If Letsrun was around when Wang Junxia ran 29.31 WR?

Forgive me if I'm misunderstanding, but the entire point of the short track theory as that the runner in lane 2 isn't running 400 meters.

Everything is staggered properly so that everyone is running just 393 and 1/2 or so meters.

I don't really think that it was a short track (though anyone that says "people watched the races therefore it wasn't short" are morons)but it would be a logical explanation.

Someone mentioned earlie7r that in a "shitty 400 or 800" it wouldn't make a difference. Well, 7 1/2 meters in a 400 and about 15 meters in an 800 is probably something like almost a second and at least two, respectively.

Forgive me if I'm talking out of my ass here, but a free second in a 400 and two in an 800 should mean most of the field would be close too or under their PR

Hell, I'm within a second of my 400 PR and within 2 seconds of my 800 PR in virtually every race I run, so I think it'd be noticeable.

I apologize for this being a longer post then it should be, it's also possible (more so for the 800) that the runners heard their splits at 200 and 400 and thought they were going too quick and took the pedal off the gas. Just something to think about.

The Eastern Europeans were doping to the maximum extent, but did not have EPO. And perhaps the Chinese were then doping to the maximum extent, had EPO, almost certainly, and then added massive training beyond what other women were allowed to do at that time or any other, with Ma's well-known abusive power over them. And that combination of factors made for a wide range of unfathomable performances. The short track theory and the timing fakery just don't add up--too many knowledgeable outside observers were there for that.

Short track and timing fakery don't add up but those times do if you use enough drugs?

Eastern Bloc State run drugging since adolescence adds up to 8:22 but Chinese drugging can put you on record pace for 7K and then close in 8:17?

But good for only one week in your life.

In the 1993 WC Wang's 10,000m was pretty quick and her last 3000 in that race was amazing.

But neither the overall time nor the closing laps were as fast.

Was she holding back?

What could happen in a month to improve like that?

Fudging the times in a one time track meet seems more realistic than 5 women running insane times for just one week in their life.

AT wrote:

Forgive me if I'm misunderstanding, but the entire point of the short track theory as that the runner in lane 2 isn't running 400 meters.

Everything is staggered properly so that everyone is running just 393 and 1/2 or so meters.

He is saying there was a short inside lane created and the 400mH actually ran 400m because they might not have used the inside lane. Lane 2 start point in the 400m is 6 1/2 metres ahead of the finish line but under his reasoning, lane 2 would be 400m without a stagger. This means that if the 400mH was legitimate (in his reasoning) the lane 2 runner would have to start at the finish line and would have no stagger.

The stagger would have to begin in lane 3 which would measure 406 1/2 around. Lane 3 should measure 413m around. The stagger being in the wrong lanes would immediately alert that the track was short in lane 1 but the 400m was legitimate. This would never happen for this very reason, it's too obvious.

Yes and Yes. A potent mix of training, supplements, and natural ability made her a superhuman runner. Maybe the epo was supplied through a cycling team? The coach, "ma" said the only thing she was on is turtles blood and sea fungus. Wang did the work averaging 182mpw all at altitude. She was forced to retire at age 23 and suffers from headaches or perhaps forced because of improved testing.

That makes sense. Thanks for the clarification

Please note none of the record holders tested positive.

Yes they did.

China caught them.

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/07/sports/olympics-chinese-withdraw-6-runners-and-coach.html

Already been mentioned

The coach was caught, but none of the athletes in question (Qu/Wang)

she took some crack chinese tea, overdose, and never got caught

Did you see the video where the Chinese girl closed her 1500 with a 1:57 800m. How come people are ignoring this fact. These women were super human drug cheats, but they did not run on a short track.

Blitzplay wrote:

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

last 5km 14:26

She runs last 2km in her 10000m WR in 5:31.9!!!

think about if a man ran world record 2k and 3k in route in a 10k in 25:30.

or 2 x 12"45 5k with a sub 2 minute mile finish.

with gas in the tank at the finish....

Okay, lets put this into perspective in another way.

If we are to assume that the average difference between a man and a women in running events is around 10%, we can approximate the equivalency of Wang's performance in a more "real" (in my opinion) way. For 10k it seems that this difference is closer to 12%.

So, Wang's record is 29:31 -> 1771 seconds

If the female can on average run 12% slower, then a male should be able to complete the 10k at the same level in 88% of the time.

So, 1771*.88=1558.48

1558/60= 25.975 -> 25:58.48 equivalent time.

Considering the world record is 26:17 (which I already believe is an absolutely unreal time for 10k), and this equivalence formula puts Wang's performance nearly 20 seconds faster (nearly a second per lap), I think it's safe to say that Wang had to have been doped to an insane degree.

I still stand by the fact that it is unlikely that the timing system was faulty. Don't you think bystanders may have hand timed it themselves? I know I do this all the time at track meets. Also the other events do speak for themselves. I'm not sure why everyone thinks I'm an idiot for not thinking the track was short. It's absolutely possible that the concoction of dope that these athletes were taking not only gave them huge advantages from a strictly performance standpoint, but also allowed them to train at a level previously unachieved as well (hence the 180 mile weeks at altitude). This combination could easily produce this type of performance without tampering of the timing or the length of the track.

Have you ever thought that maybe, just maybe, the Chinese tore up that track because they WANTED you to think it was short, rather than that their athletes were doped to the gills? Although it does sound preposterous, think on it for a minute...

Source on the conversion: Vaughn's Summary, compiled using performances from past Olympics (I believe).

Another fun note here: if we look at Paula Radcliffe's marathon WR, we can also see that she was likely doped to the gills as well even if she claims she wasn't.

2:15.25 --> 8100 seconds

8100*.88 = 7128 seconds --> 118.8 minutes --> 1:58:48!!!

According to this conversion, if it has any resemblance of accuracy, Radcliffe's time is likely even more preposterous than Wang's!!

I doubt we will ever see a sub 2 hour marathon, let alone sub 1:59.

At the same time, I do believe these conversions are likely inaccurate in the sense that male's are running to furthest extent of the human body, whereas females are not. It's likely that the world records shouldn't be as far apart as they are. However, it's still stunning to look at this data.

Drunk Mormon with a vasectomy wrote:

runnerFunner wrote:

Did you see the video where the Chinese girl closed her 1500 with a 1:57 800m. How come people are ignoring this fact. These women were super human drug cheats, but they did not run on a short track.

I'm not ignoring it. Read what I wrote last night about the supposed approximate splits in that race, based on a 42 opening 300 and a 1:57 last 800:

42, 71, ~60, ~57

Saying that you saw a video of the last two laps being covered in 1:57 isn't necessarily the same as seeing the last 800 covered in 1:57. That's the whole premise here.

This is more than just drugs. That should really be obvious to anyone regardless of your thoughts on what the answer is. Was Kip Litton also just doped to the max?

Who said they closed the WR in a 1:57 last 800? The unofficial splits for Qu's WR (and Wang's 3:51) were 57.2 (400), 2:00.7 (800), 2:33 (1k), 3:05.2 (1200). We can see the pacer going through 300m in 42.xx. Also going through 1100 in ~2:50 so the last lap would have been ~60.

Here's the video:

40oz pounders wrote:

At the same time, I do believe these conversions are likely inaccurate in the sense that male's are running to furthest extent of the human body, whereas females are not. It's likely that the world records shouldn't be as far apart as they are. However, it's still stunning to look at this data.

Or, I'd suggest that you have a flawed assumption built in

GIGO

40oz pounders wrote:

But when I saw that she had kids, I realized that the reality is much worse than her just having a pair of testicles inside of her that she didn't know about.

Ever heard of adoption?

If Letsrun was around in '93, we'd be saying " he's Wanged" now instead of " he's Lanced".

Drunk Mormon with a vasectomy wrote:

That makes much more sense. I'm still not buying doping alone as the sole explanation, though. and those going on and on about these athletes' alleged training (where did accounts of this training even originate? Can they be trusted?) are rambling on as if this one group of Chinese women are the only runners ever to give strenuous, high-volume training a shot, before or since the 1993 Chinese National Games.

Give us some other large group of women who ran 40km hard day in and day out and were beaten regularly by their coach when they didn't perform to his expectations, and had access to every drug a chemist could concoct.

I'd say you're right when you say it's not doping alone: it's doping along with training and conditions the likes of which no one else has ever done, certainly not on the scale to which Ma did. I believe he started with a large group of women and put them through a gauntlet of 40km of hard running 7 days a week, and those few that weren't completely broken (and were chemically aided) could run faster than any other women in history.

I'm convinced it's the above combination. If you're not, give us some other possibility. I don't see Omega's Swiss Timers monkeying with their technology for this (nor do I believe they could have kept such corruption secret). Foreign press observed them running the proper number of laps and the short track theory can be tossed out since, as mentioned earlier, it would have wreaked havoc with the hurdles, the Chinese men didn't perform out of their zone, and no remarkable results were recorded at the previous championships held on the same track. And to boot, Ma's new women had similar results in the 1500m four years later on a track that's used today in the Diamond League.

I'm reminded of the Citizen Kane line, "it's no trick to make a lot of money...if all you want is to make a lot of money." If all you care about is getting some women to run very fast, it appears that you can do it, if all you care about is getting some women to run fast. Have no concern for their well being, abuse them, drug them and run them into the ground, and which ever poor souls are left standing will probably run very fast.

Drunk Mormon with a vasectomy wrote:

"Ma's new women had similar results in the 1500m four years later on a track that's used today in the Diamond League."

Not even close. That's like saying the Spurs over the past decade are like the Celtics of the 1960s. And even were you correct here, again: Chinese runners in a Chinese-only meet, locked down from the world. Sorry, can't go there.

What on earth are you talking about?

Ma's Army ran blasted apart the all-time lists at Workers Stadium in 1993.

Ma's New Army did it again, on a smaller scale, four years later at the 1997 National Games in Shanghai, which were conducted on the same track that's used today in the Diamond League. There, they did this:

17 Oct 1997

1500m Heats

Lan Lixin 3:55.01

Qu Yunxia 3:55.38

Zhang Ling 3:55.47

Dong Yanmei 3:55.82

Liu Dong 3:56.31

Liu Jing 3:57.03

Lang Yinglai 3:57.15

Jiang Bo 3:57.27

Yin Lili 3:58.22

Yan Wei 3:58.74

Wang Qingfen 3:58.97

Wang Chunmei 3:59.48

Wang Ai 4:00.34

18 Oct 1997

1500m Final

Jiang Bo 3:50.98

Lang Yinglai 3:51.34 WJR (also won the 800m 4 days later in 1:57.62)

Yin Lili 3:53.91

Lan Lixin 3:53.97

Zhang Ling 3:54.52

Dong Yanmei 3:55.07

Liu Jing 3:57.77

Qu Yunxia 3:57.83

Liu Dong 3:58.18

Wang Quingfen 4:02.22

Yan Wei 4:04.27

Lang Yinglai went on to win the 800m in 1:57.62 just four days later, while Jiang Bo ran 14:31.30 in the heats of the 5000m on 21 Oct, and two days later ran a WR of 14:28.09.

And the men? About the same as in 1993. And in fact, compare to 2001, the men are again about the same: 10.2 in the 100m, mid 20s in the 200m, under 46 in the 400m and just under 1:50 for 800m. The best men in China ran about that at their National Games in 1993, 1997 and 2001. After Ma was out in 2001, however, the women came back down to earth, running 2:00, 4:07 and 14:51.

Does this not completely dispel the misplaced idea of a short track, if all the other previous points hadn't already?