Re: Olympic Sportsmanship?

In rec.running Harold Buck said:

In article <[email hidden]>,
[email hidden] (Nick) wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

With regard to the Ethiopians' comments evidently expressing scepticism about
the ability of any Chinese runner to win the women's 10000 metre race, it
should be noted that the astonishing world record of 29:31.78 was set in 1993
by [censored] Junxia of China, who also still holds the world record at 3000 metres.
In the 1996 Olympics, notwithstanding an exhausting schedule of races,
[censored] Junxia won the gold medal at 5000 metres and the silver medal at
10000 metres in the women's distance runs.

Quoted message said:

Yeah, but didn't she lose those worlld records after testing positive
for turtle blood and bee venom?

Quoted message said:

--Harold Buck

I'm pretty sure you are just kidding, but just in case someone gets the
wrong impression: no, she still has the world record.

http://www.iaaf.org/statistics/records/gender=W/allrecords/discipline=10K/index.html

In rec.running Harold Buck said:

In article <[email hidden]>,
[email hidden] (Nick) wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

With regard to the Ethiopians' comments evidently expressing scepticism about
the ability of any Chinese runner to win the women's 10000 metre race, it
should be noted that the astonishing world record of 29:31.78 was set in 1993
by [censored] Junxia of China, who also still holds the world record at 3000 metres.
In the 1996 Olympics, notwithstanding an exhausting schedule of races,
[censored] Junxia won the gold medal at 5000 metres and the silver medal at
10000 metres in the women's distance runs.

Quoted message said:

Yeah, but didn't she lose those worlld records after testing positive
for turtle blood and bee venom?

Quoted message said:

--Harold Buck

I'm pretty sure you are just kidding, but just in case someone gets the
wrong impression: no, she still has the world record.

http://www.iaaf.org/statistics/records/gender=W/allrecords/discipline=10K/index.html

In article <[email hidden]>,

Quoted message said:

In rec.running Harold Buck said:

In article <[email hidden]>,
[email hidden] (Nick) wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

With regard to the Ethiopians' comments evidently expressing scepticism
about
the ability of any Chinese runner to win the women's 10000 metre race, it
should be noted that the astonishing world record of 29:31.78 was set in
1993
by [censored] Junxia of China, who also still holds the world record at 3000
metres.
In the 1996 Olympics, notwithstanding an exhausting schedule of races,
[censored] Junxia won the gold medal at 5000 metres and the silver medal at
10000 metres in the women's distance runs.

Quoted message said:

Yeah, but didn't she lose those worlld records after testing positive
for turtle blood and bee venom?

Quoted message said:

--Harold Buck

I'm pretty sure you are just kidding, but just in case someone gets the
wrong impression: no, she still has the world record.

http://www.iaaf.org/statistics/records/gender=W/allrecords/discipline=10K/inde
x.html

Yeah, that was a joke. As far as I know, turtle blood and bee venom are
not banned substances yet.

--Harold Buck

"I used to rock and roll all night,
and party every day.
Then it was every other day. . . ."
-Homer J. Simpson

Harold Buck said:

Yeah, that was a joke. As far as I know, turtle blood and bee venom are
not banned substances yet.

That's just as well -- I ran my mile PR just after being stung by a wasp.

Cheers,
--
Donovan Rebbechi
http://pegasus.rutgers.edu/~elflord/

Harold Buck said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

(Nick) said:

(snipped)
With regard to the Ethiopians' comments evidently expressing scepticism
about the ability of any Chinese runner to win the women's 10000 metre
race, it should be noted that the astonishing world record of 29:31.78
was set in 1993 by [censored] Junxia of China, who also still holds the world
record at 3000 metres.

[censored] Junxia's world record at 3000 metres is 8:06.11.

[censored] Junxia also has the second fastest time ever, 3:51.92, at 1500 metres.
(Qu Yunxia holds the world record of 3:50.46 in the women's 1500 metre run).
And [censored] Junxia has run the marathon in 2:24:07.

As a distance runner, [censored] Junxia showed extraordinary range, producing
exceptional times at every distance from 1500 metres to the marathon.
Perhaps the most comparable male athlete was Said Aouita (Morocco), who was
a world-class runner at every distance from 800 metres to 10000 metres.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

In the 1996 Olympics, notwithstanding an exhausting schedule of races,
[censored] Junxia won the gold medal at 5000 metres and the silver medal at
10000 metres in the women's distance runs.

[censored] Junxia's performances in the 1996 Olympics took place *after*
she had parted ways with her controversial coach, Ma Junren, in 1994.

Quoted message said:

Yeah, but didn't she lose those worlld records after testing positive
for turtle blood and bee venom?

[censored] Junxia never tested positive for using any banned substances.

Ma Junren ([censored] Junxia's former coach) has been a controversial figure in
China, and there seems to be no shortage of Chinese critics who would be
pleased to cite any available evidence of his misconduct.

As far as I can tell, what Ma Junren did was to take a large number of highly
fit female runners and subject them all to an extremely demanding regimen of
training. Nearly all of them could be expected to 'crash and burn out' on
account of 'overtraining', but an exceptional few of them (such as [censored] Junxia)
might be able to produce some spectacular, if short-lived, performances.

--Nick