El Guerrouj a couple seconds from 3000m world record (Video Included), why did he retire?

I want to point out a couple things without making any positive or negative assertions about who from what countries doped:

1) If Morceli was hospitalized for anemia, that says nothing about whether he was doping, because anemia is very common among high intensity, high mileage runners unless carefully combated with iron pills and dietary changes. The coach of my running club puts up constant stuff about getting your blood tested for heme iron and about the dietary changes and iron supplements to avoid those things, though I haven't done them yet. The more and harder the foot strike (=interval training and mileage), the more iron lost.

2) environment may suggest but does not entail that one is doing the same things (Hachlaf, Boulami, Ramzi, Kaouch, and the coach, Kada; okay, this makes it pretty likely but not necessarily the case).

3) El G was out at 1600m in 3:54 in that 7:23 3000m race and then went through 2k in 4:53; had he gone out in 3:56, then run 59, 59, still very fast, he would have been in much better position to do it. That's 5:54 for 2400m and he'd need to run 1:26 for 600m, maybe 58/28, much more manageable. No need for a 57.9 in there at 1600 or 2k as he did. Elite runners get a lot more money for running their primary event but still hard to understand why he didn't go after the 3000m record as a transition to the 5000m as or just before he started running the latter.

4) Taoufik Makhloufi is an example of a North African runner (Algerian, not Moroccan) who has left a lot of money on the table by not competing in non-championship years.

The Kim McDonald group is absolutely suspicious. In those years, the # of people running spectacular times in relation to the history of track was enormous, very much like the eye-popping numbers put up by heretofore run of the mill baseball players, not just Brady Anderson but many others, during the 1990s steroid era.

He did run an 8:06 2 mile indoors in 2003 with a 7:33 en-route split through 3k, but it seems like that was the only other major attempt he took at that distance. He was only 25 when he ran 7:23 though, so I feel like he was certainly capable of breaking or at least coming even closer to 7:20 if he made another serious attempt at it. With his range he was definitely the perfect specimen to run a 3k. Doping rumors/theories aside, it's still definitely a bit disappointing that he retired at 30, especially when he won double Olympic gold and had a season's best of 3:27 that year.

1) anemia and anemia requiring hospitalization are same in name, but two entirely different magnitudes. Yes, most runners break down rbc’s. However, symptoms of angina, syncope, and even hypotension are EXTREMELY rare from that etiology. EXTREMELY. However, chronic use of exogenous EPO or derivatives thereof can result in bone marrow failure- ie the inability to produce new RBC’s. Unless he had a chronic bleeding ulcer, aggressive hemorrhoids, or heavy periods that we don’t know about (?), this was a very serious occurrence. Waaay more than lack of iron or changes in diet.

2) being the only guy to abstain from peds in that crew and still being the dominant force in the world is lottery type odds

3) agree

4) makhloufi is probably the worst example on the planet to back up an idea that el g was clean

zxczxcv wrote:

The Kim McDonald group is absolutely suspicious. In those years, the # of people running spectacular times in relation to the history of track was enormous, very much like the eye-popping numbers put up by heretofore run of the mill baseball players, not just Brady Anderson but many others, during the 1990s steroid era.

Of course, they ran extremely fast and that in and of itself in a suspicious. That being said, they don't have the same cloud of suspicion as Moroccan groups IMO. They were more transparent and less secretive and more people had exposure/experiences with them. Think the difference between the ultra-secretive NOP (Kada group) and the less-secretive Bowerman (KIM group) squad in the US. It wasn't all guys of the same nationality, and it was a less closed-off thing.

Oh Please wrote:

THOUGHTSLEADER wrote:...

The strongest argument for El G doping was he was part of a country in Morocco ...

....

No, the strongest reasons are dozens of times he ran sub 3:30, including multiple 3:26s, starting in the absolutely heyday of unfettered EPO usage.

These may be the strongest reasons and arguments, but they are still weak:

- Guilt by association is a common logical fallacy which sounds more compelling than it is

- The widely believed assumption that doping can, will, or did, increase the number of sub-3:30s remains unvalidated by any means

Some stats about sub-3:30s:

o El Guerrouj ran 33x sub-3:30s

o Morceli and Ngeny ran 8x

o Kiprop and Lagat ran 7x

o Kiplagat ran 4x

o Decade by decade, there were:

- 5 sub-3:30s in the '80s

- 35 sub-3:30s in the '90s

- 33 in the '00s

- 34 in the '10s

- 3 in 2020

Even if we assume all of the sub-3:30s are doped, and by virtue of being doped, there is something else that separates El Guerrouj by a very wide margin from all of the next best runners all time.

Looking at the per decade distribution of sub-3:30s, when exactly was this unfettered EPO heyday?

ElGuerroujFan wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEjACBpYdTg&ab_channel=DavidWarren

I just watched this video, where El Guerrouj comes within 2-3 seconds of the 3000m world record. This was the same year as his mile WR and he doesn't retire until a bit past 2004 Athens..

Why did he not have another go at it, especially given how close he was?

Because dopey dopey dope dope dope, risk vs reward had turned to defcon 1.

I'm with you, on your second part. I'm not so sure guilt by association is that weak when you consider how pervasive doping was by the best Moroccan athletes in that period. This is unlike Kenya where there are busts, but it's not multiple athletes from the same groups and their coaches getting picked off. It's closer to Russia, which it would be laughable for anyone to call a middle-distance woman from that era "clean" for instance.

king guerrouj wrote:

Ah yes, the greedy Africans only compete for money and are willing to do whatever it takes to win. They're nothing like the noble Europeans who are motivated solely by their love for the sport.

Is it not a more complicated situation where you have European agents and coaches who are making money out of African athletes and this is compounding the doping situation?

rekrunner wrote:

Even if we assume all of the top 10 Tour de France cyclists are doped, and by virtue of being doped, there is something else that separates Lance Armstrong by a very wide margin from all of the next best Tour de France cyclists of all time.

I have changed some names in your sentence because this type of argument can be applied to many endurance sports legends.

When did they start out of competition testing for EPO? Wasn't it around the time El G retired?

globalized sports wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

Even if we assume all of the top 10 Tour de France cyclists are doped, and by virtue of being doped, there is something else that separates Lance Armstrong by a very wide margin from all of the next best Tour de France cyclists of all time.

I have changed some names in your sentence because this type of argument can be applied to many endurance sports legends.

Yes -- it is a solid argument with many similar applications, especially in endurance sports where the role of doping improving performance is often over-estimated.

With Lance, there are many similarities, but also many differences.

Winning a Tour only means you were better than your competitors that year, not best of all time.

He may not even be the best American all time.

We don't have a clear objective measure of all-time greatness for the Tour de France.

Lance's victories were not individual victories but team victories. Recall he took third in the Olympics, without the support of teammates.

Just the same, beyond doping, Lance did many things better than his competitors:

- Lance built a strong team dedicated to sacrificing themselves for Lance's victory.

- Lance was a strong charismatic leader getting his teammates and support staff to do things against their will, and the rules, in order to support Lance.

- Lance became very powerful outside his team too, able to wield great power and intimidation across the peloton.

Drumroll wrote:

When did they start out of competition testing for EPO? Wasn't it around the time El G retired?

Not really.

The IAAF started out of competition testing for EPO in May 2002.

El Guerrouj competed in 2002, 2003, and 2004. He did not compete in 2005, and announced his retirement in 2006.

-Lance's power outputs were not superhuman. Nor were any of those EPO era times.

Always been surprised at how El Guerrouj has able to regain his form at the 2004 Olympics after his breathing issues earlier that year.

Von Trips wrote:

Always been surprised at how El Guerrouj has able to regain his form at the 2004 Olympics after his breathing issues earlier that year.

He regained the ability to breathe normally.

Armstrong took bronze in the time trial at the 2000 Olympics, so there wouldn't been any support from his teammate. But he was one of the best time trialists at the time.

Man against the clock.

That Olympic bronze was a road time-trial where he lost by 3 tenths of a second to a teammate of his; Russian Viatcheslav Ekimov. Additionally, LA's nemesis, Jan Ulrich, took the silver losing by 0.08 seconds.

LA had a strong team but so did Ulrich & Beloki. In fact, Beloki's team ONCE had some of best Spanish climbers in the business.

LA's ability to time-trial was second to none and involved pure endurance with no team support. The Tour usually had 2 TTs each year and I believe LA was undefeated in all of those. This is where LA would stamp his authority in the Tour and seal his victory.

☝️ And don't forget LA paid Ferrari a million snackers to oversee his doping program and exclusively work only with him during the Tour. You don't pay big bucks to one of the best doping doctors in cycling to come up short.

Hindsight wrote:

[quote]rekrunner wrote:

-Lance's power outputs were not superhuman. Nor were any of those EPO era times.

O2-vector doping was huge for Tour winners back in the EPO abuse era:

This is the "estimated power output* for the eventual Tour winner on the final climb of the Tours between 1989 and 2001"

-weight.png

Riis, Pantani & Ulrich were confirmed dopers. Big Mig is highly suspicious.