Ah! This old thread--a blast from the past. It's still a mystery, isn't it?
Ah! This old thread--a blast from the past. It's still a mystery, isn't it?
nicely wrote:
JR keeps making ridiculous arguments that since Wang can run XX seconds faster than someone in the 1500, then it naturally follows that she could run XXx3 seconds faster in the 10,000.
Wang was World Champion in the marathon, not the 1500 meters, so it is natural she would get stronger the longer the distance. I have no doubt she could have set the records much lower, especially for the 10k and the marathon.
throughout the meet, she was tailed closely and/or beaten by 5 (five!!) of her teammates who had breakthroughs even more freakish than hers, none of whom ever came remotely close to those times again, and in almost all cases had never done so before either. Get real.
I'll tell you what. if I can provide times before or after that meet for at least one of those 5 runners, will you admit you were wrong in not supporting their performances and support them from now on.
I am not even going to try and break your rant up. You side step every issue, just twisting words around.
First, so the T&FN writers that you point to as being racist make the argument at one point so anybody that makes a similar argument later must have the same agenda? That is even IF the writer's were being racist. In certain context "Chinese results" would not be racist at all - but referring to the national Chinese championships. So if we were referring to the Australian national championships and a group of performances from a meet named as such, we would refer to them as the performances from the Australian champs, or the Australian results and it wouldn't be racist whatsoever. Also, Chinese isn't a race - it is a nationality, small detail.
The "magic" I refer to is the atmosphere in the air that day that you have referred to. You have said that it was a combination of the hard training and the extreme pressure to perform on that day (because it certainly NEVER happened again). This atmosphere created the extreme performances - I apologize for using the term that confused you. So it was training and extreme circumstance - the pressure at a national championship.
I apologize if that wasn't you who referred to the lack of performances after this particular week in question by saying the coach never coached them again. there was somebody who explained this drought of performances afterward as because it was the coach who got them to that point of WRs. Whether it was you or not it still stands for the argument at hand - the training is a direct result of the coach and if it was the training as you state that got them to these performances then how come in 96 (without Ma and the training) Wang was still able to win a medal at the Olympics. She never returned to the times she posted (neither did any of the others) but was still able to train hard and win an international medal.
You can twist this Radcliffe thing around all you want, but the bottom line is you are comparing the two, hand in hand. I will couple this with the argument that women get closer to men as the distance gets longer. Men have testosterone naturally - the shorter distances use testosterone much more than longer distances. Therefore, the longer the race, the less testosterone plays an impact - therefore the marathon vs. track events women are significantly closer to men when it comes to maximum potential (ultimately the fastest time achievable by men and women). And, yes, you are comparing the Radcliffe performance with the Wang performance. Therefore you are justifying one with the other, and the other with the one. On top of this, there is no documentation of international testing of these athletes at the time and plenty of Radcliffe. I am not saying that I truly believe Radcliffe's performance is clean, just less skeptical. Also, plenty of Ma's athletes afterward tested positive for banned substances later in his career, so there is a definite and direct link to him and banned substances. Radcliffe does not have one of those as far as I know, but again, I am not certain of Radcliffe's performance either.
"The 3000m record was weak, so the prelim doesn't count for anything. Many runners run more races than this in Olympic competitions. Finally, those four of Wang's races added up to only 17,500 meters, not even 1/2 of a marathon, and Wang was not running hard during most of them. As Radcliffe ran more than 42 kilometers in less than 2 hours and 16 minutes, some Chinese runners competing in less than this over a few days does not seem such a stretch, in fact it is not a stretch." For you to even use this argument is absolutely ridiculous. This might possibly be the single WORST support of an argument I have ever seen. And I mean that. There are a few possibilities here - 1) you are joking, 2) you are running out of excuses and answers for this charade, or 3) you know as much about track and field and distance running as a pile of bricks.
To say "many runners" run more races than this in Olympic competitions is ludicrous. Very few have run that many events, let alone performed extremely well at them. We did have Zatopek who won the 5, 10, and marathon, but back in the 30's? In recent years we had ElG win the 1500m and the 5000m in not even world leading times, let alone setting a WR 4 times in a week. Flanagan ran 5,000m and 10,000m this past olympics, but only got a bronze in one and didn't run even close to world leading times. Bekele has run the 5KM and 10KM, but not in world crushing times. People run these distances all the time, yes, but to even say that because she ran "only" 17,500 she actually did less work than Radcliffe is just plain ignorant about the sport and the events. Then to say Wang was not running hard during them makes the times even "less impressive" therefore she must have easily approached any one of them while being fresh after the fact. Oh wait, she didn't. And finally you call it "not a stretch" to believe they ran these distances - ok, so it is realistic that somebody has come close to this before or since? Don't think so - this is about as extreme a performance as has ever been.
With this last comment you made I am starting to think more and more that you are just a troll. Either way, you clearly are about as stubborn as they come on LetsRun and will not open your mind to anything other than what you want to believe.
I have thought about these performances, read the entire thread, took into account all the surrounding evidence, listened to the arguments and have come to my own conclusions. You have not made one coherent or believable argument except that they trained harder than anybody esle - which again is quite impossible to know. I do not doubt that they trained to some extreme levels, but have you ever grown up with Galen Rupp, or Ryan Hall, or Brian Snell, or ElG, or Bekele, or Joan Benoit, or Geb or Tergat or any other professional distance runner? Didn't think so.
The point of this argument is not that these times couldn't physically be run by these women - it is the circumstances surrounding it - that they happened all in a week by multiple Chinese women that never came close to those times before or after, there were no signs of any breakout races and no support of those races after. If an American distance runner who was running 29 flat for 10K last year came out this spring and ran sub 26 I would certainly be questioning.
You're claims of racism just sound stupid-I have never been to China either (although I have always wanted to go), and have absolutely nothing against the Chinese. In fact, I am considering a minor in the language. It is difficult but not enough to make me hate the country!
No, my beef with the performances is that they don't make sense statistically(and that is my major speaking). 7 of the top times in the 3000m ever, 4 of the top times in the 1500m ever and the top two times in the 10000m at the time, all set in two meets. That coupled with the facts that China has produced pretty much ZERO male distance runners, a lack of splits/film/race report, and the fact that the track(s) were destroyed after the races and that most of them really never ran anywhere close to those times again pretty much makes it obvious that something was up. I have no doubt that the Chinese were good-they performed well if not superhumanly outside of China, but I have equally little doubt that they were on drugs of one kind or another. Obviously you disagree, and nothing I can say will convince you. And that's fine. But calling me a racist is just uncalled for.
I agree with the notion that the 1500m and 3000m world records were weak, and that based on 400m times women could be running faster, but they are not that weak. The Chinese blew it by killing the hen that laid the golden egg. The IAAF knew the records were most likely bulls%$t, but couldn't NOT ratify them. But they made the Chinese stop...and there haven't been many mind boggling performance since then, have there?
J.R. wrote:
Wang was World Champion in the marathon
As was pointed out earlier, Wang was never the World Champion in the marathon. She won the World Cup Marathon but that didn't make her World Champion.
someone pointed out earlier and posted a video of the chinese women running like men. i watched and i didnt get the same view. there arm swing was very female, and weak looking, as would be expected from female athletes, but what was the difference was the legs at the end. much more powerful than the anorexic european girls.
were they on PED's? no doubt, where the europeans? most likely, but they chinese turn over and stride looks more like that of the ethiopean women of today. short track? maybe? PED's no doubt, men being women? maybe.
what i think is they had the right talent, large training group, the right mentality and the best PED's the goverment could buy. like i said before the european and american women (minus goucher) all look unhealthy skinny, and not surprising they cant break 4 minutes for the 15. the chinese women were prob some of the first to use EPO, mixed with all sorts of other PED's, protien, plyos, huge training group, communist authority to tell them what they "will" do, and there you go, huge records and probably scared women who are most likely f***ed from those years of training like that
There really isn't anything more to say here. However, I simply can't let anyone make a statement as foolish as "the 3000m record was weak."
That's completely wrong. Before the Chinese onslaught of '93, the standing record was 8:22.62, dating from 1984. Since those '93 performances, what does the non-Chinese all-time list look like? If that '84 mark was "weak" you'd naturally expect MANY faster performances by now and a considerable margin of improvement. But that's not the case. The only non-Chinese performances faster than the '84 WR are:
-8:21.64 by Sonia O'Sullivan, 1994, in London
-8:21.42 by Szabo and 8:22.20 by Radcliffe in a barnburner of a race in 2002 in Monaco.
That's it. A grand total of 3 non-Chinese times faster than the '84 WR, with a total improvement of 1.2 seconds.
That's how "weak" the women's 3000 record was in 1993. It wasn't weak in the slightest. End of story.
Didn't she get marry a Japanese and moved to Japan like the captain of the Chinese Women's Olympic Gold Medal Soccer team did years before ?
J.R, I don't think I'm the only one waiting for your response to this?!
old tymer wrote:
There really isn't anything more to say here. However, I simply can't let anyone make a statement as foolish as "the 3000m record was weak."
That's completely wrong. Before the Chinese onslaught of '93, the standing record was 8:22.62, dating from 1984. Since those '93 performances, what does the non-Chinese all-time list look like? If that '84 mark was "weak" you'd naturally expect MANY faster performances by now and a considerable margin of improvement. But that's not the case. The only non-Chinese performances faster than the '84 WR are:
-8:21.64 by Sonia O'Sullivan, 1994, in London
-8:21.42 by Szabo and 8:22.20 by Radcliffe in a barnburner of a race in 2002 in Monaco.
That's it. A grand total of 3 non-Chinese times faster than the '84 WR, with a total improvement of 1.2 seconds.
That's how "weak" the women's 3000 record was in 1993. It wasn't weak in the slightest. End of story.
J.R. wrote:
Wang was World Champion in the marathon, not the 1500 meters, so it is natural she would get stronger the longer the distance. I have no doubt she could have set the records much lower, especially for the 10k and the marathon.
Her marathon pr is the second-weakest of her times, next to her 5000 pr (which she technically set in her 10000m WR race), and in no way indicates that she could have set the shorter records lower. If anything, you could say that her shorter PRs indicate she might have been able to run faster in the marathon.
J.R. wrote:
I'll tell you what. if I can provide times before or after that meet for at least one of those 5 runners, will you admit you were wrong in not supporting their performances and support them from now on.
Please provide the times. And no, I won't admit I'm wrong, because if you only provide one (Yunxia Qu in the Shanghai '97 meet comes to mind), you still have 4 more women running at least 7 more WR-breaking performances that came from even farther out of nowhere; still statistically unprecedented. I will say with confidence that these women were incredibly good runners. Wang was a world beater, but being a world beater is a universe away from being the standout leader of a 6 woman super team of 5-day-repeat-world-record-obliterators. I've mentioned before that the 1500 times are the least suspect. If you provide times outside this meet for 2 more of the women (besides Wang) that suggest their Beijing performances were understandable, I'll rethink my position. Give times for 3 more and I'll magically forget that these were all set in a 5-day period and admit that you were right about them all along. Even though it's quite a stretch to suggest 8:12, I'll give you Yunxia Qu's 3:55 from a near-equally anomalous Shanghai meet in '97. That leaves 1 or 2 more.
fUrCeOsNhN wrote:
No, my beef with the performances is that they don't make sense statistically(and that is my major speaking). 7 of the top times in the 3000m ever, 4 of the top times in the 1500m ever and the top two times in the 10000m at the time, all set in two meets. That coupled with the facts that China has produced pretty much ZERO male distance runners, a lack of splits/film/race report, and the fact that the track(s) were destroyed after the races and that most of them really never ran anywhere close to those times again pretty much makes it obvious that something was up. I have no doubt that the Chinese were good-they performed well if not superhumanly outside of China, but I have equally little doubt that they were on drugs of one kind or another. Obviously you disagree, and nothing I can say will convince you. And that's fine. But calling me a racist is just uncalled for.
I agree with the notion that the 1500m and 3000m world records were weak, and that based on 400m times women could be running faster, but they are not that weak. The Chinese blew it by killing the hen that laid the golden egg. The IAAF knew the records were most likely bulls%$t, but couldn't NOT ratify them. But they made the Chinese stop...and there haven't been many mind boggling performance since then, have there?
Well said. I couldn't agree with you more.
Hey JR, if your still around, f*** yourself. Thanks
J.R. wrote:
ehhhh wrote:it is you that is basing all of your disagreement on racism
In fact racial and ethnic differences are at the core of the barrage against the Chinese times, not the least of which comes from the fat cats at T&FN, who often refer to times from that part of the world as being "suspicious Chinese results", where they are not so suspicious at all. It is simply conjecture directed towards people from a certain country, based on nothing that is relevant.
It doesn't matter to me what race or ethnic group that they are. I am not Chinese and have never been to China, though it would be interesting to visit or even live there the rest of my life.
So far after reading through the entire thread it seems that you explain the "unbelievable" record setting DAY as a culmination of hard work and a little magic.
Wrong. I said there is NOTHING magical about it.
You explain their lack of performances afterward by the coach being banned
No, I have not tried to "explain" anything. Did I say the coach had been banned, really?
So you seem to say that on one hand their results were a product of their coach, yet some (one?) went on to have relative success without this coach. So which is it? The coach or not the coach?
While you are are dreaming, you might as well answer your own questions.
One other argument you love using is Paula's race to justify Wang's.
Wang's races are justified on their own. What I said was how do you justify Radcliffe's races, and how do you know that she is not a man, based on the SAME assertions said about the Chinese runners.
The thing is, Paula ran ONE unbelievable race. Is it not true that Wang ran THREE(!!!) WR finals along with the WR 3000m in the prelims.
The 3000m record was weak, so the prelim doesn't count for anything. Many runners run more races than this in Olympic competitions. Finally, those four of Wang's races added up to only 17,500 meters, not even 1/2 of a marathon, and Wang was not running hard during most of them. As Radcliffe ran more than 42 kilometers in less than 2 hours and 16 minutes, some Chinese runners competing in less than this over a few days does not seem such a stretch, in fact it is not a stretch.
Paula's 2:15 that she was paced to by male competitors. She had what some people regard as "illegal" mechanisms to get her to that point.
Right.
It has also been proven (I believe) that over an extreme distance, such as the marathon, that women are much closer in ability to men than with shorter distances
That is not true and there is no such proof.
I don't have much more to say about this, unless there is a more intelligent discussion.
You´re the one who is ducking the intelligent argument, as the above poster clearly demonstrates.
For instance, you did not answer the "coach or not coach" question because you were caught with your pants down. And you still fail to give your racism accusations any substance.
JR?
Who shot JR?
I do believe JR lost interest after a great trolling effort that resulted in a 8 (and counting) page thread.
:(
It would be so cool to see the footage of that WR 10,000m race.
(I'd probably turn the sound off if the commentary was in Chinese.)
Green Tea wrote:
It would be so cool to see the footage of that WR 10,000m race.
It probably doesn't exist, for good reason.
BS wrote:
I do believe JR lost interest after a great trolling effort that resulted in a 8 (and counting) page thread.
I don't think J.R. was trolling.
J.R. posted yesterday in agreement with a post that was critical of Bowerman and Oregon.
http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?board=1&thread=1031122&id=2897934#2897934J.R. posted on another thread this morning accusing Amby Burfoot at RW that he's always had a bad attitude about other ethnicities.
http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?board=1&thread=2898777&id=2898791#2898791Sounds like J.R. has a chip on his shoulder for some reason and an axe to grind.
Oh I have a stalker, how sweet.
Actually I've decided that a speckled axe works the best.