Kurt wrote:
> >Seems fairly obvious that men's athletics in other countries was a lot
more
> >advanced than women's athletics. Therefore it was easier to make larger
> >advances in women's athletics.
>
> There are biological reasons too. Most of the doping in the East German
era
> was steroid-based, well before the modern era of recombinant HGG and EPO.
> And androgenic steroids (derivatives of testosterone) are known to produce
> much greater physical effects in women as compared to men. The reason is
> that men already have a much higher natural testosterone levels in the
first
> place. They have already received a natural androgen boost, so to speak,
> before they even start cheating. Taking even more steroids provides a
> further significant boost for men, but it is relatively modest compared to
> what happens in women.
>
> The is why one of the suspicious hallmarks of a country's sports program
> taking up doping is huge and sudden improvements by their women with no or
> only modest improvements by their men.
>
Agreed .. The steroids used at that time were foreign to the female system
while basically natural to the male system .. Therefore very dramatic
results in the women .. Minimal in the men .. And while the thread has
focused on the E. German women look also at the Soviets, Bulgarians, Czechs,
and other East European women during that time span .. They dominate the
400/800/1500 lists and have more than adequate representation on the 200
list (all time lists) .. The men in none of those countries showed any where
near the same type of improvements/dominance .. I think coaching helped ..
But it was clearly the use of the steroids which claimed the lions share of
improvement ..
Conway Hill
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
