Did Sebastian Coe blood dope?

Vos wrote:

Can the gains on technical skills such as changing lanes etc. be that great?

What gains could have Jemima Sumgong gained on her "technical skills"?

Speaking of Sumgong, where's Mr. Canova to explain how "top Kenyan elites" don't resort to using EPO. Well...here's a big fish caught for using rocket fuel and no Canova to explain this one. Lol.

Microdose Micky wrote:

Vos wrote:

Can the gains on technical skills such as changing lanes etc. be that great?

What gains could have Jemima Sumgong gained on her "technical skills"?

Speaking of Sumgong, where's Mr. Canova to explain how "top Kenyan elites" don't resort to using EPO. Well...here's a big fish caught for using rocket fuel and no Canova to explain this one. Lol.

He'll be here soon.

Probably he want come here for a while, but I wander how rekrunner will explain this, if he can't find anything fishy in his impressive statistics then something is wrong, and all other data can be wrong, or not?

Blood doping? Maybe. Personally, I think it was steroids with the British - very effective up to 1500 meters, after all. Assuming there actually was no culture of blood vector doping in British sport, they may well have missed the start of the EPO era. Combine that with out of competition testing able to detect steroid use being introduced around 1990, and suddenly the Brits lose their middle distance mojo.

Coe was clean like Froome and Wiggins. It's insulting to think otherwise.

arte wrote:

Blood doping? Maybe. Personally, I think it was steroids with the British - very effective up to 1500 meters, after all. Assuming there actually was no culture of blood vector doping in British sport, they may well have missed the start of the EPO era. Combine that with out of competition testing able to detect steroid use being introduced around 1990, and suddenly the Brits lose their middle distance mojo.

Idiot. If it was steroids why did both Coe and Ovett have serious ambitions at moving up to 5000m? Coe was one of the slightest built athletes of the era. What muscle he did have was optimized for performance (ie. his trailblazing lower body weight lifting routines). Steroids build muscle everywhere in the body, whether you're training the part or not (which is why the hearts of juiced up bodybuilders often explode due to sheer size).

Did you read my post from the previous page? Britain enjoyed a golden era of sprinting in the 90's. In the 400m you had guys like David Grindley and Iwan Thomas running much faster than most white guys then or since. Did somebody not tell the 400m boys not to stop taking the steroids? And as Deano pointed out, if the men were taking steroids, the women would have been as well and their performances in the 80's clearly say they weren't. Britain had largely a similar talented pool of athletes in the 90's to the 80s, however some chose to stick to the 400m, others like Curtis Robb decided to not pursue their athletics careers. By the mid 90's, the competition was dominated by souped up Africans and British teenagers had the lure of the premier league football (as well as discovering video games).

There was also a small element of luck which led the Brits to be so dominant in the 80s. For example the death of Ivo Van Damme, who had won silvers in both middle-distance events in Montreal and was the same age as Ovett. Perhaps Juantorena and Walker both suffering serious injuries in 77. Coe and Ovett were better athletes than both, but Juantorena/Walker might have run faster times and improved on their own WRs in 77 or 78.

BrewBrah wrote:

[quote]MD.. wrote:

Cyclists also spend hours and hours at threshold.

Then go super hard up 5000 foot climbs followed by sprint finishes. ----- Day after day in the grand tours. There really is no equivalent in running for which to compare EPO or blood doping benefits to cyclist. Imagine Kipchoge and Bekele going head to head for 22 days of marathons!

There's only 3 GTs a year (Giro, Vuelta & TdF) and a ton of shorter one-week stage races & one-day stage & classic events throughout the season. Cycling is in the heart of their one-day stage & classic races going on this spring (e.g., Flanders, Paris-Roubaix, LBL).

Johan Museeuw, who was one of the best one-day stage & classics riders in the history of cycling, served a ban for, and admitted to using a 2nd gen form of EPO (ARANESP) during most of his career. Alejandro Valverde, who served a ban for his involvement in Operation Puerto, is a GC contender & GT winner, as well as a one-day classics rider who wins quite a few of these events.

There are more cases of known 02-vector dopers being successful in the one-day races.

Sorry, still not seeing the Cacho connection. Looking at his career performances, this doesn't look like a history of EPO is required to explain them. You think Cacho likely took took EPO to run 3:28.95, a time faster than Cram, Coe and Ovett?Regarding comparing to Boulami and Kiptanui -- that looks like a pretty rich assumption that they possessed the same capabilities based on their steeple times. Kenyans are known for producing fast steeple times, despite bad form, because of superior endurance.I would agree that 13:28 in 1998 probably doesn't reflect Boulami's true 5K ability. He did run 7:38 in July 2002, one month before his "annulled" 7:53 steeple. This "equivalences" to 13:13.

Subway Surfers Addiction wrote:

You deleted your post from this that shows the relevance of Cacho. Boulami on epo was in all likelihood possessed the same capabilities of Moses Kiptanui (let's hope he was clean). This would indicate instead of a pre-epo time of 13:28 he was boosted to c.12:55 for 5000m. A c. 4.1% gain at least.

rekrunner wrote:

If you don't like "mediocre", let's put it another way. When you look at the great performances of elite track in the decades of the 1990's and 2000's would you call Ramzi a "game-changer" of the sport?

How many of the great performances in the 90s & 00s were clean or doped? With Ramzi I think the anecdotal evidence strongly suggests that EPO was a "game changer" for him...how could it not be? A "3:44ish" guy at 22 who just a few years later runs a 3:29.14. Very high off-scores during the WC in 05 where he wins gold in the 800/1500 double, a silver in the 07 WC. A CERA positive in 08 after that gold in Beijing where he holds off Kiprop at the line while annihilating the rest of the field. I'd say he responded quite well from EPO and changed his game to a new level.

Don't be so desperate to convince me -- we've already been through this, and it seems to me the ones who were not convinced were the non-African athletes during the EPO-era. They either did not believe, or perhaps falsely believed to their detriment, in the power of EPO to improve their level beyond that of their predecessors.All of the evidence you list supports a competing, yet unstudied, theory that EPO can bring you more quickly to natural performances, but cannot produce unnatural performances. This would explain why it works so well in short duration studies on amateurs well within their personal ability, and also the lack of elite running anecdotes, and even opposite findings, like the recently announced Dutch study that EPO didn't work on cyclists in a time trial climbing the Mont Ventoux.When we look at elite athletes, when we look at males, when we look at distance running, we find a group that is largely un-studied. When we look at this group, breaking into sub-groups by ethnicity, when we look at the progression during the EPO-era, specifically looking for evidence of the impact on elite performances, of a new doping substance that promises extra-ordinary performances for every group for every sport, we find a lot of sub-groups, from rich nations, able to afford doping, and afford hiding it, with a rather un-ordinary progression spanning more than two decades of the EPO-era, from a drug that was largely undetectable. We find, that EPO, either taken alone, or in combination with drug cocktails:- did not work for the Americans- did not work for Britains- did not work for Germans- did not work for Italians- did not work for Kazahks- did not work for Australians- did not work for New Zealanders- did not work for Japanese- did not work for Russians- etc.If EPO could produce the extra-ordinary improvements for every endurance athlete of all races, genders, and sports, then it looks like the elite nationals representing some 85-90% of the global male population showed remarkable restraint, something unprecedented in any sport involving human nature, at a time when East Africans and North Africans started writing new chapters of track history, and later road history.The fact that we have to borrow anecdotes from the women (known to respond to steroids and male hormones), cycling, and race-walking, only serves to re-inforce that anecdotes from elite running are scarce -- this is for good reason.

rekrunner wrote:

If you don't like "mediocre", let's put it another way. When you look at the great performances of elite track in the decades of the 1990's and 2000's would you call Ramzi a "game-changer" of the sport?

Passport era wrote:

"Mediocre set of examples?" I disagree...let's talk Ramzi ...

Athletes who have won the men's 800m/1500m double in global championships since 1960:

Peter Snell

Rashid Ramzi

Yeah Ramzi was just a mediocre runner in Rekrunner's analysis on EPO. He only managed to do things that Elliott, Walker, Coe, Ovett, El Guerroj etc etc were unable to do.

Clean like Chris Froome wrote:

Coe was clean like Froome and Wiggins. It's insulting to think otherwise.

I actually think the British in the 1980s were a bit more ethical than today's generation. And that generation of sportsmen were the last to retain the amateur ethos, even if the reality was they were the first to start earning some good money. It wasn't quite such a win at all costs culture. Peter Elliot wasn't even a full time athlete for much of his career, so it's hardly likely he would have been taking PEDs to get the all important edge.

Many of us had doubts about the British cycling success.

The comparison with the North Africans that followed the Brit golden era is invalid. You have several or more North African middle-distance runners busted. Not one Brit middle-distance runner was. North Africa is a region of endemic corruption and a culture of cheating in sport. The first great North African Aouita encouraged his Australian charges to take PEDs as a coach, and expressed genuine surprise that Australian athletes weren't already on them. If Steve Ovett had done the same as a coach after retiring then nobody here would even defend the Brit runners from accusations of doping.

The North African success literally came out of nowhere. The British weren't at the top in the early 70's but they already had a fine history with figures like Bannister less than 20 years previously, and good runners such as Andy Carter at 800m and Foster at the longer distances paving the way. There are obvious reasons why British and European middle distance running stagnated after the spell of success. There are no obvious reasons why the North African conveyor belt has stopped aside from it was built in a period of lax drug testing, at least in their region.

It's hard for non-Europeans especially to understand the difference that the mega bucks in Premiership football has had, and the infamous practice of top clubs signing children as young as 12 on lucrative contracts. Steve Ovett was a high school record long jumper, high jumper etc at school. He was just one of those genetic freaks who are good at any sport. I don't know what his footballing abilities were but I'd guess he certainly knew how to kick a ball. Pretty sure any 14 year old Steve Ovetts today would have the likes of Chelsea or Manchester United offering his father £5k a week to sign for their football academies. Do you think Ovett's market trader father would have let Steve choose, even if he wanted to stay in athletics?

I am far from desperate to convince you. 'It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."Keep spinning. The only way you can do so is to keep making up facts, though. Actually every single one of those nations have improved their national records in several (and in some cases virtually every) distance event since EPO came on the scene:American men set records in the 1500 in 2005. mile--20073000-2010two mile--20075000--several times most recently 200710000--2013 and 2014half-marathon--2007marathon--2002 or 2011, take your pick.Britains1500--20133000--2016two mile--20145000--201110000--20111/2 marathon--2015Germans3000--19985000--199710000-19971/2 marathon--1993marathon--2015Italians3000--19961/2 marathon--2002marathon--2006Kazakhs (this is a real backwater in athletics)800m--20041/2 marathon--1994 (or 1998 take your pick)Australians1500--2010mile--20063000--20065000-200410000--2011New Zealand1500--20153000--20145000--200810000--20161/2 marathon--2015Japanese800m--20141500--20043000--20145000--201510000-20151/2 marathon--2007marathon--2002Russians800m--20011500--2000mile--20013000--199510000--20081/2 marathon--1996marathon--2007So, it appears to work in all these populations.

Considering that Boulami, doped up, managed to run 13:08 5000m pace for 3k steeple, I think it's safe to say that he was able to run substantially faster than 13:28 (what a joke even to list that as if it has anything to do with his doped up self!), and probably low 12:50s.

There has actually been an academic paper written on the subject of the decline of British distance running and its causes :

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/254230200_Towards_an_explanation_for_the_decline_of_athletics_in_the_UK_A_case_study_of_male_distance_running

TommyTempo has just uploaded some more golden era races, though not showing Seb Coe at his best :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAzLcgk6zsU&t=0s

Peter Elliot just pipping Seb Coe at the AAA 1500m 1984 (which was an unofficial 'run off' between the two for the last remaining place at Los Angeles). First time I've seen that race, or since I was a kid when it happened anyway. Odd race. Always noticed that Coe had a habit of looking over his shoulder in the home straight but it never seemed to effect his stride in the slightest, but this time it looked like it almost caused him to lose balance a little. But it was clear that Coe was getting back to his best if still just a little bit short of stamina, so it shouldn't have been too controversial his selection, with him being the Olympic Champion. The 1983 race is interesting as it involves all 3 (the only occasion?).

I have my doubts about the early 90s Brit talent pool when it comes to the 800 - dipping once slightly under 1:44 in your career is nowhere near the level of Elliott, Cram, Coe. In the 1500, there is a world of difference between a career best 3:34 and multiple 3:31-3:32 times, too.

Saying that the competition was dominated by souped up Africans by the mid 90s avoids the fact that the 800 was essentially a stagnant event from 1990 to 1996, the year 1:42 and 1:43 times really started to become common and the amount of top Africans increased a lot.

When it comes to the sprints, they are a different world that never seems to have unenhanced periods... I'll give you Grindley and Roger Black, Iwan Thomas was in the late 90s?

I do agree about the lucky breaks. One of them was that Finland introduced real out of competition testing in 1985 after Vainio, the 10000m runner, was busted for steroids. A staggering collapse in Finnish middle distance and long distance running ensued - even with blood doping still undetectable. No more Finnish championship-peakers taking medals from the Brits!

But yeah, Zola Budd and Kirsty Wade were clean, running those 1:57 and 3:59 times in the 80s. It is only Russians that become suspicious when they reach that performance level. Therefore the British women were obviously clean in the 80s - and this logically means that the men did not use steroids either.

If you think my previous post was idiotic, wait till you hear my theory that Herb Elliott was an early steroid user. That's why he could endure the Cerutty training program... picking selective facts about history is fun, you can make any argument with it!

Not quite apples to apples ...It's not the first time I said to compare the magnitude of improvements.

Mr. Obvious wrote:

...Actually every single one of those nations have improved their national records in several (and in some cases virtually every) distance event since EPO came on the scene...

rekrunner wrote:

...when we look at the progression during the EPO-era, specifically looking for evidence of the impact on elite performances, of a new doping substance that promises extra-ordinary performances for every group for every sport, we find ... a rather un-(extra)ordinary progression spanning more than two decades of the EPO-era.

So you admit that it works and are now just debating the magnitude?

rekrunner wrote:

Not quite apples to apples ...

It's not the first time I said to compare the magnitude of improvements.

Mr. Obvious wrote:

...Actually every single one of those nations have improved their national records in several (and in some cases virtually every) distance event since EPO came on the scene...

rekrunner wrote:

...when we look at the progression during the EPO-era, specifically looking for evidence of the impact on elite performances, of a new doping substance that promises extra-ordinary performances for every group for every sport, we find ... a rather un-(extra)ordinary progression spanning more than two decades of the EPO-era.

It seems by now you should know what I'm debating. These small magnitudes of population improvements don't support the notion of an untestable endurance drug clinically proven to deliver big magnitudes of individual improvements, for every race, gender, talent level, sport and event.Lest you accuse me again of making up facts, let's look at one real world example, with real data, in USA for the 10K, that perfectly illustrates what I'm debating:Mark Nenow ran 27:20.56 in 1986, pre-EPO era. For perspective, the world record was already 27:13.81 (Mamede) in 1984.In 2010, post-ABP, Rupp and Solinsky ran 27:10.74 (0.6%) and 26:59.6 (1.3%), respectively.Note that 27:00 was broken by a Yobes Ondeiki in 1993 with a 26:58 (1.34%), and in 1998, it was 26:22.75 (3.5%)Between 1986 and 2009, in the USA, only Meb (Eritrean-African-American) and Abdi (Somali-African-American) ran a 10K faster than Mark Nenow. They did not run faster than Mamede's 27:13.81 from 1984. Meb ran 27:13.98 17 years later in 2001, after an EPO-test was developed.No "American born" American-American ran faster than Mark Nenow's non-world record performance from 1986, during the whole EPO-era spanning more than two decades. Not one. That means "zero".EPO was an untestable drug clinically proven to bring up to 6% improvement, or up to 98 seconds for 10K. You ranted that all the evidence points to the same conclusion, that EPO "works" for every race, gender, sport, event, ability, etc.Do you believe that "wejo" (28:06 in 2003 - 3188th all time) was just 6 dirty-weeks away from a 26:28 (top 6)?So if the question is, did EPO "work" in the USA for 10K? I think it's fair to say no, based not on made-up facts, but on historical real world data.Doesn't it seem highly unlikely that there was no single "Lance Armstrong" for two decades, motivated to take an elixir promising up to 98 seconds of improvement, in order to compete on the world stage, and reap in the rewards, sponsorship, etc.?This isn't one single cherry-picked exception, but generally typical of all elite non-African males, from some 150 nations, for all endurance running events, for the two decades of the EPO-era.Go back to your long list of national records and find the best example of progress by a non-African. I guess it will be in a "weak" event rarely contested, like the half-marathon, coming in at 2% improvement.

Mr. Obvious wrote:

So you admit that it works and are now just debating the magnitude?

rekrunner wrote:

Not quite apples to apples ...

It's not the first time I said to compare the magnitude of improvements.