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Conway
Olympic Medalist
Joined: 25 Aug 2001
Posts: 3570
Location: Northen California
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 Posted: Wed Oct 16, 2002 10:08 am Post subject: |
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I just want to hit a couple of issues here ...
On acceptance of "tainted" records ... We have no choice ... The way the current system is there ae many records which "appear" to be tainted ... Yet they sit atop our lists as the defining moments of the sport ...
Coachd I accept all you have to say about how drugs aid in recovery, trianing, etc ... However, most drugs are simply derivatives of items already existing within the body ... The idea with drugs is to enhance them to the point of aiding ... But for every drug (EPO for example) there is a natural method (extended altitude training) ... My point is simply that I view drugs a short cut to human achievment ... I don't believ that drugs can take you where you can't go ... I've seen too many thletes that I know have used drugs and it got them nowhere ... Simply becasue their bodies weren't meant to go there in the first place ...
So in that vein, yes I believe that records, tainted or not, should be used as benchmarks to work towards ... Look at the men's 100 for example ... Ben ran 9.79 tainted ... Took 11 years for it to be equalled non tainted ... But it was achieved ... Mo has run 3 or 4 races equal or superior to that one ... And then this year Montgomery took it that extra .01 ... Sprint coaches had to go back to the drawing board ... BEcome more technical ... Athltes had to train differently ... But 1988 showed what the human body was capable of ... Oldfield skipped past 73 and 74 feet and went straight to 75 feet in the shot put ... Again it took a long time for the rest of the world to catch up ... But it did ...
The Chinese women will be caught ... Just as at one time 3:52 and Kazankina seemed out of reach ... I remember not too long ago when 2:21 seemed like the most awesome marathon for a woman ... 2:20 seemed like science fiction kind of stuff ... Yet in the last year we have blown right through 2:19, 2:18 right on to 2:17 ... And that won't last 18 months !!!
as I stated before, the only record I don't see being bettered is the women's 100 and that is becasue of other outside aid that for whatever reason was improperly measured ... But even FloJo's 200 and Koch's 400 I believe can fall ... Given the right athltes get into the events and recieve the proper training ... Heck Marion could do the 400 record if her heart were in it and she trained properly ... She could get that AND the 200 record !!!
Conway |
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Dan
Chief Pontificator
Joined: 22 Mar 1999
Posts: 9334
Location: Salem, OR
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| Posted: Wed Oct 16, 2002 12:33 pm Post subject: |
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coachd, to borrow a recent phrase of yours, "sorry ___, you're wrong."
| Quote: | | but she is also one of the athletes that pulled a disapearing act after running 29:31... |
Depends on what you mean by a disappearing act. The Chinese athletes never really appeared, per se -- allegedly not being concerned with international competition and focusing instead on their national games -- so there wasn't really much opportunity to "disappear."
| Quote: | | the effects of training with drugs clearly (in the mind of most) gave her an unfair advantage in achieving her later results. |
There isn't much agreement on that topic, so I don't think that position is very supportable. Neither steroids or EPO are thought to have much lasting effect once discontinued, especially EPO (and any other endurance aid).
| Quote: | | How are the banned athletes prior to the 2000 Olympic games seven years old? |
Huh? I said the 2000 group you referred to was 7 years after the fact (1993), meaning you are talking about an entirely different group of athletes. Ma may or may not have changed his system in the years in between. One could easily rationalize that he resorted to drugs to get athletes back to the level his first group had attained. Who knows. All we do know is that the 2000 group tells us nothing with certainty about what the 1993 group did. Lots of top American distance runners used drugs in the 70's and 80's. Does that mean every American distance runner since, especially those with the same coaches, is also using???
| Quote: | | Can I identify her as an athlete within a program that has had people test positive for drugs, has had athletes suddenly become the best in the world and then disappear from the radar, as an athlete who herself has said she was forced to take "potions" and "herbs" as part of her training, as a part of a group that refused to be tested by the Chinese federation...YES. |
Wrong. Several misleading or misguided statements there:
1) As stated above, Wang was not within the "guilty" program you are referring to, so none of the following argument holds true.
2) As Justin has explained regarding emergence and I explained above regarding "disappearance," the only basis for saying the Chinese athletes came out of nowhere and disappeared is because you/we know next to nothing about them. Ignorance is no excuse for accusation.
3) As Conway has said, there is much in nature that we do not understand and that China has put to use for thousands of years. Again, do not confuse ignorace with grounds for accusation...
4) Again, wrong group.
So, unless you can provide some evidence against the actual group in question, the argument holds no water... 
Dan |
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coachd
Water Boy
Joined: 09 Sep 2002
Posts: 72
Location: Out west
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| Posted: Wed Oct 16, 2002 1:26 pm Post subject: |
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I stand corrected...
There is no direct evidence to link the original Ma group with any substantiated drug use. Circumstancial evidence would certainly not do in a court or here. I will continue to beleive that Ma used drugs with his athletes...as opposed to beating them regularly with a stick to get them to work harder or using "secret Chinese recipes" to achieve results...but that is what it will be--my belief.
I agree there is much we do not understand/know about the Chinese system, culture. As DG noted I had an aassistant from China (my only real daily contact with anybody from China for any extended period of time) and she was pretty adamant about what "drugs" we used---she was sure I was giving them to our athletes, becuase her experience in China made her believe this was the way it was done...this alone cannot paint Ma's army or the whole Chinese system---she may have been with one group that regularly used drugs.
Anecdotally and circumstancially I have reason to suspect...objectivelyand scientifically...I'm wrong. |
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