Sebastian Coe vs Said Aouita - 1500/mile race - Who would win?

Mapelli Mozzi wrote:

Deanouk wrote:

Yes, the Olympic 1500m in 88 could have been the greatest race over the distance of all time, but it turned into quite a depleted field and one of the weakest standard victories at that level. Rono practically never won a race before that final and I don't recall him winning another race again!

Had Cram not made the (terrible) decision to run the 800m first (as he was carrying an injury) he would likely have won the 1500m. Had Elliott not succombed to injury too in running both events, he would likely have beaten Rono but not a rested Cram.

Had Aouita not run injured in the 800 it would have been neck and neck with Cram in the 1500m. Had Bile not got injured and been there he too could have won the 1500, especially in the form he showed in 87 and 89.

And if Coe had been allowed to run and been given a chance to recover from the chest infection that had affected him in the UK trials some 6 weeks earlier, then he too would have had a good shot of winning the 1500.

It could have been Cram v Aouita v Coe v Bile at something approaching their best, but instead we ended up with a little known Kenyan beating an injured Cram and Elliott.

The moral of this is that it is exceptionally difficult to double up in those 2 events in an Olympic arena, never mind winning medals in both events. That is why only 1 man, Snell, has managed it in the modern era, and why Coe came close twice.

What could have been...

You probably referred to winning both events but Makhloufi did achieve the feat of winning a medal in both.

Do you suspect his pedigree?

Mapelli Mozzi wrote:

Deanouk wrote:

Yes, the Olympic 1500m in 88 could have been the greatest race over the distance of all time, but it turned into quite a depleted field and one of the weakest standard victories at that level. Rono practically never won a race before that final and I don't recall him winning another race again!

Had Cram not made the (terrible) decision to run the 800m first (as he was carrying an injury) he would likely have won the 1500m. Had Elliott not succombed to injury too in running both events, he would likely have beaten Rono but not a rested Cram.

Had Aouita not run injured in the 800 it would have been neck and neck with Cram in the 1500m. Had Bile not got injured and been there he too could have won the 1500, especially in the form he showed in 87 and 89.

And if Coe had been allowed to run and been given a chance to recover from the chest infection that had affected him in the UK trials some 6 weeks earlier, then he too would have had a good shot of winning the 1500.

It could have been Cram v Aouita v Coe v Bile at something approaching their best, but instead we ended up with a little known Kenyan beating an injured Cram and Elliott.

The moral of this is that it is exceptionally difficult to double up in those 2 events in an Olympic arena, never mind winning medals in both events. That is why only 1 man, Snell, has managed it in the modern era, and why Coe came close twice.

What could have been...

You probably referred to winning both events but Makhloufi did achieve the feat of winning a medal in both.

Do you suspect his pedigree?

Deanouk wrote:

ONCE Eroski wrote:

Here is the article:

https://www.is.fi/yleisurheilu/art-2000001066515.html

This is a re-hashed article from 2016, highlighting a blogger's anecdotes about another tabloid's article from 1983; so it's not even second hand information/news! The original tabloid has about as much integrity and reliability as The Sun in the UK. That is to say, virtually none.

Translated, the original article 'suggests' that Coe failed a drug test conducted by the UK athletics federation before the World Champs in 83, and that was because he had a 'blood exchange' which went wrong: -

"During the Helsinki Games (August 13, 1983), Iltalehti published the news under the title "Doping kept Coe at home". The magazine had been in contact with a 'British team insider'. According to a source, "Seb simply failed our country's own doping test." This was recently highlighted by researcher Erkki Vettenniemi in his blog for idrottsforum.org.

According to Iltalehti's news release, "Coe reportedly underwent a blood exchange but did not succeed." According to the news, the consequences of the operation were longer than expected. "There were too many wrong drugs just when the English team was finally assembled," Iltalehti continued."

There are several things wrong with this.

1) Why would a British team insider leak information to a Finnish newspaper, when they could have made far more money doing so to a UK tabloid?

2) It sounds like UKA conducted drug tests on all their athletes just prior to embarking on Helsinki. As much as there was testing at UK meets at this time, I'm not aware they conducted random out of season testing until 1985. I have never heard of British athletes being pooled and tested just before a major meet! ?

2) It is almost unthinkable that Coe would have partaken of allogenic blood transfusion at a time when the common practice was autologous transfusions, especially in a period of history when AIDS was made aware to public.

3) If Coe had failed a drug test then you can guarantee that Andy Norman would have known about it (if a 'Team insider' knew), and would have made it public knowledge. He was, after all, Ovett's agent, manager and best friend. What better way of getting rid of his best mate's main rival?

4) This sort of information would have come out by someone in the intervening 36 years. Coe's political career has made him unpopular to some, and there would be evidence of this and it would have come to the surface by now. As much as there has been corruption in the IAAF, I don't think Coe would have got to be head of the IAAF or a Lord if there were any truth in this.

It is convenient that the original article didn't name the 'British team insider' and the fact that the journalist and newspaper never followed this story up in the following days/weeks, suggests it was a non story at best, and made up for headlines and money at worst.

Deanouk wrote:

ONCE Eroski wrote:

Here is the article:

https://www.is.fi/yleisurheilu/art-2000001066515.html

This is a re-hashed article from 2016, highlighting a blogger's anecdotes about another tabloid's article from 1983; so it's not even second hand information/news! The original tabloid has about as much integrity and reliability as The Sun in the UK. That is to say, virtually none.

Translated, the original article 'suggests' that Coe failed a drug test conducted by the UK athletics federation before the World Champs in 83, and that was because he had a 'blood exchange' which went wrong: -

"During the Helsinki Games (August 13, 1983), Iltalehti published the news under the title "Doping kept Coe at home". The magazine had been in contact with a 'British team insider'. According to a source, "Seb simply failed our country's own doping test." This was recently highlighted by researcher Erkki Vettenniemi in his blog for idrottsforum.org.

According to Iltalehti's news release, "Coe reportedly underwent a blood exchange but did not succeed." According to the news, the consequences of the operation were longer than expected. "There were too many wrong drugs just when the English team was finally assembled," Iltalehti continued."

There are several things wrong with this.

1) Why would a British team insider leak information to a Finnish newspaper, when they could have made far more money doing so to a UK tabloid?

2) It sounds like UKA conducted drug tests on all their athletes just prior to embarking on Helsinki. As much as there was testing at UK meets at this time, I'm not aware they conducted random out of season testing until 1985. I have never heard of British athletes being pooled and tested just before a major meet! ?

2) It is almost unthinkable that Coe would have partaken of allogenic blood transfusion at a time when the common practice was autologous transfusions, especially in a period of history when AIDS was made aware to public.

3) If Coe had failed a drug test then you can guarantee that Andy Norman would have known about it (if a 'Team insider' knew), and would have made it public knowledge. He was, after all, Ovett's agent, manager and best friend. What better way of getting rid of his best mate's main rival?

4) This sort of information would have come out by someone in the intervening 36 years. Coe's political career has made him unpopular to some, and there would be evidence of this and it would have come to the surface by now. As much as there has been corruption in the IAAF, I don't think Coe would have got to be head of the IAAF or a Lord if there were any truth in this.

It is convenient that the original article didn't name the 'British team insider' and the fact that the journalist and newspaper never followed this story up in the following days/weeks, suggests it was a non story at best, and made up for headlines and money at worst.

Coevett wrote:

flying Spaniards wrote:

Leitao died in his fifties. I am not really sure that he would have been taking blood transfusions for performance enhancement at that age. My understanding was that he retired young due to injuries.

There was a Spanish marathon runner, Diego Garcia who won a silver medal in the marathon at the 1994 Euro champs who died around the age of 40 on a training run (sudden cardiac death). I don't know if that sort of thing can be caused by previous blood doping. If we assume that a lot of the Spanish elites in the 1990s were blood doping or using EPO then it is hard to say for sure whether this really impacted their long-term health. Martin Fiz is still running at the masters level today in his mid fifties and setting some world records, so there is likely a certain amount of individual variation in how health is impacted.

Yes, my mistake. 52 is still premature though.

Really, my point was to compare it with the 'evidence' that Coe doped - his blood disorder. From what I've read, hemochromatosis can be caused by repeated blood transfusions. So it's not caused by an infection via the transfusion (which is what people are claiming happened with Coe and his alleged blood doping), but the act of repeatedly blood doping itself messing up your system.

The first paragraph of the Wikipedia entry on the disease says :

ron overload (also known as haemochromatosis or hemochromatosis) indicates accumulation of iron in the body from any cause. The most important causes are hereditary haemochromatosis (HHC), a genetic disorder, and transfusional iron overload, which can result from repeated blood transfusions.

Or put it another way - if Coe developing a blood disorder caused by a common infection which has multiple possible sources, a type of blood doping extremely rare being one of them, means that Coe doped, it's beyond doubt that the Portuguese guy did. Thankfully for his memory, there is not a 1% chance Coe doped based on the 'evidence' of his blood disorder.

Interestingly, Morceli had a similar problem with his 'iron levels', which needed hospital treatment, and that is the common reason given for his sharp decline after 2000.

Grant Fox wrote:

Coevett wrote:

Yes, my mistake. 52 is still premature though.

Really, my point was to compare it with the 'evidence' that Coe doped - his blood disorder. From what I've read, hemochromatosis can be caused by repeated blood transfusions. So it's not caused by an infection via the transfusion (which is what people are claiming happened with Coe and his alleged blood doping), but the act of repeatedly blood doping itself messing up your system.

The first paragraph of the Wikipedia entry on the disease says :

Or put it another way - if Coe developing a blood disorder caused by a common infection which has multiple possible sources, a type of blood doping extremely rare being one of them, means that Coe doped, it's beyond doubt that the Portuguese guy did. Thankfully for his memory, there is not a 1% chance Coe doped based on the 'evidence' of his blood disorder.

Interestingly, Morceli had a similar problem with his 'iron levels', which needed hospital treatment, and that is the common reason given for his sharp decline after 2000.

Snell and his heart problems has cropped up again.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/other-sports/117648590/kiwi-athletics-legend-sir-peter-snell-suffers-heart-failure