Exit Poll: Solinsky 2011

It is plausible.

No, but he thought he was

Yes. It's absurd how little these guys share about their training.

They act like they're devising a military heist

Truerthanice wrote:

Yes. It's absurd how little these guys share about their training.

They act like they're devising a military heist

what does this have to do with the OP's question?

No I don't.

camp schu wrote:

Do you think Solinsky was using performance enhancing drugs in preparation for the 2011 season?

It actually seems very likely that he may have been drugged up for part of the 2010 season, if only because of how completely out of place it was compared to every other season he had.

His 5000m PRs each season looked as follows:

2006: 13:27

2007: 13:12

2008: 13:18

2009: 13:18

2010: 12:55

2011: 13:10

Data from 2012 and 2013 aren't particularly applicable in this case since Solinsky's injury effectively ended him, but even so, the 12:55 looks very out of place in comparison with everything else. Prior to 2010, his 5000m PR was 13:12, and after 2010, the best he managed to run was something like ~13:10.

This means that every race in which he broke 13:00 in the 5000m, and his 10000m debut of 26:59 fell within a single several-month period , and he never managed to approach those times again. In fact, during the 2011 season, in addition to being noticeably slower, he was DNFing all over the place, whether from Rupp's "ploy", or being sent "flying through the air" by 115 pound Alamirew.

And the 26:59 10000m is even worse. In addition to it being his debut, he never actually finished another 10000m race.

When stripped down to the barest form, what we have with Solinsky is a very consistent 13:10 - 13:20 runner who had a single season in which he managed to run sub-13 multiple times and debuted with a 26:59 10000m, and then couldn't replicate anything remotely like it again.

I'm quite aware that Solinsky tends to get a pass on many things on this messageboard for being "manly" for a distance runner and whatnot, but honestly, his progression is one of the most irregular and suspicious among all US athletes.

If you look at Tegenkamp, he at least had seasons with 5000m SBs of 13:04 and 13:07 prior to his 12:58 season. Likewise, if you look at Rupp, he has a huge volume of performances all falling between the 13:00-13:15 range in addition to his one 12:58 spread across multiple seasons.

Many people wouldn't bother thinking twice of accusing Rupp of being on drugs, but hypothetically, if Rupp has indeed been drugged up since he started running professionally for NOP, then Solinsky has probably been juiced to the max. In addition to running PRs in the 5000m significantly better than those of Rupp, the first 10000m race he ran on the track was faster than any 10000m that Rupp, a 10000m specialist, had run in his life.

I didn't at the time, but think it is plausible now.

I think one of the reasons that we can be so quick to defend Americans and accuse foreigners of doping is because we tend to be able to explain away the performances of Americans better. If you had listed all of those PRs and stats and left the runner nameless, I think a lot of people would call it the profile of a doper. Since it's Solinsky and people want to be able to acquit him of any wrongdoing, we tend to delve a little deeper into those performances to try and find another explanation.

Example: the fact that he ran 26:59 and never finished another 10000m makes sense given his physiology, the timing and how that race at that meet goes. Chris is a really big guy for an elite distance runner. Typically guys that have his build (maybe Jason Hartmann is one counterexample) have trouble ventilating heat in warmer weather. There are very few world class 10ks every year, and most of them are in late summer where the weather is almost certainly going to be not as good as it was in Palo Alto that night. Regarding the timing, that performance is not shocking when you look at that season as a whole. It was the start of a great summer for him.

More explanation: We know the severity of his injury and are able to say with a clear conscience "Well it took him so many years of serious training to get to the point where he could run under 13 and 27, then he goes and gets that horrible injury, of course he won't run the same ever again." If that happened to some African with the exact profile you quote up top, chances are unless they were a big name already we would never have heard about that injury. Who cares when it's just another up and comer from Kenya? But for Americans, who have so few good guys to root for, we follow developments like this. If this happened to an African, he would just fade away into obscurity (Remember Noah Ngeny and his car accident?). Since it happened to a good American, we find ways to explain it, and if we can't figure out why, Flotrack makes an episode giving Webb a chance to explain himself.

I think and hope he was clean. I think there are many distance runners on the world stage, past and present (80%?), who have been clean. If they're all doping then there is really no point in following world class distance running.

I think it was Frank Shorter who said if we don't aggressively try to catch dopers, the races become meaningless. It's not how good you are, your training, your tactics, but who has the best chemist.

If you ask these questions of Solinsky, then you should ask them of others like Hall and the Gouchers

Solinksy's 2011 season would of been a continuation of success for him but was hampered by hamstring issues even before he tripped over his dog. The 13:10 I believe was a season opener and then he ran 3:35 in April, but then started having more problems. He still ran great at US Champs, after a crawling first mile, ran about 6:03 for the last 6 laps only to get outkicked by Lagat.

While I personally don't think that he doped, his injury is a classic PED injury. In fact, a friend of mine who was a AAA baseball player sustained that very same injury while using PEDs. Again, I don't think that he doped but I understand why it would seem suspicious. Farah is a much more suspicious case as far as I'm concerned.

If he did, it was only as a ploy.

Many of us accuse people of doping, but for us non scientists I ask; What exactly is doping? What is the procedure? What does it do the the body?

Thanks

this is actually really interesting. I had no idea that 2010 was such an outlier for him with his years previously.

He did run well at USA's in 2011 though. That 13:10 was off a slow first mile and a fast finish, just getting outkicked by Lagat.

I wonder if he looks at his Dog and just wonders.

Although like others have said he was hampered by hamstring troubles basically all of 2011 until he ripped it.

Really consistent guy, got really good for a time, got greedy maybe? and then paid the price.

he could've been doping in 2010, guess we'll never know.

This is the dumbest sh!t I've ever read. 2010 is the year that he set his PRs. PRs, by definition, are the outliers.

You go one to say that 2010 was such an outlier for him? Egads!

Without PEDs he would have ended up with career PRs similar to Tim Broe.