High-Octane wrote:
As I mentioned many times before when debating this with you, the Russian men endurance athletes gravitated to race walking where they felt they had better a chance at world domination than having to compete against the East Africans in running (many of the top Russian RWs were former distance runners). And that's exactly what happen - world domination in RW over a several year period around 2008 - 2014 or so. Their walkers of course were under the same state-sponsored doping program the rest of Russian athletics were which resulted in numerous EPO positives & ABP-hematological anomalies cases. That's why Russia was #1 in those blood value scores. Basically the same for Ukraine - more of an interest in RW with the men where they had the same doping problems with their top walkers. I'd have to do some research on Greece & Turkey.
On Morroco: Kenya is almost twice the population of Morocco and Ethiopia is almost four times the population of Morocco. Plus look at the culture of distance running in Kenya & Ethiopia - that's all they do over there, they don't participate in any other sports for the most part. And as soon as the kiddos are able to walk they're practically already put into a running program. Lol.
Additionally, on the 10 Moroccan runners in the top-100 all-time; 8 of those performances were set between 1996 & 2006. Only Aouita (1987) & Iguider (2015) were outside of that window.
It's very suspicious that 8 fast 5000 times (fast enough to make it in the top-100 all-time) were set in relatively short span of 10 yrs starting in 96 when EPO was going full-throttle in athletics and continuing up through 2006 - just a couple years before the implementation of the ABP.
You have mentioned how you imagine how Russia felt many times -- is that more than idle speculation? Is that an expert consensus?
In 1995, Kenya and Ethiopia had smaller populations: Kenya had about the same population, and Ethiopia was about double.
Not all Kenyans and Ethiopians in the whole country run. What happens when we compare Morocco to the smaller Kalenjin or Nandi or Oromo populations?
Recall again that among IAAF athletes, Morocco's blood doping suspicion was more than double Kenya's, and triple Ethiopia's altitude-based athletes, and that the East African percentage of blood doping suspicion was below the overall average -- and these seeming inequalities don't seem to stand with the claims of "equal" and "inextricably linked" and "Because one equals the other and indeed requires the other."