Nutella1 wrote:
Pretty sure this has been pointed out before but drugs alone don't explain her performances (or the performances of the whole group).
Facts are:
1. The results were never replicated outside of China. NOT EVEN CLOSE.
2. Do you really believe the wonder drug that they used was invented by the Chinese and then forgotten for all times? What was this drug? Which drug can increase the performance of female athletes by 20%?
At the end of the day, the track was short. They did 25 laps, but each lap was only 380m or so. A difference that is not visible to the naked eye.
This has been pointed out multiple times on this thread.
Each time, a very large number of holes was poked into it. For instance:
1) The mens' times were fairly normal with regards to their PBs.
In fact, the WINNING time for the MEN's 1500m was 3:48, while the winning time for the women's 1500m was 3:50.
Moreover, the winning times for the other events went as follows:
- Men's 800m - 1:49
- Men's 1500m - 3:48
- Men's 5000m - 13:32
- Men's 10000m - 28:40
- Men's Steeple - 8:24
- Men's 4 x 400m Relay - 3:08
- Women's 800m - 1:55
- Women's 1500m - 3:50
- Women's 3000m - 8:06
- Women's 10000m - 29:31
- Women's 4 x 400m Relay - 3:24
What this comes down to is that the women's times were completely off, and the men's times were completely normal. In fact, there are US high schoolers who have times either similar to or better than the men who performed here.
If the track was indeed short 20m, such a one-sided improvement of performance should not have been possible.
2) The times were technically repeated on a different Chinese track (Shanghai 1997), but ONLY for the 1500m. No other events produced extremely suspicious times. So unless another track happened to be short 20m for only ONE event, it's probably not likely that the track was short.
Beyond this, it's not like the women here are all nobodies who suddenly burst onto the scene.
**Liu Dong (800m winner) was a World Champion in the 1500m in 1993
**Qu Yunxia (1500m winner, 3000m 2nd place) was the 3000m 1993 World Champion and 1992 Olympic Bronze Medalist.
**Wang Junxia (3000m winner, Marathon winner, 10000m winner, 1500m 2nd place) was the 1996 5000m Olympic Champion, 1996 10000m silver medalist, and 1993 10000m World Champion.
**Zhang Lingli (1500m 3rd Place, 3000m 3rd Place, Marathon 3rd Place) was the 1993 3000m World Silver Medalist, and 1993 Marathon World Silver Medalist.
**Zhong Huangdi (10000m 2nd Place) was the 1991 10000m Silver Medalist, 1992 10000m Olympic 4th Place, and 1993 10000m World Silver Medalist,
**Zhang Lirong (10000m 3rd Place) was the 1993 World 3000m Bronze Medalist, and 1993 World Marathon Bronze Medalist.
I mean seriously...look at that lineup. All the Chinese did was take an absolutely world class field of female runners, pump them up with whatever drugs they could get their hands on in an environment in which they wouldn't get caught (China), and ran them all in the same races.
And when I say drugs, I don't mean the EPO microdosing and that sort of nonsense that athletes today use out of competition. I mean they gave them whatever they could find and had them pumped to the max just for these runs. I guarantee that had they been out of China at this time, every one of them would have been caught with some sort of banned substance in their bodies.
I even recall that some of them were acting as pacers for the others JUST to set the records. When you have drugged up world champions pacing other drugged up world champions, it's really not all that miraculous that records
Moreover, all of them had careers that quickly faded after these championships, which is pretty characteristic of overloading on drugs.