RE: The Top Cyclists Are Doping: So Are The Top Runners

Sure, you don't need drugs to perform your best. You need drugs to perform BETTER than your best.

outside looking in wrote:

Don't altitude tents have the same effect as EPO? If so, why don't more athletes just use altitude tents? Granted, they are more of a hassle, but it is a clean, legal way to get the same blood-boosting effect.

You've got a good point.

I think a lot of people aren't taking advantage of the science and that's where the living at altitude/altitude tents/altitude rooms come in.

For example do the Hanson's do nothing with altitude? That means they are leaving something on the table.

I don't know why more athletes don't do Hi/Lo Training. It's what I did in Flagstaff. I lived in Flagstaff and twice a week I either drove 2 hours roundtrip or 4 hours roundtrip to workout.

With a pro team, a driver and a big SUV, it would be a lot easier. With me, I often drove myself or I would have one other guy going with me and we'd split the driving. The 2 hour drive I'd usually stop and take a break.

J.R. wrote:

Anyone who thinks you need drugs to perform your best, is a brainwashed fool.

tacomafan wrote:

To perform at your best, yes, you are correct. To perform at the ultimate world best, that's another thing.

J.R. wrote:

You're not the only one.

wqqqqqqqq wrote:

Am I the only one who notices the glaring logic error here?

The logic is, that he is a brainwashed fool, and he's not the only one.

Wejo and others

Take a look on the Biologic Passport, the new drug test method actually admitted.

The Biologic Passport might caught the athlete despite that each single test might not found illegal substance.

I guess the Biologic Passport opens is a new era in the doping and from now on with just 5 tests it´s 99% sure to determine that the athlete takes some substance or some method to performance enhance.

The portuguese Helder Hornelas and the Morocco runner Goumri were suspended without any positive test, due to this new Biologic Passport drug analysis.

Antonio Cabral wrote:

The Biologic Passport might caught the athlete despite that each single test might not found illegal substance.

Of course, it can "catch" athlets despite they have taken NO illegal substances.

The test is no good, because it depends on people never changing, which is stupid. Of course people change, every day, from sleeping to being awake, from before training to after training, from before getting on a plane to after getting off the plane. All the time, people are changing.

THIS IS NORMAL!

The best action is to get rid of the tests, and get the drug companies out of athletics.

The reason I don't think doping is as widespread in distance running as cycling is that the top up-and-coming African amateurs are not that far behind the top professionals. And those young Africans cannot have the resources to dope, yet many (most) don't improve by alarming amounts once they get paid. Just as an example, Augustine Choge was a phenom as a teenager and has not improved a ton from that level as an adult. You'd expect someone that is a great young runner while clean would be unstoppable doped, but Choge has just kinda pecked away at his PR's.

Granted, there are exceptions like Ramzi who came out of absolutely nowhere and ran crazy races, but everyone on this board suspected him for years and years before he was busted. Whereas with cycling, even to be an amateur competitive cyclist you need to spend a ton on a bike, gear, etc. They're basically rich hobbyists that can afford pharmaceuticals.

That said, Salazar is, in my opinion, the shadiest track coach that hasn't been busted yet. Even reading about his own training regimen with Athletics West is stunning. He ran more hard workouts than anybody, which is difficult to explain. That quote that someone posted earlier raises eyebrows especially when he's got all of his athletes on asthma medication, etc.

Anyway, agree with Wejo that it's a good conversation to have.

I have no insight to the top runners in the world, but as a former elite cyclist, you guys are so far off base pertaining to cycling it is laughable.

The main reason cyclists turn to Peds is the rigorous racing schedule as compared to running. How many times a year do the top runners race? As an professional cyclist during the season you are racing sometimes 3 times a week not counting a grand tour, obviously not possible running because of the impact etc. Cycling you need to recover and fast, all the talent and training can only go so far before the body just can not handle the rigors of a professionals race schedule.

This might give a reason as to why you don't see as much doping in running, given the bigger training cycles and fewer races.

J.R. wrote:

Antonio Cabral wrote:

The Biologic Passport might caught the athlete despite that each single test might not found illegal substance.

Of course, it can "catch" athlets despite they have taken NO illegal substances.

What i want to mean by no iIlegal substances is illegal methods (the self blood transfusion by the way it´s not an illegal substance detected because it´s own blood) and i also want to mean new or old substances that aren´t detected by drud analysis.

J.R. wrote:

The test is no good, because it depends on people never changing, which is stupid. Of course people change, every day, from sleeping to being awake, from before training to after training, from before getting on a plane to after getting off the plane. All the time, people are changing.

THIS IS NORMAL!

Ther´s no way the human parameters might change by training or every other process if not doping. By the way the VO2max enhance 13% with blood transfusion, the EPO might increase hematocrit 12%. Some steroids might increase the human strength what is impossible by "natural" process in so short time. Since it´s proved that ther´s no way to increase or decrease the value out of normal parameters, the test is 99% right. The biologic passport is as accurate as the ADN test.

In an abnormal body the parameter might be high or low and out of wealth value. Imagine one athlete or simply one sedentary person which the hematocrit is 56 or 32. However that anomalies - if is one abnormal function of the body, it doesn´t change without medication.

who is relaying all these messages to all the doping labs to not test or fake test results for ethiopian and kenyan athletes? if there's such a grand 'pc' conspiracy, surely there's a paper trail? out with it! there may be national conspiracies, as in russia and even the u.s. in 1984, and agent-based conspiracies or coach-based conspiracies. but who is doing the big coordination program for all east african (but not north african) athletes? Where there are doped athletes getting through, which happens all the time, it is not, on the international level, because of a grand conspiracy, but because the dopers are ahead of the testers.

The point is to find change outside the normal human variation. It does not presuppose that people never change but that the rules of normal biology dictate that these numbers can only change within certain bounds in a certain time period.

J.R. wrote:

Of course, it can "catch" athlets despite they have taken NO illegal substances.

The test is no good, because it depends on people never changing, which is stupid. Of course people change, every day, from sleeping to being awake, from before training to after training, from before getting on a plane to after getting off the plane. All the time, people are changing.

THIS IS NORMAL!

The best action is to get rid of the tests, and get the drug companies out of athletics.

Jesus, you guys are dorks spouting numbers you know nothing about.

We know about PEDs in the Tour only because of some rather famous busts, and some rather vocal whistle blowers. This despite the fact that your dealing with a rather limited number of athletes who could win, and extensive, expensive and cutting edge measures taken to cover tracks.

I have a hard time buying that AK is some how so much better at covering up a MUCH MUCH larger pool of talent, and not a single disgruntled whistle blower. Amazing! We must have hired these guys to fake all our moon landings, and the 911 attacks.

No, he doesn't have a good point. Altitude tents and living at altitude produce blood boosting effects, but this effect is not nearly equal to the effects of EPO injections. With altitude your hemocrit level will rise a percent or two, but with EPO you can raise it as high as you'd like. With altitude you can improve, with EPO you're a different athlete.

dueteronomy wrote:

The top distance runner in the world today is a guy who spent his career as a mid-pack runner until he joined a particular project in Oregon as a 28-year old!

The rest of the project is pretty mediocre though. Four white dudes running sub 13 in 2 years. Yup, pretty mediocre.

Have you known about Farah for only a year? Before moving to train under Salazar he was the 5 and 10k European champion in 2010. Not what I would call a mid-pack runner.

Running hasn't even established an omerta yet, and besides if you were an enterprising trafficker I wouldn't be picking an east african to partner with if you believed talent had nothing to do with it, only drugs. You would be picking someone with money earning potential outside race winnings to slough off. It's all dollars and sense, haven't we learned enough from cycling?

Salazar might well have doped (blood) when he's an athlete as he would try anything that's not illegal. And blood doping wasn't banned by the IOC back then until 1986. Prior to 1986, the use of blood doping was frowned upon. But that was it.

dean moriarty wrote:

That said, Salazar is, in my opinion, the shadiest track coach that hasn't been busted yet. Even reading about his own training regimen with Athletics West is stunning. He ran more hard workouts than anybody, which is difficult to explain. That quote that someone posted earlier raises eyebrows especially when he's got all of his athletes on asthma medication, etc.

J.R. wrote:

Anyone who thinks you need drugs to perform your best, is a brainwashed fool.

Indeed. Lots of stupid threads here about drugs, but no-one wants to discuss the subject of training harder.

clear head wrote:

Indeed. Lots of stupid threads here about drugs, but no-one wants to discuss the subject of training harder.

So you're in the moronic 'Africans are simply more hard working than evil white people' camp?

What about hard work and doping? Do you think none of these top guys have thought of that clever combination?

You seem rather too obsessed with drugs trollism.

clear head wrote:

You seem rather too obsessed with drugs trollism.

I apologise for posting about doping on a thread about doping.