THREE KENYANS BANNED FOR DOPING

The advantages the Africans have are living in a suitable climate, having a pedestrian way of life, a simple natural diet of complex carbohydrates, a lack of modern distractions, the motivation to do well and get out of poverty, all of which are almost absent in the U.S. and other modern societies.[/q

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Why don't those reasons work for these Kenyans and Ethiopians when it comes to other sports....admit it, they absolutely suck in every other Olympic and professional sport!

I guess this battle cannot be won. If one points out that there are Kenyans and Ethiopians, even Somali (Mo Farah) who have immigrated to other lands and continue to do well, you still will not win because in other threads, they say Lagat is dopping. Then they turn around and tell you that Africans are doping because there is laxity in testing yet they don't elaborate how Lagat is cheating but Farah, Rupp, or any other top guy training now and then in the US is not.

How do you explain Africans how do well despite spending majority of their time in countries that test religiously? A lot of Kenyans go to high school in Japan and remain there majorly through their careers e.g. Wanjiru. The majority, however are predominantly based in Kenya, yet both foreign-based and Africa-based seem to do equally well. Kipketer (though not a long distance runner) has been a Denmark citizen and continued to do well after leaving Kenya. Additionally, there are lots of Bahrain- & Quatar-based Kenyans and Ethiopians (e.g. Maryam Yusuf Jamal), lots of Kenyans in American colleges that dominate races as well.

I would also like to point out that some of the reasons that some of these athletes move to other countries are personal as well as professional. Some are enticed by money to move to Bahrai, Quatar e.t.c., others are very good by any country standard but barely make to Kenyan and Ethiopian national teams and have to seek luck elsewheres, while the rest are frustrated by Athletics management officials. I can guarantee you that if Lagat had stayed in Kenya, his career would have ended shortly after El Guerrouj. The competetion to make the team and to maintain is usually too brutal and ends up shortening the running career significantly. Haven't you ever noted that about every 4 years, a new Kenyan name emerges.

One thing I cant explain is why Ethiopians running careers tend to span a longer span than Kenyans. Haile and Bekele have had a relatively long career but I can't figure out what other Kenyan has remained competitive at the highest level for that many years. I wonder if their training approaches differ. One thing I know is that due to these deep talents, Kenyans don't train smart but rather use brute force, whereby you do win a couple of races but at the expense of a long successful career. Lagat trains smart though.

anjiru andothers still did most of theirkey preparation in Kenya as do the Ethiopians who run for other countries so that argument is basically floored

octa gon wrote:

I guess this battle cannot be won. If one points out that there are Kenyans and Ethiopians, even Somali (Mo Farah) who have immigrated to other lands and continue to do well, you still will not win because in other threads, they say Lagat is dopping. Then they turn around and tell you that Africans are doping because there is laxity in testing yet they don't elaborate how Lagat is cheating but Farah, Rupp, or any other top guy training now and then in the US is not.

You should read this:

a few Ethiopians have moved to Turkey and representing their

new country. Some of them have been caught too using EPO.

Letsrun Gunner wrote:

Their testing procedures are not nearly as strong and it is much easier for someone to "not be able to be found..

If you "can't be found" that's a missed test. Three of those in 18 months equals a one year ban. It doesn't matter if you're in the African bush or the Ross ice Shelf.

HRE. With all due respect, no.If you read the direct quote to which I responded, at least one person here is suggesting exactly that: "What he (Canova) is ignoring is what is clear to all of us and to the non-ignorant among us that have followed distance running and other sports for 20 or more years - the EPO is what is making them 2:05 marathoners."Not only is he suggesting it, he says it is "clear to all of us", especially "the non-ignorant among us". "EPO is making them 2:05 marathoners".Who can that mean? By my count, there are 42 "sub 2:06" marathoners: 1 American (a 2:06 guy swept along by the hand of God), 1 "Moroccan" American, 1 Moroccan, and 39 Kenyans and Ethiopians.As you already know by now, I find it an extraordinary incredible (i.e. not believable) claim. It's an example of replacing one extraordinary claim (e.g. East Africans are genetically adapted to high altitudes) with an even more incredible claim (East Africans are merely products of EPO). If I could quantify the incredibility, I would say there is an order of magnitude of difference. EPO is available worldwide, and we all know by now how easy it is to escape detection. How is it rational to claim that, in track and road racing, only East Africans have figured out this secret, and kept it for 20 years? And that the IAAF hasn't "copped on" to this dirty little secret after all these years?Lots of incredible conspiracy theories, but all of them are faith based.

HRE wrote:

I don't think anyone here is suggesting that EPO "is only available in Easy Africa." Kenya just happens to be the focus of this thread.

Oh. I did not see what you were responding to. I would agree with you here. I do not believe that the African dominance of distance running is due solely to PEDs though I am suspicious of some of their times and it's silly to think that only Africans have used them. Thanks for clarifying.

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Yep its the white man's fault. Obviously. For starters, there is not an African country that could research, develop, or even produce any form of medicine.

As far as a cheating culture, its in the African nature. A chief always looks after his own group. Everywhere else that's called corruption.

Like everyone else, I don't know. I'm not making an argument, but simply asking a hypothetical question -- one I think that paraphrases Renato's claim about "blood doping" and "top athletes".There are many that pretend that recent events this year, and last year, directly contradict Renato. Maybe it contradicts Renato's representation of Kenyan morals and culture, because some exceptions of Kenyan dopers have been found. But answering whether they are the exceptions, or the rule, is not an important question (or not one I care to address). These events don't contradict his more controversial claim, about the effectiveness of "blood doping".I think that many don't understand, or don't want to understand, what Renato really says, preferring to substitute what they want to hear and believe. That's the point of my illustrative, yet completely hypothetical question.If you want to contradict Renato's idea of "blood doping not helping top athletes", you need to find out first, within this exclusive category of "top athletes":- how much can a top athlete achieve with training alone- how much can a top athlete achieve with training and "blood doping"Renato's claim, is that with "top athletes" and the right training, this difference is zero. But Renato says he only did the training -- he has the first answer but not the second. So his extraordinary claim is simply his personal belief that "blood doping" cannot do more. He says many times he does not have proof of his claim (nor does anyone else have proof, either for or against it).You also ask me the right question. "How do I know?" I think it is important to distinguish knowledge from faith. And no one on this subject has complete knowledge. The right answer is I don't know. You don't know. Scientists don't know. Even Renato says he doesn't know. No one knows. No one has complete knowledge about how effective blood doping is with top athletes, because they did not make these measurements to find out how many seconds/minutes EPO will improve already highly trained top athletes. Renato is in a better position to know, given his direct contact with some of the athletes in question, and regular contact with sports scientists. Out of the whole population that ever existed on this earth, Renato is one of probably a handful, or couple dozen persons, who have any evidence at all. It's unfortunate that his nationality, and Italian history in medical sports research, makes a few people cynical. But this cynical conclusion is not based on knowledge.Renato makes a very narrow and specific claim. To contradict that requires taking controlled measurements with representative athletes. No one has reliably done that. Renato makes a claim, which right or wrong, no one has contradicted with evidence. Anyone who says Renato is wrong, or ignorant, or lying -- their assumption is based on pure faith.

yyy wrote:

the problem with your argument is that it is a completely hypothetical athlete. How do you know that your runner would improve to 27:00 with proper training in years and 26.48:00 or 27:17:48?

Hi rekrunner.Like you, I don't know. I don't think it is quite right to say that people questioning Renato's claim are doing so based on pure faith. I don't know if he is lying, or wrong, or ignorant, or anything else. However, I just have a very difficult time taking his claim at face value. Why? I admit that the many, many drug scandals have made me a bit cynical. I think the overwhelming reason is just the simple application of logic, though. It is just not logical to think that doping works on the 2:20 runner and the 2:10 runner, and the 2:07 runner, but then it will not work on the 2:04:30 runner. At some magical point along the time continuum he claims that it stops working. Why? What is the mechanism that would make it stop working? If the claim was (as some have stated on this thread) that the gains were less as the times got faster then that is a somewhat more logical and comprehensive claim. Just because EPO might provide a 6% improvement on a 30 min. 10k guy is no proof that it would provide 6% on a 27min. guy. Maybe it would only provide 1%? I don't know. I agree with you that without controlled experiments we really don't know.I will say that I dislike the idea that somebody is suspected of drugs on no more basis than that they have run fast. I have no idea what is possible naturally and what can only be accomplished w/ drugs. I prefer to think of athletes as clean unless there is some clearly established reason to think otherwise. I don't think that means there is a magical line where doping no longer works. Cheers.

No problem. Sorry if you think I over-reacted. I'm less suspicious of their times, because there is an unanswered "altitude" factor that I think cannot be ignored. Or alternatively, if that's not relevant, East Africans are light. I have an Excel spreadsheet correlating times and weights that gives me amazing world-record breaking 10K predictions when I drop down to 110 pounds. There is an "extrapolation" issue, and I might not actually survive at that weight, but these guys are healthy at 110 pounds. (And lastly, I'm not suspicious because something so obvious to every anonymous letsrunner, should also be obvious to the IAAF and WADA. If East Africans are so dirty, I would expect we would see a whole lot more targeted testing resulting in bigger names being busted).I'm going to go a little off-topic and extend my faith, knowing I do so at some risk.Many people similarly accuse Alberto/Rupp/Farah of tapping into this Kenyan/Ethiopian doping secret and covering it up with Nike money. But it's well known that Alberto pushes the "legal" scientific envelope with altitude tents, "cryogenic" ice baths, anti-gravity treadmills, etc., whatever Nike's money can buy. And then some think he abuses TUEs for thyroid conditions (maybe even allergies?).What I'm wondering out loud is, how effective in the long term can these altitude tents be? Did Rupp and Farah close the gap on East Africans, because several years under an altitude tent have helped them develop similar oxygen related adaptations?Knowing the answer here would corroborate that we cannot ignore altitude, and that some distance competitiveness can be restored with some emphasis on real, or simulated, altitude training.

HRE wrote:

Oh. I did not see what you were responding to. I would agree with you here. I do not believe that the African dominance of distance running is due solely to PEDs though I am suspicious of some of their times and it's silly to think that only Africans have used them. Thanks for clarifying.

I think it's correct to say pure faith when there is a complete lack of knowledge, but I will partially concede some colorful exaggeration on my part.Contrary to what some might think, I don't say Renato is right (because I don't know). I'm just saying the bar for claiming he is wrong (or right) is pretty high, and most people make the claim without any evidence.I have my own rational reasons to think there might be some substance to his opinion:- I believe the long term East African dominance can only be explained by some combination of "local" or "regional" factors, not a global factor like EPO.- East Africans have lived for many many generations in a low oxygen environment. EPO and blood doping work by improving oxygen delivery. These facts are not disconnected. I think it is possible that natural selection may have produced athletes that do not possess the weakness, in the same magnitude, that EPO overcomes.- Even if Renato is wrong, for all the reasons his critics claim, I think there will still be some element of diminishing returns which contributes to a reduction of the improvement, until it becomes unmeasurable. A 40 second improvement for 33:00 10K runners might be easily measurable, but a 5 second improvement for a group of 27:30 runners might be discarded as within the margin of measurable error. We would need a much larger sample size.Ultimately, I think it's a debate which can never be solved scientifically, as the opportunity will never come for ethical reasons.

rekrunner wrote:

EPO is available worldwide, and we all know by now how easy it is to escape detection. How is it rational to claim that, in track and road racing, only East Africans have figured out this secret, and kept it for 20 years? And that the IAAF hasn't "copped on" to this dirty little secret after all these years?

Lots of incredible conspiracy theories, but all of them are faith based.

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They are not conspiracy theories, and it is not a case of wondering why people think "only Africans are finding a way of passing the tests". People are purely reacting to the fact that it was announced a few weeks ago that the "FIRST EVER out of competition drug testing" was carried out on Kenyan athletes in Kenya! This in itself is a disgrace on the IAAF. What makes it worse is that it contradicts what Mr Canova and others have been preaching on these pages for years; namely that the Kenyans and Africans are tested as much as non Africans. This, according to recent claims and admittance from the IAAF is simply NOT TRUE. For whatever reason that this has been the case, it indicates that people who are supposed to be "in the know" have blatently lied. It doesn't matter whether or not Kenyans and others are naturally better or not, what does matter is the transparency of purpose in the federations carrying out the same testing procedures across the world.

If I were an elite US or European athlete who has had to submit their availability on a daily basis for the last how many years, 52 weeks of the year in order to be part of the random out of competition and out of season testing programme, I would be pretty p***ed off that my peers in Africa (who may well have a natural DNA advantage) have not had to comply with such robust procedures. What's more, not only have they not been tested as frequently, but people have gone out of their way to lie in assuring us that they have been.

So what if Kenyan athletes are tested on the circuit like everyone else. It's the use of EPO and other peds in the off season and when undertaking intense training, that the benefit is gained and the damage to the sport is done.

With all this in mind it's only reasonable that many on here should start to question the legitimacy of some Kenyan performances, especially in light of the several names that have since failed a drug test. I can remember very few Kenyans having ever failed a test, but since the German documentary, the interview with Kiptanui and the admittance that recent testing in Kenya were the first ever, there seems to be quite a few who now have been caught cheating.

To add insult to injury, the recent "first ever" testing in Kenya was only carried out after the testers warned they were coming weeks before hand after having to "persuade" the Kenyan authorities!!!! to take part, and even then it was carried out on volunteers!

This isn't random testing. Why should WADA or whoever carries out the testing have to persuade or get the permission of the Kenyan federation? It's appalling behaviour, and I really do not understand why other federations are not up in arms over it. It also makes one wonder how many other nations have been evading out of season random testing, or whether or not they get a phone call a few weeks before?

If I were an elite US or European athlete who has had to submit their availability on a daily basis for the last how many years, 52 weeks of the year in order to be part of the random out of competition and out of season testing programme, I would be pretty p***ed off that my peers in Africa (who may well have a natural DNA advantage) have not had to comply with such robust procedures. What's more, not only have they not been tested as frequently, but people have gone out of their way to lie in assuring us that they have been.

So what if Kenyan athletes are tested on the circuit like everyone else. It's the use of EPO and other peds in the off season and when undertaking intense training, that the benefit is gained and the damage to the sport is done.

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Ja, and on the same note, western distance runners are no doubt upset about this world marathon majors clawback feature - an American can be sued and defeated in court easily - a kenyan who bought a farm and some cows with his winnings...not so easily. So the africans have more incentive to cheat and then just retire if they get caught.

rekrunner, the doping dogma about EPO and blood doping is pure quackery of the worst kind.

No one ever talks about the parameters of natural oxygen delivery, why do you think that is?

All we ever hear and read is "more red blood cells = more oxygen delivery to the working muscles" but no real science and no metion of heart rate, plasma volume varibility, and relative stroke volume.

Just pseudoscience, that's all we ever get.

If you are almost at the top of the game and you are constantly told that the top quys are all doping and you believe it, and that this is why they are beating you, you will believe it and your morale will be crushed. Then a quack says he can help you, and administers the juice, morale goes back up higher than before, etc etc.....

But in reality, oxygen deliver is not limited in the way you and almost everyone else believes. Consider the natural parameters, and do some creative thinking, ask some of your intelligent questions, i.e. the right ones....

Mr. Obvious wrote:

It is just not logical to think that doping works on the 2:20 runner and the 2:10 runner, and the 2:07 runner, but then it will not work on the 2:04:30 runner. At some magical point along the time continuum he claims that it stops working. Why? What is the mechanism that would make it stop working?

My sense is that there is way too much emphasis on time when it comes to "top athletes" and the efficacy of EPO. Along the lines of what Solinsky noted when he was racing with the EAs (seems like eons ago); a final lap 52 is not that fast but if you get to the last lap "gassed" then you're not running a 52.

Running economy can greatly diminish the effects of EPO. I can see how an aided top athlete would have a time ceiling around their unaided best just because it gets to the point where a less efficient/capable runner can only move their legs so fast. But, if the pace is within your capabilities and you arrive fresh as a daisy on the last lap - EPO can provide that - then you can uncork a brutal last lap, probably within fractions of a second off your open 400 meter time.

Whether this is due to natural ability, weight, environment, diet, expert Italian coaching, easy and unregulated access to pharmaceuticals, protective governing bodies, all of the above, or some of the above remains to be seen.

ACTUALLY there is a ton of science on this - and you're just ignorant.