Coevett wrote:
LOL! Actually it's quite a fair statement (Subway's). I'm not an expert on doping but from what I've read about suspected pre-EPO blood dopers, Coe just doesn't seem to fit the pattern at all. So that leaves steroids, and there's a lot of reasons to doubt that somebody as slight as him was so skilled at taking steroids (and avoiding detection) back then that he could have benefitted so massively without it leaving any visible effect on his frame. And remember, he was a massively talented 800m runner who then became an 800/1500m middle-distance all-time great, and that was supposedly down to steroids??
Hold on here...let's get to the bottom of this. Are there any confirmed or highly suspected roid users in the mid-d ranks during Coe's era? If so, what did their builds look like? (I'm sure can whip up some photos as you seem pretty good at digging up things from the archives). And for the roid users of distance running, wouldn't it be dose related in terms of using an androgen for building muscle mass vs recovery, rehab of injuries, and so on?
I see what you're saying about steroid use leaving a "visible effect" on a distance runners frame...that makes logical sense at first glance. However, there's a slight problem with this thinking when you examine confirmed steroid cases of distance runners over the last 30 or so years. When I went back and looked their physiques, I'm seeing in many cases no visible effects of steroids. In fact, on some cases like Baumann, I'm thinking "WTF...this guy is supposedly on roids?" I'm seeing small, thin, diminutive builds consistently with these confirmed cases (one guy, Battocletti, is listed as 5-9, 119 lbs!). Take a look at these guys yourself Coevett. I just listed a few notables with faster times & major competition medals from a long exhausting list available Wikipedia's list of doping cases for athletics.
Dieter Baumann/LD (Nandrolone)
Giuliano Battiocletti/Marathon (Nandrolone)
Julio Rey/Marathon (Mesterolone)
Mathew Kisorio/Marathon (undisclosed AAS)
Mostafa Errebbah/LD (Stanozolol)
Martti Vainio/LD (Testosterone)
Hassan Mourhit/LD (Anastrozol)
So, Coevett...what were these accomplished runners taking androgens for? To build muscle mass & bulk? I don't think so considering how small & thin they look. Perhaps for recovery from hard workouts? Injury rehad? Maybe using them in combo with EPO or blood doping (that's the situation in Vainio's case with blood doping). Let's get to the bottom of this.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_doping_cases_in_athletics