The women's 400 and 800 are held by Soviet Bloc runners from the 80s. Anyone with an opinion? Are these marks tainted? Can they be beat?
The women's 400 and 800 are held by Soviet Bloc runners from the 80s. Anyone with an opinion? Are these marks tainted? Can they be beat?
grg wrote:
Are these marks tainted? Can they be beat?
Trollbait.
Yes, of course they're tainted. We know that for a fact in the case of the 400: Marita Koch's doping records were found after the fall of the DDR. (The article you linked to calls her "Martina," but her name is "Marita.")
There was a period of about nine(?) years, after doping tests were toughened, in which not a single women's world record in a standard event was broken. Hmmm...
Equally, of course, the records can and will be broken. Osaka is said to have an absurdly fast track, so maybe even there. And they'll be broken before the turn of the century, in any case.
Cmon! No one is going to run 47.60 or 1:53.28 at Osaka!!!!
That's just absurd.
The upper limit these days seems to be about mid-48 and high-1:54 ... and that's not every year, but every several years. There's a number of women's records that look pretty unbreakable, not just those.
Surprise! wrote:
Cmon! No one is going to run 47.60 or 1:53.28 at Osaka!!!!
That's just absurd.
Yup, and no one will break 4:00 in the mile, jump farther than Boston did, get under 10:00 in the 100 meters, get under 19.75 in the 200, women can't run the marathon, women can't vault, ...
On the other hand, the history books are full of records that will never be broken and the dates they were broken.
Unimaginable and unbelievable are used so often, when they should hardly ever be used.
A 4:00 men´s mile and a women´s 47,60 are hardly equal.
in all sincerity, another couple years of the steroids in addition to growth hormone and EPO would have put paula ivan right near 4 minutes. if you go back and see her over 1500m in seoul, you'll know what i am talking about.