What track athletes did Michele Ferrari work with?

Renato, can you elaborate on your opinion on Mr. Ferrari?

Would you agree with Lance that "he is a good guy"?

By "good guy", I wonder if Lance means that he put an end to the EPO related fatalities by mixing it's application with blood thinners and HGH, thus "saving" lives.It is laughable how Renato sounds like Ferrari of '94.

Nutella1 wrote:

Renato, can you elaborate on your opinion on Mr. Ferrari?

Would you agree with Lance that "he is a good guy"?

Unfortunately as the measures of greatness are now tainted by high profile athletes as Lance, the general bias among people will be that the top athletes must or have to use to get there. Personally, I should think the attributes of good applications of training methodology a good mind and human potential has a more significant effect on top range performances than could any pi-drug could ever have.

It is a fact that Sir Roger Banister broke the 4 minute barrier with the known belief at the time that this was humanly not possible. It was then that many re defined what was possible allowing for the floodgates to open and allowing many many men to go well under 4 all by natural applications.

If Banister were to set have this record now it would have been under the suspicion that he was using. Perhaps then people would think' "why even try" if I can't get there with out drugs, perhaps robbing them of the incentive to try.

That's not to say that PED don't change the profile for athletes, much as the effect of studio technology can have on a singers voice, but some voices can and should never be enhanced or changed electronically as their own raw voice can never be made better in the studio.

At the end of the day human greatness will be under the suspicion of the lab even if this isn't the case. This is a sad reality of the times.

Michele Ferrari was the best follower of Conconi. He grew in a period when studies about pharmacs abel to increase athletic performances were considered "scientific benefit" for Federations and private activity. His mentality was built according these factors : for him, every scientific aid was absolutely correct, and he never was interested in the official limits between legal and/or illegal substances.

He is also a good expert of training methodology, and many bikers went to him for methodological advices and training programs.

Personally, I never agreed with his convinctions, and my relations with him always were sporadic.

As person, he's very pleasant when you can speak about general problems, being provided of great culture.

I don't know what "good guy" can mean for Lance.

Of sure, my opinion about any pharmacological help for athletes is exactly the opposite of his opinion.

Renato Canova wrote:

Michele Ferrari was the best follower of Conconi. He grew in a period when studies about pharmacs abel to increase athletic performances were considered "scientific benefit" for Federations and private activity. His mentality was built according these factors : for him, every scientific aid was absolutely correct, and he never was interested in the official limits between legal and/or illegal substances.

He is also a good expert of training methodology, and many bikers went to him for methodological advices and training programs.

Personally, I never agreed with his convinctions, and my relations with him always were sporadic.

As person, he's very pleasant when you can speak about general problems, being provided of great culture.

I don't know what "good guy" can mean for Lance.

Of sure, my opinion about any pharmacological help for athletes is exactly the opposite of his opinion.

Renato, that did not answer my question.

I asked if you would agree that Mr. Ferrari is a good guy.

Sorry, I'm not of your opinion.

To suppose all people are the same, is for me a great mistake.

Physiological principles are the same, like mechanical principle are the same, but what can change the performances of a car Fiat 500 doesn't work for a Red Bull or a Ferrari Formula one, because ALREADY these car include the most advanced particulars.

One question : why not all people can have the same performances, also using the same training ?

Can you understand that there are different levels of qualities and specific attitudes, and because of it the reaction is strictly individual and cant be homologated (I don't know if it's a correct word, it means considered the same for everybody) ?

Also the reaction to some therapy when people are sick is not the same. Why Lance was able to defeat his cancer, while 99% of other people with the same problem go to die ?

I learnt that, in training, we have the principle of "individualization", also if physiological principles don't change. The same happens in the science of medicine.

If pharmacs can work at the same way for everybody, why doctors have to change many times their prescriptions, using some pharmac different from the first one they gave, because it didn't have any effect ?

If medicine is an exact science, why when some very important person (for example, some President of a big Nation, or the Pope, or very rich people) has a great desease, there is a pannel of different doctors discussing together for offering different solutions to the same problems ?

I think you follow too much what is written in scientific books, where you can find one thesis and its opposite.

But something must be clear :

1. Top athletes don't have the same physiological behavior of normal people. They are top because already have some physiological, morphological and mental difference from normal people. In addition, they train very much more than normal people, and very much better ; they have more control than normal people about recovering and resting ; their motivation is fed by the advantages they can have through their performances, that normal people cant have.

So, this is a type of population absolutely specific, and every research done with normal people presents very little bearing with their situation.

2. NEVER there was a specific research looking at this specific group of champions. All researches look at groups of normal people, divided in categories very much general : for example, sedentary men Vs. runners 3 times per week for 30' easy Vs. runners 6 times per week for 1 hr a little bit faster.

I remember a study about marathon, some year ago, considering "homogeneous group" runners with PB between 2:18:00 and 2:45:00 in marathon. For me, homogeneous can be a group of "under 2:05:00", already different from a group between 2:05:00 and 2:07:00. When we speak about the tops, every research must be very refined, and a deviation of 5%, statistically accepted, in our case goes to disprove the results.

3. At the end of every thing, I fully confirm what I wrote several times : till when we don't do a SPECIFIC RESEARCH with SPECIFIC TOP ATHLETES of SPECIFIC DISCIPLINES acting in SPECIFIC EVENTS, we don't have any proof about what can happen using some substance.

About steroids, athletic records clearly speak : no records in throwing, and in events where muscle strength is very important (sprint, hurdles, jumps for women and in some case for men too), after 1988, when antidoping started to work better and IAAF became stronger under this point of view.

About blood doping, we see that, also if the antidoping system improves every day, athletes continue to better records, of course when there is good race organisation (without rabbits, practically it's impossible to better any record, apart Rudisha).

And some argument used by who believes everybody is doped is frankly ridiculous and pathetic : for instance the fact nobody is able to run again, after 2004, events of 1500 / 3000 / 5000 / 10000 / steeple at the same speed is explained with the improvement in the quality of antidoping control (so, these athletes before could use EPO without being caught, today it's no longer possible), but at the same time Marathon can improve a lot because of EPO.

But, of course, the most part of people don't have the education to use their brain, and are slaves of every kind of propaganda.

And don't forget the Big Pharma is the 3rd business in the World, and the Companies spend a lot of money for exerting undue influence over the population of every Country, which is the greater source of profit for themselves.

According to my moral principles, no.

But probably Lance knows about Ferrari very much more than me.

Hitler killed millions people, but liked birds, so for other people loving birds probably was "a good guy"....

Canova, are you claiming that EPO does not enhance the performance of elite cyclists? Or are you saying that runners are somehow different?

And if it was somehow found that EPO only worked for, say, 95% of the population what difference would that make? Would that somehow be an argument for not banning it?

I don't get what your point is. Should runners be allowed to use EPO because it hasn't been proven specifically to work for 5000m runners going clockwise on a indoor track?

Nobody can come close to Bekele's times because he was the perfect storm of super-talented and doped without risk of being caught.

Even the dopers can't get close nowadays because they're not quite as talented. Someone may be soon though.

Also, I think the African nations have been warned about being careful, but not actually outed. The IAAF knows about it, they just don't need the scandal.

Doesn't help your career though, it was easier when they just let you put what you want into them.

Renato Canova wrote:

According to my moral principles, no.

Thanks.

While I don't agree that runners don't benefit from EPO, I would agree that they don't benefit nearly as much as cyclists do.

This was discussed before. You can raise your HCT by doing altitude training and probably get close to the 50, that are allowed. The disadvantage here is obviously that you can't train as hard as you could at sea level.

I am sure though that many runners around the world use testosterone to recover from hard workouts and use cortisone for race day (not really a problem to get an Rx from a doctor for this --> asthma).

It's pretty well known that Italy has supplied a lot of EPO for the East Africans.

Nutella1 wrote:

While I don't agree that runners don't benefit from EPO, I would agree that they don't benefit nearly as much as cyclists do.

This was discussed before. You can raise your HCT by doing altitude training and probably get close to the 50, that are allowed. The disadvantage here is obviously that you can't train as hard as you could at sea level.

I am sure though that many runners around the world use testosterone to recover from hard workouts and use cortisone for race day (not really a problem to get an Rx from a doctor for this --> asthma).

(1) Even sprinters under the BALCO plan were taking EPO (in addition to steroids) because it helps with recovery from hard workouts. Saying that distance runners don't benefit from an aerobic supplement but sprinters do, is a pretty strange thing to claim. And I think its fair to say that Victor Conte knew what he was doing.

(2) USADA claims that runners can go to altitude to cover up the use of EPO from testers, because that test depends on the ratio between natural (basic) EPO and artificial (acidic) EPO. If distance runners (Rachid Ramzi, for example) don't benefit from EPO, they whay are they taking it? More likely, runners going to Albuquerque where PEDS seem to be plentiful are going there not so much for the training effect, but for the covering up cheating effect.

(3) Runners do not use testosterone or cortisone at races or comp because it is too easy for in-competition testing to detect it. They take these things during heavy training months from competition when there are not tests. Just ask Victor Conte about this and what needs to be done to stop it.

Given the presence of drug use in Athletics today, if someone gets caught you could usually assume that he has been using drugs for a while. if you suggested that 2:10 was from EPO use, I can easily assume the build up was also aided by EPO.

Just because someone did not get busted does not automatically mean they are not on PED's (ala Car1 Lewis and Lance Armstrong)

"A cycling study on young cyclists measuring time to exhaustion, and power, will not help answer, how many seconds a top running athlete will improve in a race."

Mads Kaggestad was didn't know if he was given EPO or a placebo, but he felt it. He knew after a short while because of the enormous effect it had on him physically. He was a top trained athlete. That shows that EPO (at least for some) most likely have an effect, also that was the conclusion of the study. Its extremely unlikely that if you switch to running, the effect cease to appear.

I'm not saying EPO definitely 100% works, that I cannot prove, but to state otherwise is being extremely naive. With the information we have its very likely that it has a great effect on top athletes.

"If Mads Kaggestad trains for 10 years to run a 10K, how much will EPO improve his result?"

Who cares (but very likely, yes)? If it improved his 10k time trial, why wouldn't it improve, for example, Bekeles 10k?

"If Kisorio took steroids, he cannot dissprove that EPO doesn't work. This is true regardless if he took EPO."

You cant either dismiss that EPO have had an effect on him.

"If the study says 40, and Renato says 0, who is closer to being right?"

As Renato never have tested EPO on his runners, the study. Renato doesn't just state that he doesn't know, he repeatedly with great confidence state that africans aren't cheating because drugs don't work on them.

Thats extremely strange, and had he been a suspicious coach everyone would have called that a bad excuse from a cheater. I'm not calling im that btw.

Renato Canova wrote:

PB in MAR : 2:10:58 6 Nov 2011 (EPO)

You said it was steroids earlier.

Synthetic EPO increases red blood cell count. How does having more red blood cells than normal increase oxygen delivery to the muscles when it thickens the blood and lowers heart rate?

Still waiting.

What part of "blood thinners" do you not get? And lowered heart rate is an indicator of fitness.

Basic physiology question wrote:

Synthetic EPO increases red blood cell count. How does having more red blood cells than normal increase oxygen delivery to the muscles when it thickens the blood and lowers heart rate?

Still waiting.

That's not a proper answer. Lower heart rates from endurance training have nothing to do with my question.

Still waiting.

How do you KNOW an athlete is clean? You're not with all of them all of the time. As for comparing the performances of an athlete who's been caught doping before and after he's been caught, you're assuming that the athlete really was clean when he said he was. Why would we believe that to be true? Because we think that athlete is honest and can take his or her word?