I think the crux of the comparison was valid -- if we assume that rHuEPO improves track and road times in a roughly similar manner, during both decades (1990s and 2010s) there was distance A improving rapidly whereas another distance B failed to do so and correspondingly underperformed significantly the difference being a few percentage points.
Be very suspicious of Renato claiming that he has evidence. He has been claiming this for years. When he actually released some data, from his Chinese athletes, he claimed that the data was proof that doping could not work. Instead what was actually there was evidence that he had three athletes who were convicted of doping under him, including one who was doping during the camp. The actual numbers showed such pervasive evidence of doping that Renato had to claim that two separate tests in the sequence were invalid due to the machines malfunctioning. These were also athletes of a low level, not living and training at altitude, so it is really unclear that they were in the class of athletes for whom Renato claims doping does not work. Also we found out that Renato recommended four different supplements to his athletes despite really persistent claims to the contrary and that his athlete has a HCT of 53. Nothing at all suspicious there. Renato should be aware that there is more information about his athletes out there.
Renato Canova wrote:
I have many data of athletes that I coached (Italian, Kenyan, Ethiopian, Tanzanian, Ugandan, Chinese) and I can see the values comparing them with their shape at the moment. I think you have NO DATA at all for supporting ANY YOUR CONCLUSION.
So, who has to prove something ?
full of bull wrote:
Be very suspicious of Renato claiming that he has evidence. He has been claiming this for years.
When he actually released some data, from his Chinese athletes, he claimed that the data was proof that doping could not work. Instead what was actually there was evidence that he had three athletes who were convicted of doping under him, including one who was doping during the camp. The actual numbers showed such pervasive evidence of doping that Renato had to claim that two separate tests in the sequence were invalid due to the machines malfunctioning. These were also athletes of a low level, not living and training at altitude, so it is really unclear that they were in the class of athletes for whom Renato claims doping does not work.
Also we found out that Renato recommended four different supplements to his athletes despite really persistent claims to the contrary and that his athlete has a HCT of 53.
Nothing at all suspicious there.
Renato should be aware that there is more information about his athletes out there.
Curious: Who were the three athletes?
So, do you think I come here giving numbers good for making people suspicious about myself ?
Do you think I'm such a moron, or instead normal people, trying to understand what I write, look at all the infos I give about athletes I coached (or, in the case of Chinese, I had opportunity to see FOR ONE WEEK, at the beginning of an official training camp, coached by one for me unknown coach, and when I saw something strange in the blood tests carried out on weekly base, I WAS THE ONE ASKING THE INTERVENTION OF THE CHINESE ANTIDOPING FOR A TEST FOR EPO ?), very simply take count of what I say, like REAL DATA COMING FROM REAL PRACTICE ?
If I want to hide some manipulation, I can very easy NOT write any data. Letsrun is not a court, readers are not a jury or prosecutors, and there are no lawyers for defending somebody guilty.
What I write is something depending on my REAL experiences (longer than 55 years, sorry, because I can't deny I'm becoming old...), because I fight from EVER in athletics, in order to explain in more deep way WHAT REALLY CAN HAPPEN, WHAT TRAINING CAN PRODUCE, and WHICH IS THE BACKGROUND OF THE ELITE ACTIVITY.
If I write the Hct of Ronald is 53 CLEAN, is for showing that this is a REAL possibility for some particular athlete in the World.
If I say that, in spite of what a doctor from Nederland suggested him to take as supplements, he didn't take BECAUSE I TOLD HIM NOT TO TAKE, it means exactly what I wrote, because at the end the final responsible, and guide, for the athletes in training with me and my assistant coach John Litei, is MYSELF, and I believe in some value that, sometimes, is different from the belief of other people.
So, instead to speak about something you don't know (I'm curious to see who are the other 2 chinese athlets doped together with Anna Yin), go to wash your mouth, because we feel the smell of your dishonesty also when we are at 10,000 km of distance.
One additional strange phenomenon is difficult to explain by the "wild years" of the 1990's is this. Whereas it is evident that 3000-10000m seasonal best times are slower today than those of the 1990's or even early 2000's, the seasonal best times of marathon seem not to be affected by any blood doping testing protocols and innovations at all, but the progress is essentially linear from 1985 to 2018.
If one takes the three year moving average to get rid of the small fluctuations, it is true that the moving average was almost flat and even slightly slower in the early 1990's vs. 1985-1987, but after that, the progress is almost totally linear with every three year moving average being faster than the preceding one with the following exceptions which one barely notices when visually seeing them in the chart:
- 1999-2001 was 0.20 % (15 s) slower than 1998-2000
- 2003-2005 was 0.27 % (20 s) slower than 2002-2004
- 2007-2009 was 0.10 % (7 s) slower than 2006-2008
- 2014-2016 was 0.16 % (12 s) slower than 2013-2015
casual obsever wrote:
Aragon wrote:
There clearly is no PED related explanation why 5000m and 10000m seasonal best times crashed from 1998 to 1999 (c:a 2 %) except loss of interest even to give it a try and the situation may not be that different now some 20 years later?
Two years, that's scattering/coincidence/bad luck...
I mentioned only those two years, but it isn't just those years because there is the time period until 2003-2004 when 5000m and 10000m times were relatively slow (up to 2.7 % slower than the WR) for one reason or another:
1998 26:22 12:39
1999 26:51 12:50
2000 27:04 12:49
2001 27:03 12:57
2002 26:49 12:56
2003 26:29 12:49
2004 26:20 12:37
The tempting explanation about the very ineffective rHuEPO test affecting the times is unlikely because there are world record quality 3000m (7:25), 3000m steeplechase (7:55), 1500m (3:26), mile (3:45) and marathon (2:05-2:06) times from that slow period around 1999-2002, so no slowing on those distance is seen. If the times are results of not incentives to try to break the records, it is interesting that those kind of 5000m (12:55) and 10000m (27:00) times are almost exactly the same caliber times as the so-called slow times some 10-15 years later.
Aragon wrote:
casual obsever wrote:
Two years, that's scattering/coincidence/bad luck...
I mentioned only those two years, but it isn't just those years because there is the time period until 2003-2004 when 5000m and 10000m times were relatively slow (up to 2.7 % slower than the WR) for one reason or another:
1998 26:22 12:39
1999 26:51 12:50
2000 27:04 12:49
2001 27:03 12:57
2002 26:49 12:56
2003 26:29 12:49
2004 26:20 12:37
The tempting explanation about the very ineffective rHuEPO test affecting the times is unlikely because there are world record quality 3000m (7:25), 3000m steeplechase (7:55), 1500m (3:26), mile (3:45) and marathon (2:05-2:06) times from that slow period around 1999-2002, so no slowing on those distance is seen. If the times are results of not incentives to try to break the records, it is interesting that those kind of 5000m (12:55) and 10000m (27:00) times are almost exactly the same caliber times as the so-called slow times some 10-15 years later.
So prior to 2003 Geb dominated the circuit 5,000m races. In 1999 after getting both the 5 & 10 records in 1998, he switched attention to chasing Komen's 3,000m and 2 mile records but significantly failed. After Sydney Geb began his switch to the roads in 2001 & 2002, complaining the track was hurting his calves. Note both the 1999 & 2003 World Championships were won in fast times (12:58 & 12:52)
Your explanation sounds logical anf sound, but adds additional problem for anyone who is fixated in the seasonal best times and thinking that the incentives, motivations and quality of the runners is roughly comparable between different time periods.
If the mood swings of one talented outlier can explain c; 2-2.5 % changes in seasonal best times, doesn't it suddenly raise questions how reliable they are when (for instance) 10000m time of the early 2000s was suddenly almost from the 1980's? What if the Geb and Kenenisa of the 2010s didn't exist, didn't care or focused on marathon as was the case around 2000-2002?
In fact, when asked why non-Africans made so little progress in the nearly three decades following 1990, there is no shortage of alternative non-doping explanations, like drop in population, drop in interest, fear of competing, deciding to compete in other sports, doubt sowed by genetic superiority myths, etc. There is none of this "out of the doping box" thinking when it comes to the Africans, where fast times are only explained by doping, and slow times by increased testing, and the deterrent of doping busts, despite significant environmental and contextual changes (e.g. financial incentives) on the track and roads.
Aragon wrote:
Your explanation sounds logical and sound, but adds additional problem for anyone who is fixated in the seasonal best times and thinking that the incentives, motivations and quality of the runners is roughly comparable between different time periods.
If the mood swings of one talented outlier can explain c; 2-2.5 % changes in seasonal best times, doesn't it suddenly raise questions how reliable they are when (for instance) 10000m time of the early 2000s was suddenly almost from the 1980's? What if the Geb and Kenenisa of the 2010s didn't exist, didn't care or focused on marathon as was the case around 2000-2002?
rekrunner wrote:
In fact, when asked why non-Africans made so little progress in the nearly three decades following 1990, there is no shortage of alternative non-doping explanations, like drop in population, drop in interest, fear of competing, deciding to compete in other sports, doubt sowed by genetic superiority myths, etc. There is none of this "out of the doping box" thinking when it comes to the Africans, where fast times are only explained by doping, and slow times by increased testing, and the deterrent of doping busts, despite significant environmental and contextual changes (e.g. financial incentives) on the track and roads.
Really Rek this post went nowhere because you continue to negate answering any of these alternative explanations. Salazar even believes the population drop hypothesis. It is entirely plausible that dirty western agents/coaches/doctors went to Africa first with the new means of blood doping sometime around 1990. The rest is history.
Aragon wrote:
I think the crux of the comparison was valid -- if we assume that rHuEPO improves track and road times in a roughly similar manner
Ah - but I would never assume that. When 1500 - 10000 m times improved drastically during the EPO era, and marathon times only slowly, and after the ABP introduction the 5000 m slowed down while the marathon continued to improved, one could explain the observations with for example
- either EPO is less helpful for the marathon*
- and/or the ideal Hct concentration is smaller for the marathon**
- or EPO is irrelevant, and the 1500 - 10000 m times coincidentally improved a lot during the EPO era, to then slow down despite progress in training/nutrition/shoes...
*Noting that the marathon dependence on VO2max is likely smaller than for the shorter races.
**Noting that off scores of >120 (men), let alone 150, are too risky now, but one can still safely go from 95 to 105, for example.
Subway Surfers wrote:
rekrunner wrote:
In fact, when asked why non-Africans made so little progress in the nearly three decades following 1990, there is no shortage of alternative non-doping explanations, like drop in population, drop in interest, fear of competing, deciding to compete in other sports, doubt sowed by genetic superiority myths, etc. There is none of this "out of the doping box" thinking when it comes to the Africans, where fast times are only explained by doping, and slow times by increased testing, and the deterrent of doping busts, despite significant environmental and contextual changes (e.g. financial incentives) on the track and roads.
Really Rek this post went nowhere because you continue to negate answering any of these alternative explanations. Salazar even believes the population drop hypothesis. It is entirely plausible that dirty western agents/coaches/doctors went to Africa first with the new means of blood doping sometime around 1990. The rest is history.
Rekrunner should consider Salazar's hypothesis - I believe he has a lot of respect for Salazar.
casual obsever wrote:
Aragon wrote:
I think the crux of the comparison was valid -- if we assume that rHuEPO improves track and road times in a roughly similar manner
Ah - but I would never assume that. When 1500 - 10000 m times improved drastically during the EPO era, and marathon times only slowly, and after the ABP introduction the 5000 m slowed down while the marathon continued to improved, one could explain the observations with for example
- either EPO is less helpful for the marathon*
- and/or the ideal Hct concentration is smaller for the marathon**
- or EPO is irrelevant, and the 1500 - 10000 m times coincidentally improved a lot during the EPO era, to then slow down despite progress in training/nutrition/shoes...
*Noting that the marathon dependence on VO2max is likely smaller than for the shorter races.
**Noting that off scores of >120 (men), let alone 150, are too risky now, but one can still safely go from 95 to 105, for example.
Just to clarify that I haven't claimed that you hold the view that blood doping gives roughly equal improvement across the distances, but people such as the mystical "Chad" and some other folks as well as the Malm et al paper tend to make this assumption - be it right or not. The half-a-dozen or so research papers with well-trained athletes using blood reinfusion have also showed larger improvements in performance when the distance is longer, but there are some minor differences in their methodology which might explain that.
Of course the explanation why marathon trend is so different than the rest of the distances can be caused by many factors working in tandem, but it is also interesting that 1500-10000m times in general didn't get significantly slower after the ABP-program and anti-doping innovations etc, but that only the fastest times did. The trend isn't that obvious if one looks beyond the 1-3 fastest of each year and even the fastest post 2010-times of 1500m and steeplechase - for instance - are barely slower than the world record and total of half of the 20 fastest steeplechase times are from the ABP-era.
But it is true that the progression of track distance times is at best flat for some 15 years, which is less than what one should expect with the innovations in technology/training etc.
I answered all of these points, but that is not the point now. The point is the selective double standard. It's also plausible that clean western coaches went to Africa, with western training, and without dope or doctors or blood bags, and the rest is history.
Subway Surfers wrote:
rekrunner wrote:
In fact, when asked why non-Africans made so little progress in the nearly three decades following 1990, there is no shortage of alternative non-doping explanations, like drop in population, drop in interest, fear of competing, deciding to compete in other sports, doubt sowed by genetic superiority myths, etc. There is none of this "out of the doping box" thinking when it comes to the Africans, where fast times are only explained by doping, and slow times by increased testing, and the deterrent of doping busts, despite significant environmental and contextual changes (e.g. financial incentives) on the track and roads.
Really Rek this post went nowhere because you continue to negate answering any of these alternative explanations. Salazar even believes the population drop hypothesis. It is entirely plausible that dirty western agents/coaches/doctors went to Africa first with the new means of blood doping sometime around 1990. The rest is history.
I considered it, and didn't find it convincing enough, even when combined with all the other hypotheses. I looked for just 5 high quality people (or even 1 of high quality), in 28 years. Population would have to decline a lot.
Survey Says.... wrote:
Rekrunner should consider Salazar's hypothesis - I believe he has a lot of respect for Salazar.
rekrunner wrote:
It's also plausible that clean western coaches went to Africa, with western training, and without dope or doctors or blood bags, and the rest is history.
Why would Western training work so well there and stop working in the West?
It's all public record. Just cross reference the list of Chinese athletes who renato released blood data for against the list of doping suspensions. Three of the runners who trained under him have been suspended for doping violations. One was sticking the needle in herself while she was in Renato's camp. He says he never coached her and in fact barely even saw her and she (nor her coach) even showed up for meetings, much less group workouts. The only thing she apparently did show up for was the totally optional blood testing (it was not antidoping). She showed up for every one of those...he called her a national team athlete...he could have flagged her as a doper when he released the information. He never mentioned he had a doper in camp until he was publicly called out for it...
Inquiring minds want to know wrote:
Curious: Who were the three athletes?
physics defiant wrote:
rekrunner wrote:
It's also plausible that clean western coaches went to Africa, with western training, and without dope or doctors or blood bags, and the rest is history.
Why would Western training work so well there and stop working in the West?
Exactly, his statement made no sense. Rosa started his deadly mix on Kenyans in 1990. By the 1991 season they really started to move.
rekrunner wrote:
It's also plausible that clean western coaches went to Africa, with western training, and without dope or doctors or blood bags, and the rest is history.
This hypothesis rests on East Africans being poorly trained athletes prior to the 1989-1991 epo advent.
Aragon wrote:
casual obsever wrote:
Ah - but I would never assume that. When 1500 - 10000 m times improved drastically during the EPO era, and marathon times only slowly, and after the ABP introduction the 5000 m slowed down while the marathon continued to improved, one could explain the observations with for example
- either EPO is less helpful for the marathon*
- and/or the ideal Hct concentration is smaller for the marathon**
- or EPO is irrelevant, and the 1500 - 10000 m times coincidentally improved a lot during the EPO era, to then slow down despite progress in training/nutrition/shoes...
*Noting that the marathon dependence on VO2max is likely smaller than for the shorter races.
**Noting that off scores of >120 (men), let alone 150, are too risky now, but one can still safely go from 95 to 105, for example.
Just to clarify that I haven't claimed that you hold the view that blood doping gives roughly equal improvement across the distances, but people such as the mystical "Chad" and some other folks as well as the Malm et al paper tend to make this assumption - be it right or not. The half-a-dozen or so research papers with well-trained athletes using blood reinfusion have also showed larger improvements in performance when the distance is longer, but there are some minor differences in their methodology which might explain that.
Of course the explanation why marathon trend is so different than the rest of the distances can be caused by many factors working in tandem, but it is also interesting that 1500-10000m times in general didn't get significantly slower after the ABP-program and anti-doping innovations etc, but that only the fastest times did. The trend isn't that obvious if one looks beyond the 1-3 fastest of each year and even the fastest post 2010-times of 1500m and steeplechase - for instance - are barely slower than the world record and total of half of the 20 fastest steeplechase times are from the ABP-era.
But it is true that the progression of track distance times is at best flat for some 15 years, which is less than what one should expect with the innovations in technology/training etc.
Chad estimates "4%," and has some impressive calculations to back it up (btw, you don't scrutinize & belittle him like you do me - so you must have some healthy respect for his knowledge on this subject ?). And as you alluded to with Malm et al, that paper states "up to 3%.."
I'm in the camp with ~3% given probably a very high dose and a good response. But dopers don't always go full throttle or dope year round on their programs. Increased testing/target testing, word from their coach that WADA might be on to them, incredible performances that raise suspicion, and injuries can all affect their doping strategy (I don't think EPO does anything to prevent musculoskeletal injuries). So, when someone is reviewing a confirmed doper's profile and says "gee whiz...look at so & so; they slowed down for several months, or didn't perform well in such & such race" it simply could be one of the aforementioned scarnios.
And ridiculous performances will probably be a reality check to some dopers to tone it down a bit and lay low. Kiprop's run at Birmingham 2016 was off the wall ridiculous!?
https://youtu.be/Hz0awXuVgC8He smoked Iguider and made the rest of a world-class field look like sub-elites! Do you have any idea who Iguider is Aragon? Try Morroco's 2nd fastest ever 15 man (3:28.79/2015) only behind the legend! I would imagine Kiprop himself was pretty embarrassed when he looked at the replay of the race and saw how ridiculous it looked. Lol.