"One athlete stands out ...........................Bolt."

I think Paula Radcliffe might also stand out.

Bob Beamon really stands out. 42 years and only 1 person has jumped farther than him and not by much. That's like if Bob Schul had busted out a 12:38 5k.

You say that low 9.8s would be the limit for a "clean" athlete, but this is just your opinion.

MY opinion is that if it can be done on drugs then it is possible not on drugs, but the drugs may make it more likely. Usain Bolt still has to actually move his legs back and forth with his muscles, drugs or no drugs. Your line of reasoning is totally circular and you should stop it, forever.

Mo Greene was most likely clean at the time of his WR. The evidence suggests he started using drugs in 2003 or 2004 to aid his comeback.

The world record for the following events were broken after the 1980s

400

800

1000

1500

mile

2000

3000

2mile

5000

10,000

marathon

I think we're doing just fine

Whoa, the only real point of my post was that Bolt is NOT the only one who stands out, even in the 100m.

Yes, and he spends a lot of time on the 110 hurdles, which many believe to have the strongest physical and biological limitations of any event.

I think it should be set in a different category than the other running events.

Keynes Killer wrote:

Mo Greene was most likely clean at the time of his WR. The evidence suggests he started using drugs in 2003 or 2004 to aid his comeback.

Do you really believe that shit

I reckon Bolt has run his fastest times

I agree, unless he finds good chicken nuggets and a +2.0 wind somewhere.

Or unless he runs at Rieti, in which case we'll see times of 9.50 and 19.10, no matter what he actually runs.

Keynes--

The point is that it doesn't matter if Greene was clean or not, his 9.79 has been totally destroyed by both Powell and Gay, in addition to Bolt.

If you're talking about a single athlete, and the drug is 'roids, I totally disagree, as would most on this board, that what is possible on drugs is possible not on drugs.

If what you're saying is that in general what is possible on drugs by some athlete is possible not on drugs by some other athlete, try flipping your statement around (which is logically valid), and see if it makes sense:

you: possible on drugs = possible not on drugs

flipped: possible not on drugs = possible on drugs

So you see, your logical statement could equally well be used to "demonstrate" that, although any particular time is possible not on drugs, that it is possible that any athlete who actually achieved that time could have done it while on drugs.

Your statement lacks any logical utility, as it favors neither outcome--that any particular athlete was either dirty or clean when he or she ran a particular time.

Try again.

Beamon was great and he had UNBELIEVABLE conditions to jump in.

An Historian wrote:

Bob Beamon really stands out. 42 years and only 1 person has jumped farther than him and not by much. That's like if Bob Schul had busted out a 12:38 5k.

jrm wrote:

MY opinion is that if it can be done on drugs then it is possible not on drugs, but the drugs may make it more likely.

Tell that to every female sprinter since the 1980s.

I agree that the article was utter b.s., because many world records have been broken since then and because drugs have been heavily involved in the world records since the late 1970s, if not sooner (remember the article about Harold Connolly, the hammer thrower: steroids and testosterone were already being taken by throwers by the early 1960s).