Well that didn't take long: Asbel Kiprop gives up fight to prove innocence - Says he doesn't have resources to fight IAAF

Coevett wrote:

It is a bit crude because it assumes that the top 10 in the EPO era would be the top 10 clean, rather than the guys who are responding particularly well to EPO.

To put it another way, the top 10 in 1989 might have been completely different if EPO was around, and not just the times of the individual athletes.

Also, I think I'm right in saying that Morcelli appears in both top 10 lists (89-92 and 97-2000) and ran only 0.8 faster in 97-2000. This shows how crude it is to draw the conclusion of an average 2.64 secs improvement, unless you believe that EPO only made a 0.8 second difference for Morcelli.

Your analysis is a good start, but I think 2.64 should be regarded as an absolute minimum average, that even Rekrunner should be able to accept.

Also, it's my belief that for whatever reason, the North Africans got hold of EPO first. That would explain also Morcelli's career (I'm sure he got hold of it before 95!).

I have done similar types of analysis. For example, if we look at Kenya alone.

These are the numbers of Kenyan athletes running under 3:33 in two year periods in the 90s :

90/91 = 1

92/93 = 3

94/95 = 1

96/97 = 10

98/99 = 10

00/01 = 9

And if we fast forward to 2016/17 the total is only 5, and one of them is Kiprop. Even if we include Kiprop that's half the number that were running sub 3:33 in the second half of the 90s. But here's another important factor that Rekrunner completely ignores - since the mid 90's, the population of Kenya has increased by around 50% (and that's likely to be higher still for the 18-32 athletic age group). So you would expect around 15 Kenyans to be breaking 3:33 these days from that alone. Instead it's 5, or 4 if you take out Kiprop. And as you are fully aware, if you took out the Monaco performances, these figures would be even more ridiculously obvious the evidence of EPO.

Anway, my conclusions are :

The Kenyans probably were using EPO en masse a little later than the North Africans. This is important as regards El G because he might have been using it as a junior even before the Kenyans had gotten hold of it. And it's not just in isolation we have to consider the advantages on individuals. El G benefitted from having training partners, pacemakers, fellow Olympic finalists etc who were all on EPO.

I still say 5 seconds minimum EPO gives an advantage over 1500, at least for good responders as the North Africans obviously were/are.

Everyone's looking for an edge wrote:

Coevett wrote:

It is a bit crude because it assumes that the top 10 in the EPO era would be the top 10 clean, rather than the guys who are responding particularly well to EPO.

To put it another way, the top 10 in 1989 might have been completely different if EPO was around, and not just the times of the individual athletes.

Also, I think I'm right in saying that Morcelli appears in both top 10 lists (89-92 and 97-2000) and ran only 0.8 faster in 97-2000. This shows how crude it is to draw the conclusion of an average 2.64 secs improvement, unless you believe that EPO only made a 0.8 second difference for Morcelli.

Your analysis is a good start, but I think 2.64 should be regarded as an absolute minimum average, that even Rekrunner should be able to accept.

Also, it's my belief that for whatever reason, the North Africans got hold of EPO first. That would explain also Morcelli's career (I'm sure he got hold of it before 95!).

I have done similar types of analysis. For example, if we look at Kenya alone.

These are the numbers of Kenyan athletes running under 3:33 in two year periods in the 90s :

90/91 = 1

92/93 = 3

94/95 = 1

96/97 = 10

98/99 = 10

00/01 = 9

And if we fast forward to 2016/17 the total is only 5, and one of them is Kiprop. Even if we include Kiprop that's half the number that were running sub 3:33 in the second half of the 90s. But here's another important factor that Rekrunner completely ignores - since the mid 90's, the population of Kenya has increased by around 50% (and that's likely to be higher still for the 18-32 athletic age group). So you would expect around 15 Kenyans to be breaking 3:33 these days from that alone. Instead it's 5, or 4 if you take out Kiprop. And as you are fully aware, if you took out the Monaco performances, these figures would be even more ridiculously obvious the evidence of EPO.

Anway, my conclusions are :

The Kenyans probably were using EPO en masse a little later than the North Africans. This is important as regards El G because he might have been using it as a junior even before the Kenyans had gotten hold of it. And it's not just in isolation we have to consider the advantages on individuals. El G benefitted from having training partners, pacemakers, fellow Olympic finalists etc who were all on EPO.

I still say 5 seconds minimum EPO gives an advantage over 1500, at least for good responders as the North Africans obviously were/are.

+1

Wow...look at the jump from 95 to 96! However, our esteemed statistician & skeptic "rekrunner" will scrutinize this data, though, because if a EPO user/blood doper doesn't run a SUPER FAST TIME, regardless of improvement from base, then it wasn't effective in rekrunner's world of doping. He must think every doper is a potential WR holder or something. ?

I think that the N. Africans and the Spanish got hold of EPO first. These's evidence the Spanish marathoners were experimenting with it in the early to mid-90s:

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/athletics-suspicion-clouds-spanish-victory-1118336.html

Coevett wrote:

I also underestimated the Kenyan population growth.

According to the World Bank it was 26.6 million in 1995 and 48.5 million in 2016, so it has nearly doubled since the EPO era. Rekrunner's 'talent has moved to the roads' maxim doesn't really cut it, does it?

There are no solid reasons to explain why Kenyan times have come down so much. All the reasons trotted out for the rather sudden emergence of Kenyan talent in the late 80s are still there and should be leading to an ever greater number of elite times and runners. Running has never been more popular in Kenya as the recent world record attendance for a junior athletics meet showed. Kenya doesn't have a growing problem with obesity amongst kids. Still no McDonalds in Eldoret or Iten. Premiership clubs aren't poaching all the athletic talent from Kenyan schools. In fact, Kenyans still seem completely useless at any sport other than distance running.

Subway Surfers Addiction wrote:

"his “Discovery Kenya” project, begun in 1991, is developing Kenyan athletes, starting with children." ?

"Rosa also gave me two typescript chapters from the book translated into English, those in the voices of Paul Tergat and Sammy Wanjiru, who both became Rosa runners." So he was associated with Tergat ?, didn't Rekrunner exonerate Wanjiru from any suspicion because he was in Japan? ?

Tergat said, "“Come to Italy,” Dr. Rosa told me, “and you'll see, we'll heal you. It's useless to waste more time, we need to do thorough examinations to find out what's wrong and determine a therapy. "

Sammy Korir: "We called him “the doctor.” Then we found out he really is a medical doctor, named Dr. Rosa."

On 'training camps,' "I have already spoken of how important the Kenyan training camps are."

1980s, "It should not be a secret that many of the runners participated in “autotransfusion.” That technique had not been banned yet by the International Olympic Committee, so could not be declared to be doping. But Gabriele Rosa, a doctor, was fiercely against it, and considered “autotransfusion” to be a sophisticated method for middle distance and long distance runners to improve their performance. Gabriele Rosa repeated to me and my circle of friends, “he who wins is the best.” Naturally he is opposed to them but moved to Kenyan in the 1990s.

"There is no mention of Mathew Kisorio, a Rosa team athlete until banned in July 2012 for using steroids."

https://www.runnersworld.com/advanced/a20836192/dr-rosa-in-his-own-words/

Coevett wrote:

casual obsever wrote:

Thanks Deanouk. I appreciate the extended data, which actually re-inforce the observations made before.

My conclusions remain different though. It is well documented that blood doping got a lot more convenient, thanks to EPO after 1990, especially for Africans who were basically unable to use transfusions in the 80s, while steroid use became increasingly riskier.

Remember Johnson, caught in 1988? He finally admitted that he heavily used steroids since 1980 without ever raising a flag before '88, which provides another point in case how rudimentary testing was back then.

The above fits nicely with the observation (yours and rekrunner's and mine!) that the 5000 improved a lot in the 80s and in the 90s, but the 800 only in the 80s, as the importance of steroids decreases with increasing distance.

But times had been improving for the previous 100 years. Coe, Ovett, Cram, Cruz etc were among the very first generation of largely or completely full-time athletes. . Athletics was also never more popular than then, especially middle-distance, and it's participation by European, American, Australasians was at its greatest. It's not unreasonable to suppose, in fact it's quite logical to assume, that the 1980s would see times get very close to the physiological limits, and any improvements after that would be minor and due to incremental improvements in shoes and tracks and training. Otherwise, a new drug and the willingness and opportunity for it to be used by elite athletes.

In other words, the fact that the 800m times improved far less than the distance events doesn't prove that Coe, Ovett, Cram were on steroids, it just proves that EPO was responsible for the huge improvement in 1500/5000 times in the 90s and early 00s (almost entirely by Africans).

So what do you think is the clean limits for the 800m? If Coe, Cruz, Cram, Koskei all broke 1:43 because of steroids, do you think it's impossible to run sub 1:43 clean? Or do you think Rudisha is clean and ran 1:40? Or maybe he is only on EPO, which barely makes a difference for 800m, so he would have ran say 1:41.5 without it? People seem to agree here that 3:29 or maybe 3:28 in perfect conditions for a true GOAT is the clean limit for the 1500, so I wonder what it would be for the 800?

Or perhaps we should look at the period between Seoul 88 and 1993 to see who might be the clean world record holder, as that was the golden period between the introduction of somewhat effective steroid testing and the EPO era. That would mean Peter Elliott is the clean world record holder, as he had the fastest time post Seoul and Pre EPO (1:42.97 in 1990).

Or are you saying that Ovett who was apparently injecting dbol twice daily in the wild west 70s/80s was over a second slower than a clean Peter Elliott, a doped up Cram barely faster, and a blood doped AND dbol/testosterone pumped Coe only a second faster? But then if Coe, Ovett, Cram took advantage of doping opportunities that Elliott lacked, it's odd that they were barely faster over 800m and yet 2 or 3 seconds faster over 1500. Elliott ran his 1:42 when he was essentially a 1500m runner.