From: "Uri Goldbourt, PhD" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Mcewen, Brian T" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: RE: t-and-f: German women
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 08:40:14 +0200
The time of 10.07 seconds by Borzov in Munich (I saw that race in person)
came against a background of no previous faster time for the 100m, except at
the heights of Mexico City in 1968. Hart's and Robinson's hand timed 9.9
(or RR Smith's in 1968) were intrinsically slower.
UG
_____________________
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Mcewen, Brian T
Sent: Tuesday, December 19, 2000 10:17 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: t-and-f: German women
gh wrote:
<<<<<
Using the Entine yardstick, Munich winners like Kip Keino, Lasse Viren, Rod
Milburn and Viktor Saneyev were also doo-doo because they don't rate highly
on today's all-time lists.
>>>>>
Viren is white and has no East African ancestry... therefore, like Borzov he
cannot "overcome" his genetic handicap and can't be considered an all-time
great. After all he ran only 27:38.
That isn't even world-class now. Ditto for Alberto Cova, Emiel Puttemans,
Ron Clarke, Marti Vainio, and Brendan Foster. After all, none of them could
break 13:10 or 27:30.
I am being facetious of course.
One has to be careful (and have excellent knowledge) when comparing what is
going on since 1990 to what went on 20-30 years ago (like Borzov, et al) ...
It is truly a different world now.
What struck me as suspect reasoning regarding Borzov, was that, yes, he ran
"only" 10.07 at the time. But how many others were running faster (black or
white) at that time?
It is the same with the distance men of the 70's or 80's ... all the men I
mentioned had PR's between 27:30 and :40, not even on the radar screen
today. But the All-time top-10 in the 10k now stretches from 26:22 to
around 26:55. It used to have just an 8-10 second spread for about 20
years. This doesn't mean that these white guys suck. In fact every one was
capable of the world record OR actually set one in the 3k/5k/10k. How is it
that they could set world records if they were genetically inferior?
I accept that it appears that African ancestry gives runners a genetic
advantage from 100m to the marathon ... and there ARE solid scientific and
sociological reasons this may be true.
However, examples like Valeriy Borzov are not one of them.
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Tuesday, December 19, 2000 1:07 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: t-and-f: German women
In a message dated Mon, 18 Dec 2000 4:05:15 PM Eastern Standard Time,
"Wayne
T. Armbrust" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
<< \Another example of less than sterling scholarship by Mr. Entine.>>
Yes, in condemning Valeriy Borzov to the scrap heap of history, Entine once
again shows that he is incapable of judging performances in their proper
historical context. I was originally a big backer of his book, but as he
continues to make broad brush strokes based on bad analysis of track
statistics, I start to wonder about expertise in other areas.
Using the Entine yardstick, Munich winners like Kip Keino, Lasse Viren, Rod
Milburn and Viktor Saneyev were also doo-doo because they don't rate highly
on today's all-time lists.
gh
