Sergio Sanchez: hardly surprising, but...

I see what you mean. At the same time, look at the pros from the 70s. They were highly inconsistent too. Part of that came from their crazy racing schedules but it was not uncommon for them to finish a race >5% slower than their PR in a road race. This is also due to the inherent nature of road races where the courses are different. Point is, show me a time when professional runners regularly ran close to their PRs every race?

to holy to dope wrote:

Then he never won zero conference title through four years of college. he went stagnant like most high school phenoms. There the similarities end. Then he had a miraculous fifth year, ?

You mean national titles? Because, I'm sure he had many conference titles before his 5th year, which was not miracluous, considering he had already run the 10k NCAA record and beat Ritz at USA in 2007 to make WC team, then was nearly able to surpass Abdi (27:14) at the 2008 Olympic Trials and then proceeded to actually beat Abdi and be the #1 American at the 10k Olympic Finals running that faster than any American had yet, etc. So the idea that the 2008 XC and 2009 Indoor and Outdoor track seasons were "miraculous" is a joke, nothing but smooth progression from the true frosh Rupp who broke the 10k American Junior record and then came 2nd to an East African at NCAAs Nationals after pushing the pace and the leading the race.

to holy to dope wrote:

Teg, Ritz, Solinsky, Jager, Rupp are not the fastest preps of all time, but all are now the fastest Americans of all time. In fact, what they did in high is on par to what the fastest high schoolers did in the 70's, 80's , and 90's. the exception is Rupp's 5000, but how many of those preps had the chance to run in the summer in a pro 5000 in Europe full of Africans?

But for all those decades the best American preps went on to run 13:20. Now, suddenly they go on to 12:55-13:02. How do you explain that? The internet? They started "believing"?

Jim Ryun ran 3:55.3 as a high school senior and went on to run 3:33.1 for 1500m.

Steve Scott was over 15 seconds slower than Ryun in high school, but ran 3.5 seconds quicker in the mile than Ryun ever did in his career.

How do you explain that?

newname wrote:

Look back over the people that set the 5k AR:

Pre, Duncan McDonald, Centrowitz, Salazar, Maree, Kennedy, Ritz, Lagat ...

They all ran 8:40-9:00y in HS ... none of them ran the other-worldly sub-8:40s or sub-4:00s. However all of them (save McDonald) showed that they had extraordinary ability in HIGH SCHOOL.

If you don't think they showed themselves to be possible future AR-holders, you don't know your track history.

Unfortunately for you, I do know my track history. Heres a quiz: How many American-borns ran sub 13:03 in the entire history of US track previous to 2009? The answer is 1. How many have done it in the past four years? Five. What changed in the talent pool around 2009? We have essentially had five Sancheses, Baumanns, Vroemens. Five freaks of non-east african nature, from a country that has had an established track program for about 50 years, a country in which distance running peaked in popularity in the 80s.

As far as are recent aces, yes, i agree, they all displayed the pedigree of past american record holders back in high school. its the American records themselves that have become eye-opening. Same talent back in high, waaay different development curve since 2009.

to holy to dope wrote:

Unfortunately for you, I do know my track history. Heres a quiz: How many American-borns ran sub 13:03 in the entire history of US track previous to 2009? The answer is 1. How many have done it in the past four years? Five. What changed in the talent pool around 2009? We have essentially had five Sancheses, Baumanns, Vroemens. Five freaks of non-east african nature, from a country that has had an established track program for about 50 years, a country in which distance running peaked in popularity in the 80s.

As far as are recent aces, yes, i agree, they all displayed the pedigree of past american record holders back in high school. its the American records themselves that have become eye-opening. Same talent back in high, waaay different development curve since 2009.

Focus has changed. Transport these men with this type of talent back a few decades and they're 1500m runners. But now being a 3:34 1500m runner doesn't pay like it used to. But some of those 3:34 guys can run really well at 5000m, too.

Methods and attitudes have changed, too. Because of professionalism, people at this level and focus solely on their training and injury prevention. Rest is just as important as the workout. And because unlike top runners from last century, the contracts people at this level have allow them to pick and choose their races instead of needing to race to earn money.

You're going to ask, "why 2009"? It's 2009. You're the one who arbitrarily picked 13:04. Tegenkamp struggled with injuries in college, but once he got through that and was able to put in serious training, he ran 13:04 in 2006. How many Tegenkamps didn't make it through their injuries?

It's a number of factors that have allowed those with great talent to come through and run more to their ability.

So these are 3:34 guys. Well guess what? We have more 3:34 guys right now than ever before. So its not like talent is migrating to one event over the other, both events are adding depth.You said it yourself, 3:34 just doesnt cut it in US track anymore. Why? How did the pool become so fast?You say training and rest. How did the Jamaican pool become so fast starting in 2008? Did they discover training and rest too? Was everyone retarded and lazy and simply gave up pre-2009? Did contracts really change that much that year? Is track really that technologically driven? Then why is it that the runners who dominate are all from the least technological countries? why is that every single time a country has a collective burst of performances, including our own technologically driven cyclists, including (as we are now learning) the east africans, PEDs have been involved? Why are so willing to admit that the worlds elite distance runners of the 70's 80's, 90's, early 00's were doping, evading tests, and re-writing their contry's record books, but suddenly now WADA caught up, just in time for the US emergence. And why are so many willing to see that Mo is prolly a guy with talent, tired of getting beat by dopers, and is now a doper himself. Yet all his training partners are clean?

Whacko Stato wrote:

Not too surprising. I remember that he gave a story a few years ago about how he used a doctor and they adjusted doses of vitamin pills so that his body could train at a high level.

What is surprising is how and why the Spanish police and authorities have so much will and power to investigate, test, and then beat up on their own sportsmen.

Nearly there: what's really surprising is how much evidence police can amass during Operation Puerto and Operation Galgo and how few people get outed because of it.

Mindboggling...

Of course many people thought Sanchez was a cheat… and they were right.

But I’ve laughed at some comments in this thread.

I bet Farah’s progression in 1500 from 3:39 (2012) to 3:28 (2013) looks perfectly normal for any 30 yo athlete. Specially if weeks later he runs consecutive races winning 5000 and 10000 World Campionships, then goes to a half marathon and clocks 60’ in a bad day. Then, what else?

http://www.iaaf.org/athletes/great-britain-ni/mohamed-farah-179892

Also, the part about Rupp’s parents is really naïve. I mean: open your eyes and look at the world.

All of this is very sad for people who want all cheaters out. So we are glad someone has been caught, but expect some others to be caught too.

Maybe some day all of them will be caught, but yet we are far from that situation.

Of course many people thought Sanchez was a cheat… and they were right.

But I’ve laughed at some comments in this thread.

I bet Farah’s progression in 1500 from 3:39 (2012) to 3:28 (2013) looks perfectly normal for any 30 yo athlete. Specially if weeks later he runs consecutive races winning 5000 and 10000 World Campionships, then goes to a half marathon and clocks 60’ in a bad day. Then, what else?

http://www.iaaf.org/athletes/great-britain-ni/mohamed-farah-179892

Also, the part about Rupp’s parents is really naïve. I mean: open your eyes and look at the world.

All of this is very sad for people who want all cheaters out. So we are glad someone has been caught, but expect some others to be caught too.

Maybe some day all of them will be caught, but yet we are far from that situation.

You have to be careful when looking at progression in times and trying to theorize whether an athlete is doping. A country like Spain does not have the developed collegiate system of competition that you have in the US. So if a guy like Sanchez was at university in Spain, then he would have been focusing more on his studies for a while and you would expect to see a jump in progression in his performance level once he completed his studies and started to focus more on his running. Sadly, in his case, "focusing more" also entailed the use of PEDs. Paradixcally, you do have some athletes who showed a slow gradual progression over many years of competing who have also tested positive.

Sorry but he ran 7:32 out of nowhere. It was obvious.

If you are using sudden dramatic improvement as your criteria for obvious doping then he was not as obvious as the other athlete who was also busted, Alberto Lozano. This guy went from 14-14 5k to 13-20 5k in his late 20s. It is incredible and frightening to think that EPO is that effective. Makes you wonder about all these Kenyans who go from running 2-12 marathons to running 2-05s also out of nowhere.