Malcolm Gladwell is oblivious to doping in distance running.

I think your post is right on.

The chinese, and the female russian, busts of a few years ago show that drugs certainly work in distance running.

Additionally, A big reason you hear so much about doping in cycling (as compared to track) is because cycling is very big business, and the TDF in particular is hugely popular.

The french media, and indeed, anti-doping officials, can make careers out of busting cyclists.

There isn't really a similar motivation to bust individuals running low key events.

I should add that for a three week event, teams in the TDF almost certainly have to dope - in competition - which makes busting them easy.

There is no reason for dopers to get caught in competition if they are distance runners - as there event is over in, at most, about two hours.

If out of competition testing is lax, then runners get away with it.

edit - *there* should be *their*.

I don't want the grammar police after me.

Just as a data point, there was that NZ woman marathoner who was using EPO.

There are lots of examples of athletes that run between 5000 and the marathon getting busted for EPO.

Just a few:

"Alberto Garcia (from Wiki) - He failed to qualify for the 5000 metres finals at the 1999 World Championships and 2000 Olympics, but then came fourth in the 5000 metres at the 2001 World Championships and in the following year he became the European 5000 metres champion at the 2002 European Athletics Championships.

After serving a two year suspension for doping, Garcia returned to competitive athletics. He finished second in the 2005 European Cross Country Championships behind Serhiy Lebid, and won the Cross Internacional de Venta de Baños.[1] On the track, he was unable to reach the best times that he had recorded before his suspension."

Gee do you think his use of EPO was the reason he was suddenly fourth in the 5000m?

"Pamela Chepchumba was suspended for two years after testing positive for EPO at the 2003 IAAF World Cross Country Championships held in Lausanne, Switzerland.[2] She had finished sixth, but was disqualified.[3] She returned in 2005 and won the Udine Half Marathon.[1]"

Why would she take it if it doesn't work?

Yegorova is a good example too.

These are just a quick few.

I really find it hard to believe all these really fast runners are taking EPO for no reason. There must be a correlation between the drug and their speed. Again, it seems clear to me that drugs help distance runners and distance runners are no different from any other athlete. Many athletes dope, ergo many distance runners dope too.

asdfsadf wrote:

It is human nature to take whatever advantage one can. All pro sports dope. Cycling dopes, sprints, jumps and throws dope. Swimming dopes, shooting dopes. Biathlon dopes, cross country skiing dopes.

Shooting dopes? Seriously? What do they take; something like adderall?

They take beta blockers to slow their heartbeat and steady trembling hands.

If you ever had a naive belief that sport is clean, or that some sports are pure as compared to others, just peruse these lists of known dopers - it is crazy.

The first list if just in athletics,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_doping_cases_in_athletics

This list is all sports.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_doping_cases_in_sport

And people want to tell me that distance runners are somehow magic fairies that are immune to all the reasons every other sport in the world dopes? Does not seem rational.

My instinct is that virtually all the men and all the women in every event shorter than four hundred metres are doped, about half of the quarter milers are doped, a few of the half milers, and very few of the long-distance runners. There are some exceptions though: Moroccan men and Russian women seem to have particular issues. The greatest dopers of all time, I suspect, were the Chinese women in the early nineties who claimed that exotic worms made them fast.

I would, however, be shocked if any of the top Kenyan or Ethiopian distance runners dope.

The naivety of Mr. Gladwell is shocking. EVERYBODY from the world's elite at distances 1500 m and longer has been on EPO since 1995. There was no way that a clean athlete could compete with cheats doped to the gills. By the way, the sudden drop of times in 2000 (after the announcement of the first anti-EPO test) is quite funny.

Only the nation of LetsRun has a grasp on the doping game in Sports, everyone else is just clueless and turning a blind eye to it.

NBC should give us some coverage, we can describe to you how SARMS works and how it effectively allows Usian Bolt to move his legs inhumanly fast or give East Africans the ability to pound out 13 minute 5ks.

o.O wrote:

Only the nation of LetsRun has a grasp on the doping game in Sports, everyone else is just clueless and turning a blind eye to it.

NBC should give us some coverage, we can describe to you how SARMS works and how it effectively allows Usian Bolt to move his legs inhumanly fast or give East Africans the ability to pound out 13 minute 5ks.

I don't get your point. Are you suggesting that there is no doping?

Newsflash, everyone knows there is doping, but they don't care. Look at how the public loves Lance and Bonds and all their pro athletes.

Well, one thing you have to realize is that there wasn't an effective test for EPO or blood packing until recently, and even now it's hard to get caught. So, in contrast to sprinters, there was really no way to get caught outside of back luck. Also, blood packing doesn't even require you to go outside your group; all you need is a team doctor.

I think the biological passport makes it difficult to mess with your blood values, unless someone has very precise control over transfusions/EPO injections.

Gladwell is like mine (and everyone's right?) favorite author, but doping makes a huge difference in distance running.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariem_Alaoui_Selsouli

I think you need to go back and read what you wrote, Rojo. "Gladwell is like mine ... favorite author"?! Nice.

rojo wrote:

Gladwell is like mine (and everyone's right?) favorite author, but doping makes a huge difference in distance running.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariem_Alaoui_Selsouli

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Marti Vaino, who was using steriods in the 80s as a 10,000m runner. One of his claims, if I remember correctly, was that they helped him recover much more quickly and completely from hard workouts, meaning he could do more intense training over a longer period and not break down.

Seems like some of the criticism of Malcolm is a little harsh. He writes and comments on a wide range of topics to be sure, but I've always been able to take away something of interest from his writings. Regarding running he does know the sport having been an OFSAA gold medalist. If he doesn't choose to learn about doping in track it may be because it is something he doesn't consider worthy of his time or thought.

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so the question is why so few positive tests in 5000m + runners. Possibly, very few do use PEDs.

Or because so many long distance runners are from poor countries with weak out of competition testing programs.

or many long distance runners just can't afford PEDs.

or because running might be less organized than other sports - harder to patrol, and harder for a drug culture to develop.

I think most of the examples of long distance dopers caught is telling - Marti Vaino? that was 40 years ago, no? Selsouli was a 1500 meter runner. Fact is that very few long distance runners have been caught, and I do think it is because there is no culture of drugs. Could change, but there you have it.

agip wrote:

Cycling is just like distance running in terms of demands on the body.

You are so clueless it hurts.

Cyclists train 4-6 hours a day. In the saddle. Not lying around stretching, doing drills, running 45 minutes, stretching more and saying you train two hours a day like most runners. They are GOING for well over the duration of a 40-50 mile run.

Tours consist of 10-20 consecutive days of 3-5 hour aerobic efforts.

How is this in ANY WAY like running?

Runners have a hard time facing the facts that they are not the world's most developed aerobically. The mechanical stresses of running limit us to far less volume than is put in by cyclists, swimmers or xc skiiers.

rupp-certified saladbar wrote:

agip wrote:

Cycling is just like distance running in terms of demands on the body.

You are so clueless it hurts.

Cyclists train 4-6 hours a day. In the saddle. Not lying around stretching, doing drills, running 45 minutes, stretching more and saying you train two hours a day like most runners. They are GOING for well over the duration of a 40-50 mile run.

Tours consist of 10-20 consecutive days of 3-5 hour aerobic efforts.

How is this in ANY WAY like running?

Runners have a hard time facing the facts that they are not the world's most developed aerobically. The mechanical stresses of running limit us to far less volume than is put in by cyclists, swimmers or xc skiiers.

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hey, that was asdfsadf who said that, not me. I agree with you that tour cycling puts different demands on the body.

Gladwell writes a form of science fiction.

Check out E.O. Wilson or Carl Sagan for something with a little more substance.