Times slower vs drug clampdown

It's June 2. Not only that, but most of the Pre Classic meet records went down today-- some of them were broken by multiple runners.

I guess all the 100/200 runners, steeplechasers and marathoners didn't get the memo.

Like I said, just my perception. Seems to be a different vibe, generally speaking.

It's 8 weeks until the Olympics. Give people a chance to race!

You can rest assured that drug use is as rampant as ever.

I honestly don't know, I have been out of the game too long, and am now an outsider looking in.

The guys I run with, who are good and whom I have never, ever seen use, are running only times that would be considered sub-elite, 10.3-10.5 for the 100. Another should go 20. in the 200, but that is a far cry from sub-20. Those kinds of times aren't included in any sort of drug discussions.

The men's 100m has gotten off to an amazing start, however, with a 9.75, and a bunch of 9.8's and low-mid 9.9's. It's not too dramatic, considering that it's an Olympic year.

Like another poster said, it's too early to really have any sort of good idea, at least as far as the sprints are concerned.

As far as distance is concerned, you tell me--what is the "vibe"? Lowered expectations? Sprint expectations are probably higher this year than they EVER have been--expectations for Bolt to set a new WR, for Blake to go 9.6x, for Powell and Gatlin to be 9.7x, for Bledman and maybe Bailey to be 9.8x, etc.

So far, the progression of the season seems to indicate as though those expectations will be met. The sprint vibe is solid.

Yeah, I know, that just means they're all still doping, right?

Ahh, Carmelita Jeter--huge, ripped, and golden.

Bolt will never test positive, and as long as he's winning, all will be right in the T&F universe.

The thing that's really odd to me is the sudden emerging of all of these 800/1500 Ethiopian runners. Particularly, there are so many "no-name" Ethiopians rolling out. Interesting...

Sprintgeezer wrote:

The men's 100m has gotten off to an amazing start, however, with a 9.75, and a bunch of 9.8's and low-mid 9.9's. It's not too dramatic, considering that it's an Olympic year.

.

That sounds pretty dramatic. Remember that 9.75 would have been the world record as late as 2007.

Is "pretty" dramatic, "too" dramatic?

lol

I agree, so far it's "pretty" dramatic, when you cast it in that light--especially considering that is a 9.75 BASIC!

Sprintgeezer wrote:

Is "pretty" dramatic, "too" dramatic?

lol

I agree, so far it's "pretty" dramatic, when you cast it in that light--especially considering that is a 9.75 BASIC!

I didn't mean to provoke a big argument; I was really just looking to point out that little factoid about how recently that would have been a world record!

No argument, I thought it was funny

the vibe to me is just the fact that athletes in the distance/mid distance events (as a whole) seem to be regressing in terms of performances, rather than progressing. besides koech and a couple of other kenyans, how many people have been under 8.05 in the steeple over last 4 years? why aren't there guys running sub 13 on the back of 10k's anymore? there used to be seemingly oodles of sub 13 guys....oodles of 3.32 guys...mid 90's up until around 2008...like i said, maybe the word is out that there will be retroactive testing? like SG, i'm way too far out of the loop to have any inside scoop. all my training stable retired almost a decade ago. maybe i'm just making more out of it than i should.

s.mouse wrote:

the vibe to me is just the fact that athletes in the distance/mid distance events (as a whole) seem to be regressing in terms of performances, rather than progressing. besides koech and a couple of other kenyans, how many people have been under 8.05 in the steeple over last 4 years? why aren't there guys running sub 13 on the back of 10k's anymore? there used to be seemingly oodles of sub 13 guys....oodles of 3.32 guys...mid 90's up until around 2008...like i said, maybe the word is out that there will be retroactive testing? like SG, i'm way too far out of the loop to have any inside scoop. all my training stable retired almost a decade ago. maybe i'm just making more out of it than i should.

Brimin Kipruto missed the world record in the steeple by 0.01 seconds last year and Ezekiel Kemboi ran 7:55. As far as I know, Kenenisa Bekele and Haile Gebrselassie in the 2003 WC final are the only two to ever split a sub-13 5000 in a 10000. But yes, generally, the 1500-10000 (minus the steeple) have been slower in recent years.

In '04, when Bekele set the 5k WR, only 11 guys broke 13:00. Last year, 13 did. There's going to be some random variance from year to year, but it's tough to support the claim that times in general are slower.

As to this year, the poor conditions at Hengelo didn't help anything. Usually several of the top times in the distance events come out of that meet, and that wasn't the case this year. But as others have posted, there's plenty of hot meets left to come.

You have ONE Daniel Komen, ONE Gebrselassie, ONE Bekele, and ONE El Guerrouj, and ONE Lagat

They're the outlier times.

The times simply appear to be slower because there are not as MANY outlier times, and that in turn is because of the five mentioned above, two of them are gone, two of them are nearly 40, and one has been injured for a substantial portion of the last two years.

Thanks for the interesting replies. Seems it was only a figment of my imagination. Good discussion here, I think. On top of that, there were no derogatory volleys fired at/to anyone. Refreshing.

The 100, 200, 800, 3000sc and, marathon are stonger than they have ever been. The 1500 is still very deep the are just no outliers like Lagat or El G around currently. The 5000 is strong but we have not seen any really fast races yet(it is still June). Mo should be well under 12:50 by the end of the year. The 10000 is not what it once was but that is not because people don't have the ability it is because they are in the Marathon. Farah can probably run in the 26:30s. There may have been dopers in the past but I don't think there were any more than there are now. People are still running just as fast minus 3 men(Geb, Bekele and El G).

there may be some credence to what the OP is saying. Check out this link:

http://www.alltime-athletics.com/men.htm

A lot of top times are, of course, by those big guys in the 90s that we all know. But there does seem to be a trend of faster times in general... Maybe?

That 5k list looks like an even mix of 90s times and 2000-present times. Whatever happened to sileshi sihine?

Thanks for the link. Is the 400m a better event for doping benefits? There were a TON of sub 44 400ms run in the 90s. Most by the big names tho