Wang Junxia 3K WR 8:06

Realistically speaking, NONE of the Chinese womens' records should have been broken.

The fact that the 1500m and 10000m records were bested should already set off alarm bells for everyone.

Wasn't she (Junxia) part of a group of runners who were implicated in a doping scandal?

Yeah, Ma's army.

For 1993, Chinese women had the six fastest times in the world at 1,500, 12 fastest at 3,000 and seven fastest at 10,000 meters. In 1994, they had just one time in the top 10 of the 1,500, none in the 3,000 and two (including world leader Wang Junxia) in the 10,000.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1995-08-03-9508030118-story.html

If there ever was an obviously doped up group, they were the ones. And now even those records are being smashed.

No one will ever break that. It's even more absurd than 10.49 100m.

George213 wrote:

No one will ever break that. It's even more absurd than 10.49 100m.

I'm actually kinda curious which one is superior. I tend to think 10.49, but both are just so far out there that it's hard to say. The truly insane women's world records are just on ANOTHER LEVEL compared to men's ones. 10.49, 8:06, that 400m WR that is, like, 47-low or something. No one even comes close to these times. They're beyond Bolt's WRs.

stan the corgi wrote:

Wasn't she (Junxia) part of a group of runners who were implicated in a doping scandal?

No. She ate turtle blood and powdered seahorses.

I don’t know, 29:17 is pretty absurd.

both absurd.

flvmmox wrote:

Yeah, Ma's army.

For 1993, Chinese women had the six fastest times in the world at 1,500, 12 fastest at 3,000 and seven fastest at 10,000 meters. In 1994, they had just one time in the top 10 of the 1,500, none in the 3,000 and two (including world leader Wang Junxia) in the 10,000.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1995-08-03-9508030118-story.html

If there ever was an obviously doped up group, they were the ones. And now even those records are being smashed.

I remember good ol' Ma. Smoking cigs while punishing his athletes with relentless workouts. A true doping class act.

George213 wrote:

No one will ever break that. It's even more absurd than 10.49 100m.

No the 3000 is an off distance way less competitive than the 100m, even by the iaaf scoring tables the women's 100m is far superior even bolts 100m is superior.

Men's 1500m WR is 3:26.00.

Men's 3k WR is 7:20.67 which averages 3:40.33/1500.

Thus, the men's 3k WR is 14.33 secs/1500 slower than the men's 1500 WR.

Now, apply this simple formula to the women's marks.

Women's 1500 WR is 3:50.07.

Add 14.33 secs and you get 4:04.40/1500 for a theoretical new women's 3k WR of 8:08.80.

Wang Junxia's 8:06.11 3k WR is well under this theoretical projection, validating the generally held belief that the women's 3k WR is the most impressive and potentially unapproachable distance WR on the books.

Many believe Sifan Hassan's 8:18.49 from last year's Pre meet is the unofficial women's 3k WR, given what we know about the unsavory background behind the four sub-8:20 marks put up at the 1993 Chinese championships.

However, fact remains, 8:06.11 is ratified as the women's 3k WR and there are/were no gender issues regarding Junxia.

With the Diamond League's longest points-eligible distance now the 3k, there will be many more opportunities for world-class athletes to race the event.

As great as Hassan was in 2019, her 8:18 is still 10 secs slower than the theoretical WR time and 12 secs slower than the actual WR time.

When Genzebe Dibaba ran her 3:50.07 1500 WR in Monaco back in 2015, she may have been in 8:06 3k shape at that time. May have been.

It should be noted that Wang Junxia also ran the 1500 in 3:51.92 at that 1993 Chinese championships.

All of this would suggest that it will take a 3:51 or faster 1500 woman to even sniff 8:08, much less 8:06.

With Dibaba's best days appearing to be in the rear view mirror, and Hassan apparently focusing on distances 5k and longer, and the next fastest 1500 women all over 3:54 from the incredible Doha WC race last year, the 8:06 WR appears untouchable, possibly for another 27 years if not more.

Or, on a more upbeat note, maybe Shelby Houlihan does achieve her dream of running sub 3:50 for 1500 and sub-14 for 5k. All bets are off if that happens.

I have a theory that a lot of the women’s world records are behind because the talent pool is limited because of things like the expectation of women to have babies and family obligations which don’t allow women the time to train like Olympians. There’s also misogyny(subtle and outright) which ignores womens events. You can notice this on the number of threads when there were 2 worlds records broken but the majority of threads are about the men’s world record.

Womens Studies wrote:

I have a theory that a lot of the women’s world records are behind because the talent pool is limited because of things like the expectation of women to have babies and family obligations which don’t allow women the time to train like Olympians. There’s also misogyny(subtle and outright) which ignores womens events. You can notice this on the number of threads when there were 2 worlds records broken but the majority of threads are about the men’s world record.

The first half is almost certainly true. There was that woman who ran 15 low earlier this year in a TT who recently had kids, and taking 9+ months off of serious running, plus the mental strain that having kids puts on you for a long time must make it much harder for a lot of women to train.

I wonder if we would see the same kind of progression if a man took 9 months off of running and then trained seriously while raising a kid. Even thinking about doing that sounds awful.

As for the second part of your post, I don't know how much misogyny there is in the sport. Given your example though, it does make sense that less coverage of women's events would give younger girls fewer opportunities to enjoy the sport which kinda sucks.

I don't think it's misogyny that makes men's running more popular. People just like to watch whoever runs the fastest. If intersex people suddenly all started running significantly faster than men we would ignore the men in favor of the intersex people. Many people don't want to watch people run times that a good high school boy could run. The fact that more men use Letsrun is probably also a big factor.

Everyone talking about absurdly strong women records but where's the talk about Letesenbet Gidey's 15k road WR?

After all, her time of 44:20 is worth 1319 points on the IAAF scoring tables, that equates to 29:08, 63:07 and 2:11:51 on the roads and also, 3:46/4:03, 7:59, 13:42 and 28:44 on the track.

All these times are completely ridiculous for current women standards and just as a trivia her 44:20 is also equivalent to a 10.47s 100m.

What about the fact that her WR in a rarely raced distance is stronger than pretty much any other WR in distance running, at least on the women side? Maybe what we saw yesterday was really her at 70-80% fitness as she said.

Lang Yinglai's 1500 WJR of 3:51.34 from the 1997 Chinese National Games is probably the most impressive women's distance record. Will never be broken.

Or go the other way compare 5k to 3K Men: 12:35 to 7:20 pace per k is .9713 of 5k pace. Both score 1303.

Women: 13:53.5 = 8:05.75 97.13% of 5k pace.

10K time of 29:17 is the same as 13:57 IAAF points for women. They are getting close. I think it will take a stronger runner with a WR 5K time and great 1500 speed but they would still have to be able tor run at least 3:52 in order to crack 8:06. I think it could happen in a few years.

what is the equivalent of men? A typical 1500/3000m 8:06 guy has a 1500m PB/PR of...?

Seyta wrote:

Realistically speaking, NONE of the Chinese womens' records should have been broken.

The fact that the 1500m and 10000m records were bested should already set off alarm bells for everyone.

Yunxia covered the final 5k of her 10k WR in 14:06. That is the alarm bell.