killarney wrote:
Everyone keeps talking about how Bolt can't be clean because he'd be .2+ better then the next clean guy etc etc... But isn't it entirely possible that either he was clean when he ran that time in 2009, or that whatever minor stimulant he used didn't help him anyways? Same with Blake, we know he tested positive in the past, but was he clean during the Olymipcs?
All of the evidence points to Gay's doping being during his comeback from injury in 2011/12. Part of his pea bargain was based on a full disclosure and USADA/WADA being able to verify what/when and how he doped with the caveat being the plea would be taken off of the table if he lied about anything. Chances are, his achievements prior to 2012 were not doped. Up until 2007 he was in the now defunct "Test Me I'm Clean" program which conducted a higher standard of testing and saving the results. Drummond started working with Gay's leading up to the 2007 WC to improve his start and it worked, but the doping appears to coincide with when Drummond completely took over his training. Also, it is doubtful the dope helped Gay at all because he ran slower in 2012/13 than he did 5 years earlier.
Was Gay's 9.69? clean?
Gay always had tremendous top-end speed, but was a poor starter (gun reaction) and only an average drive phase. As far back as '07 when Gay ran 9.85 in the WC 100m, if Gay had been even with the rest of the field at the 40m mark, that time would have been around 9.75. Prior to 2007, athletes like Powell would have a full stride on Gay at 40m in a 100m dash. Gay didn't even become a consistent sub-10 sprinter until 2007. Early in his career, Gay was like Bolt, the thinking was he would be a 200/400 specialist because of his inability to master the first 25m of the 100.