Armstronglivs wrote:
So none of the doping apologists here can offer a convincing explanation as to why women runners of no particular pedigree like Salpeter have now run faster than Bikila did in winning 7 of his 16 marathons, and why they haven't caught up with previous men's best in any other running event. The sound of slithering has become deafening.
This was already asked and answered a few times. The silence you heard was most likely the sound of apathy.
But, since you asked so nicely, ...
Recall you told us that women are typically 10-12% slower than the men, across the board.
These marathon times from the 1960s are 12-15% slower than times of men today, putting it well within reach of women of today.
This is not the case with 800m, where the times of Snell's 800m are 3% slower, far beyond the reach of women, even fully doped women from the 1980s.
Using your 10-12% factoid as the rule, no explanation is required. We should expect the sound of silence.
In case you still don't see it, this becomes even more crystal clear when using an accepted standard of equivalency, like IAAF scoring. Here in descending order of difficulty, we can assess the value of the different events:
Kipchoge's 2:01:39 is 1316 points.
Rudisha's 1:40.91 is 1301 points.
Snell's 1:44.3 is 1195 points, equivalent to a 2:08:10 marathon.
Bikila's 2:12:11 is 1123 points, equivalent to a 1:46.68 800m.
Bikila's 2:15:16 is 1070 points, equivalent to a 1:48.48 800m.
Salpeter's 2:19:46 is 994 points.
Ingrid Kristiansen's 2:21:06 from 1985 is 972 points.
We see once again, it requires no explanation how women can achieve the men's 994 point performances, especially in light of Ingrid Kristiansen's 972-point performance from 34 years ago, and yet fail to come anywhere near the 1195 point performance of Snell.
In case you still don't see it, here's yet another way to illustrate your failure:
Matt Centrowitz won 1500m Olympic gold with a 3:50:00 -- so does it make sense to ask how the women of today are "in the ballpark" competitive with men of today in the 1500m like no other event?
If you think that is a stupid comparison, then maybe you can begin to understand. If not, then you are beyond help.