Ryan Gregson

white lightning

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This 20 year old Aussie Ryan Gregson just broke the Australian National Record in the 1500 meters today in Monaco. The record had stood for 19 years. Another amazing talent from the land down under. Big things to come in the future. Here is an article discussing both Gregson and Wheatings breakthrough.

http://www.letsrun.com/2010/monacowheating0722.php
 

mastermulti

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3.30 is like a 10.00 sec 100m, but with even fewer having got there.
Fermin Cacho, Steve Cram and Seb Coe are the only white athletes to have done sub 3.30. In fact only 18 athletes in total have done it before today. Would have been a great race to watch.

For Wheating and Gregson to be right up near that magic mark is a fantastic achievement. They sure seem like good friends and fierce comnpetitors who will both encourage and push each other
 

white lightning

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Yeah a 3.30 is magical. It is very special and we will have to keep a close eye on these guys. I know the runners from Kenya and Ethiopia will. The only problem is that they have many more guys that participate. Distance running in Africa is a way off life and alot of them live in the high mountains which builds their lungs. Not to mention that they weigh around 80-100 lbs at the most. Alot easier to run fast over longer distances. Regardless, Gregson and Wheating are going to make it fun to watch.
 

Swede

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Notice that Coe and Cram competed in the 80s and Cacho in the mid 90s. It´s a slightly simular european regression if you compare it with the sprints.
 

mastermulti

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Swede said:
Notice that Coe and Cram competed in the 80s and Cacho in the mid 90s. It´s a slightly simular european regression if you compare it with the sprints.

I'd never thought of that. There's no reason other than lak of numbers/interest that white guys today can't match the times of Coe and Cram.
Tracks, shoes, nutrition, medical treatment etc have all got better. Lack of participation must be the reason!
 

Swede

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You are right on spot. Its not easy to motivate white europeans to train as hard as it takes. Its even more obvius in 5000 and 10000m. There is no depth in the statistics. A guy who hardly would reach top ten in the european championships in the 80s, or even to some extent in the 70s, would reach a better position today, maybe even catch a medal.
 

Observer

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mastermulti said:
Swede said:
Notice that Coe and Cram competed in the 80s and Cacho in the mid 90s. It´s a slightly simular european regression if you compare it with the sprints.

I'd never thought of that. There's no reason other than lak of numbers/interest that white guys today can't match the times of Coe and Cram.
Tracks, shoes, nutrition, medical treatment etc have all got better. Lack of participation must be the reason!
Swede, a keen observation. Many of us have puzzled about the Euro-descent regression in sprinting as one of the strangest things in sports. But there it is in front of us in the middle distances as well. Like mastermulti, I had noticed it but never really thought of it.

Just looking at Great Britain from that time period, there was also the great Steve Ovett. In the USA from that time period, Steve Scott held records until Alan Webb came along fairly recently. And jogging and road running were just becoming mainstream. But just about the time that jogging and distance running actually became mainstream, it seems that the decline began, I think. Has there also been a regression in the Euro-descent long distances since the 1980's also? I remember some of the great marathoners like Bill Rodgers and Alberto Salazar around 1980. It would be really strange if distance running also declined since that time, because participation rates are way, way up. Maybe someone else can put this better together than I can.

But the decline no longer seems so strange to me when looked at as maybe just a general cultural decline, a civilization under stress: plummeting birthrates, churches turned into mosques, loss of manufacturing base, average weight gains increased by 25% in the USA with almost no increase in height (I'm not sure what the statistics would be for whites), lower academic standards, mass immigration, etc.

On a side note, have you ever seen the new American record-holder in the 10,000? Chris Solinsky Looks pretty well-built for a distance runner.
 

mastermulti

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" average weight gains increased by 25% in the USA with almost no increase in height (I'm not sure what the statistics would be for whites), lower academic standards, mass immigration, etc. "

more good points.
I listened to a radio program that talked about changing shapes of people in the last couple of decades. Some points I remember..
1. Americans are the fattest people
2. Australians aren't far behind them
3. Average male heights in both countries were similar
4. The Dutch are the tallest people being a whopping average 4" taller than Americans now, with the Germans not too far behind the Dutch.
The presenter pointed out that the U.S (and Australia I guess) had nutritional and other advantages in the early to mid 20th century that lead to better development of the young. These have now evaporated with the advent and proliferation of fast foods of little nutritional value.
The Euros who did it tough in the first half of the century have benefitted from decades of good nutrition and good medical care.
Add to that the other choices of travel (other than lots of walking/running), entertainment (sitting on one's date for long periods of time) etc and it makes sense that only those really caring about their physicality will amount to anything much athleticly.Edited by: mastermulti
 

mastermulti

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just as an addition to above....... I'm about the smallest guy in my age group when I shot putt in state or national events over here.
Yet at 1.80 (5'11") and 82kgs (180 lbs) I would have been a size to be reckoned with in,say, 1920s Europe.
A check of the sizes of the world heavyweight champions over the last century is interesting.A lot of those guys wouldn't have made light-heavy these days.
 

white lightning

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Maybe so but it's not always about the size my friend. Look at the 15 year old from New Zealand. Even Rocky Marciano could probably win alot of fights these days. He wouldn't be undefeated but he would do some damage for sure. I always find it cool to see a little guy do good. It must be the David vs Goliath thing. He may be on peds, but Walter Dix sure can move for a little guy. He beat Tyson Gay around two weeks ago.
 

mastermulti

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all true, but I was alluding to just how much bigger on average we are today, whether it be "muscular and fit" big (our top sportsmen) or "fat" big like many people in western society today.

We have a choice to be either of the above but unfortunately most take the latter path because it's easy. These (90%?) of people in effect cross themselves of the prospective list of good athletes.
So while we have more people we have fewer to choose from if we're looking for good white sprinters. They just aren't out there putting in the workEdited by: mastermulti
 

white lightning

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I agree my friend. The way people eat these days is disgusting. The fast food places are only a little part of the problem. People eat too much, drink too much, and don't excercise. It's no wonder we are going backwards on the average despite faster tracks, better training, etc.
 

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Cartouche, thank you very much for these interesting charts. I have more questions now than ever. I'm not really sure what to make of it. I find the 400 and 800 charts especially curious, almost as if no one has figured out how to adapt training methods at these distance... or if the drug makers don't know how to make chemicals that help both anaerobic and aerobic activities?
 

Cartouche

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The sinusoid of improvement is suspiciously regular, isn't it? Obviously, it will have something to do with anaerobic glycolysis that is either dominant (400 m) or very important (800 m) supplier of energy.

The fact is that the current doping arsenal doesn't know any effective stuff that could influence performance in the regime of anaerobic glycolysis. Soda bicarbonate is perhaps the only (so far legal) chemical that crosses my mind. In the 400 m, anabolic drugs help only to a certain extent, and in the 800 m, EPO doesn't make wonders either, because the race is only ca. 50-60% aerobic.

Thus, the graphs could also indicate that almost none (or none) of the world records we have seen during the last 2 decades is legal.
 
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