clunker wrote:
a fair question wrote:Considering that the majority of the times are E. Africans, if there were no PEDs involved then fedrerations, agents and coaches need to seriously be asking, what are they doing wrong now? Renato has addressed some of the points for certain, but the numbers to seem to tell a story of their own.
Is it that unlikely for a slump in times to occur? Like how the 90s U.S. high school scene was slow, but the 70s and 80s and 2000s were very fast. Just the way things happen. You have up years and down years.
This is a fair point and I have adressed a lot of the reasons the U.S. had a slump in the 90s, such as a massive movement to quality vs. quantity, grunge music and the darkness that washed over high school teens during that time. Another factor was the massive soccer movement in the 80's for youth which took a lot of would be runners out of the pool as they progressed into high school in the late 80's and early 90's.
The possibility of a 4 minute high school mile (led by stember) and the rise of internet is what helped us out of it, and if the internet had been around and sophisticated in the early 90's I doubt the slumps would have been nearly as long or severe.
Ironically that is when E. Africa blew up.
There may be a slump in Kenya, but it is certainly not for the reasons that happened in the U.S. in the 90's. Granted one reason is the popularity of the half marathon and marathon, but I don't think that affects the 1500/mile/3000 meter runners where the biggest slump seems to be occuring.