wejo wrote:
Also someone should do the math and see once you remove the Russian positive what % of everyone else was positive. It might be really low especially once you remove the Kenyan positives.
The Russian medalists are mostly in the walks, but if you expand that a bit to include eastern European countries, and you also remove the Kenyans, that leaves you with...Ethiopians.
wejo,
You are failing to take into consideration that it is possible to dope and also have normal blood values.
I wish the people in charge of doping control did their job so we wouldn't have to wonder who was guilty and who wasn't.
know what i really don't care anymore about who is or isn't doping. I would rather see out of this world performances then what we today consider b level. What is a DL meet but simply a few hours of entertainment so I don't care about doping anymore give me a 1500 like Monoco anyday over the snooze fest that the Stockholm 1500 was. If that means people are doped to do those kinds of performances great it si fun to watch
but have they gained anything then?
If there were competitions as designated for drug users, while I wouldn't care to watch them, I would not be bothered by them either. If you want to support that type of sport, that's your choice.
It's the fact that the drug users are gaining an advantage that displaces the clean athletes and that the drug users won't go away that kills me. They are in effect ruining a beautiful sport.
The lesson is that man corrupts and ruins everything he gets his hand on. It started in the Garden of Eden and has persisted ever since.
Whistle-blowers rock!
Now we have an idea of the scale and can start an open discussion.
Brief Guardian commentary includes some of the newer available PEDs.
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/aug/02/athletics-doping-revelations-dismay-but-no-surprise
smell the coffee, wrote:
The lesson is that man corrupts and ruins everything he gets his hand on. It started in the Garden of Eden and has persisted ever since.
I agree with this sentiment, and that's why hearing that there are cheaters in track and field doesn't surprise me. In any endeavor in which there are great rewards (politics, sports, business, etc) then there is great incentive to cheat, and some people will choose that path.
How many people in any given endeavor cheat will be almost entirely be determined by how great the rewards are (money, power, fame, etc), how strong the likelihood of being caught is, and how severe the punishment is (suspension, criminal charges, going down in infamy, etc). That's basic economics--cheaters (and non-cheaters) are doing a cost-benefit analysis weighing the incentives vs disincentives.
What this suggests to me, though, is that if 20%-40% of athletes in high level track and field (where the incentives are relatively small and enforcement, relative to other sports, is fairly strong), then the vast majority of (if not nearly all) players in the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, and high-level club soccer (where the potential rewards for success are so much greater and the likelihood of and punishment for being caught are so much smaller) are surely cheating. (I would imagine the same is true in high-stakes non-athletic arenas such as business and politics as well).
Track and field doesn't have a monopoly on bad behavior. Which doesn't make it okay (I'm in favor of stronger enforcement and stricter penalties in track in order to further deter doping), but is worth remembering when we see numbers like this. The only reason we don't see numbers like this from major professional sports leagues is because, as much as we think the IAAF might try to cover up the extent of doping in the sport, organizations like major American professional sports leagues aren't even remotely interested in trying to catch any of their stars cheating, and don't have any organization like USADA/WADA (as toothless as it might be) to keep them even the slightest bit honest.
So, is this good news? No, not really, but it's to be expected.
I read all the Sunday Times stories last night and they gave much more perspective. We're going to see if they can be republished on LetsRun.com.
Some factors are more alarming after reading the whole thing, in terms of cover-ups.
I'm in the Minnesota wilderness but some highlights:
The 2 experts marked samples as "yellow" = suspicious and requiring more follow up (they said this indicated a 1/1000 chance of being natural) or red = "likely to be doping".
(Side note, 1/1000 to me seems like it would be likely to be doping so I'd like to ask them more about this).
The amount of suspicious tests (this is only for athletes with abnormal blood values indicating possible blood boosting/doping, the experts did nothing to look at steroid usage) by country
Russia 415, Ukraine 102, Morocco 82, Spain 81, Kenya 77, Turkey 52, Greece 42, Belarus 42, Romania 32, Portugal 32, USA 32, Britain 12
So Kenya gets a ton of attention, but it is less suspicious as a country than Morocco or Spain who have a lot less top level athletes. USA is nearly half the level of Kenya.
Am I surprised it is easy to get EPO in Kenya? No. The more troubling aspects to all of this for me are possible coverups.
I don't think athletes could be sanctioned for these offenses until 2009 and it says since 2009 70 athletes have had suspicious values and not received the proper scrutiny. That is the part that is alarming to me.
But the good thing it it would mean by the vast majority of these things were before 2009. So since 2009 when athletes new they could get sanctioned the most blatant cheating has stopped.
****
The paper also talks about "Off-scores" and its a measure of whether the blood values are natural. It talks abut 1/10000 chances and 1/100,000 chances. I think at that level we should be sanctioning athletes unless it means 1/10000 athletes can have blood values like that.
It says Andy Baddeley was beaten by an athlete with a 158 off score which means 1/million chance of being clean. If the precision is really that accurate all of these people should be sanctioned.
They talked to Lisa Dobriskey at length and talked about how she was battling with 2 likely dopers without naming the person or the race. Dobriskey was never 3rd at a major championship but was 2nd at Worlds and 4th at the Olympics.
2008 Olympics
1. Nancy Langat KEN
2. Irina Lishschinska UKR
3. Nataliya Tobias UKR
4. Lisa Dobriskey
2009 1. Maryam Yusuf JAMAL BRN
2. Lisa DOBRISKEY GBR
3. Shannon ROWBURY USA
4. Nuria FERNÁNDEZ ESP
Now the way the article is written most likely it is a race where 2 people beat her. But I didn't need leaked blood values to tell you the 2008 Olympics silver and bronze were very suspicious. 7 years later I've never heard of them.
And that reminds me of the LRC doping polls:
http://www.letsrun.com/tag/doping-poll/
One British athlete gets singled out, the newspapers points to blood doping with their own blood as being a possibility. The athlete says they'd sue if their name came out and the paper says a later test was investigated by an Iaaf panel that looked at their results and 11 out of 12 experts cleared them saying it could come from training at altitude.
***
The IAAF spends 5% of its income on anti-doping. They act like this is very little but I bet it blows away other sports with perhaps the exception of cycling. Anyone know figures for other sports?
The British "star of the last decade" was not Mo and trained at altitude. Pretty much Narrows it down to Holmes and Radcliffe, no?
The first few sentences about The Times article are about Paula Radcliffe right?
http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/thedopingscandal/article1588410.ece
Who else could it be?
Another thing. This expose only deals with blood values, presumably indicating blood manipulation. Sounds like steroids, HGH, etc. were left out. Even if the blood values are showing up a solid majority of cheaters (unlikely if micocrodosing, but maybe microdosing wasn't prevalent back then), then we have a whole other class of cheating to account for.
Among medalists, I suspect the overall cheat rate is at least 60-70%.
Guy On A Buffalo wrote:
The British "star of the last decade" was not Mo and trained at altitude. Pretty much Narrows it down to Holmes and Radcliffe, no?
Holmes retired just under 10 years ago can't see it being her as she barely did any races in 2005 and the samples were said to be from major comps
The altitude element throws it out as I've heard rumour it's someone who has a habit of missing tests
I would love to find out if El G is on the list
I would love to find out if El G is on the list
LOL The EPO charade has been running since 1995. You should be surprised if any medal winner in distances 1500 m and longer has been clean.
Guy On A Buffalo wrote:
Another thing. This expose only deals with blood values, presumably indicating blood manipulation. Sounds like steroids, HGH, etc. were left out. Even if the blood values are showing up a solid majority of cheaters (unlikely if micocrodosing, but maybe microdosing wasn't prevalent back then), then we have a whole other class of cheating to account for.
Among medalists, I suspect the overall cheat rate is at least 60-70%.
it is sad, but i have to agree. at least 60-70% is not enough. elite sports - as many have said - stinks to heaven. it is a freak show, just entertainment.
wejo wrote:
If the precision is really that accurate all of these people should be sanctioned.
It is that accurate. Technically, the bio-passport is very good. The IAAF has no interest in sanctioning anyone but some minor athletes that fail urinalysis tests. (e.g. failing an IQ test)
The system has an extreme bias toward controlling for false positives. Seppelt's work confirms, even with the bias, the IAAF is not sanctioning anyone but minor athletes who fail the IQ test.
Testing budget does not matter if you have tests and will not sanction anyone. But, since you ask:
2014:
https://wada-main-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/resources/files/wada_2014_anti-doping-testing-figures_full-report_en.pdfAll reports:
https://www.wada-ama.org/en/resources/laboratories/anti-doping-testing-figuresAshenden, at least, no longer has any association with WADA so can speak freely.
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-17586597The guy(s) at NYvelocity.com had his contact info as he did a number of interviews there before/while Armstrong's fraud was finally ending.
Robin Parisotto might be under the IOC NDA, so he might not be able to speak as freely.
Yep, I put track and field up there with pro wrestling. The Diamond League is no different than the carnival pulling into town for the yearly circus sideshow. See the ectomorph Kenyans run all day, the Yamaicans speed to impossible times and see the Russian bearded ladies...mr.sj wrote:
Guy On A Buffalo wrote:Another thing. This expose only deals with blood values, presumably indicating blood manipulation. Sounds like steroids, HGH, etc. were left out. Even if the blood values are showing up a solid majority of cheaters (unlikely if micocrodosing, but maybe microdosing wasn't prevalent back then), then we have a whole other class of cheating to account for.
Among medalists, I suspect the overall cheat rate is at least 60-70%.
it is sad, but i have to agree. at least 60-70% is not enough. elite sports - as many have said - stinks to heaven. it is a freak show, just entertainment.
Exactly!! Missed multiple tests limited race schedule.
It's nice to have some firm numbers, with evidence gradually coming out. TBH, those numbers are probably close to what would be drawn out from Letsrun polls using the power of the crowd.
I remember seeing or posting here before how Dobriskey was likely cost an Olympic medal in 2008 - Tobias was banned in 2011, the other Ukrainian was 32/relatively unknown. If both are dirty, that brings Jamal (the Ethiopian Zenebech Tola, running for Bahrain) into 3rd, Dobriskey 2nd.
Ennis - surely 2007 Worlds is her 'lost medal' - Blonska was finally banned at Beijing 2008 for a second offence - 2007 world heptathlon would then be Kluft, Sotherton, Ennis.
I can believe Jamal (Tola) is there on merit - behind Turks 1 & 2 in London, she is probably the real winner, followed by (after another banned Russian) Aregawi and Rowbury (!) in the medal positions.
Plus big peaks for major events, being nowhere at other times. It's a training method, but I don't see others doing it. At the same time, her sister is also an elite athlete so there is talent there.