Los Angeles, and I don't think she wants to leave Los Angeles.
If it's true that Mallard is now going to be based in Tempe, I agree it's unlikely that Athing would join him there. But it's not out of the question. When ASU hired Bob Bowman to be their head swim coach, Michael Phelps and other top pros followed him there.
If Athing doesn't make the US world championship team for Tokyo, it will be time for her to do some serious soul searching and ask herself if Bobby Kersee is the right coach for her. I would also think it would be time for Nike to step in. They can't be happy that Kersee has prioritized a New Balance athlete over someone who's supposed to be one of their top track stars.
With the LA Olympics coming up in just a few years, I would think Nike would want to do everything in its power to make sure Athing is in a good training situation after this season.
It doesn't even take anything clever or a really good coach to make her a 1:57 runner under normal circumstances. You could do it off something like 4x400m in 57 sec. and 8x200m in about 27 sec. each week, and easy/steady running the other days. You could
I was about 4 secs slower than Athing over 400m and ran 1:57 off similar work 40+ years ago.
Not say that this would be optimal, or would get back to 1:54/1:55 shape, but pointing out how easy it would be to get a runner with that level of talent to at least a reasonable shape.
At the weekend, she was definitely trying, so this underlines how short of 800m type fitness she is.
I would think that her effort shows that either their has been a late winter/early spring hiccup we don't know about, or they have extended the base until late (which would make sense with her longer races), and they are very far behind with 800m and faster pace work.
The positive is that her most recent race will have improved her a lot and with two more weeks of speed work should give her a good shot of getting into 1:58 shape by the trials. How she handles the heats depends on whether she is getting back after an injury problem in late winter/early spring or is coming off an extended base. In the first scenario, heats are going to be problem, in the second far less so.
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slowdude wrote:
Was there ever any explanation as to why Bol was researching EPO?
Who cares?
I have researched EPO because I am interested in all aspects of the sport, including illegal doping that happens. Clearly all of the armchair experts on LR have 'Done their own research' as well.
And, unless we are planning to dope, that is all purely for our own interest and speculation. What is hard to understand about this?
Why wouldn't a distance runner want to know about how some people have cheated, both historically and against him?
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McRunnin wrote:
They can't be happy that Kersee has prioritized a New Balance athlete over someone who's supposed to be one of their top track stars.
Has he?
Isn't that a story that you are just making up?
It's more likely to be the opposite, actually.
Kersee in clearly very involved with Mu, programming training and competition to engage an athlete with seemingly idiosyncratic likes and dislikes in terms of training/racing.
She is probably a real handful, more so that a known no-nonsense training/racing machine like SML.
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Pretty fast runners wrote:
And if she was coached by Justin Rinaldi she would either have to be coached remotely or she would have to leave Los Angeles, and I don't think she wants to leave Los Angeles.
Isn't Hoey coached remotely by Justin? Seems to be working out for him!
(Some athletes deal better than others with remote coaching, of course.0
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Cavorty wrote:
At the weekend, she was definitely trying, so this underlines how short of 800m type fitness she is.
I would think that her effort shows that either their has been a late winter/early spring hiccup we don't know about, or they have extended the base until late (which would make sense with her longer races), and they are very far behind with 800m and faster pace work.
The positive is that her most recent race will have improved her a lot and with two more weeks of speed work should give her a good shot of getting into 1:58 shape by the trials.
Yes.
I said this earlier in the thread, and some twit replied that periodization isn't a thing and couldn't possibly relate to her recent trajectory of 800m performances.
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I love track wrote:
McRunnin wrote:
They can't be happy that Kersee has prioritized a New Balance athlete over someone who's supposed to be one of their top track stars.
Has he?
Isn't that a story that you are just making up?
It's more likely to be the opposite, actually.
Kersee in clearly very involved with Mu, programming training and competition to engage an athlete with seemingly idiosyncratic likes and dislikes in terms of training/racing.
She is probably a real handful, more so that a known no-nonsense training/racing machine like SML.
Yes, Kersee has prioritized Sydney over Athing. In 2023, he had Athing running the 1500m while Sydney did the 400m because he said he didn’t want them racing each other at 400m.
Instead of having Athing stick with the 400m-800m focus that had yielded gold for her in 2021 and 2022, he had her messing around with the 1500m.
This year, he said again that he doesn’t want Athing and Sydney racing each other. So rather than choosing races that are actually best for Athing, he’s thinking about how he can avoid her lining up against Sydney.
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McRunnin wrote:
I love track wrote:
Has he?
Isn't that a story that you are just making up?
It's more likely to be the opposite, actually.
Kersee in clearly very involved with Mu, programming training and competition to engage an athlete with seemingly idiosyncratic likes and dislikes in terms of training/racing.
She is probably a real handful, more so that a known no-nonsense training/racing machine like SML.
Yes, Kersee has prioritized Sydney over Athing. In 2023, he had Athing running the 1500m while Sydney did the 400m because he said he didn’t want them racing each other at 400m.
This year, he said again that he doesn’t want Athing and Sydney racing each other. So rather than choosing races that are actually best for Athing, he’s thinking about how he can avoid her lining up against Sydney.
Again, you are completely projecting your own thoughts here:
"he had her messing around with the 1500m"
"rather than choosing races that are actually best for Athing, he’s thinking about how he can avoid her lining up against Sydney"
Really?? You know his thoughts? And they don't include any idea that a long-term 400/800 runner could benefit from early season 1500/3000 training?
You are simply making up the idea that Kersee had Mu running overdistance solely to avoid Mu.
Many 800m runners have had success going long early in the season. Rudisha running winter 5ks, Symmonds doing 1500s, Arop doing 1500s, etc.
For all you know, for Kersee not to race Mu vs SML is a decision to prioritize SML by not having her challenged by a teammate at the 400m, which she has raced on a global level and clearly wants to continue.
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I love track wrote:
You are simply making up the idea that Kersee had Mu running overdistance solely to avoid SML.
For all you know, for Kersee not to race Mu vs SML is a decision to prioritize SML by not having her challenged by a teammate at the 400m, which she has raced on a global level and clearly wants to continue.
For all you know, for Kersee not to race Mu vs SML is a decision to prioritize Mu by not having her challenged by a teammate at the 400m.
See how this goes both ways?
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I love track wrote:
McRunnin wrote:
Yes, Kersee has prioritized Sydney over Athing. In 2023, he had Athing running the 1500m while Sydney did the 400m because he said he didn’t want them racing each other at 400m.
This year, he said again that he doesn’t want Athing and Sydney racing each other. So rather than choosing races that are actually best for Athing, he’s thinking about how he can avoid her lining up against Sydney.
Again, you are completely projecting your own thoughts here:
"he had her messing around with the 1500m"
"rather than choosing races that are actually best for Athing, he’s thinking about how he can avoid her lining up against Sydney"
Really?? You know his thoughts? And they don't include any idea that a long-term 400/800 runner could benefit from early season 1500/3000 training?
You are simply making up the idea that Kersee had Mu running overdistance solely to avoid Mu.
Many 800m runners have had success going long early in the season. Rudisha running winter 5ks, Symmonds doing 1500s, Arop doing 1500s, etc.
For all you know, for Kersee not to race Mu vs SML is a decision to prioritize SML by not having her challenged by a teammate at the 400m, which she has raced on a global level and clearly wants to continue.
I’m going by what Kersee said, and I wasn’t referring to an early season meet. I was talking about the 2023 US championships. I don’t believe running the 1500m at the US championships was in Athing’s best interests.
Ultimately, my comment about Kersee prioritizing Sydney over Athing is a minor point in what I’m saying overall. It’s just one of several reasons why I think Athing needs to leave him and why I think Nike would be interested in facilitating a change for her.
The bottom line for Nike will be results. If Athing doesn’t make the US world championship team for Tokyo, that will be two years in a row without making a team and three consecutive years without winning gold. They won’t be happy about that.
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McRunnin wrote:
I’m going by what Kersee said, and I wasn’t referring to an early season meet. I was talking about the 2023 US championships. I don’t believe running the 1500m at the US championships was in Athing’s best interests.
Got it.
You think that Mu shouldn't have run the 1500, coming third 2rd in 4:03 at USATF.
Her coach thought she should.
The fact that McRunnin on LetsRun thought differently from her coach does NOT somehow show that her coach is "prioritizing Sydney."
That's just a thing you made up.
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