I also wanted to see Lemaitre race against Vicaut. Athletes are different but I like them both. I agree with what Albinosprint says: "It’s the advancement in PEDs that have changed the dynamics so much that I reallyfeel bad for Lemaitre."
The only problem is mental. For Lemaitre and for us. Ok. For Lemaitre there is a very big preassure. Why? He is the change of mentality. He is a symbol. Not only a simple athlete. As I already mentioned, the problem is mental, cultural. It's a revolution. But to complete the revolution we need other athletes. Not only whites in cultural black races, but also blacks in cultural white races. In recent years we have seen white athletes compete in disciplines preserve of black athletes. But we also saw blacks who have succeeded in winning athletes in other sports, hitherto the preserve of white athletes (Tiger Woods in golf, Williams sisters in tennis etc...). Now we see different asian athletes in sports preserve of white/black athletes (Liu Xiang in 110h, different chinese players and Jeremy Lin, with chinese ancestry, in NBA, etc...).
What was the problem? A dualistic simplification of humanity : blacks and whites. Is it based on objective facts? No!
But this is a wall difficult to overcome, despite a lot of data tell us that indeed is undergoing a change.
Humanity is more differentiated. But while we are one and the same people.
What we're learning is that we can all (from anywhere in the world comes from) to do the same things, in everything. And not just in sports.
But the change of mind is not made. There are cultural issues and more. Doping. White in swimming and black in track and field sprinting. Why is there a similar dicotomy? This dichotomy is born in the USA. And most important track and field athlete before jamaicans were afroamericans: from USA. And i want to underline USA. Why?
Why the only athletes in the world who have run the 400 meters under 44 seconds are from the U.S. (different blacks and a white)? Why aren't there any athlete from Europe, Africa, Carribean, South America, Asia, Oceania? Culture.
Why in the past (before '90) the strongest european athletes in 400m where from Germay (whites)? And why in later years ('90) were British (both whites and blacks)? For me culture.
The use of doping is a system. A social problem. And part of culture, a way of thinking. It changes the perception of performances. But skin color is only a matter of perception. If you think otherwise, you will create a limit.
The people in the world are with different colours. But the strongest were from USA. Why?
For a time U.S. athletes were mostly blacks. Why? If black people would be strongest in sprinting we have the majority coming from Africa. If the selection due to the violence of slavery had made the difference, we would have had in the past strong athletes from the Caribbean, and not only from certain areas (think Cuba has not sprinters).
We have a great number of country in the world that don't express their full potential. In Asia (Mainly China and India), in Africa, in Europe, in South America.
If genetics were so important in humans, the strongest swimmers, they certainly should not be white. Why? Because you can swim all year round at the equator, while the north is a bit cold ... And so the blak people in Africa, Polinesian in Oceania, central and south Americans and south Asians, they would be the best candidates. But currently, the stronger are the whites (from USA, Europe and Russia. Australia, NZ... with a bit of Asians). Why? Swimmingpools. Why should serve a swimming pool at the equator? Besides cost much. And few communities have the money to achieve it. In Europe there were few or nothing black people, but in USA there were an apartheid. This discriminated against some people (blacks). But not without a downside. And the mass media have exported cultural paranoia of the U.S., especially in Europe, because the european are mostly whites.
Sorry if I'm hard. But we must overcome this unnecessary and harmful duality: whites blacks, blacks whites.
This is a ridiculous brake for everyone. In every sport. In any discipline, in any sport, in any work, in any field. A wall. And for me this is the revolution. For this reason Lemaitre is in the eye of the storm.
There is still a black Lemaitre in swimming. This fact spell the end of an era of just a dualism rather than competition between individuals. So white people will stop to have a sense of inferiority in certain sports towards blacks, and vice versa blacks will stop a sense of inferiority in other sports and in the study.
There are people from every part of the world. Why sum up the world in blacks and whites? Some people is mixed. Both white and black. The percentage. What does this mean?
I'm italian, but i could have some german ancestry with south italian ancestry, with a bit of arabian ancestry. But balkanian ancestry and spanish ancestry may be present. But all we come from Africa. And this is not from a long time. In the world we have always been mixed.
You just get out of paranoia and everyone in the world'll get great results. Clearly the drug system is hard to beat. I know it well. In Italy we have doped in cycling, soccer and, even in the past, in athletics (Andrei etc ...).
This is a huge burden for Lemaitre. Although he hasn't full knowledge of everything (rationally speaking).
