Elitetrack: Sport Training & Conditioning

I have to give the East Germans some credit for Heike Drechsler.  She produced amazing performances over a long period of time and she didn’t/doesn’t look like a man.  She was even able to reproduce which many of the East Germans who started doping from 1972 onward were not able to do.

Heike is actually a unique case study because she excelled in both the mega-doping era and the controlled-doping era. What’s funny is that you can actually see the change in her performance level through the eras.

LJ info on Heike Drechsler

2004     6.49     1.30     Pirae     02/10/2004
  2003   6.07   0.20   Roma   11/07/2003
  2002   6.85   0.30   Leverkusen   27/07/2002
  2001   6.79   -1.00   Bremen   24/06/2001
  2000   6.99   1.90   Sydney   29/09/2000
  1999   6.91   0.60   Stockholm   30/07/1999
  1998   7.16   1.00   Budapest   22/08/1998
  1997   6.89   -0.10   Athína   09/08/1997
  1996   6.75   1.40   Milano   07/09/1996
  1995   7.07   0.00   Linz   22/08/1995
  1994   7.29   0.90   Oslo   22/07/1994
  1993   7.21   0.00   Zürich   04/08/1993
  1992   7.48   0.40   Lausanne   08/07/1992
  1991   7.37   1.80   Sestriere   31/07/1991
  1990   7.30   0.60   Split   28/08/1990
  1988   7.48   1.20   Neubrandenburg   09/07/1988
  1987   7.40   0.70   Potsdam   21/08/1987
  1986   7.45   1.10   Dresden   03/07/1986
  1986   7.45   0.90   Tallinn   21/06/1986
  1985   7.44   2.00   Berlin   22/09/1985
  1984   7.40   1.80   Dresden   26/07/1984
  1983   7.14   1.10   Bratislava   04/06/1983
  1982   6.98   1.10   Potsdam   18/08/1982
  1981   6.91   1.00   Jena   09/08/1981
  1980   6.64   2.00   Santiago de Cuba   15/08/1980
  1979   6.07         01/01/1979
  1978   5.69         01/01/1978
  1977   4.40  

As a 13 year old jumped 14 and a half feet, at 14 she jumped 18 and a half feet, at 15 she hits just short of 20 feet.  These jumps in performance are not uncommon in teenage girls, except 22-23’ feet as a junior is like a 1 in 100,000 shot of ever happening.  Here performance holds from 18-38 at an elite level.  Her performance at the 24 foot level is from 20-28 years of age and stays pretty level throughout that time span.  Most PED performers don’t have that type of longevity and consistency in PRs.

Have you ever heard of Mo Greene? What about Marion Jones? or Heike?  All had EXTREMELY long careers and all doped (Mo Greene by strong allegation only).

Also, is this phenomenon that you point out (which I for one don’t believe BTW), due to the fact that these people are having their careers ended by drug busts or because of the drugs? For example, you’re not using Ben Johnson as an example of a PED person with a short career are you?

Mike Young - 19 September 2008 04:35 PM

Most PED performers don’t have that type of longevity and consistency in PRs. 

Have you ever heard of Mo Greene? What about Marion Jones? or Heike?  All had EXTREMELY long careers and all doped (Mo Greene by strong allegation only).

Also, is this phenomenon that you point out (which I for one don’t believe BTW), due to the fact that these people are having their careers ended by drug busts or because of the drugs? For example, you’re not using Ben Johnson as an example of a PED person with a short career are you?

Everyone you are pointing out had a sharp drop in performance and sharp increase and peak for short time.

Believe what you want, the guys and gals who are running masters meets from 30-39 see the type drops similar to Heike’s.  Not the rapid blowouts seen in the types like Mo Greene going from 9.8 to 10.3.  She’s a lot more like Christine Arron in terms of performances.  The difference is Heike wasn’t winning championship meets in her 30’s.  Her performance started to decline around that point, Mo Greene was getting faster.

Mo Greene ran at the top of the world for about 10 years. Heike for even longer. Same with Marion. In all cases, there PRs were achieved in the middle of this run (which is to be expected for anyone doping or not). All were dopers. Mo only dropped off after a series of injuries / surgeries that were largely undisclosed.

As for the masters analogy…that’s an unfair comparison. Those guys aren’t training and competing at the highest levels like the pros are during their 20s and early 30s. That training takes a toll on the body that can only be withstood for so long before the injuries start to mount and big dropoffs occur (whether doped or not).

Mike Young - 19 September 2008 04:53 PM

Mo Greene ran at the top of the world for about 10 years. Heike for even longer. Same with Marion. In all cases, there PRs were achieved in the middle of this run (which is to be expected for anyone doping or not). All were dopers. Mo only dropped off after a series of injuries / surgeries that were largely undisclosed.

As for the masters analogy…that’s an unfair comparison. Those guys aren’t training and competing at the highest levels like the pros are during their 20s and early 30s. That training takes a toll on the body that can only be withstood for so long before the injuries start to mount and big dropoffs occur (whether doped or not).

It’s not unfair.  In all the entire East German documentation on doping and there is a boatload and then some of it there has been no link of doping by Heike.  She was too young to be fed the concoctions the GDR was feeding the likes of Koch and Kratochvilova which made an era of their female athletes look like men even to this day.  She’s not the prettiest woman in world, but she doesn’t have the manly features of many of the athletes of that era, because they didn’t offset testosterone with estrogen.

Also there are many masters athletes who actually have a harder time because of manual labor jobs followed by a 2-3 hour training session and lack superior recovery treatments or methodologies.

At 30 he’s running with the super elite then at 33 he falls off the face of the planet, to a time which puts him as the 12th best Masters athlete for his division.  At 32 in 2006 he ranks #1 on that list for the same division.  Those athletes don’t have full-time endorsements, training 4 hours a day 5-6 days a week, have therapy treatments nearly the same as Maurice.  Not to mention most of them work other jobs.  Say what he wants about injuries, but that’s a part of every athletes performances and these Masters athletes don’t have elite coaches and trainers to rely upon.  It’s BS, it’s all a bunch of BS.  Dopers are more than likely to suffer injuries because the body doesn’t adapt at the same rate especially when muscular forces out adapt the forces tendons can resist, dopers just recover faster. 
 

      2007     10.84     1.10     Carson, CA     20/05/2007
  2006   10.35   -0.50   Baie Mahault   01/05/2006
  2005   10.01   1.90   Carson, CA   25/06/2005
  2004   9.87   0.60   Athína (Olympic Stadium)    22/08/2004
  2003   9.94   1.40   Carson, CA   01/06/2003
  2002   9.89   0.90   Roma   12/07/2002
  2001   9.82   -0.20   Edmonton   05/08/2001
  2000   9.86   -0.20   Berlin   01/09/2000
  1999   9.79   0.10   Athína   16/06/1999
  1998   9.90   0.30   Stockholm   05/08/1998
  1997   9.86   0.20   Athína   03/08/1997
  1996   10.08   0.30   Atlanta, GA   14/06/1996
  1995   10.19   0.80   Bratislava   30/05/1995
  1993   10.43         01/01/1993

What about Jonathan Edwards? Or he is just a freak? There have never been dopping accusations on him.

Born 1966:
Age Year Mark
37-2003 - 17,61
36-2002 - 17,86
35-2001 - 17,92
34-2000 - 17,71
33-1999 - 17,52
32-1998 - 18,01
31-1997 - 17,74
30-1996 - 17,88
29-1995 - 18,29 WR
28-1994 - 17,39
27-1993 - 17,44
26-1992 - 17,34
25-1991 - 17,43
24-1990 - 16,51
23-1989 - 17,28
22-1988 - 16,74
21-1987 - 16,35
20-1986 - 16,05
19-1985 - 15,09
18-1984 - 14,87
17-1983 - 13,84

db you can’t be serious—Mo ran 10.8x in one race while clearly coming off of extremely serious injuries and not even running through the line. You’d have to either not care about the facts and have some sort of agenda or just be dumb to think he was in equally good health and effort and ran 10.8x. That’s just moronic. He had numerous injuries throughout his career and could still probably go 10.3-10.4 if he really desired to train for that. You’re acting like he peaked out for the season in the greatest shape and went 10.8.

And how about Linford Christie? He had an extremely long career and many say he would demolish the masters races if be were to run because he is in such great shape.

And Michael Johnson? The alien. He sure had a “really short” career and a quick peak and fall… right? Or are we being selective in the examples?

Edwards changed his routine about 2 years prior to the WR.  The routine changed to considerably lower volumes of higher quality work.  He was often injured prior to this change with minor nagging injuries.  Of course, dopers suffer less injuries overall, but they do suffer more catastrophic injuries or “reported” catastrophic injuries. 

Much like Edwards is Heike, Alyson Felix, Muna Lee, etc.. Slender athletes with terrific power to weight ratios.  This is the only thing from making believe outright that Bolt is a PED user.

Muna Lee clean (as of 2008 season).... nice

Not even getting into that one.

davan - 19 September 2008 06:22 PM

db you can’t be serious—Mo ran 10.8x in one race while clearly coming off of extremely serious injuries and not even running through the line. You’d have to either not care about the facts and have some sort of agenda or just be dumb to think he was in equally good health and effort and ran 10.8x. That’s just moronic. He had numerous injuries throughout his career and could still probably go 10.3-10.4 if he really desired to train for that. You’re acting like he peaked out for the season in the greatest shape and went 10.8.

And how about Linford Christie? He had an extremely long career and many say he would demolish the masters races if be were to run because he is in such great shape.

And Michael Johnson? The alien. He sure had a “really short” career and a quick peak and fall… right? Or are we being selective in the examples?

I don’t think Mo’s injuries were quite clear and how he suffered those injuries?  What caused them?  The people who last longer in the sport when not winning are the ones who have less likely to have doped.  Tendinitis causes him to go from 9.87 to 10.84 in 3 years? I don’t care who doesn’t run through the line, for a 10.84 he would have to walk across the line to lose .4s in 10m.  For christ sakes he went from 9.87 to 10.35 which is half a second in 2 years all because of tendinitis?  It’s BS.

I am not defending michael johnson or indicting him, but to say Heike doped when you have reams and reams and reams of documentation on East German doping but she’s in none of it, but almost all of the others who set WR’s or won championships were and they all looked like males and can’t reproduce.  That’s BS and nonsense.  I’ll stand by the athlete who competes a long time and shows a normal progression with a long term decline.  That’s not the psychological profile of a doper who dopes to win or gain money.  People like Mo Greene and Linford Christie don’t compete now because even with PED’s they can’t win and why in the world would an athlete use PEDs to win a Masters Meet.

davan - 19 September 2008 06:40 PM

Muna Lee clean (as of 2008 season).... nice

Not even getting into that one.

How about going away from Bob Kersee’s mass and strength (strength endurance) routines in coaching back to her old college coach.  If Muna Lee doped I’d be surprised, she has no features which indicate this, but we’ll know long term about her and Bolt if they change.  I already believe Bolt is showing signs of using but that is a different thread and we went over this already.

I’d coach Alyson Felix for free for one year and I wouldn’t need to do much but drop her volumes or change her events and she’d win a WC gold medal and come close to a WR at 200m or 400m depending on the route she wished to take. Almost anyone on this board would be able to do this with her.

More nonsense.

Maurice would have easily gone under 10 in 2005 had he not gotten injured in the final (a massive headwind tends to do that). He ran 10.01 wind legal in the semis (easing up) and lead the final until he got hurt—not exactly falling off the face of the earth and pretty damn good considering he looked much better than Gatlin.

The injury was bad enough he missed the rest of the season and the ‘06 season because of it. In ‘07 he had a great start in his 60m race, but fell and reportedly was still not 100% from the injury and then ran a crap time in his only outdoor meet—remembering also it was his first 100m in what—2 years—and he didn’t run through the line. To use essentially ONE race as your evidence of him having some massive drop-off is complete nonsense and an outright lie.

Deciding who dopes based on “observable features” is dumb considering there are things out that don’t even change the endocrine profile of an athlete.

If we’re only going by what can be visually seen or what we stereotype as drug use, we’ve already been left behind.

Tim Montgomery was on practically every drug available and still wasn’t bigger or stronger than kids you’ll find on a high school football team that have done moderately intelligent training and eating for a few years.

2 points really quickly:

1). You’re waaay wrong if you think Heike wasn’t doped. Perhaps not in the latter stages of her career (which is what I was alluding to in my first post in this thread) but she was DEFINITELY doped. And contrary to what you keep stating it is perhaps more well-documented than any other athletes except Tim, Marion, and Barry Bonds. There was a major book that came out in the 90s that was quite specific about her doping regime. All you’ve got to do is google Heike Dreschler Doping and you’ll get a slew of info. Or start out here. Heck, she actually ADMITTED that she was doped in the early part of her career.

2). Muna has trained with Vince Anderson for the better part of a year. While she was with Kersee for a while she did not run well under him and has really begun to excel with Vince who has a proven record as a ‘clean’ coach.

This can be an interesting discussion but let’s try to keep this thread focused on athletes who we KNOW have doped. There’s enough of them out there to make a case…we don’t need to bring in people’s names where there isn’t any need to.

BTW- This may be one of the first times Davan and I are on the same side on a topic related to doping.