El G, Lagat, and our sports "Tour de France" era

I really doubt the contractual incentive to break his existing british records are in the same stratosphere as a WR.

There is a huge difference between 3:26.0 and Kiprop's 3:28.8. You could get Kiprops run down to 3:28 low with evened out splits, but that's still more than 2 Secs or about 16m slower than EL G. None of the records from 1000 up to 10000 are under any kind of threat at the moment, except the 3000SC.

Kiprop is 23 and his PR is 3:28.88.

When El G was 23, his PR was 3:28.91.

He dropped it to 3:26.00 the next year.

Kiprop has fantastic 800m speed.

Can't rule anything out.

Another way to look at it is:

If El G and Kiprop were on the exact same drug program, the difference in their PR's would be talent level and determination.

I don't think 800 speed is exactly equal to talent level at 1500 but it helps.

We do know that El G would line up races and really make a concerted effort in most cases to push his races.

Kiprop has not shown the same killer instinct but he has stepped it up a bit.

If I were on the same drug program alleged here, I would not be under 3:30.

Jackie D. wrote:

Oh I think Kiprop could come close to 3:26. The day of WR attempts in distance -- besides Rudisha -- is over for some reason. But he ran 3:28 and made it look fairly easy. Farah is too far off 12:37, but Gebremeskel (12:46) might be able to get close, if he were going all out from the gun w/2-3 rabbits. So I don't think they're that far off, maybe just a little lazy and they don't want to try and fail. Seems like a big $$ incentive though, so I don't get it. Who knows, Rupp could be challenging the 5k/10k records if he keeps improving for the next 4 years.

World record pacemaking is hard to come by compared to ten or fifteen years ago. There has been a shift from prize and performance money to contracts and appearance fees as largest expenditures in the sport. That means it's harder to pay for the kind of talent you need to pace someone to a world record.

For example, you have someone in shape to break 12:40 and challenge the world record. You want them to go through 3000m in around 7:34-5 on even laps. You need one pacemaker to run 3:45 for 1500m from the front, unassisted, on even laps, which means they're probably good for 3:40 (or better) and would likely prefer to be racing in the 1500m, so that's some decent amount of money to pay him to do this pacemaking job and not race.

Then, you need a second pacemaker that can take over after four laps, and keep running 60.5 laps through 3000m. Think of the ability it takes to run 7:34 and then think what it takes to do that on an even pace, without kicking, leading the whole second half of the distance. You likely need someone who is capable of running close to or inside 7:30 under more favourable conditions, and anyone good enough to run 7:30 is good enough to be in this 5000m race on his own merits. So for this fellow to miss this great opportunity to run fast and maybe qualify himself for a team, you are going to have to pay quite a bit (instead of having him run for free as another 5000m entrant). And then this one who is actually going for the world record surely has some credentials of his own, meaning he's going to want something upfront.

Let's assume you have Joe Kenyan who has run 7:30 and 13:00, and you want him to be your second pacemaker. But Joe Kenyan thinks he's in shape to run a big personal best and put himself in contention for a spot on the Kenyan team for the world championships. What are you going to have to pay him to give up that chance?

But the Men's 5000m isn't your only event. You've got ten other events that you're going to want some crowd drawing names for, and all those are going to cost to bring in.

This is the shift seen from the beginning of the open era, when the athletes at the top made most of their earnings from prize money, to now, when most of the earnings for those at the top come from endorsements and appearance money (and by top, I mean top of the earning pile).

Tirunesh Dibaba ran 14:11 in Oslo because they got Alminova (a 4:20 miler at the time) to take her through the first five laps in 5:43, and then Ejegayehu Dibaba paced her sister through 3000m in 8:38. But not many of these potential world record holders have such talented siblings willing to do them a favor, so to get really world record class pacemaking, you're going to need to spend a lot and hope it all works out.

Fundamental wrote:

the braces in his 30's when there seemed to be nothing wrong with his teeth

Maybe you didn't notice

I loved the Simmons article. Check out the pod with Klostermen.

I think one of the difficulties of being a fan of running is that nearly every fan of the sport is also either an active participant or past participant. As someone who still goes out there and grinds out 5:00 mile repeats, it blows my mind when a marathon is done FAR below that pace. When I see Rudishia running the times he does, it blows my mind having run a bit under 15 seconds slower at the same distance and collapsing afterward. Being a human, my natural reaction is to say that these people are getting some help from a bottle.

Looking at the issue objectively, list all the factors that went into the steep increase in performance that we saw during the 90's and early 00's: Dieting, weight training, increase in professional contracts, and of course drugs. Making an model on how each contributed to the lowering of records in different events, I would have to say the two that stand out are the increase in professional contracts (and the size of those contracts) and drugs. The two are related. When prize money goes up and shoe deals get bigger, people cheat to get their hands on that money. Looking at a model, I think that the testers are a lot closer to the cheats than they were in the 90's. Also, Toro made a great point about the lack of interest in WR.

In sum, dieting, contracts, personal training, science etc is still getting better (with diminishing marginal returns) but the improvements due to drugs has been dramatically curbed. That is why 12:50 is the new 12:40. I bet in another 10 years, we begin to challenge 90's records, but because all the other factors increased and the drugs will be held somewhat constant.

If the 12:50 is the new 12:40 because of better testing of drugs, why is 1:41 the new 1:43 and 2:04 the new 2:06?

The strongest statistical argument for the prevalence of drug use among the world record setters is not that the performances changed following the introduction of drugs (or testing procedures), although it is a strong argument.

The strongest statistical argument is that, if drugs work and testing does not (which has been proven by the "world's most tested athletes"), the best performances on drugs will be better than the best performances without drugs by some margin. If the improvement is greater than the minimum difference between individual athletes, it follows that the best performances overall are achieved on drugs.*

*under a few further assumptions that can be assumed to be true for the sake of simplicity.

the marathon times are prob explained by ooc doping in kenya/ethiopia

where the hell have all the komens ,bekeles,guerroujs,gebs,

,ngenys gone then

there should be plenty of them rolling off the east african production line

i know why the moroccans are gone-they're all dopers

every one of them

Dark Nite wrote:

but the improvements due to drugs has been dramatically curbed. That is why 12:50 is the new 12:40.

But 6 men ran under 12:50 just last year. That has never happened in history.

The next best was 3 men under 12:50 in a year.

There have been only 3 ever sub 12:40's and they came in 3 different years.

If you had a year in the 90's where 6 men went under 12:40 you'd have a better point.

I think depth has increased possibly due to more drug use.

And the top guys just can't run away from the pack like before.

So this drug era was during the "90's/early 2000s".

And runners have supposedly slowed down.

Here is a list by year of the number of men that ran sub 13 for 5000m in each year:

(hopefully it formats well)

Year Number if sub 13 runners

1987 1

1994 1

1995 4

1996 10

1997 8

1998 7

1999 10

2000 12

2001 6

2002 7

2003 13

2004 11

2005 17

2006 19

2007 8

2008 6

2009 15

2010 17

2011 13

2012 16

finfer wrote:

"evidence" against el g:

--WRs that haven't been approached

--was the best in a notorious era

--many countrymen busted

--superhuman recovery

--trained in relative isolation, surrounded by his contingency

--retired (rather) abruptly

--a physiognomy indicative of HGH use (his face)

--the prize of the Prince (well-protected)

What I believe:

Yes, El G had EPO coursing through his veins. I don't consider what he did immoral. He wasn't stealing money from anybody because all the best were on something anyway. Those who weren't, wouldn't have been all that good even with the juice.

We've come too far to not approach 3:26. Nobody takes a shot because everybody knows there isn't a chance. It's simpler than we're making it. Maybe if we all pressed WADA to retrotest his samples...

hahaha that would never work!

You've used "contingency" incorrectly here. Did you mean "constituents"?

uh oh, you and you hard #'s are going to get in the way of the "those damn africans were all cheating, and that's why they were so fast argument." Please refrain from disappointing the racists. They make a lot of posts here, and bring us a lot of ad $.

Sincerely,

Your Friends at LetsRun

I meant "contingent" as in a group of people united by a common feature