World Cross Country

[Chris]

I had an argument with IainR on these forums a long time ago about potential. Iain - and I don't want to unfairly misrepresent him - argued, in effect that the best athletes aren't attracted to distance running but they are playing sports like football and Rugby.

I like IainR. I have never met him but he posts honest views and is good fun to debate things with and has a great deal of knowledge about our sport and other sports. I disagree with nearly everything he says but I still like him.

CL, on the contrary you have little understanding of our sport, especially because he doesn't understand what people are capable of. Dominion knows you don't know what you're on about, xc runner knows it. You haven't the faintest idea of what athletes like Iain Holmes and Kenny Stuart have done and you haven't ten percent of the knowledge about running that Saz has because Saz has been there and done it.

Worst of all, you have no humour and you have one and only one agenda.

I am bothered about drugs in sport. You aren't, CL. You are just an apologist for white peoples failure to run as fast as black people.

[CL]

Lets face it, we'd ignore CL if we didn't love him so much.

Have you changed you're tune?

[Chris]

Have you changed you're tune?

Okay, a small sense of humour.

[CL]

I had an argument with IainR on these forums a long time ago about potential. Iain - and I don't want to unfairly misrepresent him - argued, in effect that the best athletes aren't attracted to distance running but they are playing sports like football and Rugby.

I like IainR. I have never met him but he posts honest views and is good fun to debate things with and has a great deal of knowledge about our sport and other sports. I disagree with nearly everything he says but I still like him.

CL, on the contrary you have little understanding of our sport, especially because he doesn't understand what people are capable of. Dominion knows you don't know what you're on about, xc runner knows it. You haven't the faintest idea of what athletes like Iain Holmes and Kenny Stuart have done and you haven't ten percent of the knowledge about running that Saz has because Saz has been there and done it.

Worst of all, you have no humour and you have one and only one agenda.

I am bothered about drugs in sport. You aren't, CL. You are just an apologist for white peoples failure to run as fast as black people.

We'll let people decide from the evidence who's right and wrong.Maybe a lot of people don't agree with what I'm saying.I'd hope they'd at least respect me for taking an honest position.Unlike the lies you sprouted above.

[Joliver Jim]

Unlike the lies you sprouted above.

Ooh! Calling my husband a liar! I feel a ban coming on.

[Pinno]

My how this thread has developed over the last few weeks. Some very interesting arguments and comments. Just what a forum should be about.

Its a pity Foster, Coe and Bedford do not read some of the comments on this thread then again perhaps they have?? who knows.

[Mad Dog]

Wot, you mean great athletic perfomances are due to eating his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti?

Err... no, not quite.

But, hey, since you mention it, why not give it a try. Sounds morally dubious, but can they test for that??

Woof!

[Witton Park]

Working in China this week and have just spent the best part of 45 minutes catching up on this thread, and some good stuff.

I take the view that unless there is some hard evidence to the contrary, then the athletes are innocent. I would like to make a few points though.

Paula Radcliffe - hard work is the reason for her success, and a fair bit of ability as well. Regards to the asthma drug she takes, it's a treatment for an ailment and is legal. If we complain about that where do we draw the line. Another reason she has taken great chunks off is the relatively short time that this distance has been run in women's events. I remember debate in the 80's - leading distance commentators expected great chunks to come off the women's marathon record as it developed as an event.

If you take the events from 5K upwards and look where athletes are now in world terms, compared to the early 70's, we are probably about where you would expect to be.
But let's take the marathon. Better equipment, prize-money that allows all weather training, even the use of gels / electrolite drinks during races, and far more options in terms of races, and focus on setting courses where fast times are achievable.
What times would an athlete of Ron Hill's calibre have been doing in this era? His 2:09:28 must be a match for any runner around today, under the circumstances that he achieved it, as indeed Ian Thompson's slightly faster time.

So the Africans - why the overall improvement? Hunger, drive and they don't have DVD players and gameboys. I have seen mention of Rono etc. My recollections start with the early 70's, and the Africans then were few in number, the Grand Prix scene was not really developed then.
The prizemoney and grand prix scene could well have been the trigger for the African growth in depth.
They see their roll models, want to follow them, and then they can actually make a good living at it.

On the otherhand, our society's couch potato attitude (which seems to be creeping in to the Italian, Spanish and Portuguese as well - allbeit 10-15 years behind us) has reduced greatly the fitness of the average kid.

It is amazing how few of the U11 kids in our junior group cannot run 1km without stopping for a walk.

One final point. I am "chief recruiting officer" for Blackburn Harriers. I go to schools when I get the opportunity, am involved in the town sports etc, and other sports are competing much more effectively for the available talent than they did 25 years ago.

When I was at Junior School between '74 &76 I played for the school footbal team - that was the only option in our area- unless good enough to get in the town team, which I was not.
There was not structured team competition at weekends.

Now we have junior leagues in football from U8, and I would have the option of at least half a dozen teams within spitting distance.
Similar for netball, cricket, rugby, swimming etc - as I have mentioned in other threads.

The Kenyans / Ethiopians etc have far less options available to them.

[saz]

CL

simple answer - if you spent 6 months training to increase your vo2 max from 60-80 (which in itself is an impossible task given the genetic component, but I'll play along) you probably would be faster over 10km but probably not over the marathon

[FellMonster]

What, not even a second faster with that extra kick to your finish? Come on Saz