Assefa 2:11:53 is clean because....

Watching the usual suspects trying to rationalize obvious doping times is always entertaining.

Sigh. They aren't "baseless" accusations except to one who has never actually progressed past 1970, when doping had yet to become what it has in the sport - when it is effectively the sport. Ironically, that is you, not me.

"We had a truly elite athlete in Hassan taking lunch breaks and otherwise jogging around offering water bottles to others, before effortlessly sprinting clear. If that wasn't an indication of doping - er, the weakness of women's marathons standards, I don't know what was."(quote)

Fixed.

Because you aren't too sharp you don't get that I am saying there isn't evidence that the sport is mostly clean. That debate is well over.

You claim to know it. I give her the benefit of the doubt because she has been nowhere near the best doped E Bloc marks while still being the best in her event at her peak. If she was doping she would have joined the same tiresome parade of "uberhumans" that we are currently seeing with Crouser, Kipyegon, Tsegay, Ingebrigtsen and Assefa.

Deflection of course. So while purporting to speak for offended athletes you still don't know any.

I would use the word risible.

It was Lydiard who said Snell's time set on grass in '62 was worth up to a couple of seconds on a modern track. But tracks and shoes have changed little since the '80's, so their contribution to improvements in times in the last 4 decades will be less, McMoron.

See -- baseless. In you case it is the latter option: "(you) don't know what was."

Nor do you. The deflection was all yours, as you don't want to see that your baseless posts and wide-blanket doping allegations are offensive to clean athletes and your "they're all guilty" attitude only harms the sport.

Sigh? Just provide the basis then.

More projection -- you are the one stuck in the 1960s, constantly bringing up Lydiard and Snell and Bikila, and shortly after I pointed that out, you predictably accuse me of possessing your ignorance of anything since.

As you can see if you only read the posts you respond to, I said "without any specific basis".

They are baseless because you have provided no basis, and you cannot provide any basis. Your failure has nothing to do with me and my knowledge of post-1970s. Giving me god-like knowledge will not cure your failure.

If there were any real basis in fact, you would have shared it by now.

Without any conclusive evidence that doping can even cause these unnatural elite performances, you have imagined that doping can be the only cause of the fastest performances, above some arbitrary limit.

By your own estimates, you have narrowed doping prevelance to somewhere between 10-80%, and have imagined that that can only mean 100% of the fastest times are doped.

Arbitrary and baseless.

You are splitting hairs when you say there is no 14/29 women

Gidey is a 14:06/29:01 woman who ran a 62:52 half marathon, which is equivalent to a 2:12 full marathon. Also I'm pretty sure that if she was in that record race with Chebet and Tsegay, she would have got a 5k PB, but we will never know.

Tsegey has never ran a time-trialed 10k in peak form, but she is literally the 10k world champion, defeating a 29:01 and 29:06 woman to do it. So while she technically isn't a 29 runner, we'd be naive to think she can't run a 29 10,000m right now.

Hassan is a 14:13/29:06 woman who just ran a 2:18 marathon literally coming to a complete stop in the middle of the race to do a stretching routine - in her freaking debut marathon. She beat Chebet at the 5k at the world championships, who just ran 14:05. She also won the bronze in the freaking 1500m this year. There is no question that she is a 14:05 or faster 5k runner if she really went for it.

Paula Radcliffe was a 2:15 woman without any super shoes, with track PBs very far off the above women. The super shoes make a big difference in the marathon, likely more than in these track events.

Now did I expect one of the current all time greats to run a 2:11:53, never the less Assefa, no, but everyone who knows anything about distance running believed that the 2:14 marathon record was soft, given super shoes. I think anyone with a brain expected a 2:13/2:12 at a moments notice. But we probably though Hassan, Gidey, Beriso etc.

That said there is a good chance this is a doped record. First Beriso and now Assefa, same coach, similiarly not a ton of fast marathon experience. But both have plausible explanations, and Beriso's Mexico city marathon was worth a sub 2:20 for sure when factoring in altitude. All of this is a long way to say ...

yes there currently are 14/29 women, and yes there is a good chance this is doped, maybe a bit higher than some other records, but it certainly isn't gauranteed to be dirty. It is a plausible record, by an unlikely but plausible person.

I read somewhere snell was on early steroids.I seriously dont know where i read it,so i cant prove it,unfortunatly.

So, how fast would Snell be on current tracks with modern shoes? Must be in Rudisha territory. In 1962. But he was clean, correct?

But training also has evolved. Sub 1:40 then? In the 1500m he must have been very close to 3:30. Six decades ago, he has had a level which only one runner later was abel to match: Coe. For sure Coe also was clean. Any current 1:43 African must be a doper, not a single one can produce similar results over the 1500m. Snell and Coe could do it clean. Decades ago.

Gidey, 62:52, double +5 mins gives her a 2:10:50 -2:12:00 marathon potential. Many more will be running those times in the coming years.

I feel sorry for the Japanese pitter patter elite women, 15:30/32:00 type runners who clock 2:20:00-2:23:00. Great times, but way out of the Ethiopian League now that the floodgates have opened. The women's only chances are in Championship marathons in inclement weather where there is much less of a differential but rather a battle of the conditions, just like Kawauchi winning Boston, 2018, in frigid cold and rain, beating far superior (intrinsically) runners.

It's doping that harms the sport, you moron.

Delirium.

Except, of course, for the 2:15 Berlin marathon record she ran last year. Maybe it just took her a few years to find her event. Then there were injuries and Covid in there.

That's bollocks. In 1960 these amateur athletes - as Snell was - in a relative backwater, would have had had no idea what steroids were. He was also big as a youngster - he didn't suddenly develop a muscled physique. He was a Lydiard protege. There has never been a whisper that any of Lydiard's Kiwi athletes doped. He was no Salazar or Francis. (Incidentally, in all the years since only 2 NZ distance runners have been busted - one in the early 2000's while in Mexico, and the other was Robertson while in Kenya.)