I think what's weird is we've seen the way PEDs impacted both the sprints and distances in the 80s/90s but I don't feel the same thing happened in the 800 (on the men's side, at least). Seb Coe's two world records from 1979 and 1981 were pretty much untouchable except for a prime Joachim Cruz in 1984. We know for a fact that during that time people would've had access to a plethora of anabolics and EPO, yet that still only produced guys in the 1:43s.
I'm not going to say that Coe was 100% clean but you would think that a whole generation of athletes with more advanced doping would be able to run faster than some 5'9" British miler. It wasn't until Kipketer came along that the times really moved forward but, again, it was really just him, while guys stuck around 1:43s and occasional 1:42s. When I checked WA's 800m performance list, 1:43.00 is still the 110th performance of all time. The same ranked performance list on the 1500 side is Cram's 3:29.67 WR from 1985. I'm not sure if the 800 has just been incredibly lucky to have some truly groundbreaking performances from the likes of Coe, Snell, Rudisha, and Kipketer (not to mention a few others who didn't get the WR) or what is going on but the staying power of some of these times, despite more prevalent doping, equipment advancements, and the general progression of training is still staggering to me. I'll reiterate again, Steve Cram's 1985 WR 1500 is 110th on the all time performance list, while Coe's world record 800 set 4 years earlier is still 10th.
A few observations from the all-time list:
65% of the men who ever ran sub-1:43 only did so for one season. 88% of the men who ever ran sub-1:43 only did so for two seasons. The 800 is a young man's game; the median age to run sub-1:43 for the first time is 23. 6 of the 7 guys who ran sub-1:43 for the first time this season are on the old side at 25+. Only Rotich (b. 1989) and Ndururi (b. 1969) ran sub-1:43 for the first time at 25+ and backed it up with another sub-1:43 season. TL;DR Hoppel and co. should enjoy this season while it lasts.
I know that it's more a case of the 800m standards being unfathomably bad for a number of years, but why have the times suddenly improved so markedly? And not just at the top end. There are already more sub 1:45 guys this year than in the entire previous seasons.
Are guys just forcing each other to up their game? The super shoes suddenly working for the 800m? Or something more sinister?
TBH, it reminds me of 83/84 when HGH came out and suddenly so many guys (particularly American based) were running 1:43.
Its called being on performance enhancing drugs, and lots of them. Theyre on cocktails of steroids and EPO ,and its very obvious from looking at their arms,legs,shoulders,and back muscles.
I know that it's more a case of the 800m standards being unfathomably bad for a number of years, but why have the times suddenly improved so markedly? And not just at the top end. There are already more sub 1:45 guys this year than in the entire previous seasons.
Are guys just forcing each other to up their game? The super shoes suddenly working for the 800m? Or something more sinister?
TBH, it reminds me of 83/84 when HGH came out and suddenly so many guys (particularly American based) were running 1:43.
It’s called being on performance enhancing drugs, and lots of them. Theyre on cocktails of steroids and EPO ,and it’s very obvious from looking at their arms,legs,shoulders,and back muscles.
I don’t understand why people deny deny deny.
All the muscles around the androgen receptors are big and very defined, muscles that aren’t required to be big for 800m running, their bodies are as lean as bodybuilders that feel physically sick for weeks in order to hit that bodyfat percentage, and they are splitting roughly 49-52 after being relatively non factor runners until this year. They don’t even look gassed at the end.
I know it’s not fun to think they are all cheating but they are all cheating.
Nigel Amos was on PED when he medaled in Olympics in 2012 but wasn't caught until 2023 and banned. He is 30 years old now. Shows you they have work to do on the testing front.
I disagree. I think he was an age cheat in 2012 but I don't think he was doping.
I think he started doping around 2022 when he suddenly stopped tightening up at the end of races. Go back and watch some of his races right before he was banned. I remember watching it at the time and thinking how great it was that he had stopped straining in the last 100 like that, which was basically his trademark at that point.
My guess: Amos realized his career was on the downturn. Desperate to maintain any of the momentum he still had and hang on for another Olympic cycle, he started doping, and got caught as a result.
Amos's suspension in 2022 was not without foreshadowing. I found the following reports, the first from 2013, and the second from 2015, creating suspicion about Nijel Amos who later was suspended for three years starting in 2022:
