Young and very naive wrote:
I was not even born when Ereng won the 800 gold in '88, but can someone please tell me about Aouita and the drugs? My former coach growing up was an internationally relatively successful athlete. He was mid tier on the roads, 1:03 half type guy, and made it onto a world xc team. This is where he told me that he learned after conversations with athletes from that general geographic region that many of them view doping as a normal part of their culture. They didn't even consider it wrong or unethical, just assuming that everyone did it. Is it a generally understood consensus that Aouita was on drugs? Yes I am naive in some areas, but not dumb.
No. Aouita was clean he just knew that non-Africans needed help to reach the top levels.
If Aouita was doped he would have been much faster over 5000. He also wouldn't have looked like he was tired or working hard in his record runs. As it was he looked like he was giving birth to a camel in the last 100.