If Letsrun was around when Wang Junxia ran 29.31 WR?

Yep, last 3K in 8:17, five-plus seconds under the WR (held by a known doper, Kazankina) at the time that joke of a Chinese meet started. This would be like a male closing a 10,000 in...well, do I even have to pick a number?

Yet Renato Canova not only refuses to consider the possibility of a short track, he refers to people who do suggest that the track in Beijing (which was torn up later in 1993) was in fact less than 400 meters as "idiots." Between this shit and his dumb comments about African bodies being basically unaffected by EPO and tailwinds, it amazes me that anyone sees Canova as more than just another glib (controlling for his poor English) Italian pro-doping type who can regurgitate what's already known about marathon training.

And anyone who is going to step up and defend him had better be prepared to defend these things he's said that would get most posters roasted.

Edit your title. I'm pretty sure the WR for the 10000m is slower than 29 seconds.

Short in Shanghai in 1997, as well?

Ridiculous.

Left Said Fred wrote:

Short in Shanghai in 1997, as well?

Ridiculous.

If by "ridiculous" you mean either your own comparison of the 1997 marks to the 1993 ones, the fact that the IAAF ratified the 1993 marks, or the behavior of the Chinese overall, then I agree with you.

If you're saying I'm being ridiculous by suggesting that the short-lived track in 1993 was short, then what's your explanation for a woman closing a 10K race in 8:17 off ANY pace, let alone in a race where she hacked half a minute off the previous best? Just really doped and really motivated or simply had one of those awesome days?

REALLY? The short track crap AGAIN?

Let's go over some of the reasons this is unlikely:

1) The MEN performed completely as expected in the distances.

**400m won in 45.85

**800m won in 1:49.27

**1500m won in 3:48.68

**5000m won in 13:32

**10000m won in 28:40

For the first 3 events, the US has HIGH SCHOOLERS faster than that each year. This would mean that China's best male athletes, on a track that is SHORT, somehow performed worse than a number of US high schoolers do on a yearly basis, yet their women were somehow the greatest group of female athletes in the history of the sport.

2) The women's 4 x 400m was not abnormal. 3:24.28 is a good time. However, if the track was indeed short, then doesn't it make sense that it shouldn't have experienced the same "boost" that the 1500m women did?

The world record from 1972 in fact, was faster than this time. So on a short track, all of China's women run world records, yet somehow, their relays don't even come close?

3) The times for the 1500m were replicated in 1997 at Shanghai. HOWEVER, no other events at Shanghai were exceptional to this scale.

This means that one of the following must apply:

- The Beijing track was short, and the Shanghai track was normal, yet somehow, Chinese women STILL ran into the low 3:5Xs, with one running a time second only to Qu Yunxia.

- Both the Beijing and the Shanghai tracks were short, yet somehow, on the Shanghai track, no event except the women's 1500m received the predicted "time boost" from the short track.

If you think either of those over for a moment, they become VERY unlikely.

And I suppose before anyone starts making any ridiculing accusations, no I do not believe the Chinese women had legitimate performances.

My opposition to the idea of a "short track" is that there are so many blatant impossibilities with it as outlined above.

If the track was short, then all of the following must be true:

** The Chinese women, aided by the short track, were world beaters, yet the Chinese men, aided by the short track, were slower than top US high schoolers.

** If the track was short in Beijing, then either China had a legitimate 3:51 runner in Shanghai in 1997 and slew of 3:5X runners along with her, or the track in Shanghai in 1997 was short exclusively for the female 1500m runners of the meet.

** Somehow, the relays of both the women and the men suffered the same fate as the men. Despite being on a short track.

In fact, the men ran 3:08 at the 1993 Chinese National Championships, but managed to run 3:04 at the 1993 East Asian Games just months later. So somehow, the men are faster on a regular track than a short track?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I've said this before, but a FAR more likely explanation is that the Chinese women were simply drugged to the extreme. I'm not talking drugged like many runners do now. I have no idea as to what they could have been on, but ALL of them had extremely short careers, which is VERY characteristic of extreme PED overuse, and Ma Junren was banned for having his athletes caught with drugs years later.

Note that drugs alone are not likely to explain this. The other factor is below:

~~800m~~

- 1st Place - Liu Dong - 1992 World Junior 1500m Champion, 1993 World 1500m Champion

- 2nd Place - Qu Yunxia - **See Below**

- 3rd Place - Ling Li - 1990 World Junior 800m Champion, 1992 Olympic 800m 5th Place, 1993 World 800m 6th Place

~~1500m~~

- 1st Place - Qu Yunxia - 1990 World Junior 1500m Champion, 1993 World 3000m Champion, 1992 Olympic 1500m Bronze

- 2nd Place - Wang Junxia **See Below**

- 3rd Place - Zhang Linli - **See Below**

~~3000m~~

- 1st Place - Wang Junxia - 1993 World 10000m Champion, 1996 Olympic 10000m Champion, 1996 Olympic 5000m Silver

- 2nd Place - Qu Yunxia - **See Above**

- 3rd Place - Zhang Linli - 1992 World Junior 3000m Champion, 1993 World 3000m Silver, 1993 World Marathon Silver

~~10000m~~

- 1st Place - Wang Junxia **See Above**

- 2nd Place - Zhong Huangdi - 1988 World 15k Road Race 4th Place, 1989 World 15k Road Race 2nd Place, 1991 World 10000m Silver, 1991 World 15k Road Race 3rd Place, 1992 Olympic 10000m 4th Place, 1992 World Cup 10000m Silver, 1993 World 10000m Silver,

- 3rd Place - Zhang Lirong - 1992 World Junior 3000m Bronze, 1993 World 3000m Bronze, 1993 World Marathon Bronze,

This is the MOST decorated gathering of female athletes in track and field history. EVERY one of them is either a World or Olympic medalist, and there were even more of them finishing out of the podium. And just LOOK at the range on some of them. Zhang Lirong and Zhang Linli medaled in both the 3000m and Marathon at international championships in the SAME YEAR. An athlete like that doesn't even exist today.

And some of them were basically assigned to rabbit the others to world records.

Yes, it's still a long shot, but if you drug up a group of World Champions and have them acting as pacers for each other, a slew of records like we have isn't out of the question.

At the very least, it's much more likely than a track being selectively short for female athletes during one event, and a different track being selectively short for just the women's 1500m in another event 4 years later.

Drunk Mormon with a vasectomy wrote:

Left Said Fred wrote:

Short in Shanghai in 1997, as well?

Ridiculous.

If by "ridiculous" you mean either your own comparison of the 1997 marks to the 1993 ones, the fact that the IAAF ratified the 1993 marks, or the behavior of the Chinese overall, then I agree with you.

If you're saying I'm being ridiculous by suggesting that the short-lived track in 1993 was short, then what's your explanation for a woman closing a 10K race in 8:17 off ANY pace, let alone in a race where she hacked half a minute off the previous best? Just really doped and really motivated or simply had one of those awesome days?

There is a video of Dong (the girl Wang beat at 1500m) closing the 1500m in the 1993 world championships in 1:57. You'd probably say that was equally ridiculous, but we know it happened, because there is video evidence of it. I don't doubt she ran it, although I think she was drugged to the gills.

800 1:39.6

1500 3:24.7

3000 7:19.3

5000 12:32.4

10000 29:31

half-marathon 57:55

Marathon 2:00.34

morons.

quote]Blitzplay wrote:

Subject: Wang MF Junxia Runs 29.31!!! Destroys the previous WR by 42 seconds!!!

splits 29:31.78

1km-2:54.7

2km-5:56.6

3km-8:59.2

4km-12:02.8

5km-15:05.7

6km-18:10.1

7km-21:14.4

8km-23:59.9

9km-26:44.8

last 5km 14:26

She runs last 2km in her 10000m WR in 5:31.9!!![/quote]

Drunk Mormon with a vasectomy wrote:

Left Said Fred wrote:

Short in Shanghai in 1997, as well?

Ridiculous.

If by "ridiculous" you mean either your own comparison of the 1997 marks to the 1993 ones, the fact that the IAAF ratified the 1993 marks, or the behavior of the Chinese overall, then I agree with you.

If you're saying I'm being ridiculous by suggesting that the short-lived track in 1993 was short, then what's your explanation for a woman closing a 10K race in 8:17 off ANY pace, let alone in a race where she hacked half a minute off the previous best? Just really doped and really motivated or simply had one of those awesome days?

I'm sorry, but I disagree. Of course she was drugged to the gills, and I do agree that it is possible that the track was short, it is definitely not a forgone conclusion.

Did you see her crush the field in oppressive heat at the 1993 world championships.

She jogged the last 2k in 5:38. She looked like she could run another 10k in 30:50 on top of the one she had just run. She looked that fresh. Of course that is a far cry from from her insane splits at the Chinese national meet. I think it's 50/50 as to whether something illegal and non-doping related contributed to that performance.

Yeah, again, because no one has given any good reasons to believe it wasn't short. Let's look at yours.

Let's go over some of the reasons this is unlikely:

This alone is not convincing. In the distance events, their athletics program has always been heavily slanted, in fact singularly slanted, toward the women's side, probably because the records were softer 20 years ago and much more easily exploited using drugs and chicanery.

Really? You're looking at one event that was normal and using that to justify crazy-fast times, truly surreal times, in other events? Sorry, that doesn't wash either.

Again, none of this says a damn thing about the unheard-of performances in Beijing. And I don't think it takes a conspiracy theorist to propose that the track was perfectly normal in Shanghai but that they didn't run a full 1,500 meters in that event. They wanted to cheat but knew that, unlike the case in 1993, the world was watching more closely -- as closely as it perhaps could, which isn't that close at all in a communist shithole. And they also had to be concerned with breaking records they had already put far out of sight, so why bother? They knew that those records wouldn't be touched for a long, long time (and wow! They were right!)

Far from "must," I'm afraid.

Consider this alternative, at least: The track wasn't short (although the question of why it was torn up remains a troubling one) but the runners didn't run the full distance in any of those events.

Seriously, do you think that even the most doped-up woman on earth actually closed the last 3K of a 10K in 8:17? Never mind that Junxia also ran two 3Ks and a 1500 that were also under the existing records in the same meet, or that Junxia's best other 10K times were 30:49 (before the 29:31) and 30:50 (afterward).

Do you think she actually ran 10,000 meters in 29:31, with the splits listed above?

wang bang thank you ma

perhaps she ran 24 laps

i am sure this has been said before

Seriously, do you think that even the most doped-up woman on earth actually closed the last 3K of a 10K in 8:17? Never mind that Junxia also ran two 3Ks and a 1500 that were also under the existing records in the same meet, or that Junxia's best other 10K times were 30:49 (before the 29:31) and 30:50 (afterward).

Do you think she actually ran 10,000 meters in 29:31, with the splits listed above?

definitely doped like crazy, and paced, and maybe something else fishy was going on. But, if you watched her run, you would agree that in 1993, she (being drugged up) was a better runner than T. Dibaba ever was. That is really indisputable. She closed her 10k at worlds in 5:38, with no pacing, easily. I have no doubt that if pressed she would have ran the last 2k, in 5:25! That is how easy it looked. She was great on drugs, best distance runner ever on drugs. Not sure if the record is legitimate (minus the drugs obviously), but she may have been capable of that time.

She came back in 1996 and without any drugs still was able to win the olympics in 31:02. She was talented and doped, and perhaps something else fishy happened, but there is no evidence that the track was short.

Seyta wrote:

I've said this before, but a FAR more likely explanation is that the Chinese women were simply drugged to the extreme. I'm not talking drugged like many runners do now. I have no idea as to what they could have been on, but ALL of them had extremely short careers, which is VERY characteristic of extreme PED overuse, and Ma Junren was banned for having his athletes caught with drugs years later.

I don't think just "drugged to the extreme" is it. No drugs could make Junxia run how she did.

10k - Under the WR by 40 seconds. 15:05-14:26 5k splits with a 7:18 last 3k. That's just not possible. There's no way those splits are correct.

3k - 8:12 and 8:06. Hard to say anything since only 2 seconds of the 8:06 video exist and none of the 8:12.

1500 - A 3:51.9 with a video showing a 42.x first 300. Their reported 400 split was 57. Roughly world record pace for the 800. Could you imagine seeing a guy go out in a 50 first 400, then still running a 3:24 1500? There's no doubt in my mind that Junxia and Qu could have run at least 2 seconds faster.

I don't know what else it could be, but some other foul play happened.

the 2K/3K close make it painfully obvious that this record is a joke

The turtle and caterpillar nonsense was of course Ma giving his athletes an ostensible cover for the drug use. And the 8:17 close better than Kazankina's 8:22 and Slaney's 8:25 strongly indicate foul play.

I think the Chinese women were using drugs while breaking the records, BUT....

I don't think it was a short track

And why does everyone keep on saying they were doped "so hard"... You can only be doped so much, chances are they were taking EPO, but once your levels reach over to 50% your blood thickens to the point where you could die (especially w/ a bad diet where you eat foods that clog your bloodstream)... Most doped athletes now push those limits, so I don't believe that she was doped anymore then than the athletes that are using drugs now...

Even w/ out the drugs, she was a phenominal athlete, why can't we accept the fact that she and the other Chinese women were just a really good runners... The drugs could have only done so much for her to be honest...

Another thing Renato Canova said is that in that period of time, the Chinese women were doing around 160-180mpw, not even some of the top male marathoners do that much mileage... He said during that period of time they worked REALLY REALLY hard and a lot of the mileage was quality... Why is this any different from some Kenyan/Ethiopian runners? We see it all the time, some of them have a couple of good years and that's it, so that's not really much of a basis for suspicion...

We don't actually have cold hard evidence they doped while they did these performances, but one thing is sure, they should still be rewarded for all the hard work that they put in...

One last point... Crazy things happen, 3:51, especially 8:06, 29:31 (this is actually a lot softer compared to the other 2) are fantastic times, but what if this was just meant to be? There's some odd things in nature that are still to this day left unexplainable, this may be one...

Or maybe the chinese "women" were actually men.

Shlomo Goldstein wrote:

Or maybe the chinese "women" were actually men.

Wang has two children and a key part of the drug testing procedure she had in Stuttgart in 1993 and in Atlanta in 1996 is to have the tester watch her urinate into the sample collector.

Anyone who thinks that the track at Workers Stadium was torn up, shortened and relaid following the 1990 Asian Games: give us an estimate on about how much shorter you reckon it was.