Are high blood values are a significant factor for best marathon performances? When the IAAF blood values were leaked, the Sunday Times published some interesting statistics regarding "suspicious" blood values, by event. They found that in the marathon (both men and women combined), 11% of World Championship and Olympic medal winners, had, at at least one point in their career (not necessarily at the event of the World Championship or the Olympics), a recorded suspicious blood value in the database. Stated another way, out of all the athletes and samples in the leaked database of a rather large set of blood athlete values, 8 out of 9 World Championship and Olympic marathon medalists, lacked a suspicious blood value in the database, not just at the World Championship, or the Olympics, but for all of their blood values that appeared in the database. What about the role of testing? In the 1990's, no test existed for anyone for EPO. Everyone could take EPO without detection. Yet, in the marathon, Dinsamo's marathon world record stood unchallenged through the height of the EPO era, for a decade, until 1998, when it was bettered by Da Costa, then again by Khannouchi, in 1999, approximately 1 minute faster than Dinsamo in 1988, or at a rate of about 1 minute over 10 years. Then, once a test was developed in 2000, the marathon record started dropping at double this rate, about 1 minute in 2003, when Paul Tergat set the record, then again by about 1 more minute by 2008, when Geb set the record a second time, all while new generations of EPO tests became available. Once the ABP came online, in six more years the world record dropped again by about 1 more minute, eventually set by Kimetto in 2014. So when no testing existed for the whole world, the marathon record was stagnate for nearly a decade during the peak of the EPO era. Once testing was introduced, and subsequently improved, the rate in the drop in marathon times doubled compared to the period of no testing, and this doubled rate continued for 3 five year cycles spanning 15 years.
DHT123 wrote:
Hi Renato, I think you got a little bit distracted from the actual question - are you able to answer my previous question re: the doping tests and the blood values? It'd be very interesting to know.