Paula Radcliffe was Clean!

She's clean. She worked harder than her peers and was more focused than them. She was ultra talented on roads and x country and it was obvious that her best distance was longer.

She has been tested as much as anyone and she has always been vehemently against drugs and drug abusers. Armstrong professed an anti drug stance in response to accusations made against him, he never crusaded against it throughout his career from a detached stance as she has done.

Her running technique wouldn't slow her down by 3 mins. And if she was Kenyan or Ethiopian then far fewer people would point their fingers accusingly!

If Paula’s 2.15 was a one-off, you might have a point - but she has also run the second and third fastest ever female marathon times, 2.17.18 and 2.17.42 - has won both the world marathon and half marathon championships in record times and has also won both the junior and senior world cross-country championships, incidentally, beating a certain Wang Junxia in the junior.

Not bad for a female with what ‘legislative compromise’ describes as the ‘worst running mechanics ever.’

Next time you interview Paula, why don't you ask her for her thoughts on HgH and note her initial reaction.

Can we also consider her the past-day Galen Rupp?

She lived in an altitude tent; she talked about taking as many naps as possible to raise her "natural HgH levels; she trained in Albuquerque the land of several dopers; she walked around with an inhaler; she had a doctor staff that could rival the Tour de France; she beat convicted dopers regularly; the list goes on and on and on...

she beat all the doped russians in new york

they had testosterone and epo

I am laughing at the supporters:

Trained harder than anyone.

Obsessive.

A team around her constantly.

Male pacers.

Willing to do anything.

Times far off standard deviations including Flo Jo.

Beat all the known dopers.

All this smoke goes on and on and you know is usually true about a lot of smoke.

Obviously I don't have real knowledge just as the supporters do not, but there is a lot of doubt in my mind.

No doubt Paula was doped.

2:15

That is even stronger or just as strong as komen's 7:20. There is NO WAY that is clean. No one, even amongst a legion of Africans chasing the record, can even come remotely close. No one else can even get within three minutes!!

The women's marathon record has a 1.79% time difference between Paula's 2:15:25 and Lilly's 2:18:20.

The men's 2k world record differential is a 1.14% between komen's 7:20 and the second fastest at 7:25.

So as doped and ridiculous as komen's record was, the current women's record is even more ridiculous.

Let's put it this way, if a woman ran 2:15:24 at the Berlin marathon this September, the brojos would almost surely believe she was doping, and then let threads start about her talking about if she was dirty or not.

Here we go again! An athlete who produces a truly exceptional performance is automatically assumed to have doped. This is simply not an acceptable way of thinking - is every record that has stood for some time the result of doping? Every holder of a great record a cheat? You can no more think along those lines than to assume that every athlete who passes a test is clean.

As several posters have pointed out Radcliffe had several advantages in her 2:15. she never repeated this performance but did have several other very fast marathons (and don't lots of athletes have one performance when everything falls into place and the result is atime they never really get close to again?)

I don't know if Radcliffe was clean (if you want to make a case for her being otherwise her failure in Olympic competition is more suspicious than the fact that her pbs are better than anyone else's) but she has to be accepted as a clean athlete until some fairly strong EVIDENCE to the contrary is produced.

looks like someone didn't like my post as it has disappeared into the ether. PR and many other elites trained in ABQ during a period when the Russian pharmacy was open for business. Once the good doctor closed up shop, everyone moved on to other "training" hotspots.

she didn't dope and Bernie Madoff didn't steal that money

mark b wrote:

Here we go again! An athlete who produces a truly exceptional performance is automatically assumed to have doped. This is simply not an acceptable way of thinking.

Are you suggesting that if a woman broke the current record by the same percentage as Paula did (we'll estimate a 2:12:06), you would not be suspicious? Remember, this athlete was not dominate, in fact not even in the top few at 10K.

There are hypotheses, theories and facts. When it comes to Paula's WR marathon performance, people who doubt the legitimacy have less than a theory to explain their rationale. Essentially what they have is a hypothesis or conjecture. The hypothesis is that Paula was dirty, this is supported by her outlier performance and a lot of other conjecture. Outliers are possible, that's a fact and conjecture is just thoughts based on a few pieces of a puzzle. The complete puzzle, (the facts), Paula Radcliffe of Great Britain in the London Marathon on 13 April 2003, finished in 2 hours 15 minutes and 25 seconds...that is without dispute. Paula never tested positive for a banned substance...that is also without dispute. Your opinions about how she did it is like AHs, everybody has one. The only opinion that really matters is the IAAF, the supreme NGO for our sport. - So what are we left with, do you prefer to go with what you know to be a the facts or the conjecture?

Cronje wrote:

Her 2:15 was wind-aided quite significantly. And paced by a male.

When Dibaba, Jeptoo, and others run some better-paced marathons (instead of slow tactical ones like they usually do) they will start challenging her 2:17s and maybe her 2:15. But for now, women's distance running is piss weak.

It was neither wind aided, nor paced. She ran alongside the men. The wind was just as much against her as behind her.

I saw the whole race on television and at times, they were getting in her way and hindering her steady, even pace.

No surprise as males pacing females was hardly normal and the two Kenyans were a bit confused as to the pace to set and where exactly to run in relation to Paula.

She never asked for male pacers at all - it was the organisers that pulled that trick on her.

Rather like the gimmick of having Mo Farah run for half the distance in the London to cash in on his popularity.

Bottom line:

Has there been ANY HARD EVIDENCE of anything illegal, epo, other peds found on her. P. Radcliffe has been tested again & again, and again ....and...

I used to believe (wanted to believe) L.A. was clean but suspicion did cloud everyone who followed WC cycling.

Accept the fact there are some extraordinarily talented athletes who produce extraordinary performances.

Did everyone go after & try to crucify Roger Bannister when he first ran under 4 minutes screaming he was using whatever, speed, benzedrine??? back then that was astonishing in itself.

she's a doper

T-Rex wrote:

Did everyone go after & try to crucify Roger Bannister when he first ran under 4 minutes screaming he was using whatever, speed, benzedrine??? back then that was astonishing in itself.

No, because there had been a steady progression, which shortly after was carried by Landy, etc.

It's interesting to see how much slower than best 10k pace marathoners race per 10k of the marathon itself, and to rank the various distance events for men and women. Where does the marathon rank among men's events and among women's events?

If it's that interesting you work it out and tell us.

jtupperd wrote:

It's interesting to see how much slower than best 10k pace marathoners race per 10k of the marathon itself, and to rank the various distance events for men and women. Where does the marathon rank among men's events and among women's events?