Doping rife in Kenya with little testing

Hail Keniano wrote:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/othersports/article-5050471/Dusty-roads-champions-train-doping-rife.html

BULLSHIT. I call complete BS on it.

Any of you Westerners, listen: we all love the sport and want to enhance fairness. If you come to our country and meet someone who admits to doping or discover some doping havens, CALL THEM OUT!! Give us specific names and locations. Details, man! Details! If the folks who write these articles are credible, it means they would have spoken to some truly credible sources. If that is the case, then they should be able to give us names of culprits. TELL US WHO THEY ARE!! Which prominent world record holder is doping? Who is being notified ahead of time that they are going to be tested? WHO ARE THESE ANONYMOUS CULPRITS??? Surely it should be possible to protect your sources while exposing culprits, no? Because otherwise, I CALL BULLSHIT on these fuckers.

I have lived and trained all over in the Rift Valley, from the Southern highlands of Bomet all the way to the undulating hills of Marakwet and the valleys of Baringo. Heck, I have gotten dizzy running up and down the windy roads of Kabarnet. In all my travels I have sought to find systematic doping and found none. A lot of doping problems in Kenya, I would say most of them, are a result of habitual Kenyan laziness among Athletics Kenya leadership. They do not document things well, and they ask for kickbacks every corner where they see a medalist. Nobody talks about these things. I can guarantee you that our best runners who have been caught doping (and they are very few actually) did not know that they were doping. I am saying that because I have met these people and lived with them. Most of them simply do not have that kind of sophistication. I'm sorry to say this but most of them have not had much education, and it takes more than what they're usually capable of to pull off high levels of doping. They were blackmailed likely because of not giving a kickback. The amount of corruption money surrounding the runners is ridiculous. But I still say, if anyone of you guys finds a doper on the ground during your visits to our country, EXPOSE THE HELL OUT OF THEM and stop writing anonymously speculative nonsense

Heil Keino wrote:

MyKey wrote:

You don't think the reason European athletes are more likely to get caught doping is because the testing procedures aren't ridiculously lax? That people aren't give , to cite the article headlining this post, a days notice before being tested??? The level of cognitive dissonance is stunning.

Sorry but most African athletes earn their living in the European and North American running circuit where as you yourself admit, the testing procedures are very stringent.

Talk about cognitive dissonance!

How long does the European circuit last for? Three out of 12 months in the year? And it's not that difficult to fly back to Kenya from Europe for a few days multiple times during the summer.[/quote]

You're stretching the limits of incredulity here.

MyKey wrote:

Heil Keino wrote:

Sorry but most African athletes earn their living in the European and North American running circuit where as you yourself admit, the testing procedures are very stringent.

Talk about cognitive dissonance!

How long does the European circuit last for? Three out of 12 months in the year? And it's not that difficult to fly back to Kenya from Europe for a few days multiple times during the summer.

You're stretching the limits of incredulity here.[/quote]

Yeah it's crazy to think that Kenyans who spend the majority of their time in Kenya where there is lax testing and readily available EPO might be more likely to dope undetected. Thank's for putting me right about that.

Very well stated MKenya,

which is whY I had called the article complete CRAP.

No names, no locations, nothing.

And btw he starts off by making a big deal about all the pharmacies around there. Does anyone have any idea of the numbers of sick people in that area? I live in a medium sized city in the US and there are a DOZEN pharmacies within a 10mile radius around me. Whats his point? Did he go to the window and ask for EPO and receive any?

Like pharmacies shouldn’t exist in Kenya. I wonder how he’d handle a bout of malaria or typhoid, something Kenyans have to grapple with all the time.

The very existence of a pharmacy anywhere in Kenya should be treated with suspicion. Ridiculo!

I want to give some NUMBER (not opinion) about the official situation of doped athletes, in the main athletic events, for men, considering the all-time lists of the best 50 (really elite) :

100m : 11 athletes in top 50 were doped (5 US + 5 Jamaican + 1 Qatari)

400m : 7 in top 50 (5 US, 1 Kenyan, 1 Brazilian)

800m : 1 in top 50 (from South Africa), with 21 Kenyans in the list

1500m : 3 in top 50 (1 Maroccan of Bahrein, 1 Maroccan, 1 Algerian) with 25 Kenyans in the list

5000m : 4 in top 50 (1 Maroccan of Belgium, 1 Maroccan, 1 Algerian, 1 German) with 23 Kenyans

10000m : 2 in top 50 (1 Maroccan of Belgium, 1 Kenyan) with 31 Kenyans in the list

Steeple : 3 in top 50 (1 Maroccan, 1 Qatari, 1 Dutch) with 34 Kenyans in the list

HM : 1 in top 50 (Kisorio of Kenya) with 38 Kenyans in the list

Marathon : 1 in top 50 (Erupe of Kenya) with 28 Kenyans in the list

So, for you the ecception are not Kisorio or Erupe, but the other 200 who are "officially" clean.

Good way to interpretate statistics, congratulations !

Renato Canova wrote:

I want to give some NUMBER (not opinion) about the official situation of doped athletes, in the main athletic events, for men, considering the all-time lists of the best 50 (really elite) :

100m : 11 athletes in top 50 were doped (5 US + 5 Jamaican + 1 Qatari)

400m : 7 in top 50 (5 US, 1 Kenyan, 1 Brazilian)

800m : 1 in top 50 (from South Africa), with 21 Kenyans in the list

1500m : 3 in top 50 (1 Maroccan of Bahrein, 1 Maroccan, 1 Algerian) with 25 Kenyans in the list

5000m : 4 in top 50 (1 Maroccan of Belgium, 1 Maroccan, 1 Algerian, 1 German) with 23 Kenyans

10000m : 2 in top 50 (1 Maroccan of Belgium, 1 Kenyan) with 31 Kenyans in the list

Steeple : 3 in top 50 (1 Maroccan, 1 Qatari, 1 Dutch) with 34 Kenyans in the list

HM : 1 in top 50 (Kisorio of Kenya) with 38 Kenyans in the list

Marathon : 1 in top 50 (Erupe of Kenya) with 28 Kenyans in the list

So, for you the ecception are not Kisorio or Erupe, but the other 200 who are "officially" clean.

Good way to interpretate statistics, congratulations !

Good summary, so in short : sprinters are dodgy and so are North African runners.

Subway Surfers Addiction wrote:

Good summary, so in short : sprinters are dodgy and so are North African runners.

That's what it looks like. But the sprinters really need steroids to be competitive, while the long distance runners can play with their blood, and are thus less likely to get caught.

Also, we learned from the Tubingen/Harvard study that 44 - 57 % (likely underestimated) are cheats, and only 1 - 2% get caught. Let's take the middle ground for simplicity: 1.5% get caught, 50% dope, makes an (average) detection rate of 3%. In other words: for each banned drug cheat, there are 33 undetected ones. On top of that, people at the top are more likely to dope, but that is hard to quantify. Ignoring the last effect, let's factor in the statistical detection rate for the fun of it:

100m : 11 athletes in top 50 were doped (5 US + 5 Jamaican + 1 Qatari) all of them

400m : 7 in top 50 (5 US, 1 Kenyan, 1 Brazilian) all of them

800m : 1 in top 50 (from South Africa), with 21 Kenyans in the list 33 out of 50

1500m : 3 in top 50 (1 Maroccan of Bahrein, 1 Maroccan, 1 Algerian) with 25 Kenyans in the list all of them

5000m : 4 in top 50 (1 Maroccan of Belgium, 1 Maroccan, 1 Algerian, 1 German) with 23 Kenyans all of them

10000m : 2 in top 50 (1 Maroccan of Belgium, 1 Kenyan) with 31 Kenyans in the list all of them

Steeple : 3 in top 50 (1 Maroccan, 1 Qatari, 1 Dutch) with 34 Kenyans in the list all of them

HM : 1 in top 50 (Kisorio of Kenya) with 38 Kenyans in the list 33 out of 50

Marathon : 1 in top 50 (Erupe of Kenya) with 28 Kenyans in the list 33 out of 50

+1

I'm sure it is "fun" to factor in your statistical detection rate, but does it accurately reflect reality? Looking at the annual WADA reports, it looks like the 1-2% detection rate is for "tests", not for "athletes". This low detection rate can be partially mitigated by taking more than 1 sample per athlete, and even further, by a strategic target testing plan. At first, it looks like a reasonable concession on your part, to relax your stance of "people at the top are more likely to dope", by admitting "that is hard to quantify". However, even assuming equal distribution by level of talent is still a rather favourable assumption, not supported by any real data. We can argue that it is more likely the opposite is true, for at least two reasons: - Statistically, there are simply fewer people at the top - Second and third tier athletes have a greater incentive to seek external aid to get to the next level, than athletes who are already there without such aid One goal of the Tubingen study was to see if such an approach could be accurate. I haven't seen any discussion or conclusion about that goal. While it looks again like a big concession on your part to go forward with a round 50% compromise for the sake of easy math: - the study itself applied one corrective method, to get a figure as low as 29% for the Daegu World Championship - the assumption of equal distribution is already something we already know is not true Renato looked specifically at the top 50 men of all time. We have recently seen: - The Sunday Times showed us that "abnormal" blood values "on the podium" varies widely over different events, from 11% for the marathon, to 54% for 1500m - the Russians showed us that they could bring women "to the top" by doping in many events, but not the men (ignoring the non-running sport of walking for a moment). We saw a similar pattern with the Chinese. - Even the Tubingen study gives two significantly different values for two separate games, 29% at Daegu and 45% at the Pan Arab games. Perhaps another "for the fun of it" project would be to see if the more doped Pan Arab games contained more "top" athletes, producing more "top" performances, than the World Championship. The Tubingen study, by presenting a single doping prevalence statistic for all events and genders, doesn't give us any hint at doping distribution by gender or talent or event. It would be misleading to apply it strictly to the top men.

casual obsever wrote:

Also, we learned from the Tubingen/Harvard study that 44 - 57 % (likely underestimated) are cheats, and only 1 - 2% get caught. Let's take the middle ground for simplicity: 1.5% get caught, 50% dope, makes an (average) detection rate of 3%. In other words: for each banned drug cheat, there are 33 undetected ones. On top of that, people at the top are more likely to dope, but that is hard to quantify. Ignoring the last effect, let's factor in the statistical detection rate for the fun of it: