Did Sebastian Coe blood dope?

naw wrote:

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.

Turn on your sarcasm detector

Of course I don't know what is not known. If new data surfaces, I can always change my mind.What is clear is that the ones being busted for easily detectable steroids are not demonstrating a sophisticated doping regime.

Passport era wrote:

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.

Yes of course, because in your world, testosterone and steroids are O2-vector drugs, and taking 5th place in your best race ever, as the best non-African performance ever, 13 seconds behind the winner is somewhere near the top.You are the king of pretending exceptions make the rule. Yes Da Costa was at the top, once.The men's marathon is difficult to explain with typical EPO timelines.For 10 years, no one beat Dinsamo's 1988 world record of 2:06:50.So until 1998, no one used EPO or blood doping to beat 2:06:50.In 1998, Da Costa runs 2:06:05. He remains best non-African until Ryan Hall's wind aided 2:04:58 in 2011.So no non-African used EPO or blood doping to beat 2:06:05.When I ask, where are all the non-African high-responders during the EPO era?, we can argue there is at least 1.Marathon times really started dropping after your 2005 undetection window, once we got good at detecting EPO, when Geb started challenging the record.You should know I'm not talking about the women, where Africans have culturely been held back, and we've talked enough about Paula, and her artificially inflated, altitude-esque values post dating her world records.

casual obsever wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

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.

The last sentence is wrong of course.

As for "all the non-African "high responders""? How many African high responders do you see? Literally by definition all of them remained undetected from 1990ish to 2005. Ramzi was simply too bold, too late.

EPO era: Baumann, da Costa, Slaney, Radcliffe, just to name a couple of both genders.

rekrunner wrote:

Yes of course, because in your world, testosterone and steroids are O2-vector drugs, and taking 5th place in your best race ever, as the best non-African performance ever, 13 seconds behind the winner is somewhere near the top.

You are the king of pretending exceptions make the rule. Yes Da Costa was at the top, once.

Could you please focus a bit more with your trolling? I mentioned neither testosterone nor (other) steroids...

You just wrote "They [the non-Africans] were nowhere near the top of the sport for two decades.", and I proved you wrong - as per usual - with these four examples during the EPO era:

Baumann, Olympic champion

Da Costa, marathon world record

Radcliffe, marathon world record

Slaney, world silver medal

So much for your "taking 5th place in your best race ever"...

rekrunner wrote:

You should know I'm not talking about the women

Oh? I disagree. But whatever, exclude the women. And the Africans. And the best performing non-Africans. Then yeah, nothing to see here.

What nonsense will you claim next? Suggestion: Try again with yet again another nickname.

And as you know, there will never be any studies on elites for ethical reasons. However, on studies with amateur's & anecdotal evidence with some elites, those with lower baseline Hct's & VO2max's showed a significant benefit from 02-vector doping. Therefore, what if an athlete in the low 70's boosts Hct 20% or so, consequently raising VO2max ~10%...this could put the athlete in higher level of competition, i.e., medal contention at national & world events.

I have no idea what's he talking about 🤔. Perhaps now in the "passport era" that's possible, but there's evidence to the contrary during the widespread EPO era of cycling. Look no further than Johan Museeuw ("Lion of Flanders"), who arguably was the best one-day stage & classics rider in the history of cycling (3-time Paris-Roubaix winner & WC!). He served a ban for, and admitted to using a 2nd gen form of EPO (ARANESP) during most of his career.

I agree...it's only a study with amateur athletes. However, this study like the Thomsen et al. paper shows that EPO is effective on human physiology in endurance excercise. In fact, the Thomsen et al. study with cyclists showed for some test subjects a ~12% increase in VO2max, ~13% increase in wattage and improved time to exhaustion by ~54% (*Results were from only about a ~20% increase in Hct levels):

Also...don't forget Brahim Boulini of Morocco who was popped for EPO during his heyday (Btw, he holds the 4th fastest steeplechase of all time). And there are non-African high-responders hammering some fast times & winning titles/medals during the EPO era...you're just not looking 🤔. Here's a few European guys busted for EPO that aren’t exactly pack fodder: Fouad Chouki (France/3:30.83), Roberto Barbi (Italy/2:10), Alberto Garcia (Spain/13:02 & 27:46). And these are the guys who just got caught .

In the context of "O2-vector high responder", you mention Baumann (steroids) and Slaney (testosterone).Maybe we don't understand "high responder" and "near the top" the same way. World and Olympic medals are no doubt, important, but my comments are from the viewpoint of finding potential correlations between doping producing fast times.Baumann's very very best 5000m is currently ranked 97th of all time.Compare this to his late-1990's contemporaries Gebrselassie and Komen, who were the top, who are still ranked 2nd and 3rd, some 15 seconds faster, and Tergat, still ranked 26th some 5 seconds faster.Bauman's second best performance is 464th of all time.His 1992 Olympic Gold medal, thanks to a great kick in a slow race, is 1153th of all time, and 4th fastest of that year.3000m is better, Baumann is 84th all time compared to Komen (1st), and Geb (4th) and El Guerrouj (3rd)DaCosta -- no argument he was the top of the world in 1998, before the likes of Tergat and Geb hit the road.Today this performance is ranked 144th of all time.Many of these faster performances were produced after your magical date of 2005, when we finally got good at detecting EPO.Before 2005, Tergat ran one minute faster, with a 2:04:55 in 2003.The current world is 3 minutes faster, and Da Costa remains the fastest non-African (outside Ryan Hall's Boston Marathon).The Slaney of the 80's was unarguably "near the top", but the Slaney of the "EPO-era" much less so.Slaney, silver medal winner of World Indoors in 1500m, with a 4:05:22, DQ'd for testosterone, is not even in the top 100 for women indoors.Earlier, in Atlanta, she did run 4:03:08, which is still ranked 44th all time indoor performance.But indoors is not the same level of competition, even World Indoors, as outdoors.Later that same year, outdoors, ignoring the slew of Chinese women in Shanghai, Kelly Holmes ran 3:58.

casual obsever wrote:

Could you please focus a bit more with your trolling? I mentioned neither testosterone nor (other) steroids...

You just wrote "They [the non-Africans] were nowhere near the top of the sport for two decades.", and I proved you wrong - as per usual - with these four examples during the EPO era:

Baumann, Olympic champion

Da Costa, marathon world record

Radcliffe, marathon world record

Slaney, world silver medal

So much for your "taking 5th place in your best race ever"...

...

One improvement on previous studies, even if we can only ethically stay with amateurs, is to make training more realistic to the real athletic situation. Imagine selecting amateur volunteers with a significant number of years of running history, then trained specifically (e.g. six months) to some race target, simulating what real athletes do to prepare for "the big race". We don't give all athletes the same training, but customize the training individually for each athlete, to bring them to their personal peak for this "race". Or even better, pick two races, two months apart, so that one can be pre-EPO, while the second can be post-EPO. This wouldn't be different from a "trials" competition, then "the big race".Should we still expect to see the same 6% boost, between the before and after races?Should we still expect to see the same 6% boost, for the EPO group compared to a control group?Or, an even more sophistated approach, from existing experiments, if we had access to the individual data, would be to try and derive the expected EPO improvement, as a function of performance level, rather than some average for the whole group. For example, we have seen 9-minute Kenyans improve significantly less than 11:00 Scottish runners, both relatively, and absolutely. This kind of model would be a better predictor for elite runners, than an average percentage for the whole group.(I'm not an experimental scientist with access to EPO, so these are just thought experiment to frame the questions.)Regarding non-African high performances, let's put it another way, with some illustrative (not actual) statistics. During the EPO-era (for elite male distance runners):- 90% of the progress was from East Africans- 9% of the progress was from North Africans- 1% of the progress was from non-Africans(One study calculated that Kenyans outnumber Western athletes by 80-1, without correcting for population, so these figures might not be that unrealistic -- but just the same, it's for illustration only.)Finding a handful of "exceptions" as contradictions seems to be missing the general point. I am looking, looking at the numbers, and when I look at top times, that is my estimated impression. I understand arguments like "improved testing in the West" and "reduced participation from the West", have some influence on these statistics, but when I look at percentages and magnitudes of performances and performance improvements, I don't see these explanations, plus doping, going far enough to be able to explain the African domination.

Passport era wrote:

And as you know, there will never be any studies on elites for ethical reasons.

...

there are non-African high-responders hammering some fast times & winning titles/medals during the EPO era...you're just not looking 🤔.

Again, the best research there is on EPO significantly improving VO2max & TTE is the Thomsen et al study with highly trained amateur cyclists. Factor that study with the myraid of anecdotal evidence with pro cyclists, and why would anyone believe that 02-vector doping only works only for cyclists and not elite runners? As I mentioned before, anyone reaching the conclusion that EPO only works for cyclists & not runners is like saying that steriods work for bodybuilders, but not powerlifters.

And anecdotally there are many cases with elite runners who have been caught using EPO and have recorded fast times, as well as medaling in major competitions as a result of the improvement they received from EPO. One very profound case that I'm surprised you have overlooked is Mohammed Mourhit of Morocco. He's the Bronze medalist in the 5000 from the 99 WC and holds the *15th* all-time fastest 5000 at 12:49, which he set in 2000. He also holds the *7th* fastest 3000 at 7:26, also around that same time period. He tested positive for EPO in 2002 and subsequently served a 2 yr ban:

Now look at Mourhit's IAAF profile, particulary his progression graphs in the 3000 & 5000 m. You can clearly see his sizzling times were set prior to the doping positive. After his return from the ban, his times get progressively worse and are never anything near to the times he set prior to the ban. In fact, he never even comes close to going sub-13 in 5000:

Passport era wrote:

Again, the best research there is on EPO significantly improving VO2max & TTE is the Thomsen et al study with highly trained amateur cyclists..

There is negligible amount of easily accessible data on the fitness level of the subjects of the 2007 Thomson study, but according to the meta-analysis on the rEPO research papers by a team of Dutch researchers, the subjects weren't "highly trained amateurs", but had their mean relative Vo2MAX value less than 50 ml/kg/min.

The information you brought up one day that Lance Armstrong's pre-rEPO relative Vo2MAX figure was in "low 70s" isn't fully accurate either. The only published racing season data in the Coyle paper (September 1993) is 6.10 l/min, which in relative terms is a very high figure of 81.2 ml/kg/min.

That is his highest figure and according to blood doping specialist Michael Ashenden, one shouldn't necessarily cherry pick the highest figure as anyone's "real" figure, but on the other hand it is Armstrong's only INseason figure published (by Coyle). According to supplementary material on the SCA-case, he had absolute value even higher in a test conducted in 1991, almost 6.2 l/min. That same material has his OFFseason hematocrit (Dec/1991) as high as 48.8 % and there is another high figure (46.7 %) before he succumbed to rEPO use,so it is possible that his natural hematocrit level was indeed high and he didn't get that much of the presumed advantage from the blood boosting hormone.

The Coyle paper itself has some serious issues such as wrong equations applied and that the bicycle ergometer wasn't same in all the tests. If my reading is sound, the direct method to determine Vo2MAX should be pretty independent of those issues nevertheless.

Passport era wrote:

Also...don't forget Brahim Boulini of Morocco who was popped for EPO during his heyday (Btw, he holds the 4th fastest steeplechase of all time).

Boulami has ran the fastest steeplechase times of all time,no one has beaten his (EPO enhanced) efforts. Anyway you are wasting your time with Rekrunner, his clutching at straws types of arguments are completely dependent on the fact that the testing system is far from perfect and is never sure to catch every single elite using EPO.

Whatever example of an elite you give to him who has been caught using EPO he will say is invalid because they do not fit into his ever shifting criteria for proof that EPO works in elite distnace runners. With Boulami it will probably be that the steeplechase is "technical" so it does not count or that Boulami is not from altitude (even though he ran faster that everyone from altitude).

Rekrunner tried to argue that EPO did not help European distance running even though it was pointed out to him that pretty much every single distance running European record indoor and outdoor (he said indoor records did not count for him for whatever reason) from 1500m through to the marathon during the "EPO era" was set by someone either busted for EPO or for whom there is very good reason to believe that they were using EPO. Rekrunner tried to argue that these athletes did not count as they did not fit into his criteria.

Obviously if you keep altering your criteria to annul examples that disprove your hypothesis then your hypothesis will always be right in your own eyes.

The Thomsen study is not a great study to draw conclusions about elite running. They didn't even measure running performance.Assuming that EPO helped elite cycling, and assuming we fully understand the relevant mechanisms of EPO, running is still a very different sport, with different energy demands and different limiters. If the primary mechanism of EPO in the Grand Tours is recovery during a 3 week event, then this wouldn't help any track events, or road races.I already mentioned that in running VO2max, LT, and TTE are not the only variables, and it's not even clear, for longer, slower distance events, that they are the most important. Non-aerobic factors that improve economy play an important role in running. No sense generating a lot of power and energy, if you have poor efficiency wasting that energy, or a poor economy, resulting in slow performances, or if you end up bonking before the end of the race.Mourhit is one of the better examples, but still looks like an exception rather than the rule. There are 14 runners in front of him. Anecdotes count, but only count a little. We would need a lot more anecdotes to suggest a trend, and attempt to make correlations.

I keep saying look at the magnitudes and compare the progressions. If EPO is supposed to be so powerful, proven by studies and anecdotes from cycling, why did so many nations do so little with it, for so long, while the East Africans, and some Moroccans, were leaving them far behind. It's not because of steroid testing. Why do we look at cycling? Why don't we have more anecdotes from running, from Americans, Australians, Europeans setting "outdoor" records, etc.Yes Boulami, Mourhit, Sanchez, Garcia, and all the other national record setters and indoor champions. Throw in busted for steroids Baumann. These are not athletes in the same league as El Guerrouj, Komen, Tergat, Geb, and Bekele -- none of whom have been linked to any EPO or blood doping. The fact is that if EPO could help these other nations compete, it did not, during the EPO-era.

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?

Yes, it's you and your ilk attacking Coe (he represents the hated group known as YT) to keep attention off rampant doping by third worlders like Kenyans, Ethiopians, Cubans, Grenadans and more. How's the investigation of Aden going? Oh, wait, he's not a paleface. Nothing to see here, move along.

Not trying to argue with you because it is true there will never be a scientific study of elites where we give them EPO. But we do have case studies of elites who have been busted like Ramzi where we can estimate when they started taking EPO and observe their gains.

The importance of the study is that the EPO group demonstrated a significant improvement in VO2max & TTE over the placebo group. Both groups had similar baseline values in VO2max & Hct/Hb, etc. This study shows that EPO is effective on human physiology in endurance excercise. Again, there are no studies with elites and there will never will be (unless Ferrari has them hidden somewhere, lol). So, what we're left with is anecdotal evidence...which looks very convincing with some athletes (but certainly not all...hence the term "high-responders").

What was his VO2max prior to be signed by USPS? And where did his "84.0" figure come from that's listed with Top End? (Btw, the link you posted is not available)

There's evidence to he contrary that LA's natural Hct was high, and as such received a significant boost in values from 02-vector doping. For one, he admits that per the pre-screening blood test prior to the 2003 TdF, his Hct was 39. I believe Tyler Hamilton has also mentioned that LA's natural crit was in the upper 30s. This would allow him to boost upwards toward a whopping ~28% - right up to the 50% upper limit allowed by the UCI back then:

Additionally, LA posted his monthly blood values starting in early 2009 up though the TdF as part of his transparency platform reference his comeback. If look at his #'s, he has a few 39s and one 38, including a 39 for the initial test in early 09. And if you average all the #'s up through to the TdF, it's around the low 41's. I think the average of these #'s would be more representative of his true baseline Hct (baseline natural Hct usually doesn't change much in adulthood). Of course at 41, he could still boost ~22% up to the 50% upper limit (imagine that, lol).

rekrunner wrote:

Yes Boulami, Mourhit, Sanchez, Garcia, and all the other national record setters and indoor champions. Throw in busted for steroids Baumann. These are not athletes in the same league as El Guerrouj, Komen, Tergat, Geb, and Bekele -- none of whom have been linked to any EPO or blood doping. The fact is that if EPO could help these other nations compete, it did not, during the EPO-era.

justicer wrote:

Mourhit's 7:26 pb over 3,000m was only 1s slower than Geb and Bekele but is 2s quicker than Tergat's, his 5,000m was the same as Tergat's and was a 1s quicker than El Guerrouj's. 12:49 would make you invincible today. So you are saying that guys doping and doing sensational times by clean standards are still slower than the greats from the EPO era?

There wasn't reliable testing for EPO until 2009, so I don't know how you could make such an absolute statement like that. Heck ABP is still being cheated via microdosing.

How many times do I have to explain to you, EPO was a highly controlled substance and was administered via state health systems in most rich countries during the 1990s to now. Obtaining it in these countries sent out a massive red flag, and people do speak. But still it only costs 60 euros in Iten.

It's not like Geb Bekele Komen Tergat were going to declare their EPO use,if any.

The European Marathoners ran 2-06 /2-07 on EPO and won many major titles and marathons.

How do we know that? The Spanish Marathoners were all on EPO and that is what they achieved.

Could they have run faster in time trial type races.Probably down to 2-04 high is my guess.

What if we compare Mourhit's 3000m to Komen and El Guerrouj, or his 5000m and 10000m to Geb and Bekele? Mourhit was good, better than Europeans, but not in the same class as these others.12:49 today wins because the best talent today bypasses the track and goes straight to the roads. Weren't you the one trying to explain how declining Western athlete participation on the track contributed to stagnant performances for the West?What's wrong with my absolute statement? If my goal is to attempt to draw a correlation between doping and fast times, we cannot use fast times not linked to doping. We cannot use anecdotes from cycling. We cannot use amateurs producing slow times. All we have are a few anecdotes, which count, but each one counts very little, because proof by example is inherently a weak argument. Cycling anecdotes make a stronger case, because there are many more examples at the top.Since my premise is that EPO has not (been shown to have) helped running, when comparing clean times of today to EPO-era times of yesterday, I'm saying we should spend more effort looking at other more significant real world factors that explain the differences. If I say EPO-macrodosing hasn't made an impact, I'm even less concerned about EPO-microdosing. Even cycling anecdotes show micro-dosing means micro-benefit.How many times do I have to respond that the very same state health systems in most rich countries did not stop doping in cycling?Let's go back and look at one of the damning statistics presented by the Sunday Times. 30% of medal winners had high blood values (which BTW may or may not be due to doping). 30% might sound like a lot, but the flip side is that 70% of medal winners did NOT have any history of high blood values. This is not a strong correlation of high blood values to winning medals.Compare this to similar reports in cycling, with stats like "87% of the top 10 finishers were confirmed dopers or suspected of doping". These kinds of numbers are harder to ignore.http://uk.businessinsider.com/lance-armstrong-doping-tour-de-france-2015-1?r=US&IR=Thttp://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/08/24/sports/top-finishers-of-the-tour-de-france-tainted-by-doping.html?_r=0

Yes...I understand that VO2max, LT, & TTE are not the only variables, and that running economy & biomechanics are very important also. However, VO2max is the most important physiological variable determining performances in races of 1500 to 5000 meters. And the Thomsen study and a few others have shown a significant improvement in VO2max with rHuEPO.

How can anecdotes "only count a little?" I'm not suggesting a specific trend, but providing evidence that 02-vector doping is effective with elites, and can show huge improvements with high responders. Mourhit's case is overwhelming; 12:58 in 1999, and the sizzling 12:49 in 2000, just on the eve of when the initial EPO test debut. And after serving his ban for the EPO positive he never came close to those times again. What happen post ban? Poor running shoes? Bad diet? No altitude training? 😁.

Boulami was never the same either after his EPO positive. And neither was Kaouch (3:31.10 PB/Silver 05 WC) nor Garcia (13:02/7:36) after their bans..and the list goes on. What happened here? If EPO wasn't that effective with these guys, why didn't we see times comparable to what they were running pre-ban? 🤔.