What’s possibly quite suspect is the winner of the women’s marathon. 3rd fastest female time in history and she knocked 18 minutes off her marathon PB. Absolutely unheard of at the elite level.
Yeah this is what’s more eyebrow raising for me than Kipchoge. Marathon runners peak late and whilst Kipchoge has certainly hit that record late in the day, there’s still older marathon runners competing at the elite level posting sub 2:04. Kipchoge’s last half a decade has all been spent micromanaging the absolute fine set of margins enabling him to get the times he is, he’s the greatest distance runner of all time. He’s gone sub 2 hours, albeit in a massively controlled ‘perfect’ set of conditions so biomechanically he’s capable. Kipchoge’s never been caught doping or aroused suspicion, nor was he in the stable of Kenyans that got busted a few years back. I think he’s earned the benefit of the doubt.
Assefa’s marathon yesterday looks dodgy as fuck. Like Kipchoge, never caught doping so you could argue we could extend the same benefit I’m suggesting to him above, however, LFCred is spot on in that this sort of improvement, in that sort of timespan is highly suspicious. I’ve said for years Farah was a doper based on his rapid improvement at an older age, this is giving me similar vibes. She’s only ever ran one other marathon, that was 4 months ago in Riyadh. Her improvement represents 5+ years of improvement in less than 5 months. The other possibility is that she simply didn’t go hard at Riyadh and it was essentially to feel out the distance and she’s an undiscovered phenom at marathon level. Possible, but it feels dodgy. Cherono, Abayechew, Wanjiru - had any of these just done that it would have been shrug of the shoulders. Super human clearly, but the norm from those names. Assefa is a 400m/800m runner that’s increased her range exponentially and apparently turned out to be world class as both sprinter and distance runner. No one’s ever done that.
She may be one of the most unique athletes of all time, but two years ago she was running 54 seconds for 400m and now doing a course record at a marathon. It just feels impossible but maybe she is indeed the most versatile runner of all time.
