I’m done with this sport

I think you'll find you will get a different answer to that question in a week or two, and in 6 months only runners will recall the sub-2 or even care. I'm not saying it isn't an achievement - it is - but the public has ceased to follow the sport and its champions as they once did. Bolt is probably the last athlete that non-track fans would be familiar with. Road runners, no.

Yet Bannister and breaking the 4-minute "barrier" remain an indelible part of 20th century history, that even non-athletic followers were aware of. It captured the public imagination in a way the sub-2 never has.

I enjoy watching it still, but almost every big performance has me questioning the athletes. Recent Marathon performances are especially suspect, but only slightly less so are the track performances (sprints to LD). It is sad, but many, many years of dopers being caught has made fans this way. Knowing that PED users are always ahead of testers casts doubt on everything. It is also likely that PED users are like cockroaches in that you see one and there are 100 more you don't see. Passing tests is not a guarantee of a clean athlete. And even athletes who are technically clean are often using substances to get them right up to the legal limits.

d3, I hope you enjoy watching whatever you decide is a replacement for what was your sport. Groove on those 3-point attempts in the NBA on every shot...home runs on every other at-bat in baseball...halfbacks blowing out their MRIs while their QBs are being evaluated on the sidelines for concussions in pro football, etc.

You're the kind of person who stands at the ocean's edge and, instead of seeing a gorgeous vista, thinks of the doom of a tsunami since it happened in the recent past to add to the misery of other natural disasters on the planet. Or you imagine sharks dying after ingesting one too many plastic bottles, since it is known to have happened in the recent past, and such sadness just adds to the gloom in the oceans.

Don't ever fly commercially, because in the recent past a plane crashed, with horrible loss of life. Why, in fact, TWO commercial airliners crashed into the World Trade Center on the same day! There went the joy of being a human!

Some of us stop to smell the roses. You saw a bee once, so therefore to you a rose bring on feelings of gloom, since bees may lift off of them and sting humans, and even kill humans.

I only have one question: WHAT TOOK YOU SO LONG TO QUIT OUR SPORT? After all, there have always been many reasons for someone like you to grasp onto negativity to support your joyless existence.

Good effin' riddance! Enjoy your miserable life.

Honestly the people killing the sport the most are the cynics who think everyone is doping. If you’re quick to believe every single top athlete is doping and you can’t find a single positive from the sub-2 campaign, then the sport will be much better off without you. Please someone show this person the quickest permanent exit

I think if sub 2 happened back in Bannisters time it would have been just as big.So much as changed in the world over the last 50 years not just in athletics and just about every achievement gets a short attention span from the public nowadays.If the sub 4 minute mile never happened b4 and was finally broken now it wouldn't get as much attention as it did back then

[/quote]

Obviously there are athletes who are doping but where is your proof that the entire sport is saturated with drug use to back your gloom and doom beliefs? Who do you think isn’t doping at the professional level? Examples, please.

How are all of these supposed EPO users getting away with it, when someone like Salazar, who is probably the most well-known coach in the sport and backed by Nike, is getting a 4 year suspension for relatively minor offenses? Your basically implying that they’re willing to drop the hammer on one of the most influential and famous figures in the sport, while letting a basically unknown runner like Kosgei use the hard stuff.[/quote]

___________________

The Salazar suspension was not for a relatively minor offense. They had to bust him on the technicalities of the IV infusion because he's on the cutting edge of doping, and there aren't yet other rules to which he can be held accountable. The l-carnitine business is like discovering the benefits of EPO before it became a banned substance. The hard stuff/soft stuff dichotomy is nonsense. EPO works, l-carnitine infusions apparently work, as does microdosing the usual stuff. People get away with doping when they can avoid testing, and when they have the money and power to work around the system. Marion Jones never tested positive. Neither did Lance. The only reason we know about Salazar is because of whistleblowers.

To your point about the entire sport being saturated with drug use: a study published in 2017 based on surveys of athletes at the world championships in Dageau 2011 estimated a doping prevalence of 43.6%. Do we need to list the many Kenyan runners who dominated for years before being busted? How about Jama Aden's athletes who have still not been busted?

Now we have doped athletes bouncing down the street in dope shoes. And to make matters worse, we get to watch pared down versions of those shoes make their way into national, regional, and local running scenes. Why do you think over 400 women in the US have qualified for the 2020 marathon trials? It was 205 in 2016. Maybe because 2:50 runners are running sub 2:45 in the vaporfly.

Chess, archery, bowling, the shoot-at-the-flying-disk-sport, golf

Sub2 tower of babel wrote:

I am outraged with the sub2 event. It is disgusting and humiliating for the sport. The shoes have taken a 2:03+ marathoner (with 2016 technology) and turned him instantly into a sub 2 runner with no fitness improvements.

I agree with the OP on all points.

Truth. Nothing illegal, but not in the spirit of the sport.

You make some good points about some of the negative issues surrounding the sport but I'd argue that you don't need to be disenfranchised with running itself to dislike aspects of running culture. I am a paid collegiate cross country/ track coach and I do not follow a lick of professional running, I could honestly care less about it. I got into coaching not because I'm some big running nerd, but because running has helped my life immensely and I believe that it is powerful enough to help the lives of others. There is something amazing about finding your type of motion and running has such a serene quality to it. Also the competitive aspect does not allow people to merely rest on their laurels or play it safe because once that gun goes off there's nowhere to hide. Enjoy running for what it means to you and don't worry about all the noise.

Testosterone, EPO, GH improve recovery, so an 82 game season is possible[/quote]

O.K.......so let their testing begin.........you'll see more recreational marijuana rather than performance

enhancing stuff.......

Different era wrote:

I think if sub 2 happened back in Bannisters time it would have been just as big.So much as changed in the world over the last 50 years not just in athletics and just about every achievement gets a short attention span from the public nowadays.If the sub 4 minute mile never happened b4 and was finally broken now it wouldn't get as much attention as it did back then

The sub-2 would have been big in Bannister's day - but physically impossible. Doping had yet to become a force in sport in that era. In the decades since Bannister et al, athletics has increasingly become a chemical freak show, and no longer inspires a world outside the sport as it did in the amateur era. Its fans are now largely confined to runners, and competition from other professional sports is increasingly pushing it into irrelevance.

mountainmadness23 wrote:

Runningart2004 wrote:

Name me a professional sport with no doping at the top?

Alan

Chess, archery, bowling, the shoot-at-the-flying-disk-sport, golf

Nope. You'll find doping in all of them. A chess player was recently busted.

There is a ZERO percent chance that you post/comment regularly here on LRC AND are not a huge running nerd/fan.

Another issue: ruining the sport.

Runners saying that they are going for a world record or national record before the race. When did this start?

I can't stand it . Even if it is Bekele or KIpchoge. But didn't Hasay , for instance , talk about going after the US record in Chicago.

You’re the kind of person who spends 15 minutes writing and message board post to criticize someone else for being negative with out the slightest awareness of the irony.

Wrong. Sports were used as a competitive training method for warriors during times of peace.

Therefore doing whatever it tales to win without permanently injuring your opponent is acceptable.

[quote]Co-Flounder wrote:

Wrong. Sports were used as a competitive training method for warriors during times of peace.

Not so for the American revolutionary army.......

they were busy farming when not in battles.

d3

Don't let professional sports with all their problems ruin your fun with running.

The question was about the original purpose of sports. But thanks for playing.