It's time to have a conversation about Cian McPhillips

No one on here will want to pull at that thread after Lutkenhaus's 1:42 at USAs

109% guinness and bicarbonate combo

Guinness is the super shoe for the Irish

It's not that strange. Europeans often focus on finishing college before fully dedicating themselves to the sport.

Not saying he's definitely doping, but next season when a Kenyan athlete drops his PB by 1/4 as much, people here will say that person is doping. I wonder what excuses Coevett has for this one

Any honest "conversation" about this would include the fact that he's from Ireland, not exactly known for its systemic doping programs. Unlike African nations.

which athletes aren't doping?

He hasn't finished college yet, and he curated his degree to take longer so that he could train more.

Sedjati literally came from nowhere though. No history of running at all before March 2021 and started running elite times very quickly. Cian McPhillips has a racing history going back as far as 2017.

Ireland is hardly a doping hot-spot, he's now running injury free, was previously balancing a heavy college workload and is now at the age where he's starting to enter his prime. His progression isn't unbelievable or suspect, the polar opposite of people like Sedjati.

Usually I push back on these allegations towards athletes who aren't from nations who consistently dope but face scrutiny from contrarian white knights fighting the Kenyan, American and Ethiopian corners just because they run well. But after seeing all the 800m runners cross the line with excruciating pain etched across their face accept McPhillips who was completely stone faced finishing like a freight train, I'll be honest, the thought did cross my mind, especially having never heard of him before the heats lol

So two athletes in 20+ years?

Amateur numbers. Kenya is cranking out the positives at about 2 per week.

I'm not sure pointing to two unrelated athletes, one 13 years ago and another 21 years ago, is quite the retort you think it is.

Two of the biggest Irish athletes when I was running. Hard to think of others during the time, other than Cragg who I’m sure was doping.

So an Irish guy doped 21 years ago and another 13 years ago. McPhillips was one year old when Lombard was doping.

Thats some hard hitting proof and sound logic.

"Mon 9 Aug 2004"

lol

Meanwhile you can find articles about African busts from a week ago.

In fairness to McPhillips (obviously I have no proof either way) he was a talented U20 runner (gold in the 1500 at Euro U20s) but was repeatedly injured through college and apparently had extremely demanding studies, per this interview with Cathal Dennehy:

Cian was also injured during indoors and, per Dennehy did a huge volume of cross training that seemed to set him up well for outdoors (2.5-3 hours a day on the elliptical plus gym and rehab)

This is it really. I can accept him being clean, but I would hope that for consistency's sake, no-one who is defending him here will ever use a large jump in form or "not looking tired" when they cross the line as a justification to accuse another athlete.