new study shows micro-doping can boost performance nearly 5% and impossible to detect

Anti-doping Activist Allen wrote:

Wouldn't you rather have more "anti-doping activists" than doping activists and apologists?( which they're are plenty of those on this forum). Afterall, haven't you said the passport thresholds are far too generous and microdosing can produce significant gains?

Yes - yes - no.

Not microdosing, but dosages such as half a blood bag - which fits nicely into this thread.

Note that I wrote "refreshing", not that I shared his negativity towards "anti-doping activists".

Aragon wrote:

If we are to believe the anti-doping activists and scientists, the paradise lost free from doping has been just around the corner for the last forty years with a few extra million in their budget.

I doubt that many people, if any, said so. And it's definitely not true, because far bigger problems are the corruption, the built-in conflict of interest, and the lack of transparency, combined with "irresistible incentives".

Since you mentioned Pound, he said:

"There is no general appetite to undertake the effort and expense of a successful effort to deliver doping-free sport."

"There's this psychological aspect about it: nobody wants to catch anybody. There's no incentive. Countries are embarrassed if their nationals are caught. And sports are embarrassed if someone from their sport is caught."

Also of note, John Hoberman from the University of Texas at Austin:

"The entire elite global sports system has built incentives to dope into itself in such a way that these are irresistible incentives"

Aragon wrote:

I don't know whom I want "more", but only that the magnitude and scope of all anti-doping policies should be based on rational basis and not on dubious science, moral panics or fearmongering.

And I wouldn't want dickpounds and travistygarts to make alone decisions in any of those things. Even when anti-doping activists are one voice in the public discussion, every bureaucracy tends to overestimate its relative importance and future capabilities if they just had the extra money. If we are to believe the anti-doping activists and scientists, the paradise lost free from doping has been just around the corner for the last forty years with a few extra million in their budget.

Fearmongering? Moral panics? Huh?

I don't think you stay current on the state of doping out there or you just put your head in the sand and think everything is rainbows & marshmallows.

Take a look at this from this past June. We all know Spain is historically notorious for doping rings that involved not only PEDs but blood transfusions (e.g., Operation's Puerto, Galgo, Skype), and yet nothing seems to have changed. Lol.

"Spain’s National Police has arrested six athletes which they allege are part of a criminal organisation designed to supply performance enhancing substances to countries including Spain, Morocco, France, and Italy. Police said that the organisation was divided into two branches involving a Moroccan based in Zaragoza and an Ethiopian based in Madrid. Zaragoza was the base for the distribution and sale of doping products to athletes, whilst Madrid was used as the base for obtaining drugs for sale.

‘The investigation began when officers received information implicating a professional athlete in a web of illegal trafficking of drugs for doping in sport’, read a statement. ‘The police found an athlete working as a coach in Calatayud (Zaragoza) who was connected with athletes for the exchange of what appeared to be pharmaceuticals. In addition, it was found that his girlfriend was a highly competitive athlete who is serving a four year sanction for doping.’

Police found that the Zaragoza branch of the organisation utilised two professional athletes who were responsible for facilitating contacts with other athletes interested in buying doping products. It also found that the organisation took advantage of athlete travel to Morocco, France and Italy through transporting substances hidden in their luggage.

The substances involved are human growth hormone, insulin, testosterone, injectable vitamins and equipment for autologous blood transfusions, said Police. The statement mentioned that in order to avoid detection, those involved spoke about ‘carrots’ to indicate injectables, and ‘peas’ to indicate pills. Three athletes were arrested in Zaragoza, two in Madrid and one in Valencia"

And this link was posted the other day by Aduck - it's an eye opener, and it ain't no Hollywood movie script:

I am under no impression that sports is clean nor have I any faith that it will ever be. The incentives to dope have existed and will exist, and all I hope is that anti-doping policies will be such that its financial cost and burden on privacy is the most optimal one in the cost-benefit framework. It could be possible that detection of microinfusions is of the uttermost importance after the fuss surrounding this Danish study, but my view is that it is equally plausible that the resources could be spent more effectively elsewhere.

I don't pay too much efforts on individual doping cases, but relating to the effectiveness of anti-doping policy and about to the "with a few dollars more + a few years we will triumph" - attitude, I think that Dr. Björn Ekblom was slightly too optimistic in 1981 when he envisioned that autotransfusions could be detected by the 88 Olympiad with proper financial resources by the IOC.

Well, perhaps he was wrong, but Dr. Tapio Videman -who supervised the 1989 XC skiing blood detection project with Inggard Lereim and Jim Stray-Gundersen - certainly was right in 1990 when he envisioned that with some half a billion Finnish marks (c:a 120 milliom USD) the anti-doping machine would have enough resources and knowledge to root out the doping problem and detect rHuEPO and even peptide hormones from a blood sample.

After having lobbied for blood testing since the late 1970's and spending a great amount of his time on the matter, interestingly Videman defected in 2002 and adopted the position that the problem is practically insolvable and doping should be legal, stating only feeling ashamed because his naivete on the subject lasted for so long.

Thanks for the reply Aragon and making your position clear. My own postition is that the numbers are just bandied about with no reliable reference to actual performance paramaters.

For example in elite endurance cycling, a long final climb will be done at between 5 and 6 watts pek kilo depending on the weather and the condition of the rider. But the numbers given for the best climber are hugely exaggerated to fit in with the belief that more red blood cells = more oxgen uptake. It's a self serving industry where the supposed anti dopers endlessly repeat the doping rhetoric to the point that almost everyone believes it and questioning it is almost a crime.

That variablity 5 - 6 watts per kilo or 20% variablity is often cited as evidence of 'clean' or 'dirty' riders when it's a natural variable regardless of whatever method of preparation has been used.

not a patsy wrote:

Thanks for the reply Aragon and making your position clear. My own postition is that the numbers are just bandied about with no reliable reference to actual performance paramaters.

For example in elite endurance cycling, a long final climb will be done at between 5 and 6 watts pek kilo depending on the weather and the condition of the rider. But the numbers given for the best climber are hugely exaggerated to fit in with the belief that more red blood cells = more oxgen uptake. It's a self serving industry where the supposed anti dopers endlessly repeat the doping rhetoric to the point that almost everyone believes it and questioning it is almost a crime.

That variablity 5 - 6 watts per kilo or 20% variablity is often cited as evidence of 'clean' or 'dirty' riders when it's a natural variable regardless of whatever method of preparation has been used.

What are you talking about? Give some examples.

not a patsy wrote:

Thanks for the reply Aragon and making your position clear. My own postition is that the numbers are just bandied about with no reliable reference to actual performance paramaters.

For example in elite endurance cycling, a long final climb will be done at between 5 and 6 watts pek kilo depending on the weather and the condition of the rider. But the numbers given for the best climber are hugely exaggerated to fit in with the belief that more red blood cells = more oxgen uptake. It's a self serving industry where the supposed anti dopers endlessly repeat the doping rhetoric to the point that almost everyone believes it and questioning it is almost a crime.

That variablity 5 - 6 watts per kilo or 20% variablity is often cited as evidence of 'clean' or 'dirty' riders when it's a natural variable regardless of whatever method of preparation has been used.

No way Jon you’ve never said this before

You are accusing people of falsifying data. Do you have any evidence of this? The only person I know has falsified that sort of data is Edward Coyle and his example cuts against you.

not a patsy wrote:

But the numbers given for the best climber are hugely exaggerated to fit in with the belief that more red blood cells = more oxgen uptake. It's a self serving industry where the supposed anti dopers endlessly repeat the doping rhetoric to the point that almost everyone believes it and questioning it is almost a crime.

Evidence please wrote:

You are accusing people of falsifying data. Do you have any evidence of this?

The only person I know has falsified that sort of data is Edward Coyle and his example cuts against you.

not a patsy wrote:

But the numbers given for the best climber are hugely exaggerated to fit in with the belief that more red blood cells = more oxgen uptake. It's a self serving industry where the supposed anti dopers endlessly repeat the doping rhetoric to the point that almost everyone believes it and questioning it is almost a crime.

You mean you haven’t stumbled across one of Jon’s many inane theories yet.?

Just wait and he’ll run it by us again. He has zero evidence despite ample time to prove it.