Why is Sebastian Coe's technique considered the best?

I would take a clean El G over a clean Seb Coe any day of the week. Two completely different runners. Coe relied too much on emotion and his speed, while El G was so much more fit with speed endurance, which is why to this day El G has a full 1:00 faster PR over 5000m and an Olympic Gold in both the 1500m and 5000m.

El Djiot wrote:

I've read knowledgeable guys like Deano claim here that EPO might have been worth 4 or 5 seconds at 1500m. When you look at the likes of Cacho, Morceli, El G, you have to wonder if maybe at least 8 seconds might be more realistic. Natural 3:35 runners would put them in the category of every North African that we know for sure who didn't have access to EPO (for example, Morceli's own brother).

Cacho was a smoker! He wasn't afraid to take on anyone. And he had a nasty kick that was second to none! Why is there so much talk all the time of Coe & Cram and not Cacho? I like Cacho and I like Spanish running.

Adios Amigos.

Spanish Armada wrote:

El Djiot wrote:

I've read knowledgeable guys like Deano claim here that EPO might have been worth 4 or 5 seconds at 1500m. When you look at the likes of Cacho, Morceli, El G, you have to wonder if maybe at least 8 seconds might be more realistic. Natural 3:35 runners would put them in the category of every North African that we know for sure who didn't have access to EPO (for example, Morceli's own brother).

Cacho was a smoker! He wasn't afraid to take on anyone. And he had a nasty kick that was second to none! Why is there so much talk all the time of Coe & Cram and not Cacho? I like Cacho and I like Spanish running.

Adios Amigos.

You need to understand that there a few people on these boards who strongly believe that anyone who ran faster than Coe or who beat Coe in a race were using drugs/EPO.

lkj wrote:

I would take a clean El G over a clean Seb Coe any day of the week. Two completely different runners. Coe relied too much on emotion and his speed, while El G was so much more fit with speed endurance, which is why to this day El G has a full 1:00 faster PR over 5000m and an Olympic Gold in both the 1500m and 5000m.

Speed is the name of the game. El G could never rely on 46 sec 400 speed at the end of a race like Coe could. And in a championship scenario over 1500, I’d go for a peak Coe more often than not against El G.

Coe May have relied on emotion and speed, but El G relies too much on a troupe of Moroccan pacemakers, even in Champs, and EPO.

old tymer wrote:

You need to understand that there a few people on these boards who strongly believe that anyone who ran faster than Coe or who beat Coe in a race were using drugs/EPO.

I imagine that Coe must be very flattered that he has such loyal fans posting on LRC.

glkja wrote:

Both Mo Farah and Steve Cram ran faster than Coe over 1500m.

Guess beautiful form doesn't matter.

I've crushed tons of guys with "perfect" form.

Maybe we would have heard of you if you had learn't good form.

Cram ran 1/10th of a second faster than a post prime Coe and Coe won two Olympic golds, including LA where he beat Cram. Also, Cram was a second slower over 800m. Farah was running 30 years later you oaf.

Your logic doesn't hold up anyway. If the greatest middle-distance runner of all time had perfect form and if he doesn't still have the all-time bests at every distance, it doesn't follow that pefect form is useless.

old tymer wrote:

Spanish Armada wrote:

Cacho was a smoker! He wasn't afraid to take on anyone. And he had a nasty kick that was second to none! Why is there so much talk all the time of Coe & Cram and not Cacho? I like Cacho and I like Spanish running.

Adios Amigos.

You need to understand that there a few people on these boards who strongly believe that anyone who ran faster than Coe or who beat Coe in a race were using drugs/EPO.

Well maybe it was unfair to include Cacho, but I doubt he was naturally faster than Coe, Ovett, Cram, and over two seconds faster than his fellow Spaniards Abascal and Gonzalez.

I don't know of anybody who thinks that everyone who ran faster or beat Coe in a race took drugs. Beyer we know took drugs (beat Coe and Ovett in 78). I've never read of any claims that Cruz took drugs or that Ovett and Cram took drugs but Coe didn't.

Aouita never raced against Coe and had barely faster 1500 and Mile times but was about as obvious a ped user as it gets.

It's equally obvious that the generation after Coe, Ovett, Cram made use of EPO (at least). Even if Coe and the rest were doping themselves silly, El G and co had better PEDs. And it's truly absurd to think that Coe, Cram were doping, but Third World runners from corrupt countries with no testing and easy access to new endurance drugs were clean. Any way you look at it, Coe, Ovett, Cram were better talents than El G, Morcelli, Cacho. I would suspect that Morcelli and El G would not even have come close to breaking 3:30 without EPO.

Max Denbigh wrote:

May someone elaborate on why Coe's running technique considered by many (not all) to be the best/smoothest?

How does it compare/differ to Ovett, El Guerrouj or Morceli?

Simple. For the identical reason some people think Larry Bird is the greatest basketball player of all time.

On My Way Home From An All-Nighter wrote:

Subway Surfers Addiction wrote:

My best guess is that HGH would have been at the 1988 Olympics.

But they didn't have GHRP-2...the Speeeeeeeeed Peptide back then. ?

(My spelling corrected this time)

Hey what is Conte talking about here?

"Fast forward to 2010, after Conte said he “became aware” of a substance known as AMTH-2, “an injectable substance in single, little vials.”"

Coevett wrote:

I would suspect that Morcelli and El G would not even have come close to breaking 3:30 without EPO.

Oh...C'mon! That might apply to someone like Ramzi but not these two guys (it's well documented that Ramzi improved dramatically after hooking up with Boulami, plus his astronomically high off scores & CERA positive). El G & Morcelli were super talented - I'd bet they would give your boys a run for their money!

Why are you always undermining the super talented runners that just happen to be competing in the EPO era? There were plenty of PEDs going around during the era your boys competed in.

Can't Believe What I'm Hearing wrote:

Why are you always undermining the super talented runners that just happen to be competing in the EPO era? There were plenty of PEDs going around during the era your boys competed in.

Correct. But the winners must have used the PEDs of their time, or other talented dopers would have won. With that in mind, I am much more impressed by Coe and Ovett and Cram than by Morcelli and El G, because they had more primitive PEDs. Coe's 800 was beaten only what, 2-3 times in over 30 years? On roids and blood-doping vs. roids + blood-doping + EPO + HGH + speed protein. If that's not impressive and indicative of his form, then I don't know what is.

Can't Believe What I'm Hearing wrote:

Coevett wrote:

I would suspect that Morcelli and El G would not even have come close to breaking 3:30 without EPO.

Oh...C'mon! That might apply to someone like Ramzi but not these two guys (it's well documented that Ramzi improved dramatically after hooking up with Boulami, plus his astronomically high off scores & CERA positive). El G & Morcelli were super talented - I'd bet they would give your boys a run for their money!

Why are you always undermining the super talented runners that just happen to be competing in the EPO era? There were plenty of PEDs going around during the era your boys competed in.

Ramzi was also a 'talented junior', winning a silver medal in the African juniors and the Moroccon National juniors when that country was dominating. He was also running when testing was being introduced so it wasn't so easy to simply dope to the gills aka Morcelli and El G. He obviously tried a different doping protocol and it certainly aided him but it also led to him being caught.

The truth is we really have no idea how talented the 90's North Africans were. Morcelli was certainy a talented junior but it's quite plausible to believe he was doping himself since before puberty. Was he any more talented than his older brother? Certainly his brother would have access and knowledge regarding the latest peds and where to get them. He trained every winter in the USA from age 18 where it was very easy to get HGH an in fact where his inspiration Aouita told his Australian athletes to get hold of HGH 'in order to compete'.

Why did the North African superhumans suddenly have the ability to run sub 3:30 1500m at will AND 13 second 5000m and yet their 800m times didn't improve? For example, Morcelli's older brother was a world class 800 and 1500m runner. Morcelli junior. coached by him, barely ran faster over 800m yet smashed the 1500m WR AND ran almost as fast as Aouita over 5000m?? Seems really odd.

Again with El G. He was likely doping himself with EPO which WAS CHEAP AND AVAILABLE at the time (despite what you often read here) since puberty. He also couldn't run a fast 800m to save his life, when ALL the top 1500m runners from the previous generation could. Compare with Steve Cram for example. He was running sub 4 minute miles while still a minor in plimsoles because his parents couldn't afford to buy him proper running shoes. Doubt very much he could have been injecting himself with testosterone and HGH at the time. Despite being an obvious 1500/Miler, he went on to run 1:42 in the 800m and beat Cruz the year after his Olympic Gold, as well as looking on another planet at the 86 Commonwealths.

The Brits of the 90s obviously weren't doping or they would have been faster, despite a number of 'super talented' juniors such as David Sharpe (Gold in 800m world juniors, 5th in the 1500m world juniors).

old tymer wrote:

You need to understand that there a few people on these boards who strongly believe that anyone who ran faster than Coe or who beat Coe in a race were using drugs/EPO.

+1

Some people refuse to accept that Africa has taken running to a new level, and because of one reason only - superior sun baked African genes.

Coe, Ovett, Cram, Scott, Walker - probably spent more time in doping labs than actual training. Aouita, Morceli, El G, all clean and natural. Why take drugs when you are simply better? Moroccons have no concept of cheating. They don't even have a word for it in their language. Yet in English there are 72 different words for 'ped user'.

Media is racist to the core. For example that 'Libyan slave market' rubbish. I walked past my Christmas market in Richmond yesterday and they were selling even more muscular young Africans even cheaply, yet not a sqweek from the BBC. Might go again today and pick up a young Kenyan buck for the wife as a surprise xmas present.

Cram's article in "The Guardian" disagrees characterizing Ramzi as a less than impressive junior and already considered an "also-ran" at age 22 with a 3:44.85 PB. Then came the dramatic turnaround from 3:44 in 02 to 3:39 in 03 and 3:30 in 04.

And I don't think the testing was meaningful as Ramzi's off-scores taken on two blood draws at Helsinki where he won double gold were an unbelievably high of 157.8 & 148! That's some serious O2-vector doping as I've never seen an off-score that high recorded by any athlete ever (Shobukhova comes close with a score of 153 when she sanctioned for hematological anomalies in her ABP in 2012).

After Helsinki, Ramzi was hounded by no less than *21* drug controls over the next 3 yrs passing all of them! It wasn't until 09 when his Olympic gold sample from Beijing was retested and found positive for CERA, which has a half life 20x that of first gen EPO. So, Ramzi out-foxed the testers and almost got away with doping until he switched to CERA (You can search "Ramzi off-scores IAAF report" if you're interested in reading it).

You may have a point there.

Is there any substantive evidence that Coe, Morceli or El Guerrouj actually used performance enhancing drugs?

Cova is said to have used blood doping but I have not seen any article or report on that.

Lord Altrincham wrote:

Is there any substantive evidence that Coe, Morceli or El Guerrouj actually used performance enhancing drugs?

Cova is said to have used blood doping but I have not seen any article or report on that.

What would count as 'substantive evidence' aside from failing a drugs test?

The accusations that are made against Coe come almost entirely from his blood disorder problems that wrecked his 82 and 83 years. Deano has addressed these numerous times. I would just add again that if Coe had been blood doping (which was actually legal until it was banned in the mid 80s with the help of Coe) I find it hard to believe somebody wouldn't have confirmed it by now, given Coe's position and the Russian doping ban. Blood doping back then wasn't being handed some EPO pills in a plain envelope, it involved spending days in labs and some complicated procedures.

Well with Morceli and El G there is no 'substantive proof' other than you'd have to have your head up your behind not to realize that all the top athletes were dosing themselves silly with EPO in the 90's to early 00s. And when I say 'all the top athletes' I mean all the medalists etc - if there had been a level playing field perhaps the medalists would have been different and names that are only familiar to a few on this board would still be household names.

Sorry, but you have to be a complete idiot to think El G wasn't doping. This isn't necessarily the same as saying 'El G was a fraud who only won by doping', but yes, El G was doping just like the rest of the guys lining up alongside him in finals.

The first real endurance PED becomes widely available in the early 90s and times across the board from 1500 to the Marathon suddenly come crashing down, despite the period before then widely acknowledged as a golden age full of some of the best talent in history, and yet it's considered an open question as to whether El G was doing it all naturally, running 4 seconds faster than Coe, Cram, Ovett etc???

There is also quite a bit of other circumstantial evidence that the top Milers were using EPO then, such as that they all suddenly became useless at the 800m yet could run 12 minute 5Ks. The facts that so many North Africans failed EPO tests when they were finally brought in (and that El G suddenly retired at the top of his game just when testing was being introduced).

Coevett wrote:

The facts that so many North Africans failed EPO tests when they were finally brought in (and that El G suddenly retired at the top of his game just when testing was being introduced).

No kidding! Here's just a few top North Africans testing positive for rocket fuel:

Brahim Boulami (EPO)

Chakir Boujattaoui (CERA)

Adil Kaouch (EPO)

Mohammed Mourhit (EPO )

Rashid Ramzi (CERA)

These cats were fast!

Coe, Ovett and Cram are approximately 4 seconds quicker than Ryun and Bayi.

The same argument could have been alleged they did not do it naturally as well.

Does blood doping help with 800m/1500m running?

Above -

I was referring to the mile with the improvement in time.