Thread to discuss Pan American 5000m champ Laura Esther Galvan Rodriguez's crazy improvement

This story is ridiculous. Setting her fairly mediocre personal bests aside, she still ran a PB and national record yesterday and then burst away from two Olympic athletes 45 minutes later in the 5000m.

Who in the sport can produce this type of effort, let alone naturally and with extremely limited racing?

There is something very fishy going on in Guanjuato.

YMMV wrote:

mexican beef its whats for dinner wrote:

Mexican beef is tainted with clenbuterol.

I think she just skipped the beef part entirely.

Seems like it, lol.

Latinx wrote:

This story is ridiculous. Setting her fairly mediocre personal bests aside, she still ran a PB and national record yesterday and then burst away from two Olympic athletes 45 minutes later in the 5000m.

Who in the sport can produce this type of effort, let alone naturally and with extremely limited racing?

There is something very fishy going on in Guanjuato.

This is correct. No athlete can have those sorts of results with only 45 minutes in between without some sort of cheating. No racing for 3 years? Come on. This simply doesn't happen. How many athletes would even earnestly attempt a PB in the 1500 and then go on to win the 5000 in that time span? It's not something that athletes seriously consider.

She was great in high school (16:30 for 5k), got worse/under-achieved in college, hobby jogged awhile, got serious for a year, and then beat an Olympian in a slow, tactical, (relatively) meaningless race.

If Lukas Verzbicas came back next year and ran 3:55 in a mile beating Robby Andrews and Ben Blankenship, I wouldn't be surprised and I wouldn't think he was on drugs.

Porkie wrote:

Her Mom's home cooking?

By any chance you mean like a "secret sauce" ; ) ; )

Who's her coach now?

Phil Fondacaro wrote:

She was great in high school (16:30 for 5k), got worse/under-achieved in college, hobby jogged awhile, got serious for a year, and then beat an Olympian in a slow, tactical, (relatively) meaningless race.

If Lukas Verzbicas came back next year and ran 3:55 in a mile beating Robby Andrews and Ben Blankenship, I wouldn't be surprised and I wouldn't think he was on drugs.

If Lukas ran an AR in the 1500m and then came back and beat Hassan Snead and Justyn Knight 45 min later in the 5000m would you think he was on drugs?

That’s the equivalent of what Galvan just did.

Perspectiva wrote:

Phil Fondacaro wrote:

She was great in high school (16:30 for 5k), got worse/under-achieved in college, hobby jogged awhile, got serious for a year, and then beat an Olympian in a slow, tactical, (relatively) meaningless race.

If Lukas Verzbicas came back next year and ran 3:55 in a mile beating Robby Andrews and Ben Blankenship, I wouldn't be surprised and I wouldn't think he was on drugs.

If Lukas ran an AR in the 1500m and then came back and beat Hassan Snead and Justyn Knight 45 min later in the 5000m would you think he was on drugs?

That’s the equivalent of what Galvan just did.

That's not the equivalent, that's a much greater feat. Why would it be an AR? This girl ran a Mexican national record, not an AR which would be about 15 seconds faster. If Lukas ran a 3:40, which is about the equivalent of a 4:10 womens 1500 and then came back to go 13:50 and win the 5k (winning time was 13:53), I would be very impressed, but I wouldn't be convinced he was on drugs.

thoroughrice wrote:

Perspectiva wrote:

If Lukas ran an AR in the 1500m and then came back and beat Hassan Snead and Justyn Knight 45 min later in the 5000m would you think he was on drugs?

That’s the equivalent of what Galvan just did.

That's not the equivalent, that's a much greater feat. Why would it be an AR? This girl ran a Mexican national record, not an AR which would be about 15 seconds faster. If Lukas ran a 3:40, which is about the equivalent of a 4:10 womens 1500 and then came back to go 13:50 and win the 5k (winning time was 13:53), I would be very impressed, but I wouldn't be convinced he was on drugs.

The difference is that Verzbicas was one of the best high school runners of all time. Does that describe Galvan? No it doesn't. In any case it's always going to look suspicious when you have no results for years and win at a meet like this, especially the way it happened here.

Phil Fondacaro wrote:

She was great in high school (16:30 for 5k), got worse/under-achieved in college, hobby jogged awhile, got serious for a year, and then beat an Olympian in a slow, tactical, (relatively) meaningless race.

If Lukas Verzbicas came back next year and ran 3:55 in a mile beating Robby Andrews and Ben Blankenship, I wouldn't be surprised and I wouldn't think he was on drugs.

What if 45 minutes later, he came back to run 13:25 and outkick butchart and mead?