In your bleating about "proof" you have no idea what is probable based on the previous level of the athlete, the unexplained jump in her performances at a late stage in her career and the setting of records that have been out of reach ever since to even the best doped athletes in the sport. No one outside her fanatic fan base (which is what "fan" stands for here) thinks she was clean.
Just because she smashed world records, that doesn’t mean she took drugs.
But a runner who went from being a good athlete to the greatest female sprinter in history in a matter of months in her late twenties is more likely to be doping than not.
C'mon, it's not like FloJo was the only woman to ever make a sudden huge improvement in her late 20's. Jarmila Kratochvilova also made a sudden huge improvement in her late 20's and then went on to set world records in the 400 and 800. And do you really think that Jarmila Kratochvilova was on drugs? You do? OK, good point. Yep, FloJo and Kratochvilova were both on drugs.
In your bleating about "proof" you have no idea what is probable based on the previous level of the athlete, the unexplained jump in her performances at a late stage in her career and the setting of records that have been out of reach ever since to even the best doped athletes in the sport. No one outside her fanatic fan base (which is what "fan" stands for here) thinks she was clean.
Proof and probability are different things. You have no proof. You would never be able to get a guilty verdict in court merely based on her improvement and your speculation.
In your bleating about "proof" you have no idea what is probable based on the previous level of the athlete, the unexplained jump in her performances at a late stage in her career and the setting of records that have been out of reach ever since to even the best doped athletes in the sport. No one outside her fanatic fan base (which is what "fan" stands for here) thinks she was clean.
Proof and probability are different things. You have no proof. You would never be able to get a guilty verdict in court merely based on her improvement and your speculation.
But people with a working brain know that women don't magically go from being good sprinters to being the best in history in just a few months in their late 20's.
Was hoping this would be a tribute thread to great a sprinter - doper or not.
If anyone has any anecdotes or stories about her it would be great to hear????
At her peak her running form was a sight to behold.
Yep. She reminded me of Ben Johnson. Except he got caught.
The conspiracy theory is the Joyner did test positive, or that authorities had some sort of strong evidence of her drug use. Instead of formally sanctioning her, making her the second gold medalist testing positive and putting the viability of the Olympics in jeopardy, the authorities simply approached her in private and told her to retire.
I happen to believe this theory. Her retirement makes no sense otherwise. She walked away from tens of millions of dollars, as one of the most famous athletes on earth. The athletic world was at her feet. She was in her absolute prime. She left all that for no discernible reason.
First SAFP and now that Shericka Jackson is approaching 30 she is faster than ever. How do they not only hold off decline, but actually improve their speed? Quite dramatically. In Shericka's case from a 22.70 SB at age 26 to now running 21.41 at age 29. SAFP has run her fastest times after the age of 33. If Shericka keeps getting faster after age 30, she will take some world records.
And to this I say, are you sure, 100% sure that they have never used any performance enhancing drugs. I mean they've never tested positive either, so why give them the benefit of the doubt and not Flo Jo?
First SAFP and now that Shericka Jackson is approaching 30 she is faster than ever. How do they not only hold off decline, but actually improve their speed? Quite dramatically. In Shericka's case from a 22.70 SB at age 26 to now running 21.41 at age 29. SAFP has run her fastest times after the age of 33. If Shericka keeps getting faster after age 30, she will take some world records.
And to this I say, are you sure, 100% sure that they have never used any performance enhancing drugs. I mean they've never tested positive either, so why give them the benefit of the doubt and not Flo Jo?
Who says that I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt?
Yep. She reminded me of Ben Johnson. Except he got caught.
The conspiracy theory is the Joyner did test positive, or that authorities had some sort of strong evidence of her drug use. Instead of formally sanctioning her, making her the second gold medalist testing positive and putting the viability of the Olympics in jeopardy, the authorities simply approached her in private and told her to retire.
I happen to believe this theory. Her retirement makes no sense otherwise. She walked away from tens of millions of dollars, as one of the most famous athletes on earth. The athletic world was at her feet. She was in her absolute prime. She left all that for no discernible reason.
Your theory of why FloJo retired in early 1989 doesn't make sense. Here's why.
Out of competition drug testing start in 1989. The entire drug testing evasion strategy of literally all drugged track and field athletes up until the end of 1988 was to a) Stop competing for awhile. b) Take lots of drugs. c) Wait a few weeks for the drugs to leave your system. d) Compete again.
With out of competition drug testing starting in 1989, no one, including FloJo, could use the drug testing avoidance system that they had been using up until then. So they no longer had a way to avoid drug tests. That's why performances dropped so drastically from 1988 to 1989 in all events, especially for women. Because their only option in early 1989 was to retire or stop using drugs.
FloJo didn't want to keep on competing without drugs in 1989, because then her times would have gone back to her 1987 times, and everyone would have realized that she had been using drugs in 1988 but suddenly stopped as soon as out of competition drug tested started. So FloJo's better option was to retire, and claim that she was too busy with all her endorsements to continue training, which is the exact excuse she gave for retiring in February 1989.
You claim that by retiring FloJo "walked away from tens of millions of dollars." But it's actually the exact opposite. Had she kept competing she would have been exposed and lost many of her endorsements. So she actually HAD to retire in order to keep her endorsements. And she did make millions of dollars from those endorsements, so it worked out well for her financially.
The theory that FloJo tested positive at the Olympics, and was forced to retire in exchange for not being outed as a drug user doesn't make sense, and here's why.
Do you know how many track and field athletes at those Olympics had used one kind of illegal drug or another in 1988? Hundreds of them. For sure all the East Germans, most of the athletes from the other Soviet Bloc countries, and many athletes from other countries as well. Do you know how many of them tested positive at the Olympics? As far as I can remember, only Ben Johnson.
If hundreds of athletes used drugs that year, why did only one get caught at the Olympics? Simple. All you had to do was stop using the drug of your choice a few weeks before the Olympics, let it leave your system, and you wouldn't test positive at the Olympics. You had to be a complete idiot to test positive at the Olympics. Her coach Bobby Kersee may be many things, but he isn't a complete idiot.
So no, it wasn't FloJo being forced to retire by the US or Olympic officials. She simply HAD to retire in the beginning of 1989 in order not to expose herself as a fraud, which is what would have happened when she would have run much slower times in 1989 without the assistance of drugs.
But by retiring in early 1989, and leaving her world record breaking 1988 Olympic Trials and Olympic performances in people's minds all these years as the last thing they remember about her on the track, she succeeded in fooling a lot of non-savvy people for 35 years and counting.
There was another doping thread on Gudaf Tsegay that was just deleted by the mods. Why is Gudaf Tsegay protected but this thread stays up?
There is very good out of competition drug testing now vs non-existent out of competition drug testing in 1988. It's much harder now-a-days to figure out who is on drugs, and who is just benefitting from faster tracks and springier shoes.
But a runner who went from being a good athlete to the greatest female sprinter in history in a matter of months in her late twenties is more likely to be doping than not.
C'mon, it's not like FloJo was the only woman to ever make a sudden huge improvement in her late 20's. Jarmila Kratochvilova also made a sudden huge improvement in her late 20's and then went on to set world records in the 400 and 800. And do you really think that Jarmila Kratochvilova was on drugs? You do? OK, good point. Yep, FloJo and Kratochvilova were both on drugs.
That Flojo was doped isn't an argument that she was the only one. Of course she wasn't. It was of course rife in that era in the E Bloc. That includes Kratochvilova and Koch, and many others.
Proof and probability are different things. You have no proof. You would never be able to get a guilty verdict in court merely based on her improvement and your speculation.
But people with a working brain know that women don't magically go from being good sprinters to being the best in history in just a few months in their late 20's.
He doesn't have a working brain; only blind fan devotion.
The conspiracy theory is the Joyner did test positive, or that authorities had some sort of strong evidence of her drug use. Instead of formally sanctioning her, making her the second gold medalist testing positive and putting the viability of the Olympics in jeopardy, the authorities simply approached her in private and told her to retire.
I happen to believe this theory. Her retirement makes no sense otherwise. She walked away from tens of millions of dollars, as one of the most famous athletes on earth. The athletic world was at her feet. She was in her absolute prime. She left all that for no discernible reason.
Your theory of why FloJo retired in early 1989 doesn't make sense. Here's why.
Out of competition drug testing start in 1989. The entire drug testing evasion strategy of literally all drugged track and field athletes up until the end of 1988 was to a) Stop competing for awhile. b) Take lots of drugs. c) Wait a few weeks for the drugs to leave your system. d) Compete again.
With out of competition drug testing starting in 1989, no one, including FloJo, could use the drug testing avoidance system that they had been using up until then. So they no longer had a way to avoid drug tests. That's why performances dropped so drastically from 1988 to 1989 in all events, especially for women. Because their only option in early 1989 was to retire or stop using drugs.
FloJo didn't want to keep on competing without drugs in 1989, because then her times would have gone back to her 1987 times, and everyone would have realized that she had been using drugs in 1988 but suddenly stopped as soon as out of competition drug tested started. So FloJo's better option was to retire, and claim that she was too busy with all her endorsements to continue training, which is the exact excuse she gave for retiring in February 1989.
You claim that by retiring FloJo "walked away from tens of millions of dollars." But it's actually the exact opposite. Had she kept competing she would have been exposed and lost many of her endorsements. So she actually HAD to retire in order to keep her endorsements. And she did make millions of dollars from those endorsements, so it worked out well for her financially.
The theory that FloJo tested positive at the Olympics, and was forced to retire in exchange for not being outed as a drug user doesn't make sense, and here's why.
Do you know how many track and field athletes at those Olympics had used one kind of illegal drug or another in 1988? Hundreds of them. For sure all the East Germans, most of the athletes from the other Soviet Bloc countries, and many athletes from other countries as well. Do you know how many of them tested positive at the Olympics? As far as I can remember, only Ben Johnson.
If hundreds of athletes used drugs that year, why did only one get caught at the Olympics? Simple. All you had to do was stop using the drug of your choice a few weeks before the Olympics, let it leave your system, and you wouldn't test positive at the Olympics. You had to be a complete idiot to test positive at the Olympics. Her coach Bobby Kersee may be many things, but he isn't a complete idiot.
So no, it wasn't FloJo being forced to retire by the US or Olympic officials. She simply HAD to retire in the beginning of 1989 in order not to expose herself as a fraud, which is what would have happened when she would have run much slower times in 1989 without the assistance of drugs.
But by retiring in early 1989, and leaving her world record breaking 1988 Olympic Trials and Olympic performances in people's minds all these years as the last thing they remember about her on the track, she succeeded in fooling a lot of non-savvy people for 35 years and counting.
You make sense. I agree your explanation is more likely.