Sunday Mail Has More Details on Paula's Blood Values and Off Scores + News She'll Put up £1m for an MRI lie detector

cleans wrote:

I wonder whether Diack ever influenced borderline cases?

WADA's report, as most of us know, states that: "He sanctioned and appears to have had personal knowledge of the fraud and the extortion of athletes carried out by the actions of the informal illegitimate governance structure he put in place."

It's far from adventurous to suggest that he might have sought financial gain from athletes on the cusp of a sanction.

I'd love to see the entries in his bank account.

The authorities are also enjoying looking at the many bank accounts linked to the last name of Diack.

There is also a report today that Russian federal agents were working in the anti-doping lab at the Sochi Winter Olympics held in Russia.

This possibly sort of could be a CONSPIRACY.

I am not sure.

And our Italian pal Alex Schwazer is back in time for the Olympics this summer.

That should be fun for Alex.

'5) For drug response, the marathon cannot be compared to cycling, cross-country skiing, or the 5K.' Rekrunner

How can you possibly say this? Have you seen how many Russian women who were always around the top positions in the marathon majors were caught? Or disappeared when testing caught up? They were all ancient and getting quicker and quicker... Not one of them looking vaguely like a runner. Whatever they were taking obviously had a fair old effect!! Your argument is consistent with the numb skull arguments of Jon Orange.

Edit:

The authorities are enjoyably looking at the many bank accounts linked to the last name of Diack. They are having fun with the Diack investigation.

OK?

It is named the Diamond League:

http://www.photorun.net/images_L/2007/TF/IAAF_Gala_MonteCarlo/Radcliffe-Coe-IAAF07.jpg

http://www.runblogrun.com/assets_c/2012/10/Radcliffe-Coe2-IAAF07-thumb-500x333-639-thumb-500x333-4686.jpg

http://www4.pictures.gi.zimbio.com/Hicham+El+Guerrouj+2007+World+Athletics+Gala+IqtPEwcqMb-l.jpg

http://www.photorun.net/images_L/2007/TF/IAAF_Gala_MonteCarlo/Gay-Diack-IAAF07.jpg

Great times at the 2007 IAAF Gala with IAAF President Lamine Diack.

The current IAAF President Lord Sebastian Coe was at another gala this year with Jos Hermens of the NETHERLANDS. Geb and Patrick Sang were also having fun. There was a lot of drinking going on that night.

http://www.athleticsweekly.com/blog/galaxy-of-stars-attend-global-sports-communications-anniversary-41484/

Codswallop wrote:

'5) For drug response, the marathon cannot be compared to cycling, cross-country skiing, or the 5K.' Rekrunner

How can you possibly say this? Have you seen how many Russian women who were always around the top positions in the marathon majors were caught? Or disappeared when testing caught up? They were all ancient and getting quicker and quicker... Not one of them looking vaguely like a runner. Whatever they were taking obviously had a fair old effect!! Your argument is consistent with the numb skull arguments of Jon Orange.

Well, either he'll be again silent on that, or call it yet another coincidence.

rekrunner wrote:

I think my argument for 100+ pages is that the published data doesn't support your doping conclusion. You seem to confirm this by appealing to data that might possibly exist, but is maliciously kept secret from the public.

Just a moment. You are the one who - falsely - claimed that those data exist and are in the hands of Sunday Times and are inconspicuous. I called you out on that, and countered this speculation with a different, more likely one considering the facts. I am not the one who needs these data.

rekrunner wrote:

I noticed you ignored the opposite case of the men's marathon, which seems to completely contradict your "EPO heyday" explanation (although rjm33 stepped in to help you with his Dutch-conspiracy angle).

Well, first of all, you routinely ignore most of my points. Second, I didn't ignore the men's marathon - we debated that a couple of months ago here in this thread, and I see no need to go back to that.

As a reminder, in short: all athletic performances go up from decade to decade, as history shows, slowly but surely, unless a new drug comes onto the market (causing a jump) and then later can't get used anymore (actually causing a performance decline). [Or the rules change, e.g. in more technical sports]

Examples for both of that are abundant (among the runners most notably El G, Junxia, Paula, Flo-Jo, Marita, Jarmila lol), and it speaks for the men's marathon that those times continue to improve. It speaks against the ladies as a whole, that the doped Russians were there much more successful than their male counterparts - including the marathon. On top of that, there are all the old female world records lasting for over a decade, while the men continue to improve with the exception of El G's record.

But even so, people are close to El G now, while no one is close to Junxia, Paula, or Flo-Jo etc. With every passing year, it becomes more obvious.

But yeah, fans and trolls alike will continue to defend Paula and Marita, right?

Ashenden did account for altitude adjustments in the blood test scores.

http://www.sportsintegrityinitiative.com/blood-experts-michael-ashenden-and-robin-parisotto-respond-to-serious-reservations-expressed-by-iaaf/

Hajo Seppelt also has more questions about WADA.

http://www.sportsintegrityinitiative.com/interview-hajo-seppelt-on-how-collusion-in-sport-continues/

OK?

rjm33 wrote:

Ashenden did account for altitude adjustments in the blood test scores.

http://www.sportsintegrityinitiative.com/blood-experts-michael-ashenden-and-robin-parisotto-respond-to-serious-reservations-expressed-by-iaaf/

Hajo Seppelt also has more questions about WADA.

http://www.sportsintegrityinitiative.com/interview-hajo-seppelt-on-how-collusion-in-sport-continues/

OK?

Right. I know. I've linked that before. Also that the first expert consulted by IAAF in 2012 didn't buy the altitude excuse. Got both ignored by rekrunner and larkimm.

They say the same things we keep saying here, including:

"Last December, the IAAF stated that: “When they are available, the IAAF has used the blood values prior to 2009 as “secondary evidence” in support of an increased sanction in addition to the post-2009 profile to establish the athlete’s long history of doping”.

• In our opinion, if the pre-2009 data are considered sufficiently reliable to extend a sanction, then they are also sufficiently reliable to undertake our analyses."

And, now almost hilariously:

"Finally, we note the IAAF’s confirmation that the database is “not a secret or hidden document in any way” and that the IAAF welcomes the opportunity to present to the Independent Commission. We therefore call on the IAAF to give a public undertaking that it will immediately share the entire database with Dick Pound’s independent review."

Also curious that neither IAAF nore WADA included Paula's baseline in their arguments, although the very blood passport relies so much on that. And of course, the 3.6 g/dl increase within 2 - 3 days remained unconsidered, as those come from hospital not IAAF data.

Schwazer is back baby!

The Independent:

"The athlete – who admitted that his career was now over – said he had learnt how to use EPO over the internet and injected it daily in the bathroom to prevent his girlfriend Kostner and his parents from knowing what he was doing. "I did everything possible not to involve anyone else," he said.

Schwazer suggested he actually wanted to get caught because the guilt was psychologically devastating. He said he could have tried to skip the 30 July doping test, knowing he had made a final injection a day earlier, but did not. "I'm not made to take drugs or to deceive people, and I couldn't take it anymore. I couldn't wait for the whole thing to end," he said."

You've probably already seen that, but it's fun reminding everyone of the current letsrun homepage, citing ESPN:

"ESPN: Stepanov Sent WADA 200 Emails And 50 Letters Before Getting Them To Act

Stepanov was in contact for WADA for 3-years before they steered him towards German TV network ARD."

I think it's amazing that athletes still get caught, given that they know what the testing body is going to test for, and that they have two opportunities to duck the test before sanctions kick in (ding dong ...).

As I've said before on this thread, I also think that it's somehow strange and amazing that WADA didn't make more of Victor Conte's offer to help them as poacher turned gamekeeper.

To suggest that they didn't want his help because of his dubious past is rather simplistic in my view.

I love some of the damning statements in Conte's open letter to WADA a few years ago:

“Doping is still rife in athletics, for the sole reason that it is still too easy to beat the testers. [...] There were no positive tests at the recent [2007] track and field world championships in Osaka, Japan. I don’t think anyone believes that more than 1,000 participants were all clean.”

Think about it ...

1000+ athletes tested ...

No positive results.

Three explanations:

a) All the athletes were indeed clean

b) The testing used in 2007 was not very good at detecting drug cheats

c) Positive tests were covered up

I would be surprised if anyone on this thread - even the Pro-Paula group - would select a) as the explanation.

If we all accept that a) is not the explanation, then it follows that we have to call into question all testing under Diack's watch. Either it was irrelevant because it couldn't catch the cheaters, or alternatively there was a massive whitewash.

And this thread almost becomes irrelevant.

Sorry I'm not reading very frequently anymore.I completely understand that you, as a non-expert, lacking both expertise and data, have expressed your disagreement with the experts, and provided your own analysis based on what you claim is important.I tend agree with the subject matter experts, who have the expertise, and complete data, for many of the reasons written in the papers written by scientists like Ashenden.Without a documentation package, your differences of 3.6 g/dl (or 2.8) are not real, for ABP-type comparison purposes. The IAAF actually did not ignore this large gap, but told us in their detailed response that it would be improper to do these types of comparisons.Escalating to a 3-expert panel is part of the routine of an open and shut case, that concluded that 3 weeks at 2400m is a likely explanation. I don't read anything more into that.All this talk about baselines looks like something you've fabricated yourself, and keep arguing. In any case, these baselines didn't exist in any real sense before 2009 for all the reasons scientists told us.Your "normal for Paula range" of 14.0-14.5 looks something quite arbitrary, and surely carries with it a large margin of error. I'm surprised you put so much weight on something that falls to 14.7 when correcting for altitude. I don't.Even more confusing is why you think the missing points prevented Ashenden from creating a proper baseline. Ashenden didn't create a baseline out of a matter of convenience not to mention lack of necessity. They used population thresholds. If they used ABP software, the adaptive "baselines" would be automatically computed. The missing points speak more against conclusions of not following up, as shown by the lack of subsequent tests.

Doping against other dopers also doesn't produce these kinds of outliers.I don't think Paula is so special, but rather the event of the women's marathon is special. There are only a few potential candidates who could run sub 2:18 (contrast that with the men for example) and the races they've been in have been slow. Getting the right race conditions, and getting a large enough field (or male pacemakers) to run a fast race from beginning to end (again, compare that with the men) is difficult, and this means a long time between records is to be expected. It took more than 10 years for the next women to run faster than Nderaba.

oooh do come on wrote:

Could Rekrunner give us an example of any other athlete in History who is so far over the horizon in terms of being literally a mile ahead of the rest of the world? Or is Paula so special that she is a 'one off', a planet with almost 10 billion people does not throw up these kind of outliers, take a look at the history of athletics, any such performances have always proven to be aided.

I was talking about the events. The limiting factors for the marathon (e.g. glycogen management, or the importance of muscle/tendon elasticity) are not existing, or not the same as for cycling or cross-country skiing, or the 5K. EPO/Steroids can help in a 5K, while be disastrous for the marathon, by consuming too much glycogen. You have to look at the specific sport.But in any case, we looked at the Russian women several pages back, and I actually haven't seen so many ancient Russian women. In the marathon, there were only two that got caught that ran 2:23 or below. There were only three "clean" ones below 2:22 (in 2002 and 2006) -- the best one being just below the top 50. Only Liliya Shobukhova run below 2:20. 1 doped case in the top-50 performances, and 2 Russian women in the top 50, is not a strong showing of Russian women at the top.Did you have some specific names in mind?

Codswallop wrote:

'5) For drug response, the marathon cannot be compared to cycling, cross-country skiing, or the 5K.' Rekrunner

How can you possibly say this? Have you seen how many Russian women who were always around the top positions in the marathon majors were caught? Or disappeared when testing caught up? They were all ancient and getting quicker and quicker... Not one of them looking vaguely like a runner. Whatever they were taking obviously had a fair old effect!! Your argument is consistent with the numb skull arguments of Jon Orange.

The UK press said there were 14 points in the database, and only 3 were suspicious. That means 11 are not. Going from other clues, that means the off-scores ranged from 78-102. You called me out by appealing to the points we don't know, because the leaked database was incomplete. But we know that the IAAF and WADA have the complete database.I disagree that I've ignored your points. I think I've addressed them all. I think I've been very generous at addressing your points. But in my opinion, they are based on a lot of data that is not real, or with large margins of error, or not important.It's hard to pinpoint this "EPO heyday", because for track, it was the mid-90's, until an EPO test was developed, but for the women's marathon, it ended in 2005, with improvements in the EPO test, while for the men's marathon, it started in 2007, while men's track declined (because of improved EPO testing).

I'm not sure why you keep repeating this.You and Ashenden will be heartened to learn that the IAAF did more than give a public undertaking -- they shared their complete database, up to 2015, with Dick Pound's independent committee.

casual obsever wrote:

...

And, now almost hilariously:

"Finally, we note the IAAF’s confirmation that the database is “not a secret or hidden document in any way” and that the IAAF welcomes the opportunity to present to the Independent Commission. We therefore call on the IAAF to give a public undertaking that it will immediately share the entire database with Dick Pound’s independent review."

Looks like Victor Conte is just trying to sell his services.How about d) there were positive results from Osaka 2007.Just recently the IAAF retested the Helsinki 2005 and Osaka 2007 samples, with 32 positives for 28 athletes.