Brits don't dope?

[Parker]

Didn´t knew she had the T-3 marathon times...
but what strikes me and convinces me that she´d been a hard-core blood-doper is that her best times in various disciplines came all in her late 20s/early 30s... with one exception: her best time at the 1-mile race came at age 23. OTOH, that time is only good for 139th all time, and then dominating the marathon a decade later. Who actually believes such BS?

Two points.
a) who runs the mile any more? I doubt she's run it since 23
b) she never had any real pace suitable for shorter distances. Her tactics were all relentless front running and trying to drop the others - on the track it rarely worked in championships. It's no surprise that her mile PB isn't great.
(By contrast Mo Farah is the complete opposite. His 5k and 10k PBS are way down the all time list but he has a final lap of a 1500m runner so wins championships).

 

[jens_attacks]

maybe the biggest hypocrite in sports. that lady piszed me off lots of times. unbelievable ugly style also. for such people i don't have any sympathy for when they go down even if they're world class athletes(for whom i have lot of respect). bye bye paula

 

[Wallace and Gromit]

Didn´t knew she had the T-3 marathon times...
but what strikes me and convinces me that she´d been a hard-core blood-doper is that her best times in various disciplines came all in her late 20s/early 30s... with one exception: her best time at the 1-mile race came at age 23. OTOH, that time is only good for 139th all time, and then dominating the marathon a decade later. Who actually believes such BS?

PR's times at shorter distances are really not very good. Her 400m PB is slower than mine, for example! She never raced seriously at distances shorter than 3k, so one can't read too much into her mile PB. There's no-one from the race where she did her PB who ran faster than 4:22 (the IAAF database only goes as far as the top 30 performers, and 4:22 is the cut-off) so I imagine she got outsprinted in the last lap off a slowish pace to record her 4:25.

 

[pmcg76]

Two points.
a) who runs the mile any more? I doubt she's run it since 23
b) she never had any real pace suitable for shorter distances. Her tactics were all relentless front running and trying to drop the others - on the track it rarely worked in championships. It's no surprise that her mile PB isn't great.
(By contrast Mo Farah is the complete opposite. His 5k and 10k PBS are way down the all time list but he has a final lap of a 1500m runner so wins championships).

Not really bothered about this story as I was always suspicious of her improvement anyways but your points are valid.

I remember Radcliffe front running many Championship races only to see her opponents blast past her at the finish. She had absolutely no change of pace/sprint. She was ideally suited for marathon running and it was always inevitable she would go that route.

Also Foxxy, it is very common in athletics for people to move to marathon running as they get older. Innumerable athletes have made the change up so not amazing to see a 33 year old set records. In fact that would have been the norm. I don't follow athletics closely anymore so not sure what the current situation is.

Here in Ireland around the same time, we had a woman McKiernan who was great at cross-country, rubbish on the track who finally moved to the marathon which she was world class at but still nowhere near Radcliffe.

 

[FoxxyBrown1111]

...

...

I think I said it wrong. What surprises me is that her lone PB at a young age (how it should be) is only good for 139th all time. We don´t know in how many mile races she appeared when pace-makers were at it. It´s highly likely that it was the case in that Zürich race (where she did her PB), because they always used one for the purpose of the spectacle at "Weltklasse in Zürich". And yet her PB is 12 seconds slower than the WR. IOW: 5% (!!) slower.

A hard-core doper at least in her marathon career. No doubt about that. As with Horner, Bonds, and LA fore example: Nobody in sports gets better with age (it´s the other way around), unless fueled with PEDs. A lot of them.

Edit: Just had a further look; Indeed the WR was broken in the very same race PR had her PB.

 

[SundayRider]

I think I said it wrong. What surprises me is that her lone PB at a young age (how it should be) is only good for 139th all time. We don´t know in how many mile races she appeared when pace-makers were at it. It´s highly likely that it was the case in that Zürich race (where she did her PB), because they always used one for the purpose of the spectacle at "Weltklasse in Zürich". And yet her PB is 12 seconds slower than the WR. IOW: 5% (!!) slower.

A hard-core doper at least in her marathon career. No doubt about that. As with Horner, Bonds, and LA fore example: Nobody in sports gets better with age (it´s the other way around), unless fueled with PEDs. A lot of them.

Not disputing the fact that she is highly suspect. However at a young age if you have not trained specifically for the marathon you are not going to perform your best until an older age - that is just common sense.

 

[pmcg76]

I think I said it wrong. What surprises me is that her lone PB at a young age (how it should be) is only good for 139th all time. We don´t know in how many mile races she appeared when pace-makers were at it. It´s highly likely that it was the case in that Zürich race (where she did her PB), because they always used one for the purpose of the spectacle at "Weltklasse in Zürich". And yet her PB is 12 seconds slower than the WR. IOW: 5% (!!) slower.

A hard-core doper at least in her marathon career. No doubt about that. As with Horner, Bonds, and LA fore example: Nobody in sports gets better with age (it´s the other way around), unless fueled with PEDs. A lot of them.

This is nothing like those guys you mentioned. Anyone who knows athletics will tell you that Marathon running is very different from track running. 5000/10000 are more about speed than enduracnce. The marathon is over 4 times the length of the 10k so very different. Some people are just better suited to Marathon running owing to better endurance. Radcliffe switched at 28 and set most of her records in the following 2-3 years so not old at all.

Comparing moving from track to Marathon running is very different from comparing performances in GTs 10 years ago to present, it is still a GT.

 

[Wallace and Gromit]

Edit: Just had a further look; Indeed the WR was broken in the very same race PR had her PB.

I'd missed that. Oops! Interesting that no-one else from that race makes the top 30 on the all time list @ 4:22 ie 10s slower than Masterkova. I wonder if there was a "race within a race" that day with Masterkova and pacemakers doing their stuff and everyone else racing for 2nd?

I take your general point that PR did improve quite a lot from mid to late 20s if one looks at her 5000m progression which she raced in the early/mid 90s and the early 2000s.

 

[FoxxyBrown1111]

5000/10000 are more about speed than enduracnce.

Yes I am not an athletics expert. Agree. OTOH, I guess many people would say that 10.000 is more about endurance than "speed". A lot more...

 

[FoxxyBrown1111]

I'd missed that. Oops! Interesting that no-one else from that race makes the top 30 on the all time list @ 4:22 ie 10s slower than Masterkova. I wonder if there was a "race within a race" that day with Masterkova and pacemakers doing their stuff and everyone else racing for 2nd?

I take your general point that PR did improve quite a lot from mid to late 20s if one looks at her 5000m progression which she raced in the early/mid 90s and the early 2000s.

I guess we go with the most likely: Masterkova on GDR-like old-school-doping, the rest being more or less clean(ish).

Didn´t even look at her (PR) 5000/10000 progression. But the obvious just becomes even clearer if she improved with age. That BS stories were sold so many times (not only the ones I mentioned). McGwire, Rijs, Rominger, and cohorts come to mind too... Who actually still believes such nonsense. 14 year olds are excused, but not grown ups...

 

[pmcg76]

I guess we go with the most likely: Masterkova on GDR-like old-school-doping, the rest being more or less clean(ish).

Didn´t even look at her (PR) 5000/10000 progression. But the obvious just becomes even clearer if she improved with age. That BS stories were sold so many times (not only the ones I mentioned). McGwire, Rijs, Rominger, and cohorts come to mind too... Who actually still believes such nonsense. 14 year olds are excused, but not grown ups...

Masterkova was more likely to a beneficary of the arrival of EPO, she made a sudden improvement mid 90s. Of course she was married to a Pro cyclist Asiat Saitov of Kelme so is there any need to investigate further.

 

[simoni]

I think I said it wrong. What surprises me is that her lone PB at a young age (how it should be) is only good for 139th all time. We don´t know in how many mile races she appeared when pace-makers were at it. It´s highly likely that it was the case in that Zürich race (where she did her PB), because they always used one for the purpose of the spectacle at "Weltklasse in Zürich". And yet her PB is 12 seconds slower than the WR. IOW: 5% (!!) slower.

A hard-core doper at least in her marathon career. No doubt about that. As with Horner, Bonds, and LA fore example: Nobody in sports gets better with age (it´s the other way around), unless fueled with PEDs. A lot of them.

Edit: Just had a further look; Indeed the WR was broken in the very same race PR had her PB.

So being better at one thing that the other means you must have doped to do the thing you're better at. That's basically what you're saying.

Like I say, ask the questions, they need to be asked, but come on, lets keep some sanity!

 

[Bernie's eyesore]

I guess we go with the most likely: Masterkova on GDR-like old-school-doping, the rest being more or less clean(ish).

Didn´t even look at her (PR) 5000/10000 progression. But the obvious just becomes even clearer if she improved with age. That BS stories were sold so many times (not only the ones I mentioned). McGwire, Rijs, Rominger, and cohorts come to mind too... Who actually still believes such nonsense. 14 year olds are excused, but not grown ups...

I'm not so bothered about the age thing but Radcliffe set her pb for the 5000m in 2004. This seems pretty bizarre as she had been concentrating on the marathon for 2 years at this point. You would have expected her to lose some speed when she stepped up in distance but she actually got faster. That makes no sense.

 

[simoni]

She also got slower at everything else.

http://www.thepowerof10.info/athletes/profile.aspx?athleteid=1341

 

[FoxxyBrown1111]

Masterkova was more likely to a beneficary of the arrival of EPO, she made a sudden improvement mid 90s. Of course she was married to a Pro cyclist Asiat Saitov of Kelme so is there any need to investigate further.

Didn´t know that. Thanks for the info. Sounds logic to me. Epo just came up, and who is better than a cyclist from Kelme to introduce it in a different discipline. They (cyclists) always were the first guinea pigs.

So being better at one thing that the other means you must have doped to do the thing you're better at. That's basically what you're saying.

No, it´s not.

I'm not so bothered about the age thing but Radcliffe set her pb for the 5000m in 2004. This seems pretty bizarre as she had been concentrating on the marathon for 2 years at this point. You would have expected her to lose some speed when she stepped up in distance but she actually got faster. That makes no sense.

Just making things even more clearer. Thanks for the info.

 

[Bernie's eyesore]

She also got slower at everything else.

http://www.thepowerof10.info/athletes/profile.aspx?athleteid=1341

Completely irrelevant as she rarely raced on the track after 2002 so the times are not an accurate indicator of what she was capable of.

 

[simoni]

Didn´t know that. Thanks for the info. Sounds logic to me. Epo just came up, and who is better than a cyclist from Kelme to introduce it in a different discipline. They (cyclists) always were the first guinea pigs.



No, it´s not.



Just making things even more clearer. Thanks for the info.

OK, you're saying that being average at the mile but excellent at a marathon later in your career is evidence of doping for the marathon. Ignoring personal performance traits, stengths, weakenesses. Is that right?

Being excellent at a marathon might be considered "evidence" of doping, but being average at the mile some years previously is almost irrelevant. The demands of the event are very different. Why try to create an argument on this premise? It shows nothing of use.

With regard to the 5000m performance (and, I agree, it looks suspicious when taken in isolation) why ignore the references to other distances I provided? (which appear more consistent with the different training associated with a marathon).

 

[FoxxyBrown1111]

Completely irrelevant as she rarely raced on the track after 2002 so the times are not an accurate indicator of what she was capable of.

As I always say: Stats and numbers don´t lie. The wrong interpretations of those numbers give statistics a bad reputation...

Anyway, when it walks like a duck... it normally is. Add in the stories we were sold before (how could I have forgotten to mention Ben Johnson? ), everything is clear. Another big time doper got away with it. That´s the sad truth...

 

[SundayRider]

She also got slower at everything else.

http://www.thepowerof10.info/athletes/profile.aspx?athleteid=1341

Never gone sub 30 min for 10K yet 2:15 for marathon - red flag.

 

[FoxxyBrown1111]

OK, you're saying

No I don´t. Just wondered that the lone PB in her young age is her "worst" PB, while the world class PBs came at her late 20s/early 30s. All alarm bells ring in deep red...

 

[FoxxyBrown1111]

Never gone sub 30 min for 10K yet 2:15 for marathon - red flag.

Nothing more to say... ok, just this one: deep red

 

[Parker]

I'm not so bothered about the age thing but Radcliffe set her pb for the 5000m in 2004. This seems pretty bizarre as she had been concentrating on the marathon for 2 years at this point. You would have expected her to lose some speed when she stepped up in distance but she actually got faster. That makes no sense.

But on the other hand she was never really someone to run to 'do a time'. Her two fastest times for 5000m are in championship races (European Cup and Commonwealths) rather than Golden League type races, which is unusual.

 

[Catwhoorg]

Her World Record was set with the benefit of male pacemakers - something that is not possible any more, but completely allowed at the time. Many think the record should be removed from the books. I think I agree with them.

She would still hold the record, just one of her slower times (The 3rd fastest one I think).

 

[Bumeington]

Some background reading:

https://www.exeter.ac.uk/media/univ...nalexeter/documents/iss/paula_ijssc_paper.pdf

 

[thehog]

Her World Record was set with the benefit of male pacemakers - something that is not possible any more, but completely allowed at the time. Many think the record should be removed from the books. I think I agree with them.

She was drafting?