Robert Maynard wrote:
I disagree with just about everything you said. Junxia's times are impressive, doping or not. If Dibaba gets a lifetime ban, her 3:50 was still a work of art and I am still impressed.
There was a time when people said "no ones considers X a great runner, because he wasn't an amateur." Same thing here.
In 30 years, the next generation will laugh at how obsessed we were with stupid things like EPO
Dibaba's time is not impressive if she doped, thus cheating to get there. It'd be like if a guy stashed a bike on a marathon course and then hopped on and rode for 3 miles, then broke a world record, wow that's impressive. Even if he didn't run it that fast, he ran 23 miles at world record pace. NO! Cheating is cheating. We should expect an athlete drugged to the gills to break a wr, its not impressive, its chemistry and pharmaceuticals, not hard work (hard work only allowed due to drug use can't be considered hard work as hard work requires natural recovery), not training.
30 years ago we were just starting to get the notion that athletes were cheating like crazy. 30 years from now I hope we have methods to catch them much easier and a will to kick them out of the sport for good if they take peds.