They get optimal result because they were gifted from their first days of birth.
I'm not going to talk about Ingerbrigsten, who I heard run 185 Km by week (?).
Is he able to replicate two or three top results by season?
This not the case of someone like El Bakkali.
Morceli definitely not the ideal body shape. What he did have is tons of EPO. Needs to be more muscular for 1500. El G was and as a result was better. Lagat was too. Jakob seems to have everything. Great build and the height, and I believe he is the most gifted runner of all time. Supreme genetics. Add to that that the Nordics have immense endurance due to incredibly difficult winter conditions he should easily be the best of all time.
I don't see any reason why Jakob can't run somewhere in the 3.26.high to 3.27.mid range and that is what I think we will see happen.
I think when it comes to WR it gets tough because there is little doubt in my mind the 3 human beings that have run under 3.27 so far in history are highly dubious to say the least (1 caught and suspended, 1 caught and let off on a technicality and 1 who was dominant at the top of the sport during an era where a certain endurance boosting drug was undetectable and rampant in use across not just track and field but other endurance sports such as cycling, certain winter sports etc).
So given that Jakob is clean (I will give the benefit of the doubt he is), it's very hard - even with improvements in footwear and pacemaking, to imagine he could overcome the other "performance enhancers" we know have existed in the past.
But I do think as one of the most talented middle distance runners we have ever seen that he can dip under 3.27, but into the 25's I would highly doubt it. Just an opinion.
I don't see any reason why Jakob can't run somewhere in the 3.26.high to 3.27.mid range and that is what I think we will see happen.
I think when it comes to WR it gets tough because there is little doubt in my mind the 3 human beings that have run under 3.27 so far in history are highly dubious to say the least (1 caught and suspended, 1 caught and let off on a technicality and 1 who was dominant at the top of the sport during an era where a certain endurance boosting drug was undetectable and rampant in use across not just track and field but other endurance sports such as cycling, certain winter sports etc).
So given that Jakob is clean (I will give the benefit of the doubt he is), it's very hard - even with improvements in footwear and pacemaking, to imagine he could overcome the other "performance enhancers" we know have existed in the past.
But I do think as one of the most talented middle distance runners we have ever seen that he can dip under 3.27, but into the 25's I would highly doubt it. Just an opinion.
But I do think as one of the most talented middle distance runners we have ever seen that he can dip under 3.27, but into the 25's I would highly doubt it. Just an opinion.
Not a bad opinion. 3:25.9 would see an even-split race out in 2:17 - 2:45, followed up with a 40-point. That's as tall an order as any. Probably not gonna happen that way. The easier way, if there is such a thing, is to get someone out there in 2:43, draft in 2:44 then hold on for life as the lactate hits down the backstretch and into the turn.
They get optimal result because they were gifted from their first days of birth.
I'm not going to talk about Ingerbrigsten, who I heard run 185 Km by week (?).
Is he able to replicate two or three top results by season?
This not the case of someone like El Bakkali.
Morceli definitely not the ideal body shape. What he did have is tons of EPO. Needs to be more muscular for 1500. El G was and as a result was better. Lagat was too. Jakob seems to have everything. Great build and the height, and I believe he is the most gifted runner of all time. Supreme genetics. Add to that that the Nordics have immense endurance due to incredibly difficult winter conditions he should easily be the best of all time.
This is absolutely true. Remember when Kiprop was number 1 and everybody was certain we had seen the perfect 1500m phenotype? Yeah, but only if you are EPOed out of your brain.
Crammy was probably the perfect body type for 1500m, for somebody who is not juiced to the max.
If you dont understand the difference between being in a field of top athletes that`s competing with their own tactics, and a race where you in most of the race can stay right behind a rabbit that is running as you want them too - then I cant help you. And he was no doubt in 3.27.5 conditions under the olympics: His time was 3.28.32 BUT 2 rounds of qualifying same week - cost him half a second. Slowing down last 30 meters when he knew he would win - cost him 0.3 seconds. Having to run wide past the field in the first turn: 0.2 seconds.
But in comparing Jakob's 3:28.32 Olympic win with previous generations, the very even pace and drafting he received, combined with the new 'super spikes' and the fastest track ever used for an athletics meet (the words of the Mondo designer himself), more than negated the effects of running 2 rounds and easing up in the last 30m. He probably benefitted by between 2 and 3 seconds for the track and spikes alone.
Crammy was probably the perfect body type for 1500m, for somebody who is not juiced to the max...
...and ranks Hicham El Guerrouj as the greatest 1500m runner in history.
Is that true though? Has he said that recently? He may well have given Morceli and El G the benefit of the doubt when it came to doping, but Ramzi surely opened his eyes.
Steve Cram is also a paid commentator for the BBC, and it would probably finish his career if he accused El G of having doped. No doubt the facts say that El G is the greatest, and to deny it (as I do) you are accusing him of doping even if you don't actually say it.
In any case, El G was juiced to the gills. Cram has stated that he didn't even pay attention to what he was having for breakfast (i.e. not paying any attention to nutrition), let alone being fed the latest PEDs by a scientific team as El G was. Yet he ran 1:42, 3:29, and 3:46 that could probably have been 3:44, in a brief spell when he wasn't suffering calf problems and could train for an extended period uninterrupted. Imagine if he had had El G's peds, as well as good luck with injuries (and of course El G's peds helped him with that too).
In any case, El G was juiced to the gills. Cram has stated that he didn't even pay attention to what he was having for breakfast (i.e. not paying any attention to nutrition), let alone being fed the latest PEDs by a scientific team as El G was. Yet he ran 1:42, 3:29, and 3:46 that could probably have been 3:44, in a brief spell when he wasn't suffering calf problems and could train for an extended period uninterrupted. Imagine if he had had El G's peds, as well as good luck with injuries (and of course El G's peds helped him with that too).
Something like that, yes. Less absurd than the times of, for example, Marita Koch. Actually, if you put an athlete of the talent of Coe, Cram, Ovett, or Jim Ryun, or Snell or Herb Elliott, on the same program that El G was on since 16 years old, on modern tracks, pacing, competition, shoes etc, probably you would get something ridiculous such as 1:38/3:20. El G himself would probably have run 3:23/4 just with the new shoes.
But of course, it's established scientific fact here that an athlete running under 3:25 would self-combust before the finishing line, a bit like Roger Bannister was predicted to do if he was on course to run a sub 4 minute mile.
PS, not sure where the idea came from that I think Kenyans are dopers because they are running fast times. I think Kenyans are dopers because over 150+ doping busts despite abysmal testing (until very recently), documented wide scale availability of EPO in high street pharmacies, documented corruption at every level of Kenyan athletics (Riotich all the way down to the tea money bribes) etc. etc.
As for the 'reductio ad absurdum' logic, presumably you mean that if Crammy or Coe or Ovett could have run sub 3:26 clean, then I'm a racist fool for believing that most or all Africans during the full throttle EPO era were dirty who ran close to 3:26. Not sure at all how that works.