And there's people here who claim an American could have ran faster than El G in the 60's if he'd had a modern track.
Why do you say 'easily running sub-3:30'? Exaggerating much? Both Coe and Cram ran high 3:29 once, Ovett never did, as compared to EL G only a decade later with no new training, tracks, running up to a dozen sub 3:30 or Mile equivalents in a single season. As I've stated, I believe all three could have ran faster with better pacing and so on, but the same might be said for guys like Steve Scott, and Ray Flynn. Alan Webb ran the equivalent of a sub 3:30 at what was it? 17 or 18, and built like a brick sh**t house as well. Pretty sure that if your high school kids can run the equivalent of sub 3:30 even back in the 60's, then in that brief period when middle-distance running was almost as popular as football in the UK, that a population that had always dominated the events up until the war could produce several greats.
Does it follow that Ryun was an obvious doper? If he could run faster than Americans can today (or equivalent) half a century ago, and when a teen as well, surely he must have doped? For that matter Scott too, especially as he ran in the 'dark ages'.
And don't give the bull that you're only applying 'our logic' on El G and Moroccans to the Brits. If El G was in isolation then his performances would still be somewhat suspect giving his unparalleled feats, but in the context of the EPO era and the number of busts from Moroccans subsequently, including training partners.
Where do you stand on the issue of doping in golf? Clearly the British golfers are dirty as hell as well. The USA has a population of, what is it, 6 or 7 times that of the UK? Yet of the top 15 ranked golfers, 7 are American and four are British. I think quite recently, the GB had 3 or the top 5 or something like that.
Number of golf facilities in the USA : 15,372
Number of golf facilities in England/Scotland : 3000 (aprox)
Now imagine if golf was very much more popular in the UK than America, and the number of golf facilities instead of 5 x1 for the USA, more equal. I'd guess that there would be more Brits in the top 10 rankings than Americans (which does happen occasionally anyway).
Sweden has 2 players in the top 17, with a population of 8 million, with 491 golf clubs instead of 15,372. Maybe the asthma medication?