zxcvzcxv wrote:
A lot of these Diamond League races in Paris and Monaco have been real headscratchers and this was no exception. There must be a combination of newly effective 800m track spikes and drugs because we've never seen this kind of onslaught of numerous men and women from numerous countries improving this rapidly in such a short time.
I'm not going to disagree with your point that "something is up" with the 800 because it has definitely been taken up a huge notch this year but I think the talk of spikes is very tired at this point. In the other threads on this topic there's always a mention of the shoes and track surface but these are just treated as a blanket statement and sort of waved away without any deeper looks. Sedjati has run his two fastest times in a pair of Dragonflys that you can buy on Running Warehouse right now for like $80 on discount! These spikes have been around since 2020 and I don't believe the track surface is any better now than it was in the previous seasons where many of these guys were in the 1:43/44s.
I think the doping talk is also somewhat lazy but I at least get it. Just saying that the 800 is run so much faster now because of "doping" doesn't really open up an interesting conversation. There has always been doping in track and field. Did this crop of athletes not feel it was necessary to dope for previous championships? Did they finally get their timing/cocktail right this season? I'm not sure and I don't think anyone can be sure because that information, if it's even out there, would be kept closely guarded so I don't think there's a whole lot to talk about other than people agreeing that things are "suspicious." The only thing I can say for certain is that the spikes/track are NOT a factor in this improvement because they aren't a changed variable from previous seasons. The only thing I can think of as a confirmed answer is that people have raised their game for the Olympics and the rising tide has raised all ships. I'm not sure how much "game raising" is within WADA compliance but, again, I don't think we are supposed to know that from the outside.