casual obsever wrote:
rekrunner wrote:
The more surprising question for me is why the best American women were so slow in the 37 years since the time of Joan Benoit.
That doesn't surprise me at all. There were lots of outstanding performances from Americans and Europeans across the board (male, female, and 100 m - marathon) during the Cold War era, that would still have been very competitive some 30 years later.
Of course we all know that USATF had covered up well over 100s of our doping positives back then, and then there is the sad history of Athletics West. Plus, blood transfusions were legal during the first part, and still undetectable during the second part.
I'm familiar with your performance theories, but none of this seems to fit the women's marathon performances.
In the "Cold War" era, the outstanding performers worldwide were the two women I mentioned, Kristiansen and Benoit, with Rosa Mota a distant third, some two minutes behind, followed by Lisa Ondieki, and Grete Waitz, under 2:25.
Counting the "Cold War era", and the "EPO-era" combined, up until 2018, the USA had six women under 2:25.
That would include all forms of macro-dosing, micro-dosing, and any and all USATF cover-ups.
That is five USA women in the 33 years after Joan Benoit.
That is five women, not faster than Joan Benoit, but simply under 2:25 -- almost 4 minutes slower than Joan Benoit, and almost 10 minutes slower than the world record.
When I counted performances in 2018, including the "Cold War" era, and the "EPO-era", but before the new shoes, I counted 42 women faster than Kristiansen: 30 East Africans, 3 Chinese, 2 Russians, 3 Japanese, 2 USA, 1 British, and 1 German.
Then, in the "New shoe era", in the last 4 years, the USA gained six more women under 2:25. In that 4 year span, Kristiansen's 71st ranked performance slipped to 144th, counting D'Amato.
It looks like there is a strong correlation for fast women's marathon performances and new shoes, and male pace-making, and being East African.