Did Sebastian Coe blood dope?

Passport era wrote:

There's some anecdotal evidence that 02-vector doping may be more effective with athletes who have a lower baseline Hct & VO2max.

That seems logical too. Famous examples include said Armstrong with an Hct in the 30s and Radcliffe with her anemia. The effect from a boost from 35 to 48% or 12 g/dl to 16 g/dl must be gigantic.

1) epo works, everyone knows it does, you are talking nonsense. It would have not gotten FDA approval if epo discriminated against racial subsector groups. The odd individual might see less benefit from it, like all medicines and genotypes.

2) Tyler Hamilton, "If there was one product that we could almost not do without, it was epo"

3) This is without the ridiculous thing that you have posted, virtually all the elite cyclists are white from higher income countries. "Kazahks," I worked with a Kazahk, he looked like Dolph Lundgren, because Stalin flooded Kazakhstan with white Russians to over power the indigenous population, there has been some interbreeding, Kazakhstan has heaps of oil money. "South Americans," there ain't to many elite cyclists from there. In fact there are more elite runners from Brazil than there is cyclists. All around the world there have been good distance runners except Polynesia for obvious reasons (small islands & big people). East Asian men have done far better over the marathon distance than 5 & 10 on the track.

3b) Tracks: the running tracks of the 1970s & early 1980s were quicker for distance races than they are today, Christchurch, Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki etc would be illegal today.

4) Vainio, Regina Jacobs, Ali Saidi Sief, (probably Said Aouita) plus many more (others can name them).

bmg wrote:

That seems logical too. Famous examples include said Armstrong with an Hct in the 30s and Radcliffe with her anemia. The effect from a boost from 35 to 48% or 12 g/dl to 16 g/dl must be gigantic.

It was huge when LA competed during his 7-year TdF title run when the UCI had implemented the 50% Hct safety limit. It's been reported that his baseline Hct was ~39%, where he could boost his value by a whopping 28% increase right up to the 50% limit. Contrast that to other athletes with naturally higher baseline Hcts, e.g., 45%, where they could increase their Hct by only 11% up to the limit. One heck of difference!

Additionally, Armstrong's peak VO2max is listed by Topend Sports @ 84.0. It's been reported that his pre-epo # was in the low 70s...another huge increase:

Under the top female endurance athletes, I don’t see Radcliffe listed. Anyone know what her peak # was?

I heard that it was about 73 or 74, but it went down around the time she was breaking the records (and probably was doping) to something like 72.9. rjm33 knows. None of the data associated with Paula makes very much sense.

Haven't read a lot of this thread, but the question has relevance given that he's now, from a position of authority, dealing with the current blood doping issues and allegations. Please forgive me if this has already been brought up.

Sorry, PED issues.

Thingnes wrote:

There has been speculation in the past that Sebastian Coe may have blood doped. He suffered a prolonged bout of toxoplasmosis which may be spread through blood transfusions.

Also after 1986 he did not achieve the same results after the IOC banned blood doping.

Alberto Cova after 1986 failed to achieve the same success and he known to have admitted to blood doping.

Steve Cram's form after 1986 also went downhill.

Of course, injuries and aging would have contributed to their decline in form or the rise in competition from African nations after 1986.

Is this speculation justified or just rumours to smear Coe's name?

There was far more suspicious people who won races at both 1980 & 1984 than Coe or Ovett, just look closely.

Such as?

Draft dodging wrote:

Thingnes wrote:

There has been speculation in the past that Sebastian Coe may have blood doped. He suffered a prolonged bout of toxoplasmosis which may be spread through blood transfusions.

Also after 1986 he did not achieve the same results after the IOC banned blood doping.

Alberto Cova after 1986 failed to achieve the same success and he known to have admitted to blood doping.

Steve Cram's form after 1986 also went downhill.

Of course, injuries and aging would have contributed to their decline in form or the rise in competition from African nations after 1986.

Is this speculation justified or just rumours to smear Coe's name?

There was far more suspicious people who won races at both 1980 & 1984 than Coe or Ovett, just look closely.

Deanouk wrote:

Thans Deano

When given the proof of the golden claim, Boe and dsrunner go quiet. Bad manners not to acknowledge.

thought about this wrote:

i reckon peter did. I just need to find it

He did however definitely write that the great conditioner is 5000 m training - essential for late winter /early spring (6 weeks of it - my analysing).

Yes, Peter Coe did say that the conditioning sessions at 5k pace were, " Golden". I remember him saying so in an interview.

Thanks DeanoWhen given the proof of the golden claim, Boe and dsrunner go quiet. Bad manners not to acknowledge.

Deanouk wrote:

thought about this wrote:

i reckon peter did. I just need to find it

He did however definitely write that the great conditioner is 5000 m training - essential for late winter /early spring (6 weeks of it - my analysing).

Yes, Peter Coe did say that the conditioning sessions at 5k pace were, " Golden". I remember him saying so in an interview.

Subway Surfers Addiction wrote:

3b) Tracks: the running tracks of the 1970s & early 1980s were quicker for distance races than they are today, Christchurch, Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki etc would be illegal today.

Not sure about this! What evidence do you base that claim on?

I have heard many times that the modern 'mondo' tracks of last 20 years are faster.

Thanks for the comments. I don't really want to discuss cycling or sprinting, or really for that matter the women, known to respond highly to male hormones.The point about EPO in cycling was more to say that 1) EPO is not the only variable in the EPO era -- there are many confounders, and 2) my observations don't rely on settling whether EPO really works, therefore I don't care to explicitly say one way or the other. I might do that in "letscylce.com", but then again, probably not.Regarding Kenyan runners under constant control outside of Kenya -- there are several examples like Sammy Wanjiru, and Edward Cheserek who live outside of Kenya for at least 3-4 months at a time. Similarly for women we have the likes of Buzenesh Deba (Ethiopian) based in New York.Regarding Kenyans busted for steroids, the ones that were busted for steroids are not the Kenyans performing at the top, with only one exception Matthew Kisorio, and the period we KNOW he was doping was not the period he produced good times.Regarding the Chinese women, we don't know if they took steroids or EPO or both or anything else -- so it seems premature to give all the credit to EPO.Regarding Jada Aman (I guess you mean Jama Aden) -- the first report and the last report are actually not that different. It is only British tabloid headlines that gave the initial wrong message. In any case, more detailed reports some days later, clearly said exactly which substances were found in exactly which rooms.

I know. Maybe EPO is high octane for cyclists.We know from Lance that he took a multi-drug cocktail, and very detailed instructions from Ferrari, with precise timing of different drugs, and a high level of sophistication.Then again, there was this Dutch study last year still under analysis -- don't know if it was ever peer-reviewed and published:http://science.sciencemag.org/content/353/6296/206But then again, the CIRC gave "anecdotes" from cyclists that ABP reduced performance from 10-15% to 3-5%.Did these former greats have the same technology bikes?It's a discussion that can last a long time with no conclusion.Certainly looking at performances, cycling make a stronger case than running.Regarding O2-vector doping, off my head, I can think of many significant differences:VO2max, LT, TTE are not the only variables. Maybe more important for short distances up to 5K, but longer distances like the marathon are run at slower sub-VO2max speeds, where oxygen delivery is not a limiting factor.Non-aerobic issues like glycogen management, and economy also play important roles in the marathon. Increased O2 delivery is no good if you run out of glycogen and bonk sooner.Some "anecdotes" about EPO are not about O2, but about recovery -- that is, it would not work for 1 day trials, but in 3 week events, it allows you to attack one day, and be in form to attack again the next day. This doesn't translate to running events on the track, which are clearly less than 1 day. Maybe it would have helped Robert Young.

1) I'm sure FDA approved it for medical purposes like increasing red blood cell count, especially in those who are lower than normal, but not proving impact on elite running performance. When I say "not proven", the issue is how well it is proven that the performance of elite runners can be improved with the increased red blood cell count.2) I could understand that the recovery is important for grand tours lasting three weeks.3) Virtually all the elite distance runners are from lower income East African countries with some from North Africa. Can't you see the contrast? Why did we have to wait until 2010 for the first non-African to break 27:00 for 10K? Or for Ryan Hall (in 2008) and Ritzenheim (in 2011) to break 2:08 in the marathon?4) These are not arguments or consensus. Is there a consensus that steroids were considered the primary reason for progression of distance running during the EPO-era who managed to escape the steroid testing that plagued Western men? I would not argue the Chinese women, or Regina Jacobs having taken steroids. Women are known to respond highly to male hormones. The benefits for women cannot be projected onto the men, already amply supplied with male hormones naturally.

I never questioned it, I merely just stated that you mentioned the 5km pace session being golden. Could have Sebastian Coe run a 13 minute 5000m? He should have moved up to that distance from 1986.

thought about this wrote:

Thanks Deano

When given the proof of the golden claim, Boe and dsrunner go quiet. Bad manners not to acknowledge.

Deanouk wrote:

Yes, Peter Coe did say that the conditioning sessions at 5k pace were, " Golden". I remember him saying so in an interview.

The Dutch study hasn't been peer-reviewed & accepted for publication in any reputable Journal as of yet...so we'll have to wait & see on that one. There was a paper published in the BMJ a few years ago that refuted performance gains with EPO & elite cyclists, but there are some serious flaws in the research:

And why wouldn't EPO be effective for running events on the track that are "clearly less than one day?" 🤔. EPO is usually administered over a build-up period of 4-6 weeks (on average) to boost blood values to the desired levels. Generally athletes try to time this to coincide with key events, and stop use in time to not be glowing for IC drug controls. If an athlete is using EPO cycles throughout the year, wouldn't he/she be able to train harder, recover more efficiently, improve times in practice...all as a result of the EPO-induced higher Hct & VO2max levels?

There's a study with amateur athletes administered a moderate EPO dose over a 4 week build-up period that showed a ~6 improvement with 3,000 m time trials separated by at least one day rest performed on a 200 m indoor athletic track (results were from only about a ~18% increase in Hct levels):

And looking at a high-profile mid-d runner, I think the case with Rashid Ramzi is pretty convincing on the power of 02-vector doping with a high-responder. If he hadn't been using the 3rd generation CERA form of EPO, which has a very long glow time, he probably never would have tested positive, and everyone would be thinking he's the real deal with his altitude training and all 😁. And it sounds like he didn't show much potentinal in his youth:

rekrunner wrote:

Regarding Kenyans busted for steroids, the ones that were busted for steroids are not the Kenyans performing at the top, with only one exception Matthew Kisorio, and the period we KNOW he was doping was not the period he produced good times.

How do you know that some of the "Kenyans performing at the top" are not using steriods and are more proficient at anti-doping countermeasures? 🤔. The lower level Kenyans may not have the resources that the higher level runners have in terms of doping doctors and the like.

lie detector tests are not admissible in court and peeps can train to defeat them

MD.. wrote:

The brits do close ranks though when scandal breaks.

One only has to observe the Paula Radcliffe controversy ,although the pending Lie-Detector test may finally clear up the issue.

Regarding the BMJ journal, and Dr. Michael Joyner's critique, even the minimal finding "It’s correct about only one thing: There are essentially no studies on really, really elite people." is a relevant question that has not been properly investigated. How much can we project the findings in short term studies, on amateurs, with limited training background, with a non-specific training, not maximally trained to their potential, to elite athletes maximally trained to run at a world class level? Would the clean VO2max 80 athlete also gain 9% of VO2max, and 6% performance? If not, then how much? How much more than the controls?

Why wouldn't EPO be effective for running events less than one day? This was connected to Tyler Hamilton saying you can win one day cycling events without EPO, but not the 3 week grand tours. Taking Hamilton's expertise for what it is, why would that be different for running than cycling?

Regarding the "plos" study, I don't see a control group. They picked 19 athletes -- only 10 were runners -- and performed a running time trial. The issue with this, and other amateur studies, is how to project the findings to elite runners, who already have a very high VO2max, in order to reliably estimate performance improvements. Put another way, what limits the elite runner (is it O2?), and what limits the "good swimmer, cyclist, or triathlete" participating in an EPO study conducting running time trials? Should we assume the limitations are the same, or of comparable magnitude? At some point, we need to test our assumptions.

With respect to "O2-vector doping with a high responder" is, my question is, in the light of "pretty convincing" evidence from the likes of Ramzi, where were all the non-African "high responders" during the entirety of the EPO era? They were nowhere near the top of the sport for two decades.

[quote]Passport era wrote:

The Dutch study hasn't been peer-reviewed & accepted for publication in any reputable Journal as of yet...so we'll have to wait & see on that one. There was a paper published in the BMJ a few years ago that refuted performance gains with EPO & elite cyclists, but there are some serious flaws in the research:

...

And why wouldn't EPO be effective for running events on the track that are "clearly less than one day?" 🤔. EPO is usually administered over a build-up period of 4-6 weeks (on average) to boost blood values to the desired levels. Generally athletes try to time this to coincide with key events, and stop use in time to not be glowing for IC drug controls. If an athlete is using EPO cycles throughout the year, wouldn't he/she be able to train harder, recover more efficiently, improve times in practice...all as a result of the EPO-induced higher Hct & VO2max levels?

There's a study with amateur athletes administered a moderate EPO dose over a 4 week build-up period that showed a ~6 improvement with 3,000 m time trials separated by at least one day rest performed on a 200 m indoor athletic track (results were from only about a ~18% increase in Hct levels):

...

And looking at a high-profile mid-d runner, I think the case with Rashid Ramzi is pretty convincing on the power of 02-vector doping with a high-responder. If he hadn't been using the 3rd generation CERA form of EPO, which has a very long glow time, he probably never would have tested positive, and everyone would be thinking he's the real deal with his altitude training and all 😁. And it sounds like he didn't show much potentinal in his youth:

...