It's got to be one of three things: 1) anti-doping is doing ok, and so merely being the best in the world isn't automatically incriminating; 2) anti-doping could be doing well, but isn't, and so there are specific policies we should push for that would be more effective than what we've got currently; 3) anti-doping is hopeless and can never succeed, in which case there's no point even posting these accusations because it's tautological that every elite athlete dopes.
We know it is not 1. For example we learned that 15-18% of all endurance athletes were in-competition blood-doping at worlds in 2011 and 2013, and almost no one got caught.
There we have also seen that our athletes were about average in blood doping. Hmmmm, how many top Americans were banned for blood transfusions and or EPO in the last twelve years? It is basically impossible to catch a professional blood doper.
We have also seen published peer reviewed scientific studies demonstrating how easy it is to beat the ABP (while still getting most of the gains!) - if one pays attention to the thresholds.
2? Well anti-doping could be better. For example, remove the conflict-of-interest by having the AIU doing more testing than the NADOs (remember the courtesy calls for Coleman?), lower the thresholds, ban athletes that miss three tests in three years instead of one year, and so on. But it will never be able to beat doping fully.
3, hopeless? Well that depends on the goals. Anti-doping does succeed in limiting excessive doping, at least where the NADO works somewhat decently or the AIU visits. E.g., no more Ramzi-style or Shobukhova-style blood doping, Johnson-style or Kratochvílová-style roiding, or Ma's army.
Accusations of doping aren’t the problem, doping is. Too many women sprinters that look like the Incredible Hulk, too many East Africans running super human times, too much suspicious behavior (like needing to go to East Africa for a camp).
Get serious about rooting doping out. Setup a multi-million dollar whistleblower fund. Many cheaters do so to get rich, let them get rich by exposing the cheaters instead.
Accusations of doping aren’t the problem, doping is. Too many women sprinters that look like the Incredible Hulk, too many East Africans running super human times, too much suspicious behavior (like needing to go to East Africa for a camp).
Get serious about rooting doping out. Setup a multi-million dollar whistleblower fund. Many cheaters do so to get rich, let them get rich by exposing the cheaters instead.
Nope. Belief in doping efficacy is the problem. So you drug obsessed people make the situation worse, not better.
"Doping doesn't work" is an excuse for doping. Drugs are banned based on evidence. WADA is not trying to boost pharma profits. Such wild conspiracy theories are easily disproved but also easily believed by those who ignore evidence.
As a sample of one, I got a skin infection once. Doc gave me a 10 day step down oral steroid. After a few days, I was feeling great the day after a hard workout, so I did my long run when I normally would have done an easy short run. Next day, felt great, did a moderate run. When I took my pill that day I realized why I felt so great. I did not seek it out, but the results were obvious. It wasn't "magic", I just recovered a bit faster. I can imagine over months or years how many more hard workouts could be run when doping.
It's got to be one of three things: 1) anti-doping is doing ok, and so merely being the best in the world isn't automatically incriminating; 2) anti-doping could be doing well, but isn't, and so there are specific policies we should push for that would be more effective than what we've got currently; 3) anti-doping is hopeless and can never succeed, in which case there's no point even posting these accusations because it's tautological that every elite athlete dopes.
We know it is not 1. For example we learned that 15-18% of all endurance athletes were in-competition blood-doping at worlds in 2011 and 2013, and almost no one got caught.
There we have also seen that our athletes were about average in blood doping. Hmmmm, how many top Americans were banned for blood transfusions and or EPO in the last twelve years? It is basically impossible to catch a professional blood doper.
We have also seen published peer reviewed scientific studies demonstrating how easy it is to beat the ABP (while still getting most of the gains!) - if one pays attention to the thresholds.
2? Well anti-doping could be better. For example, remove the conflict-of-interest by having the AIU doing more testing than the NADOs (remember the courtesy calls for Coleman?), lower the thresholds, ban athletes that miss three tests in three years instead of one year, and so on. But it will never be able to beat doping fully.
3, hopeless? Well that depends on the goals. Anti-doping does succeed in limiting excessive doping, at least where the NADO works somewhat decently or the AIU visits. E.g., no more Ramzi-style or Shobukhova-style blood doping, Johnson-style or Kratochvílová-style roiding, or Ma's army.
I like your post a lot. You make a really good point about conflicts of interest. Having the AIU do more of the testing seems like a really important step. I sometimes wonder how much better we could do with just the system we have if we could magically get rid of the corruption and conflicts of interest.
About the 2011-13 Worlds, 15-18% is still quite low, no? I didn't ask about getting to zero-doping since that's probably not feasible. I just want the system to work well enough so that talent and hard work can beat out a lesser talent combined with doping. If only 15-18%, or even 50% of the athletes at Worlds were doping, probably some (most?) of the finalists, medalists, and even winners were clean. And many of the doping athletes have been caught subsequently (e.g. Kiprop, the whole Russian team), so to me that would make for a pretty good bet that anyone from those meets who hasn't been implicated in doping has a good chance of being clean.
The point of this thread is: doping is a scourge, and one of its most pernicious effects is that it makes us paranoid and cynical. I've seen this cynicism get worse and worse on here, despite the anti-doping system making vast strides in the past decades. This cynicism happens when we feel we can't trust the system, but ironically it deepens when the system works and catches someone because that just makes us suspect everyone else.
I would argue that the system we have is actually working fairly well. Like you said, there are a lot fewer Ramzi-style cases these days, and to limit the effectiveness of doping is to limit its effect on the sport. Plus, there have been a lot of cases recently of athletes who (likely) got away with it for years eventually getting caught. This makes doping risky, not to mention highly stigmatized. Put all that together, and I don't believe that the best athletes are automatically doping.
Is there more to be done? Absolutely. The idea of giving the AIU more funding/power/jurisdiction is a great one, and there are plenty more areas where progress is possible. But that's exactly the point: these improvements only matter if anti-doping can work. If it's impossible to combat doping because of biology/psychology/statistics/a vast government conspiracy, then there's no point thinking about how the system works. And if gut feelings or general cynicism is what we use to decide who is doping, that's exactly what we're saying. That's why polls and random accusations, while they feel like serious discussions about important topics, don't actually help, and erode trust not only in our anti-doping institutions as presently constructed, but also in even the possibility of a sport that works.
About the 2011-13 Worlds, 15-18% is still quite low, no? I didn't ask about getting to zero-doping since that's probably not feasible. I just want the system to work well enough so that talent and hard work can beat out a lesser talent combined with doping. If only 15-18%, or even 50% of the athletes at Worlds were doping, probably some (most?) of the finalists, medalists, and even winners were clean. And many of the doping athletes have been caught subsequently (e.g. Kiprop, the whole Russian team), so to me that would make for a pretty good bet that anyone from those meets who hasn't been implicated in doping has a good chance of being clean.
Well, none of the American blood dopers from 2011 or 2013 were caught. 15-18% low? Not sure whether that is low, but apparently that included only in competition and only blood manipulations (Epo + transfusions). Meaning none of the HGH or roid users are included in those 15-18%, and no Epo users either that stopped doping 1 - 2 months earlier.
Epo injections and blood transfusions are messy. One could think that most would prefer pills and creams. But even going with 15-18%: most disciplines have about 40 participants at worlds, with only 3 medalists but 6 - 7 blood dopers in the field (and x steroid users).
And complete Quackery. Because there is no such thing as superhuman oxygen uptake. That's not how aerobic metabolism works.
It's a stupid fantasy which has poisoned the field of sports science for too long. But everyone in that field is either too ignorant or too cowardly to say it.
Skill sports. Weight restrictions. Roids don’t help you read a defense or make a 3.
"NFL wide receivers have no incentive to improve their 40 yard time by 0.2" is one of the classic dumb track fanatic takes. This ties back to my post in another thread about track fans wanting the sport to remain marginal - the urge is so strong that track fans come up with truly ludicrous arguments of why only THEIR athletes have any reason to use anabolic/androgenic substances or GH-related substances.
"Weight restrictions" lmao, just lmao. Do you know what happens if you take tren while remaining on a maintenance diet?
I’m just trying to explain why I don’t think doping allegations really matter. It’s not the doping allegations. It’s the sport. Our sport is boring and completely reliant on getting away with doing as much performance enhancing substances as you can get away with. Other sports, like basketball, football and fighting, take skill. It’s not just about who does the most drugs without getting caught.
Accusations of doping aren’t the problem, doping is. Too many women sprinters that look like the Incredible Hulk, too many East Africans running super human times, too much suspicious behavior (like needing to go to East Africa for a camp).
Get serious about rooting doping out. Setup a multi-million dollar whistleblower fund. Many cheaters do so to get rich, let them get rich by exposing the cheaters instead.
Nope. Belief in doping efficacy is the problem. So you drug obsessed people make the situation worse, not better.
There are no magic bullets.
I'll say it again, since the mods have decreed it is a personal attack - if you know for a fact doping doesn't work that will mean you have tried it. What else can you base that purported knowledge on?
Nope. Belief in doping efficacy is the problem. So you drug obsessed people make the situation worse, not better.
There are no magic bullets.
I'll say it again, since the mods have decreed it is a personal attack - if you know for a fact doping doesn't work that will mean you have tried it. What else can you base that purported knowledge on?
Wrong. I've never taken any drugs my whole life, which includes clot shots and the so called "vaccinations." I never have and never will.
The reason that I don't is because petrochemical drug concoctions are all harmful poisons that millions of people have died from throughout history, including the last few years. Drugs are a scam, propped up by prolific false advertising which has been going on for many, many decades, including since television was first invented, and then from the beginning of the internet.
None of the search engines work worth crap anymore because they all link to petrochemical drug sites and NOT to what people are searching for.
One of the reasons I'm against the testing is because the toxic petrochemical drugs don't provide any benefit. They never have helped anyone to increase their performances above any normal (legal etc) means, and have great potential to cause hard to anyone who takes them, the same as when the same drugs are injected into people in hospitals who then die from the horrendous barbaric petrochemical treatments.
A second reason is because falsely stating that they help people to achieve super human feats that they no one could ever have done before, which is total hogwash, is propagation and promotion of the petrochemical drugs.
A third reason is because all these false accusations harms the sport of athletics, makes people decide that running is not worth all the abuse and they stop participating for that reason, not because they use or don't use drugs but because they see all the abuse and don't want to participate in that type of climate.
A fourth reason is because all the groundless false accusations destroy many serious athletes careers. There are more reasons but there are four big ones.
It's the incessant doping that isn't good for the sports. We now have top Boston finishers and WC steeple chaser caught doping. So who are these people beating dopers using cleaning training?
Explain the popularity of the NFL, the NBA, UFC, etc.
They aren’t boring, running is. Doping has nothing to do with viewership.
Nope. Belief in doping efficacy is the problem. So you drug obsessed people make the situation worse, not better.
There are no magic bullets.
I'll say it again, since the mods have decreed it is a personal attack - if you know for a fact doping doesn't work that will mean you have tried it. What else can you base that purported knowledge on?
You are dumb.
If you know for a fact doping works that will mean you have tried it. What else can you base that purported knowledge on?