Why does everyone assume doping?

Why believe all that doping nonsense?

Back in the 60s some people believe it was impossible to win big races without amphetamines. Which is nonsense.

And every generation has its wonder drug that gives suposedly miraculous benefits. It's like religious dogma. You are expeted to believe it all without question and most people do.

work it on out wrote:

Why believe all that doping nonsense?

Back in the 60s some people believe it was impossible to win big races without amphetamines. Which is nonsense.

And every generation has its wonder drug that gives suposedly miraculous benefits. It's like religious dogma. You are expeted to believe it all without question and most people do.

Are you really trying to say that PEDs don’t help?

Hmmmmmmm wrote:

Are you really trying to say that PEDs don’t help?

What are they supposed to help?

Is EPO supposed to help your oxygen uptake? Because if that is the case, how come cyclists from the peak EPO years actually had the same power outputs as your local hero cyclists. Are they doping too.

It's just something that everyone believes because everyone says it's true. It's a catechism. You don't question it if you want to get anywhere in life. That is a rigidly enforced rule.

There was a cyclist posting here a few years ago, with the same power output profile as Lance Armstrong. He turned pro back then but still hasn't won a race? Why not? Because winning is no his role in the sport. He is a team worker who doesn't have the race winning mentality.

"Why does everyone assume doping?"

Why would anyone assume clean? Other than naivete, I mean. I'm talking about the highest sprint levels historically.

staminat93 wrote:

I understand scepticism and some of it is warranted, especially regarding athletes who have giant leaps in PR's in a short amount of time (MO, Mak...etc) But assuming that someone is a drug cheat shouldn't be the assumption for anyone who has ever run a fast time . It dilutes the achievements of these pro's so much , wake the f*** up to yourselves

so people can justify their mediocrity

staminat93 wrote:

I understand scepticism and some of it is warranted, especially regarding athletes who have giant leaps in PR's in a short amount of time (MO, Mak...etc) But assuming that someone is a drug cheat shouldn't be the assumption for anyone who has ever run a fast time . It dilutes the achievements of these pro's so much , wake the f*** up to yourselves

That is one of the insidious aspects of widespread doping--even those who are innocent are questioned.

Kinda like getting a few shady lawyers makes people think every lawyer is shady.

work it on out wrote:

Hmmmmmmm wrote:

Are you really trying to say that PEDs don’t help?

What are they supposed to help?

Is EPO supposed to help your oxygen uptake? Because if that is the case, how come cyclists from the peak EPO years actually had the same power outputs as your local hero cyclists. Are they doping too.

It's just something that everyone believes because everyone says it's true. It's a catechism. You don't question it if you want to get anywhere in life. That is a rigidly enforced rule.

There was a cyclist posting here a few years ago, with the same power output profile as Lance Armstrong. He turned pro back then but still hasn't won a race? Why not? Because winning is no his role in the sport. He is a team worker who doesn't have the race winning mentality.

There were no local cyclists with the sustainable power outputs of the top pros. If they had had those power outputs THEY would have been in France racing.

Yes, EPO improves performance in many (most?) people. So people probably do not respond just as some people do not respond to ibuprofen. Enough studies in the scientific literature to make a case for it as a PED.

The issue is most people that are negative on these boards had a bad life experience with running/track and assume drugs as the "see it wasmy my fault" and want something to cling to make themselves feel better about no achieving what others do. Drugs are in every sport. Running and track test a lot which catches a lot of people that in others sports like American football and the NBA they refuse to test. So it's a double edged sword.

staminat93 wrote:

I understand scepticism and some of it is warranted, especially regarding athletes who have giant leaps in PR's in a short amount of time (MO, Mak...etc) But assuming that someone is a drug cheat shouldn't be the assumption for anyone who has ever run a fast time . It dilutes the achievements of these pro's so much , wake the f*** up to yourselves

I doubt if many here actually do assume everyone is doping.

Most rational people would and do conclude from the number of doping busts coming out of Africa, as well as the revelations of EPO availability and awful, corrupt testing standards, that most of the African elite are doping.

What we have on this board are a few violent, obsessive SJWs, as well as a few perhaps even more sinister characters who I suspect are on somebody's payroll, shouting down as 'racist' anyone who brings up the African doping problem.

Most of these characters feel they can't deny the obvious fact of African doping, so instead they accuse everybody of doping, especially great European and American runners of the past such as Ryun and Coe. This is a diversionary tactic for the African apologists.

Others of them stridently deny Africans are cheats, even when they've been busted (for example Rekrunner and Canova's defence of Kiprop).

Both African doping apologist camps rely on the racism shaming card. Sometimes the two camps appear to disagree with each other, endlessly in the case of Casual Observer and RekRunner. I suspect this all might be staged as another diversionary tactic, to derail any rational discussion of solutions to the African doping problem.

Except Coevett that you are the racist making the assumption that All Africans are doping, age cheats etc, infecting every thread on this subject. It all gets very tiresome and repetitive. Far too many people on too many threads with little to offer besides misinformation and repetitiveness. Nothing new and really nothing to see is the unfortunate reality.

staminat93 wrote:

I understand scepticism and some of it is warranted, especially regarding athletes who have giant leaps in PR's in a short amount of time (MO, Mak...etc) But assuming that someone is a drug cheat shouldn't be the assumption for anyone who has ever run a fast time . It dilutes the achievements of these pro's so much , wake the f*** up to yourselves

The Houlihan and Ingebritsen stories are what I enjoy about distance running. Houlihan has improved to a world class level and Ingebritsen is the fastest non-African teenager, meaning less likelihood of age cheating, runner ever. If I believed they, and every other pro that runs well, were cheating I would probably only follow high school running.

For other posters, it seems being suspicious of any successful runner provides enough enjoyment to be a fan of the sport.

Hmmmmmmm wrote:

You don’t call 3:33 to 3:28 a big jump? And more to the point, Farah went from a perennial also-ran in championships to a dominant force seemingly overnight and not at a young age. Looking only at his PRs is misleading as he barely ever chased times, hence why his best times are rather for pedestrian for someone with his record. There’s a chance he was clean and Al Sal just helped him put it all together, but gun to my head I’m definitely not buying it.

A few years ago there was a discussion about Farah's big improvement:

You had essentially a Tegenkamp level talent, slightly faster, 12:57/3:33.9, who all of a sudden, as he neared 30, became a 5 time World or Olympic gold medalist and a 3:28.8 1500m runner with a 26:4x 10k pr and an obvious shot at coming close to world records at 3, 5, and 10.

Here's the thread -

Also, if Farah doped/dopes, seems like he was doping in Africa, not with Salazar

work it on out wrote:

Why believe all that doping nonsense?

Back in the 60s some people believe it was impossible to win big races without amphetamines. Which is nonsense.

And every generation has its wonder drug that gives suposedly miraculous benefits. It's like religious dogma. You are expeted to believe it all without question and most people do.

You're drinking the Kool-Aid dude...doping has been around for decades.

That's not true with "Casual Observer" - you're just pissed because he presented evidence on the Cheryouit thread of how times correspondingly went down in the 70s & 80s with the increased use of roids & blood doping. And since your GB heros competed in that time period you didn't like it that inference being made.

IMO, the thing with your personality is posters have to completely agree with you (e.g., most Kenyans are all doped up, the GB distance runners of the 70s & 80s are all clean, etc.) It appears if someone disagrees with you on either point, you get all bent out of shape and start condemning people. Lighten-up a little; people can have their own opinions - it's not just what you preach about.

Same as it ever was... wrote:

because wrote:

We live in a doping culture. People have naive views about the efficacy of drugs and a lacl of belief in their own potential.

Too easy to cheat:

^This.

Couple of reminders, for those who still pretend to not believe that we are in an extremely dirty sport, and it is easy to dope:

1) Roughly half of all championship athletes dope (likely underestimated, see Tübingen/Harvard study).

2) Only 14% have suspicious ABP values, thanks to the ridiculously generous thresholds. So 2/3 of the cheats don't even get noticed (example EPO cheat Poistogova), let alone banned (example EPO cheat Savinova, and the growing IAAF list of "likely dopers").

3) The better the athlete, the more suspicious (see IAAF leak/Seppelt: 33% of the medal winners had suspicious ABP values, compared to 14% overall).

4) Less than 2% get banned, among other things thanks to the complicated procedure and beyond-a-doubt unanimity requirement of the 3-person panel, hand-picked by IAAF (example plan-B Russian and Armstrong advisor and sample destroyer Saugy). So most cheats get away with it.

Do the authorities know? Yes, but often they prefer to play dumb, as they don't want to catch their own drug cheats. Deny and ignore, then repeat.

Couple of citations:

Dick Pound, ex WADA President:

"you can miss two tests simply by not answering the door if you're on something."

"There is no general appetite to undertake the effort and expense of a successful effort to deliver doping-free sport."

"There's this psychological aspect about it: nobody wants to catch anybody. There's no incentive. Countries are embarrassed if their nationals are caught. And sports are embarrassed if someone from their sport is caught."

ESPN: "Pound complained that athletes don't speak out against doping, national and international federations are weak on the issue, national agencies are under the influence of governments, and governments have no incentive to catch their own nationals."

BBC about Lord Coe:

"Lord Coe has described allegations of widespread doping in athletics as a "declaration of war" and says it is time to "come out fighting" to protect the sport's reputation."

Paul Scott, the chief science officer of Korva Labs, a testing and research laboratory focused on anti-doping:

"Drug testing has a public reputation that far exceeds its capabilities."

"Sophisticated dopers have come to understand how to work around the Athlete Biological Passport," he warns. "They have evaluated correctly that they need to pare back taking steroids or EPO and they will still get most of the benefits."

What did we just read in the WADA-approved, peer-reviewed Harvard/Tübingen paper?

"To deter doping among elite athletes, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) oversees testing of several hundred thousand athletic blood and urine samples annually, of which 1–2% test positive. Measures using the Athlete Biological Passport suggest a higher mean prevalence of about 14% positive tests.

...

The estimated prevalence of past-year doping was 43.6% (95% confidence interval 39.4–47.9) at WCA and 57.1% (52.4–61.8) at PAG.

...

Doping appears remarkably widespread among elite athletes, and remains largely unchecked despite current biological testing."

The authors also explored a host of scenarios under which the athletes might not have answered the doping question truthfully, or otherwise not complied. “In the great majority of those different scenarios it turns out we would have undershot the actual value,” said Harrison Pope Jr, a co-author of the study from Harvard University, adding that that suggests doping was likely more prevalent than the results suggest.

Pope said he was not surprised by the figures, adding that: “It is critical for people to know the sheer magnitude of this problem.”

“Even though the paper refers to events that happened in 2011, there is no particular reason to think the rates of doping in 2017 would be any different,” he added. “The urgent thing at this point is for subsequent studies using this [method] to be conducted now in elite sports to track this problem.”

John Hoberman, an expert in performance-enhancing drug use from the University of Texas at Austin, said that he wasn’t surprised by the findings. “The entire elite global sports system has built incentives to dope into itself in such a way that these are irresistible incentives,” he said.

Sprintgeezer wrote:

"Why does everyone assume doping?"

Why would anyone assume clean? Other than naivete, I mean. I'm talking about the highest sprint levels historically.

Bang on, these testosterone lozenges have made it so easy to cheat. 9.58 makes Ben Johnson look sh!t.

Lol, I don't even read those performance analysis threads anymore. You can just go to the IAAF website and browse the all time list and see the ridiculous rise and fall in African times. Times went up because the 80s were the first generation of full time professional athletes, and middle-distance running had never been more popular both as a participation and spectator sport in its traditional heartlands of the USA, GB, Germany, and Oceania.

The idea that the Brits of the 80s were all blood doping and using steroids is all speculation with no evidence whatsoever on your part. Myself and Deano in particular have supplied countless counter arguments, not that we should even need to - because there is no even circumstantial evidence or reason to suspect Coe, Ovett, Cram were doping. This is all just a diversionary tactic to take the discussion away from current day African doping which is killing our sport.

I don't believe its possible for somebody to spend so much time on the premier running website online (ie. be a hardcore fan of the sport), and devote all that time to apologizing for African doping which is ruining our sport. You guys have got to be on somebody's payroll. A lot of people are clearly making a lot money out of the charade, and this is just about the only place where African doping really gets questioned and exposed.

Do you people not remember that just last year there was serious talk of turning athletics into 'It's a Knockout' style new events 'to get the kids interested again', as well as the plan (still active?) to scrap all world records before 2005 because of the EPO/Soviet fake performances?

Even when you read them, you didn't really understand them. If you want to have a serious discussion about the African doping problem, try to do it without pointing the finger at innocent athletes. Casting wide suspicion on innocent athletes is doing more harm than good. That is what is going to kill the sport.

rekrunner wrote:

Even when you read them, you didn't really understand them.

If you want to have a serious discussion about the African doping problem, try to do it without pointing the finger at innocent athletes.

Casting wide suspicion on innocent athletes is doing more harm than good. That is what is going to kill the sport.

You mean only tallk about positive doping cases with Kenyans? So, if we see a supicious performance we're suppose to not say anything?