Cheptegei 5000m and Kipchoge Marathon WRs Left Me Feeling INDIFFERENT

Yes Deano it is all appearing to be one strange spectacle. Cheptegei ran his 3000m pace and continued for another 2000m. Nobody with a functioning brain believes that a well trained distance runner like Cheptegei can suddenly do this as a seasoned world class runner. This guy ran 7:33.26 at Bislett last year (his pb) and was defeated by Barega. Now magically he can run that pace for 5000m. Now that makes no sense.

Why in the world is everyone so up in arms about technology in Cheptegei's case? His shoes didn't even have a carbon fiber plate. They have a plastic plate. Yes, the shoes have slightly better foam, but they're hardly a big technological advancement.

Regarding Kipchoge, he has run 12 official marathons and gotten 11 first places and 1 second. That's not counting the 2:00:26 or 1:59:40 in staged runs. He took on Kimetto in Kimetto's next marathon after the WR and he annihilated him. With that level of dominance, do you really want to argue that he's not capable of running faster than Dennis Kimetto's WR without Vaporflys?Kipchoge took 1:18 off of Kimetto's WR in too hot of conditions. It was sunny the whole time, 57 F at the start, and 64 F when Kipchoge finished. That's not extreme, but it's probably worth 30+ seconds compared to cooler conditions when Kimetto ran. All but 1 of Kipchoge's pacers dropped by 15k, and Kipchoge was able to accelerate dramatically after dropping his last pacer at 25k (on pace for 2:02:12). Nobody is disputing that the shoes help, but Kipchoge's WR performance is SO MUCH BETTER than Kimetto's was.

Whether they did or didn't have a CF plate isn't really the issue, they 100% were / are 'super shoes' and have contributed significantly to this new WR time. Progress is progress but to claim he is a 'superior' athlete to, or his run was 'better' than, Bekele's is non-sense. The time was less, period. That's all a WR is, time. Both immediate and historical. Kudos to Joshua he is absolutely the best runner of his time as Bekele was of his ... and now may soon be at the marathon distance.

Just Another Hobby Jogger wrote:

Barcelona Hotel wrote:

I remember a few years back when Tirunesh Dibaba ran a slew of equally insane times - 14:11 5K, etc..., we heard the same litany of excuses. And then she was caught red-handed in a hotel bursting with spent EPO syringes.

The East Africans are gifted runners and would dominate the sport without doping. But the doping has reached farcical East German levels. It blows my mind that people can try to rationalize these times, kinda like how people tried to rationalize Lance Armstrong's dominance, even though the truth was in plain sight to anyone who wanted to see it.

https://www.si.com/olympics/2016/06/20/olympics-2016-jama-aden-arrested-doping-genzebe-dibaba-ethiopia

Tirnesh Dibaba and Genzebe Dibaba are different people.

Same coach

Just Another Hobby Jogger wrote:

Barcelona Hotel wrote:

I remember a few years back when Tirunesh Dibaba ran a slew of equally insane times - 14:11 5K, etc..., we heard the same litany of excuses. And then she was caught red-handed in a hotel bursting with spent EPO syringes.

The East Africans are gifted runners and would dominate the sport without doping. But the doping has reached farcical East German levels. It blows my mind that people can try to rationalize these times, kinda like how people tried to rationalize Lance Armstrong's dominance, even though the truth was in plain sight to anyone who wanted to see it.

https://www.si.com/olympics/2016/06/20/olympics-2016-jama-aden-arrested-doping-genzebe-dibaba-ethiopia

Tirnesh Dibaba and Genzebe Dibaba are different people.

Yes but they were both in the hotel right at the time the Spanish police burst in to find an arsenal of PEDs in the hotel rooms of Jama Aden's group...

Hiyero wrote:

It is a feeling of whatever. I think it is difficult to think that these records are anything but the byproduct of improved science, meaning running surfaces, shoe technology and PED chemical cocktails. I say WHATEVER. Anyone else? I can still somewhat enjoy it but not so much.

Ditto...

All of a sudden these ridiculous records are being broken in quick sucession. It's known as a dirty sport for good reason.

remote wrote:

All of a sudden these ridiculous records are being broken in quick sucession. It's known as a dirty sport for good reason.

You are implying poster, P.E.D.s only became available over the past few years. Athletics tends to be a middle class to upper middle class activity. Africans in foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro now have the leisure time to train 3 hours a day.