Tendington you say? wrote:
http://www.swlondoner.co.uk/teddington-turned-my-life-around-says-farah-ahead-of-london-marathon-debut/Yeah...the good old days. Mo ran 13:08 while living in Teddington too!
There isn't a "Butchart's doping allegation" here. It asks for questions. Many of us here are established competitive runners or were, or coaches, and involved with the sport. We're not all basement dwellers. I started this thread to ask a question--how do you account for the jump? A jump and absolute peak for the Olympic final. He's the fastest Scott and third fastest GBR runner ever. Ask questions. Question everything.
I find it hard to believe anybody that stupid can manage to navigate their way round a track or to coach someone to do the same.
You don't even know your athletics history. As it was pointed out above, Butchart broke a long standing athletics record held by Nat Muir. Nat Muir was running at a time when there were several Scottish runners of the same or similar quality. British distance runners were also producing times that were all rarely matched. It was a climate conducive of running fast times - google "social facilitation" in terms of human biology. If you don't know why athletes train and race better in groups, then you do have serious stupidity problems.
Its obvious to anyone that knows their athletics that right now in Scotland something similar is happening. Butchart was typical of the low achieving, slightly lazy runner that is now all too common in the western world. He has then got motivated enough, encouraged by seeing those around him make Olympic teams, and used his natural ability.
Oh, and its quite possible that Scots do have good genes for running, and its quite possible they are more mentally tough. They produced a disproportionate amount of good distance runners. There is also a very strong hill running scene, the cross country races are hard, far harder than running around a firm grass field in sunshine in the US. Even the track races can be harder, due to the ever present wind and often lashing rain or snow.
So Butchart is doing nothing similar to what Scottish athletes in the past did. Clearly the coaching expertise is right there in the one place. What is more troubling than Butchart running fast times is the preoponderance of under-achieving, reasonably talented white western runners who simply give up rather than hurt themselves a bit more to achieve elite times, and who sit on the internet making up excuses for their own lack of success.