My guess is many top athletes, distance runners included, use performance-enhancing drugs, enough so that the problem must be tackled.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
If you look at the sponsors who were in the sport 15 years ago compared to now there are a lot fewer. Why? Because those runners who took drugs tainted the sport. They tainted all of us in it.
Since I achieved something, running has exploded in my country. For me sometimes it is difficult even to know who the athletes are who are competing at the highest level. There are thousands.
Too many athletes don't have the ability to set a goal and then carefully go towards it.
Sportspersons have to reinvent themselves every day. It helps them improve.
Athletes are sort of part of the community at large. They have to be dedicated to what they do, and go through lots of peaks and valleys. And there's a lot of training that goes into their careers. It's a struggle. Very dramatic.
In sport, a massive amount is to do with genetics.
Many run primarily for the exercise, but others run to condition themselves for well-publicized races of various distances.
I don't really take into account what the media says. People have their own opinions about what goes on, but they don't see what goes on behind the scenes with an athlete and their preparation.
There are a lot of great athletes who stop working out, and they get out of shape like everybody else in their 30s and 40s.
American athletes, especially distance runners, are at a big disadvantage against the rest of the world. We're expected to live by all the rules, like not being able to coach, but still train and make our own living.