The talent they had focused on other sports like wrestling and hockey (the sports popular in Russia). But let's not ignore they had some solid athletes in mid distance (especially on the female side) and a Russian male holds the comrades uphill course record.
I would agree with this except I don't think Conner Mantz is cool enough to do any kind of drug. Performance-enhancing or not. (Huge fan though, love his running style)
But as Rekrunner often points out, marathon times in Outer Mongolia and Antartica did not improve so rapidly during the EPO era, therefore peds have no effect on performance and the only explanation is that Kenyans are an off shoot of homo sapiens with no sense of time. So unless you were born in the Rift Valley, you need to give up athletics and take up table-tennis instead, as you haven't a chance of competing with these natural born running beasts of nature.
Just pointing this out. EPO hit the scene and the world record went from 2:09 to 2:01 in a matter of 20 years. Yet we are supposed to think these athletes are just getting better by magic.
But as Rekrunner often points out, marathon times in Outer Mongolia and Antartica did not improve so rapidly during the EPO era, therefore peds have no effect on performance and the only explanation is that Kenyans are an off shoot of homo sapiens with no sense of time. So unless you were born in the Rift Valley, you need to give up athletics and take up table-tennis instead, as you haven't a chance of competing with these natural born running beasts of nature.
The best source of what "rekrunner" points out are posts written by me. Among the worst are posts written by "Coevett".
What I will point out in this 3-year old thread which was bumped:
This whole thread is misguided, by attempting to create a false dichotomy between genetics and doping, and ignoring other factors, like environmental.
"Borderline" is a little confused about marathon history, as when EPO hit the scene, the marathon record didn't move until 1998. It moved a little further with Paul Tergat by 2005 (with a time still unmatched today by any non-African), and a little further again with Haile Gebrselassie by 2008, who showed us what he could still do in the marathon, at the end of a long 17-year career at the top. It was only when younger athletes started skipping the track and going to the marathon fresh in their careers, that this record started dropping significantly, followed again by the introduction of carbon-fiber plated, thickly-soled shoes.
I never looked at Antarctica, nor athletes from outer-Mongolia specifically. I looked at all performances worldwide spanning more than three decades, including the entirety of the EPO-era from a fairly complete dataset. Between 1990 and 2018, I found 9 non-Africans faster than Steve Jones and Carlos Lopes of 2:07:12/13. I also found only 6 North Africans faster, and 3 South Africans faster. If these are clean performances, that means the best EPO performances among these selected groups worldwide over nearly three decades are slower. But presumably, these performances are the upper limit of what EPO could do for most of the world, for three decades, outside of East Africa. The best of the non-Africans then was about 1 minute faster (Brazilian Ronald De Costa from 1998), and North Africans were about 30-40 seconds faster by 2009. Since my look at performances in 2018, the Japanese have pushed this best another 30+ seconds, with Kengo Suzuki running 2:04:56, about 36 years after Jones/Lopes, and about 2 minutes faster, and still 1 second slower than Paul Tergat.
One possibility is that, despite the strong belief as a powerful endurance drug, EPO and blood doping simply wasn't used, with a few rare exceptions, for three decades, across 5-continents, and North and South Africa.
But if you asked me, athletes like Ryan Hall, Sondre Moen, and the Robertson Twins indicate that clean non-East Africans can still do much better than they have, if they can commit to living and training at altitude, not just for 3-4 weeks, but for extended periods lasting months and years.
The dullards and deniers here think that because it is difficult to know where a line can be drawn between a doped and a clean performance that doping hasn't overtaken the sport. It has. It is easy to dope. It is difficult to get caught - unless one is careless or dumb. The incentive to dope is always there - and at virtually any level, as we see in both college and senior sport.
Just pointing this out. EPO hit the scene and the world record went from 2:09 to 2:01 in a matter of 20 years. Yet we are supposed to think these athletes are just getting better by magic.
But as Rekrunner often points out, marathon times in Outer Mongolia and Antartica did not improve so rapidly during the EPO era, therefore peds have no effect on performance and the only explanation is that Kenyans are an off shoot of homo sapiens with no sense of time. So unless you were born in the Rift Valley, you need to give up athletics and take up table-tennis instead, as you haven't a chance of competing with these natural born running beasts of nature.
Your country is a complete failure in middle/long distance since 30 years and you are not ashamed to recognize that it's an East African that saved the face of your country during 2010 - 2016.
Let your fake heroes David Moorcroft sleep in peace.
But as Rekrunner often points out, marathon times in Outer Mongolia and Antartica did not improve so rapidly during the EPO era, therefore peds have no effect on performance and the only explanation is that Kenyans are an off shoot of homo sapiens with no sense of time. So unless you were born in the Rift Valley, you need to give up athletics and take up table-tennis instead, as you haven't a chance of competing with these natural born running beasts of nature.
The best source of what "rekrunner" points out are posts written by me. Among the worst are posts written by "Coevett".
What I will point out in this 3-year old thread which was bumped:
This whole thread is misguided, by attempting to create a false dichotomy between genetics and doping, and ignoring other factors, like environmental.
"Borderline" is a little confused about marathon history, as when EPO hit the scene, the marathon record didn't move until 1998. It moved a little further with Paul Tergat by 2005 (with a time still unmatched today by any non-African), and a little further again with Haile Gebrselassie by 2008, who showed us what he could still do in the marathon, at the end of a long 17-year career at the top. It was only when younger athletes started skipping the track and going to the marathon fresh in their careers, that this record started dropping significantly, followed again by the introduction of carbon-fiber plated, thickly-soled shoes.
I never looked at Antarctica, nor athletes from outer-Mongolia specifically. I looked at all performances worldwide spanning more than three decades, including the entirety of the EPO-era from a fairly complete dataset. Between 1990 and 2018, I found 9 non-Africans faster than Steve Jones and Carlos Lopes of 2:07:12/13. I also found only 6 North Africans faster, and 3 South Africans faster. If these are clean performances, that means the best EPO performances among these selected groups worldwide over nearly three decades are slower. But presumably, these performances are the upper limit of what EPO could do for most of the world, for three decades, outside of East Africa. The best of the non-Africans then was about 1 minute faster (Brazilian Ronald De Costa from 1998), and North Africans were about 30-40 seconds faster by 2009. Since my look at performances in 2018, the Japanese have pushed this best another 30+ seconds, with Kengo Suzuki running 2:04:56, about 36 years after Jones/Lopes, and about 2 minutes faster, and still 1 second slower than Paul Tergat.
One possibility is that, despite the strong belief as a powerful endurance drug, EPO and blood doping simply wasn't used, with a few rare exceptions, for three decades, across 5-continents, and North and South Africa.
But if you asked me, athletes like Ryan Hall, Sondre Moen, and the Robertson Twins indicate that clean non-East Africans can still do much better than they have, if they can commit to living and training at altitude, not just for 3-4 weeks, but for extended periods lasting months and years.
Word salad. But still your attempt to make doping effectively disappear - like magic.
But as Rekrunner often points out, marathon times in Outer Mongolia and Antartica did not improve so rapidly during the EPO era, therefore peds have no effect on performance and the only explanation is that Kenyans are an off shoot of homo sapiens with no sense of time. So unless you were born in the Rift Valley, you need to give up athletics and take up table-tennis instead, as you haven't a chance of competing with these natural born running beasts of nature.
Your country is a complete failure in middle/long distance since 30 years and you are not ashamed to recognize that it's an East African that saved the face of your country during 2010 - 2016.
Let your fake heroes David Moorcroft sleep in peace.
N African running has been no cleaner than the former E Bloc.
I don't see how the doping cases kenya question the genetic superiority of east africans for runnning.
If their dominance was only due to doping, how do you explain that all other nations in the world combined, (that's like 95% of total human population), can't compete despite having case of doping themselves. Let's say there is a doping culture in Kenya more than everywhere else. Still all the dopers in the world combined is probably a way larger number than kenyan dopers or even east africans dopers. But if you do east africa vs rest of the world in an all dopers contest, they still win everything from 3000m to marathon everytime. And often 800-1500 also.
So what are your explainations? Is doping more sophisticated there? I doubt it.
Also why would only this region of africa be affected by this doping that make them so superior? Why would dirty coachs, agents and scientist not go in other countries in africa that have the same incentives to win money through running, to provide runners with PEDs and have the same success? Why dozens of nigerians would't run 2:06 or faster? Still nothing to do with morphology, altitude, genetics, culture etc?
Sure of lot of them are doping. Now many get caughts, it's not like it's a big suprise. What does it change? Probably we can say they steal money in subelite races by cheating vs non dopers. But in majors races and championships, you think all other competitors from everywhere but east Africa are clean? I bet 90% or more medalists are doper, wherever they come from.