Joshua Cheptegei is SUSPICIOUS

You would have said that we were imagining that Lance Armstrong was doping. It’s just my imagination....running away with me....

Cheptegei is accustomed to altitude so he is not going to be much slower (almost zero) at 3900 feet at 1500m. The larger point is that Occam’s razor has apparently never trimmed your beard, or should I say that it seems to elude you every time when it comes to some extremely suspicious athletes such as Cheptegei.

We should hardly draw too much significance from the first track race of the season, in an event that an athlete is not training for.[/quote]

In all his career, he has never run faster than 3.37. A strange absence of range in a world record holder. Perplexing that a superhuman athlete over 5k is merely the top of D2 over the 1500m. He appears to be very selective about what he has achieved at - and when.

rekrunner wrote:

Killeriott wrote:

Joshua ran a 12:35 5000m which meant he was running liken 3 and 1/3 1500m avg 3:46.6 and yet he cannot easily run faster than 3:37 for 1500m. He should be able to EASILY run 3:37. It makes me think he is taking PEDs.

If he was taking PEDs, shouldn't that mean he is able to EASILY run 3:37?

THIS

Armstronglivs wrote:

We should hardly draw too much significance from the first track race of the season, in an event that an athlete is not training for.

In all his career, he has never run faster than 3.37. A strange absence of range in a world record holder. Perplexing that a superhuman athlete over 5k is merely the top of D2 over the 1500m. He appears to be very selective about what he has achieved at - and when.[/quote]

Why are you assuming that doping won't affect 1500 times? It's still a highly aerobic event, and some of the top all time are EPO dopers or strongly believed to be. If that's going to be your basis, I think you're just wrong.

His 1500 is weak because he's hardly raced it (3 times since 2016).

rekrunner wrote:

If he was taking PEDs, shouldn't that mean he is able to EASILY run 3:37?

Why should it?

Killeriottt wrote:

You would have said that we were imagining that Lance Armstrong was doping. It’s just my imagination....running away with me....

Cheptegei is accustomed to altitude so he is not going to be much slower (almost zero) at 3900 feet at 1500m. The larger point is that Occam’s razor has apparently never trimmed your beard, or should I say that it seems to elude you every time when it comes to some extremely suspicious athletes such as Cheptegei.

Now your imagination includes what you imagine I would have said about Lance.

If the topic was "what are the facts about Lance", we could quickly fill up a book, starting as early as 1999, with the 4 positive tests for cortisone, and then adding 6 positive results from the retests of 1999 samples in 2004-2005, a suspicious result in the Tour de Suisse, first hand accounts from friends, teammates, competitors, staff, and the direct link to Dr. Ferrari, long before his confessions to Oprah, and USADA's reasoned decision.

You say "Occam's razor", using it in a way that makes me doubt you know what it means.

Occam's razor can be a useful guiding principle, when there are two equal options to choose from, but it is not a law. It can often be a fallacy. Occam would chose the simplicity of Newton over Einstein, and would be wrong. In this case, it's not clear how to apply Occam's razor, as it requires identifying two competing theories which can equally explain the observations, differing only in complexity, and choosing on the basis of complexity, not on any notion of probable likelihood, or more simply, just what you want to believe. If the choice is "with drugs" or "without drugs", obviously "without drugs" is the simpler theory, all other things being equal.

Armstronglivs wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

We should hardly draw too much significance from the first track race of the season, in an event that an athlete is not training for.

In all his career, he has never run faster than 3.37. A strange absence of range in a world record holder. Perplexing that a superhuman athlete over 5k is merely the top of D2 over the 1500m. He appears to be very selective about what he has achieved at - and when.

The absence is not so strange for someone who does not try to compete in the 1500m, competing instead in Cross Country, 5000m and 10000m on the track, and in various road events.

We should similarly not draw too much significance on the best performance of an event he does not try to compete in. Like stocks, past performance is not necessarily indicative of future potential.

casual obsever wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

If he was taking PEDs, shouldn't that mean he is able to EASILY run 3:37?

Why should it?

I don't know -- because PEDs are supposed to work? These are not my theories. But the theory seems to be that they are suspicious when they work, and also when they don't work -- depending on who is forming the theory.

The real question is the premise of the thread: why NOT running a 3:37 EASILY makes the OP think Cheptegei is taking PEDs, as opposed to running, say a Mo-esque 3:28. Would that be LESS suspicious? What would be the 1500m time that would not be suspicious for this world records holder?

rekrunner wrote:

Armstronglivs wrote:

In all his career, he has never run faster than 3.37. A strange absence of range in a world record holder. Perplexing that a superhuman athlete over 5k is merely the top of D2 over the 1500m. He appears to be very selective about what he has achieved at - and when.

The absence is not so strange for someone who does not try to compete in the 1500m, competing instead in Cross Country, 5000m and 10000m on the track, and in various road events.

We should similarly not draw too much significance on the best performance of an event he does not try to compete in. Like stocks, past performance is not necessarily indicative of future potential.

He "does not try to compete"? So he enters just to lose? How does someone who is capable of stringing three 1500's at around 3.44 each only run 3.37 as his best over the distance? You would think he would be capable of a little faster than that - like around 3.30. That is unless his focus is in doping for the longer races and his record attempts.

Of course you won't "draw too much significance" from such an anomaly in his resume, because to do so could lead to conclusions you wouldn't wish make, as our chief doping apologist.

rekrunner wrote:

casual obsever wrote:

Why should it?

I don't know -- because PEDs are supposed to work? These are not my theories. But the theory seems to be that they are suspicious when they work, and also when they don't work -- depending on who is forming the theory.

The real question is the premise of the thread: why NOT running a 3:37 EASILY makes the OP think Cheptegei is taking PEDs, as opposed to running, say a Mo-esque 3:28. Would that be LESS suspicious? What would be the 1500m time that would not be suspicious for this world records holder?

Halberg was a 1500/5k runner and Olympic champion over the longer distance. His best 1500 was 3.38x, while his best 5k (in 1961) was 13.35. He was therefore running over 4 min for each 1500 in the 5k. Hence, a differential of over 20 seconds between his best 1500 time and his 1500 splits for the 5k seems reasonable.

Cheptegei, whose best 1500 is only fractionally faster than Halberg's from 1958, has a differential of only 7 seconds or so. If that doesn't raise alarm bells, nothing will.

I don't know how to get it through your thick skull that not racing does not equal couldn't race faster.

Cheptegei rarely runs under 5,000 meters in a race. Until he decides to focus on the 1,500/3,000 like Geb and Bekele did at points in their career his PBs there are going to look pedestrian. Unlike those guys he is a frequent road-racer with serious aspirations on the road from 5 KM to HM. So, it's unclear if he'll ever spend time chasing 7:25 and 3:30-low marks that he can assuredly achieve.

Obviously those guys did turn to Road Racing later in their careers, but in their primes when they dabbled it was with shorter distance. Cheptegei and Chelimo for that matter are a different breed. Barega is more in their mold.

*Kiplimo, who has already tacked on the fast 3k part of this.

Armstronglivs wrote:

He "does not try to compete"? So he enters just to lose? How does someone who is capable of stringing three 1500's at around 3.44 each only run 3.37 as his best over the distance? You would think he would be capable of a little faster than that - like around 3.30. That is unless his focus is in doping for the longer races and his record attempts.

Of course you won't "draw too much significance" from such an anomaly in his resume, because to do so could lead to conclusions you wouldn't wish make, as our chief doping apologist.

He entered to test his speed in preparation for Tokyo.

Not only would I -- I do think he is capable of something a little faster than 3:37, if 1500m was a goal, and he trained better for it. I wouldn't say as fast as 3:30, since neither Geb nor Bekele ran that fast.

The 1500m is not his event -- this is what makes any attempted interpretation insignificant.

Armstronglivs wrote:

Halberg was a 1500/5k runner and Olympic champion over the longer distance. His best 1500 was 3.38x, while his best 5k (in 1961) was 13.35. He was therefore running over 4 min for each 1500 in the 5k. Hence, a differential of over 20 seconds between his best 1500 time and his 1500 splits for the 5k seems reasonable.

Cheptegei, whose best 1500 is only fractionally faster than Halberg's from 1958, has a differential of only 7 seconds or so. If that doesn't raise alarm bells, nothing will.

It doesn't raise alarm bells, so I choose your latter option "nothing will".

Training and competition has changed a lot since the '60s. It's long past time you updated your knowledge of track since the '70s.

If we don't have a representative 1500m time for Cheptegei, then the principle of "garbage in, garbage out" applies.

I'm going to continue to ask why people think doping will spare your 1500 time from improvement. What is the basis for this?

Plenty of guys who are known or widely assumed to have doped ran very good 1500 times (Rashid Ramzi got caught for EPO!)

Armstronglivs wrote:

How does someone who is capable of stringing three 1500's at around 3.44 each only run 3.37 as his best over the distance?

Because he wouldn't have been able to stringing three 1500s at around 3.44 each if he had run the 5000m at this Ugandan season opener.

You are the one who does not grasp the concept of Occam’s razor. So we have a human being who has run faster than all the other human beings (many of whom have trained extremely hard and used PEDs), and you think it is a wild roaming of the imagination to be suspicious of his utilization of PEDs? Furthermore he has a 1500/5000 performance level which is extremely aberrant. I have already explained this. Maybe he can run faster than 3:37 but something does not add up here. You of course are biased as hell but you like to imply that there are no facts to support those of us who are able to use inferences in a manner which you are simply not able to. Please train yourself to use inferences analytically before your reply.