All these scientists who study the effects of doping never had any clue about talent and training of top athletes.
I have to repeat again : I had world record holders (Shaheen in steeple till today, Mosop in 25000 and 30000m, Florence Kiplagat on the road in HM and some shorter distance) and they achieved these results totally clean. I had athletes such as Nicholas Kemboi, who ran 26'30" after 2 months of training in St. Moritz staying in my same apartment, so I well know he was clean, eating only ugali and vegetables and chicken, and drinking only milk.
And in the last year I had athletes moving in less than 8 months from 3'37" in 1500m to 58'42" in HM, from their first competition ever in 14'25" on 5th of May till the ability to run 30 km at the same pace, from 8'30" in steeple and 29'25" in 10000m in altitude to 59'06" in HM (twice) defeating the new WR holder in Copenhagen.
And in 2017 I had a European athlete (Sondre Moen) running marathon in 2h05'48".
I well know they achieved these results WITHOUT the aid of any substance, legal or illegal.
And I know they did this only because their talent and their training.
So, while people speaking about minutes of improvement because of doping make only speculations, I have FACT showing that athletes can be at the top WITHOUT any aid, and this automatically means that blood doping can't have big effect.
Maybe who believes in doping doesn't believe the above athletes were clean, but I KNOW : mine is not a supposition, is a FACT.
So, for me all the researches of scientists not knowing the training of top athletes have some validity for the subjects investigated only, and it's not possible to transfer the results to other athletes.
Can EPO or blood manipulation increase the ability to transport Oxygen ? YES.
Can the rate of improvement be the same for everybody, not depending on halth, talent and training ? NO.
There are studies showing EPO can increase the transportation of Oxygen of 30% for people having kidneys' problems and needing dialysis. There are studies showing the increase can be 10% in case of helath but not trained people. There is somebody speaking about 4% in case of professional athletes, not at the top. This means that, when there is more talent and more training, the effect decreases, and in my experience at the absolute top the effect is around zero, and in marathon maybe a damage.
I don't care the results of every experiment with average people, with not complete protocols, and without precise infos about training before, during and after the administration.
I know where it's possible to arrive in clean way, because I believe in training.
Could the athletes achieving top results in clean way improve their PB taking EPO ? I don't have an answer to that question : my feeling is NO, because otherwise the WR could go very much under the current limits.
And don't forget that, when we speak about some doped, nobody knows exactly WHEN and WHY he/she started to dope.
What I can say, after speaking with some doped kenyan (man or woman), is that they started to look at doping only when were no more able to achieve the same previous results, or after some injury for cutting the period of recovery. This means that their best PB were clean, and doping didn't help them to reach their best.
Have these athletes to be banned, also if their doping didn't really help them ? Yes, because sport has an ethic, and everytime somebody wants to take advantage from something illegal, MUST be punished.
But don't ask "if doesn't work, why do so many athletes use EPO", because I can ask you "if it works, why the main number of top athletes don't use and achieve clean results in clean way", and this looking not only at my personal experience, but also at the quantity of athletes in top 100 all time who were caught positive, and at their position.
If in top 100 all time in 100m, 48 athletes had something to do with doping (and sprinters are the athletes with more money and more medical assistance), and in top 100 marathon runners only one (Wilson Erupe) was positive, and ran his PB AFTER his ban (and after having a lot of OOC tests, a must for every doped athlete who wants to go back in competition), is it not possible that the explanation, instead to look at some cosmic conspirancy, is very simple : THEY ARE NOT CAUGHT BECAUSE ARE CLEAN ?
And, please, don't speak about Conte, he NEVER had anything to do with endurance events, and doesn't know anything about the effects of training for long distances, and effects of doping for those events.
I'm sure that the athletes improving their PB after taking EPO do this BECAUSE THE IMPROVEMENT OF THEIR TRAINING, not for direct effect of EPO. In this case, EPO is the reason because they finally try ro train with higher volume and higher intensity, because, BEFORE taking EPO, they believed NOT POSSIBLE to have the same regimen without any external support.
I liked, if possible, to have this kind of experiment : two groups of athletes of similar value (also not too strong), using the same type of training. One group taking EPO, the other taking placebo, of course without knowing (double blind).
They have to use the same type of training, and their training, in the period of about 4 months, has to become more qualified, of course under a top level coach. At the end of the period, we can see the improvement of the PB of everybody.
I bet that the improvement of the two groups is the same, not depending on the fact they took EPO or not, if their training was the same.
I'm personally ready to do this type of research, if finally IAAF wants to discover the effects of training (and of EPO WHEN there is the same level of training), using money not for stupid researches that don't have any mean, but for really checking the effects of the most overrated kind of doping in the current period.