As to your argument that having so many push under the record is unusual is that the number of elite marathons has increasing several fold since the mid-late 1980s. Before then, the only elite marathons outside of the once every 4 year Olympics were the Commonwealth Games, Boston, Fukuoka, and a once a year European marathon that seemed to move location. Now the opportunities to face top competition that requires fast times to win are manifest. Think of how many runners were under Bikilia's 2:12:11 1964 WR from then until 1972. I wouldn't be surprised that it was almost equivalent, and certainly after you adjust for the many fewer opportunities to race then.
I am a doubter of the 1993 Chinese women's performances (the 1997 performances are more in line with historic events). But I would not be a doubter if those records had been either done by an individual spread out over a longer period of time, without qualifying rounds at high speeds. (I read last night that Wang also ran faster than the 3k WR in the last 3k of her 10k WR, 8:17.7!), or there had been a single mass finish race, instead of having 2 under the 10k WR, two days later 2 more under the 1500 WR, then 4 under the 3k WR in the semis!, then 5 under the 3k WR in the finals, all in the space of 6 days, with many of the same athletes breaking multiple WRs! And to top it, none of these athletes ever again approaching these performances. At least in the marathon, many of these athletes repeat there performances at a later date.
Also, given that the 5k/10k records dropped so much, with so many runners now under the previous standards, from 1993-1998 (and the records still stand), why didn't the marathon marks drop equivalently during that same period if drugs were the reason? Seems like those drugs should have had the same effect during the same period, but that's not what occurred.
And finally, it should not be surprising to see the record broken every year when it is broken by a relatively small increment each time. Progressing for 2:06:50 to 2:05:42 in 1999 is the equivalent of a 16 second improvement in the 10k--that's a relatively small improvement historically, especially over 11 years. As for the record being broken every year, I see improvements in 1999, 2002 and 2003. Improvement in the debut record only reflects that better athletes are deciding to move up in the event. It's not unusual to see debuts in the 5k and 10k near the WR as well. The marathon is now becoming more like the other events as training volumes increase.
You need to eliminate conclusively the many other explanations before you leap to your conclusion, which has no actual evidence whatsoever. (I point I make repeatedly on this list.)
RMc
At 01:57 PM 10/15/2003 +0000, alan tobin wrote:
"running a near a WR in one event implies drug use. He's going to have to use a completely different basis for coming to that conclusion."
It's not just running near a WR that implies drug use. It's when numerous people run near a WR that bothers me. It's when a marathon VIRGIN runs near a WR that bothers me. If KK runs a WR it wouldn't strike me as mysterious at all. He's been in the game for a while. He didn't debut at 2:05. The problem I have is that 7 of the top 10 marathon times in HISTORY have been run in 2002 or 2003. From 1988 to 1998 no one went under Dinsamo's record. Since then there's been 25 performances by 21 runners under that record. You will not find such a statistic during any other past decade. When records (be it WR or debut WR which was just broken in Paris by Wilson Onsare before Rutto did his Chicago dance) are broken every year in the same event then I question every one of those results. The state of the sport leads to such uncredibility.
Alan
From: Richard McCann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Subject: Re: Re: t-and-f: fwd: Marathon debutant Rutto, Boston champ
Zakharova win at Chicago
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 12:08:10 -0700
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I have problems with the statistical methods used to develop most of these tables. Even the comparison method I used, which is similar to Hoffman's is a bit too simplistic. However, the correct method is rather data intensive. I would want to use the top 100 marks over a series of years to estimate the underlying variance in performances. This would be the means of identifying which performances are the greatest "outlier" vs. other performances. The one underlying assumption is that the same proportion of the population competes in each event so that the probability distributions are comparable among events.
If we're going to rely solely on subjective comparisons, then Tobin's evaluation is no more valid than mine and he has absolutely no basis for leaping to a conclusion that running a near a WR in one event implies drug use. He's going to have to use a completely different basis for coming to that conclusion.
On the other hand, I'm not arguing that my comparison is subjective per se, but rather can be recreated by anyone else in a step by step fashion that is readily transparent. If they want to change the underlying assumptions, they are free to do so and to come to their own conclusions. Such transparency is the fundamental basis of "objective" comparisons.
Subjective comparisons are opaque and cannot be recreated.
RMc
At 01:23 PM 10/14/2003 -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:ALL of these "comparison tables" are fundamentally flawed, as subjectivity is the common denominator. Don't believe me, just compare the projected equivalents from the various tables: Purdy, Coe and Martin, Portuguese, Mercier (I'm missing a few)
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