That is Axe-ist!
That is Axe-ist!
J.R returns? With an axe?
Oh, shit!
After watching all the YouTube videos I could find on her, I've come to these conclusions:
1) I'm obsessed with her. So what?
2) She only cheated (I still don't know how) at those in-country games where all those crazy times were recorded--8:06, 3:51, 29:31(coming back in a faster than WR 5K time)!
3) I have no idea how they cheated at those games, but they did. Short track I THINK holds the most water. Mix some drugs in with her turtle soup and fungus shakes.
4) The times she hit at the World Championships/Olympics, where she did VERY well, weren't unthinkable like those of that in-country meet as mentioned above. They were fast, but still within reach of the other women. She took 2nd in Atlanta in the 10K to Ribiero, I think.
I believe that she did run those rigorous daily marathon runs at altitude and that along with those concoctions would explain her crazy success.
She's in this AWESOME music video with Liu Xiang:
I used to think that the Beijing times must have been run on a short track but after watching the way she ran the last 2000m at the 1993 World Championships I think she really did run 29:31 on a legitimate track.
Here's the video:
The short track idea is ridiculous. If the track were 10m short, and she only ran 9750m, then why didn't the men run extraordinary times? No Chinese man has ever broken 28:00, yet if the track were 10m short, a 28:30 guy would have run 27:46.
And the missed lap idea doesn't explain how she ran 8:06 for 3000m (8:12 in the semis), or how Qu Yunxia ran 3:50 for 1500m, or Jiang Bo ran 3:50 as well four years later in Shanghai (another short track?).
These women were leagues above every other on the planet and you can look to Coach Ma for the reasons why.
Junxia Wang went on to coaching infamy by working with Eddy, Teddy, Deena and others
Coach Ma, is that you?
My new theory goes on two points that may have been possible for this infamous event to occur:
1. The first bend of the 1993 National Games track was short. This would therefore affect all events from the 400 to the 10,000.
2. The men this year didn't perform as well as previously considering the shortness of the track. The 400, 800, 1500, 5000, and 3000 steeple were all slightly faster therefore would only have been slightly slower than the previous championship's times if the track distance had been correct. The 10,000 was only 2 seconds slower but considerably faster than 1979 and 1983 champs therefore could be considered a tactical race.
Taking these two points into account, and consider that if the Chinese Government decided to pull down the track (which did occur) to save face and national pride, are there any reasons this theory could be wrong?
The short track theory doesn't explain Shanghai in 1997.
http://www.alltime-athletics.com/w_1500ok.htm
Was the Shanghai track also short?
Did they demolish that one after the 1997 race too?
If you need a short track for woman to run 3:50.46, don't you also need a short track for 3:50.98 - or is there some magic number between 3:50.46 and 3:50.98 where a short track is no longer necessary?
go away wrote:
She won Worlds in Spain that summer (1993) in 30: minutes and change in heavy heat and humidity so she was likely close to that fitness level. Maybe not clean though.
Umm... mister obvious?
J.R. wrote:
fUrCeOsNhN wrote:You say that the Chinese train harder and are faster...but how?
I'm surprised you don't know how they train, since you seem to be such an expert on their actions.
Wang's 3k record is no closer to the men's for that non olympic event than Radcliff's marathon is to Geb's.
Yet you are in such a frenzy about Wang and her teammates, perhaps because they are on the other side of the world and should be inferior to the great whites who wish to rule everything.
Maybe if Wang and her teammates had just run just a little bit slower, and not broken any records, then maybe that would have had your approval your highness.
Your claim that Americans are lazy are just as racist as anything we have said. Do you really think that not one American distance runner has the impetus or the motivation to train in the best way they can and as hard as they can? Not one? In fact, no one in the world has this toughness except for the supreme chinese who are such hard workers and are thus superior to the rest of the world. Weird how that works, huh? Oh, and the fact that they didn't face the same drug testing is absolutely irrelevant, right? Riddle me that.
Just to let you guys know, videos of that infamous meet do exist - you just need to know where to look. I haven't seen a full race but highlights are dime-a-dozen on chinese video sites so they're obviously out there. File sharing/torrent sites would probably produce dozens of results considering how famous Wang and Ma are in China. Videos of the Shanghai 1997 are much harder to come by for some reason though.
this is what a 2 minute search found:
http://tv.sohu.com/20090719/n265320285.shtml
highlights of 93
http://tv.sohu.com/20080805/n258604832.shtml
chinese documentary on "Ma's Army" (3 parts) with training footage including turtle blood drinking! The part with Ma (I think)pushing one of the runners to the ground for failing to keep up strikes out for me. Considering footage is hard to come by on american sites its a good watch - well produced too.
It also seems Qu Yunxia is now a humble a high school PE teacher.
I think you should suspect your own ignorance more than anything else.
People also watched Galen Rupp get a silver medal at London. Many watched Regina Jacobs setting records well past the age when you'd expect them.
People watching an event doesn't determine whether they've been doping.
Are you actually suggesting that nobody saw Wang set these records?
Anyone suggesting the track was short probably has an anti-Chinese bias. Why would anyone want to hold their national championships on a short track? They would be the laughing stock of the world.
Do you think the IAAF is so gullible?
Or do you think the Chinese have trouble measuring?
It's amazing that after so many years have passed, so many people are so eager to be so quick to judge without facts.
Do you think it worth mentioning that Wang and nearly all those record-breakers had been training with Ma in a very demanding program since they were eight years old?
The parents of one of Ma's runners had to spend their life savings just to buy running shoes for their daughter. It would seem that these girls and their families saw running as an opportunity to make it out of poverty. It is somewhat similar to the phenomenon you see with basketball in America.
Do you know what sacrifices these women are forced to endure in order to succeed?
What is your definition of "drug"? A performance-enhancing substance, I presume?
Not everything that boosts performance can possibly be banned, correct?
Especially if the properties of naturally occurring substances are not well-known, and the ones who have designed the tests are not even aware of them.
To suppose that the West knew everything about enhancing sports performance is sheer bias.
Moreover, to assume that the drug tests were so well-developed that they could possibly detect all substances used in folklore medicine that have been used for centuries in all the countries around the world is sheer nonsense.
And tell me why a group of runners who have been in a structured and extremely demanding program that dictated their entire lives would necessarily have to cheat, especially when there is no evidence that anyone anywhere else has adopted this type of approach?
That is a rather ironic statement considering that so many health foods stores within a few years after the story of the Chinese runners broke were carrying some of the same herbal medicines that they were using.
Cordiceps Sinensis (caterpillar fungus) is the most notable.
It is also rather interesting that so few runners in the West are even aware that it is available.
Don't you find it rather ironic that so few of the media ever took notice of this? Maybe it has to do with the fact that "alternative medicine" including Chinese herbal medicine is undermined and suppressed by Big Pharma.
Question begging and fallaciously drawn conclusions do not prove anything.
Anomalous phenomena are not always due to rigging.
If one wanted to be scientific about the matter, they would try to replicate as closely as possible the exact methods Ma Junren used; but it is clear that nobody is willing to make such sacrifices in pursuit of a medal. Replicability is one of the core elements of science. If the protocols are never replicated, then no conclusions can be made at all.
If you can find any group of eight year olds anywhere that are willing to endure the type of training these women had until they produced these performances, then let us know -- because then we'd have to relocate them to a country where they would be safe from beatings and other types of "abuse."
Amos Oh wrote:
Why are you responding to a six year old thread?
Get a life.
Sanity has nothing to do with it.
Any reasonable person would consider all the evidence before passing judgement. Have you considered all the available evidence?
What is your point of reference when you declare that sane people could only agree with your conclusions?
In order to prove that they've probably used drugs, you'd have to be able to demonstrate from actual experiments that similarly talented eight-year-olds training for roughly ten years in a similar program, eating similar diets, in similar environments, etc could not produce the same results after ten years as these women did.