At what point do you look at a performance and say "Yeah, he's gotta be doping."

I think you are big time confirmation biasing yourself if you think you do a better job ratting out dopers than the actual anti doping agencies do.

Im sure around 50% of pros and 80% of world finalists have used a substance or two they shouldn’t have to get where they are, it’s sadly an “if you can’t beat ‘em, join em” situation. You usually have no idea who those athletes are until they get caught though. I don’t think Letsrun is as good as assuming as you’d think either, let’s remember that the biggest argument I see for Shelby’s innocence on these boards is that “She’s a really nice person there’s no way she’d dope”.

Any Russian in a 800m final is doping has been a safe bet for a long time.😀 The reality is after that it gets hit and miss. In some places where you have 5 guys running fast and 1 test positive, it is hard not to think the other ones are also doping. What’s the chance Shelby was getting better stuff than cranny, fisher and the rest of BTC? And the same thing for half the Kenyan training groups. Same thing if you hang out with a doping coach/manager.

But in the end we know testing is easy to cheat and odds are few people will be caught by current testing. If you want to believe it is only a couple bad apples or if everyone in an Olympic final is cheating is hard to say. We haven’t had the TDF moment where we learn everyone in the top 20 is doping. Without the team structure(and lack of money)we are probably never going to get that.

On the women's side anything in the 1:55 800m, 3:55 1500m, or 14:30 5000m range. You also look at context, associations, progression and red flags. Like Chemusto was laughably obvious. Others equally.

The idea that people can’t run faster than Marty Liquori, Dick Quax, and Matt Centrowitz did in the 70s-80s without being dopers is funny

When a dude nobody has heard of somehow peaks at the Olympics to win the 100m , then disappears.

When some old dude nobody has heard of somehow peaks to win a major marathon, setting the 4th fastest time of all time in the process.

It's interesting that this kind of general speculation is permitted on threads like this but as certain other threads show it cannot be permitted in respect of young American female athletes. It is immediately closed down by the mods. So doping only occurs in other countries, and never in college - right?

The idea that you can get to the top today without doping in a world in which there is a drug for everything and where winning is everything is even funnier.

When Armstrong was winning the TdF, you would see a lot of fire and rage in him when others seemed destroyed. I read that was one of the indicators he was using some form of steroid.

So that’s something I notice - when someone finishes an exhausting race with a different emotional response than others.

Would it be something like this: 😲

It's easiest to tell when you see a "donkey among thoroughbreds"; which is to say the person that stands out physically among all the rest as being out of place either because of how they move or their body composition

An example that comes to mind are the Turkish women from the London Olympics 1500; both of them lacked the fluidity in their stride one would expect to see at the very top

Slightly different from doping (actually it's the same thing!), but similar in terms of donkey's among thoroughbreds is when we see transgenders born male racing with top high school girls; they move like a typical jv boy that isn't very athletic while the girls look and move like top athletes which is to say much more fluid

Like Kipsang?

Like Kipsang?

I would hazard a guess any ncaa star sub 14:30 for 5k is a candidate for doping, you could apply the same % increase WR for any distance.

for sprints, lucky to fine a non doper

Any white person getting an Olympic marathon medal

I think it when I see people running in the NCAA or in an american high school, where they don't even know the meaning of the word "testing".

sudden improvements, dodgy coaches, being anti drugs, having anything to do with seb coe, travis tygart, saying; i have never tested positive, american football, basketball, tennis, cycling, weightlifting (oh, come on), in order; east africa, china, jamaica, norway, russia, us, spain, france, uk,

You're basically saying it's everywhere - but some places more than others.

Who said that?

Liquori: 1500 – 3:36.0 (1971); Mile – 3:52.2 (1975); 5000 – 13:15.06 (1977); 10000 – 29:08.9 (1978).

Dick Quax: 1500 - 3:36.7 (1976); Mile - 3:56.23 (1976); 5000 - 13:12.87 (1977); 10000 - 27:41.95 (1977).

Centrowitz: 1500 - 3:36.70 (1976); Mile - 3:54.94 (1982); 5000 - 13:12.91 (1982); 10000 - 28:32.7 (1983).