Kenyans DO dope

LOL at the utter stupidity that is typical of the average American. Yes, America, so much bigger, richer with nearly ten times the population of a developing country in East Africa just needs to get to the bottom of why they suck so much at distance running (and now sprinting too thanks to hard-working Jamaicans). For all your resources and the obsecene amounts spent on your athletes, you still can't compete with the class and the natural talent of a David Rudisha or an Asbel Kiprop. Either that or Kenya has been on the cutting edge of scientific and chemical boosting of its athletes since Kip Keino taught the world to run in Mexico City '68.

Expect to hate us more by the way, there's a new high school kid in the Rift Valley who may the one to end our 5k and 10k drought. Even Mo Farah saw this kid train. His teacher/coach described him as the most "frightening" talent since Daniel Komen. The conveyor belt keeps churning out those future stars. Mark my words, this kid will be a sensation.

El Keniano wrote:

His teacher/coach described him as the most "frightening" talent since Daniel Komen.

His teacher/coach must be as ignorant as you, for neither of you have apparently heard of Kenenisa Bekele.

El Keniano wrote:

Expect to hate us more by the way, there's a new high school kid in the Rift Valley who may the one to end our 5k and 10k drought. Even Mo Farah saw this kid train. His teacher/coach described him as the most "frightening" talent since Daniel Komen. The conveyor belt keeps churning out those future stars. Mark my words, this kid will be a sensation.

What's the guy's name?

El Keniano wrote:

LOL at the utter stupidity that is typical of the average American. Yes, America, so much bigger, richer with nearly ten times the population of a developing country in East Africa just needs to get to the bottom of why they suck so much at distance running (and now sprinting too thanks to hard-working Jamaicans). For all your resources and the obsecene amounts spent on your athletes, you still can't compete with the class and the natural talent of a David Rudisha or an Asbel Kiprop. Either that or Kenya has been on the cutting edge of scientific and chemical boosting of its athletes since Kip Keino taught the world to run in Mexico City '68.

Man, you just fell from the moon, didn't you? The whole track has been plagued by blood doping since mid-90's. Nobody from the then global elite was clean, because it would be impossible for a clean athlete to compete with drug cheats, when EPO gives you ca. 40 sec. boost in the 10 km.

The probability that any of the current track records has been achieved without the use of PEDs, is very close to zero. In London, you could see a lot of apparently chemical performancers. But I understand that in the eyes of a clueless spectator, they look like miraculous achievments of genetic freaks of nature. LOL

It must bite AK with how they had to ban all athletes from any illegal assistance leading up to the games. If the whistle hadn't been blown they wouldn't have panicked. Bekele must be very upset to be beaten by two inferior runners who didn't seem to amend their special program at all.

El Keniano wrote:

LOL at the utter stupidity that is typical of the average American. Yes, America, so much bigger, richer with nearly ten times the population of a developing country in East Africa just needs to get to the bottom of why they suck so much at distance running (and now sprinting too thanks to hard-working Jamaicans). For all your resources and the obsecene amounts spent on your athletes, you still can't compete with the class and the natural talent of a David Rudisha or an Asbel Kiprop. Either that or Kenya has been on the cutting edge of scientific and chemical boosting of its athletes since Kip Keino taught the world to run in Mexico City '68.

It is interesting to note that doping performances in track started to decline after the introduction of the first EPO test in 2000, and almost definitely ended after the introduction of a test against proteases in 2006. However, there is one exception: The marathon. The performances in the marathon started to suddenly improve at the same time like in other distances (actually only 1 year later, in 1996), but they don't show any signs of decline related to anti-doping tests, and rather accelerated during the recent years. This suggests that doping in the marathon is out of control. There are many athletes, who emerge out of nowhere, win some prize money and quickly disappear.

It is interesting, by the way, that they want to take away all Armstrong's titles, yet all the titles and records of chemical runners from late 90's still stay in lists.

Native Son ... he's in Form 3 though I don't know if it would be appropriate for me to put his name out there because he's determined to finish school first (Teacher is a personal friend). Don't want to jinx him, but I fear for his future because the vultures (scouts/agents) have reportedly started hovering about. If you follow the school championships, he will be hard to miss at the nationals without even told, he's that good.

Sounds like you've been around. I have a specific question for you. Do you know a guy called Joseph Riri?

http://www.iaaf.org/athletes/biographies/country=ken/athcode=201392/index.html

He broke onto the scene with what was pretty damn quick for 2004, getting my attention, but then had little progression or even maintenance.

2004 2:06:49 Berlin (Oct)

2005 2:09:00 to win Lake Biwa (March), then 2:19:58 for 29th at WCs

2006 2:16:58

2007 2:13:23

He was 21 in 2004 and 24 in 2007 so not exactly over the hill age-wise. No track times on the IAAF books.

I mean, maybe he just made some money and then didn't stick with the training. Or maybe he had injury trouble. But I was always surprised he had no real progression up to those two great races, and then his name never really resurfaced again. Erratic performances seem to go hand-in-hand with poorly supervised doping.

Oh, and I met him and he seemed sketchy.

SPMBLNPF wrote:

El Keniano wrote:

His teacher/coach described him as the most "frightening" talent since Daniel Komen.

His teacher/coach must be as ignorant as you, for neither of you have apparently heard of Kenenisa Bekele.

With the notable exceptions of HG and KB, Kenyans only care about our own athletes. Even Mo Farah isn't as well-known as those two. And prime DK, could smoke any runner, no probs.

I find it laughable how you yanks try to make like, a country many here constantly refer to as "backward", has managed to develop a sophisticated, undetectable drug and have an allegedly complex doping programme a la East Germany. It's not like Kenya started winning races in the 90s, we've been killing it since the 60's. So to say Kenya dominates because of doping is just stupid.

El Keniano wrote:

I find it laughable how you yanks try to make like, a country many here constantly refer to as "backward", has managed to develop a sophisticated, undetectable drug and have an allegedly complex doping programme a la East Germany. It's not like Kenya started winning races in the 90s, we've been killing it since the 60's. So to say Kenya dominates because of doping is just stupid.

Dear naive Kenyan man,

Kenyan times exploded in 1995 similarly like in Morocco and Ethiopia. EPO came on the scene. It is impossible that anyone in distances 1500 m and longer would be clean at that time. Until 1995, no Kenyan has been able to break 3:32 in the 1500 m.

It was their European managers, who abused the situation. Apparently, your countrymen were willing to be injected by anything on a mass scale. Daniel Komen improved from 7:38 to 7:20 within one year, just in time, when EPO appeared (1995). After the first EPO test was introduced in 2000, he runs 7:43 again.

Similarly Tergat, who showed a stellar improvement after 1995, after three years of running 27:14-27:23.

@ El Keniano,

I've no idea why you want to rant at other bloggers simply because they are European or whatever.

Address me then. I am Kenyan.

Unless you are extremely ignorant, you know that Kenyan athletes use drugs. Come on, do you really have no idea how many of our boys/girls have been banned for using drugs by the IAAF?

Our athletes use drugs and that's a fact. The issue is in finding out exactly how many of them do.

Kenya tell me? mentions Riri, that's just but one athlete that showed up on the scene and vanished.

A good example is 'Jamaica' - Duncan Kibet (Look him up). From being a mainly half-marathon runner, Jamaica showed up on the marathon scene with some mindboggling times and then suddenly quit running. The story that goes around is that after his perfomance in Berlin (I think it was), he simply did not recover from some drug overdose and has not been able to since.

The same applies to Luke Kibet after the World Championships. He immediately dropped out at the London marathon and has since avoided running in England or the USA and prefers to stick to races in Thailand and Singapore. Want to ask him why?

You make a pretty silly argument. Just because we have a weak economy does not mean we cannot buy drugs boss. Mercedes makes a large number of its sales in Kenya. How many do you see Kenyan athletes buying? How much is a vial of EPO on the Nairobi streets? Oh, its 1,200 bob if you did not know. An inflated price but...

The cyclist Froome definitely dopes.

By the way @ El Keniano,

It is well known in Kenya which 'stables' encourage doping in their athletes.

The main culprit is Federico Rosa who took over from his dad, who just happens to be a doctor.

Isn't it odd how Kenyan athletes would go stay 1 week in Italy before a major race in the US? This when these same managers insist that they do not want their athletes going to a race too early as it interrupts training?

I have it on fact that most of the athletes that take this detour do it for 'medication'.

The other agent, that even other managers have complained about and at one time was banned by AK is Volker Wagner.

Now AK pretends not to know anything while in their books they have banned some managers for encouraging doping, only to let them back in after, and yes I'll say it, some money changes hands.

Agents introduce and provide most of the 'untraceable' drugs while the rest is available in Kenya.

Again, most Kenyan athletes do not dope. But a whole lot do and we as Kenyans must kill this vice. Period!

By the way @ El Keniano,

It is well known in Kenya which 'stables' encourage doping in their athletes.

The main culprit is Federico Rosa who took over from his dad, who just happens to be a doctor.

Isn't it odd how Kenyan athletes would go stay 1 week in Italy before a major race in the US? This when these same managers insist that they do not want their athletes going to a race too early as it interrupts training?

I have it on fact that most of the athletes that take this detour do it for 'medication'.

The other agent, that even other managers have complained about and at one time was banned by AK is Volker Wagner.

Now AK pretends not to know anything while in their books they have banned some managers for encouraging doping, only to let them back in after, and yes I'll say it, some money changes hands.

Agents introduce and provide most of the 'untraceable' drugs while the rest is available in Kenya.

Again, most Kenyan athletes do not dope. But a whole lot do and we as Kenyans must kill this vice. Period!

kenyarun, thank you for that post. it was interesting.

i appreciate your experience if that was truly inside knowledge of the running scene over there.

are the pharmaceutical drugs cheaper than american?

kenyarun wrote:

Kenya tell me? mentions Riri, that's just but one athlete that showed up on the scene and vanished.

A good example is 'Jamaica' - Duncan Kibet (Look him up). From being a mainly half-marathon runner, Jamaica showed up on the marathon scene with some mindboggling times and then suddenly quit running. The story that goes around is that after his perfomance in Berlin (I think it was), he simply did not recover from some drug overdose and has not been able to since.

The same applies to Luke Kibet after the World Championships. He immediately dropped out at the London marathon and has since avoided running in England or the USA and prefers to stick to races in Thailand and Singapore. Want to ask him why?

Great examples! I loved Kibet's style and unique approach (he apparently trained only once a day??) and never understood what happened with him. Kibet also had a weird trajectory.

Thing is, even if these guys doped they probably weren't worse than anyone else - just unlucky or poorly-guided in their planning/doping.