Why have 800m times progressed much slower than any other distance?

Coevett wrote:

TrackCoach wrote:

"a couple of Johnny Grey runs,"

>>Santa Monica athletes were dodgier than a Nigerian spammer.

"As I've argued previously, the end of the 80's represented the end of the golden age of white middle-distance running."

>> Which era are you referring to exactly? 1979-1985?

Keino won in 1968, Bayi set the 1500m record in 1974 and the mile in early 1975. The truly golden era in 'white middle distance running' was without a doubt the 1950s, the record for the mile dropped from 4:01.4 to 3:54.5 in five years and Bannister became a perpetual icon. The Swedes in the 1940s were terrific, taking 6s off the mile in a couple of years. Ryun and Walker combined took more time off the mile than Coe, Ovett and Cram. The fastest white man is actually Cacho, who won gold in 1992 and ran 3:28 in 1997 (???). But I can guarantee you he was on something.

"The thing that the drop off in 800m times after 1989 proves is that the sudden improvement in 1500m times was EPO fuelled."

>>> This is correct, most likely EPO. However, 1980s 800m runners could have been on the roids but we will never know.

"Lastly, talented British middle-distance runners such as Matthew Yates, David Sharpe, Curtis Robb, who had probably not completely dissimilar talent to the British generation that preceded them simply gave up or lost motivation when racing a horde of African cheats."

>>>Perhaps, training did not improve in the 1990s throughout the west and actually went backwards.