No, they don't. Talent has always been in the sport and the difference between the best athletes is fractional. Outliers today are dopers.
All of humanity can be graded on a bell curve. To claim this is an impossibility is not logical.
A Bell curve is not a measure that will apply to everything. Not all forms of human activity or accomplishment follow a predictable pattern. The fact is that in highly competitive sports the differences between the athletes at the top now are very small. That is why a single tactical mistake or error in execution at that level can cost a race. But a 16 year-old running a sprint equal to the best in the world is simply too good to be true. When we see outliers in doped sports we are seeing doping.
All of humanity can be graded on a bell curve. To claim this is an impossibility is not logical.
A Bell curve is not a measure that will apply to everything. Not all forms of human activity or accomplishment follow a predictable pattern. The fact is that in highly competitive sports the differences between the athletes at the top now are very small. That is why a single tactical mistake or error in execution at that level can cost a race. But a 16 year-old running a sprint equal to the best in the world is simply too good to be true. When we see outliers in doped sports we are seeing doping.
If you really think this way..I do not know how you even watch the sport. I am being serious, not sniping. The notion that Lee Evans could run 43.86 even at altitude which helped at that distance , and it is 56 years later? Guys should have been running sub 44.00 with more frequency within 30 years of that certainly by 56 years.Athletes in every sport are exponentially better overall than even 20 years ago..only in T and F do we hear the cries of improvement smacks of drug use. Is there a bunch? Probably..as wide spread as you say? No way.. I have watched this sport since I was 15 that's 51 years plus, and honestly consider myself a pretty solid evaluator and objective critic of the sport...your level of cynicism? I think is way over stated.