VIOLAH JEPCHUMBA, a 65-minute half-marathoner and Ken-born athlete. busted for EPO.

Lets Tell It Like It Is wrote:

... most everyone on these doping threads can read the studies also...

On the contrary it is you who should remember that line next time you feel the temptation to link into the studies that five minutes of PubMed gave you, even if there is a seemingly interesting sentence (even with the word "elite").

About Armstrong's 2009 comeback, I can recall only having pointed out that Mike Ashenden was a paid consultant against him at the 2006 SCA hearings and wasn't necessarily 100 % impartial witness about his blood values, there must be like 2-3 post where I even address the issue (there was some %ret debate also). I had then nor do I have today an opinion about the subject, but nothing of that has anything to do with this thread and if you continue with this modus operandi time and time again, it is evident why you don't address the actual points I bring up.

Not because you don't want.

But because you can't.

You don't need to believe what I think, because I often tell you. I'm in favor of properly designed studies. I'd like to see the Scottish and Kenyan one redone properly, addressing all of the raised concerns. It's a shame we cannot see leaked blood values from the 1990s (so long as they were collected, transported, stored, and tested properly). And it's a mystery to me why, in the 1990s, outside of Africa, so few non-Africans, from so many nations, could improve, and then only by so little. I'm one timezone away from London.

Full Throttle Doping wrote:

casual obsever wrote:

Do it like Komen, good one.

It is a good one...but I believe rekrunner thinks this speedster is clean. Just wait for his comments when he makes his morning rounds - London time. ?

Not to pick anyone's side, because Lance is evil, and doping is bad, but on Ferrari's website "53x12", there were several iterations of exchanges between Ferrari and Parisotto, regarding the interpretations of Lance's 2009 blood values.

Aragon wrote:

About Armstrong's 2009 comeback, I can recall only having pointed out that Mike Ashenden was a paid consultant against him at the 2006 SCA hearings and wasn't necessarily 100 % impartial witness about his blood values, there must be like 2-3 post where I even address the issue (there was some %ret debate also). I had then nor do I have today an opinion about the subject.

rekrunner wrote:

And it's a mystery to me why, in the 1990s, outside of Africa, so few non-Africans, from so many nations, could improve, and then only by so little.

]

Because Africans are more talented and more of them doped.

not so mysterious at all wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

And it's a mystery to me why, in the 1990s, outside of Africa, so few non-Africans, from so many nations, could improve, and then only by so little.

]

Because Africans are more talented and more of them doped.

+1

People likely also underestimate the effect of living on a continent where blood sucking and destroying parasites have been coped with for millenia and that confers some sort of advantage when those burdens have been relieved by medicine.

Most of the Africans have bloodshot yellow eyes.

The arrival of therapeutic medicine has likely contributed significantly .

rekrunner wrote:

What is clear, when uncertainty gives you a choice, you choose to select the worst possible interpretation, and then downplay or ignore the uncertainty that allowed it.

That's simply not true. For example, we don't know whether the IAAF is more of less corrupt after they replaced the corrupt president with his buddy the vice-president, yet despite this uncertainty I don't think a drug cheat could bribe said VP like they could bribe Diack.

rekrunner wrote:

So to be clear, when you talk about Rupp, Bolt, and Farah, and say "your doubts (that they are clean) are very very small", because of things like all these "strikes" against Farah, are you just attempting to justify your "suspicion"?

What? No I am not justifying, let alone attempting to justify, my suspicion. I simply explained why I am thinking what I am thinking.

But, these suspicions are another good example where I don't "select the worst possible interpretation". The worst possible interpretation would be that all top elite runners cheat, and I don't think that at all.

What's your problem with the word "suspicion"? Remember Tucker published his "suspicion index, based on knowledge, context, history & my assessment of performance".

For comparison, he had Rupp as a 10/10, Farah as a 9.5/10, and Bolt as 8/10. That was before Farah was outed as a likely doper, and the Jamaican clen story broke. Surely both facts would increase their "suspicion index".

Also, your friend Paula openly suspected Ayana based on one race alone.

rekrunner wrote:

And it's a mystery to me why, in the 1990s, outside of Africa, so few non-Africans, from so many nations, could improve, and then only by so little.

I'm one timezone away from London.

Well this is easy, elites were either cheating pre 1990 by other means (Aragon has outlined how blood transfusions gave similar physiological outcomes to epo) or training was already maximized (Lydiard + Anaerobic/Zatopek + Fartlek + altitude training + technique) add in declining birth rates from the late 1960s & less enthusiasm for running. Easy. But many still improved.

Yes, Monaco is 1 hour ahead of London. Coincidentally the IAAF is headquartered there, while Paula also resides there.

casual obsever wrote:

Remember Tucker published his "suspicion index, based on knowledge, context, history & my assessment of performance".

For comparison, he had Rupp as a 10/10, Farah as a 9.5/10, and Bolt as 8/10. That was before Farah was outed as a likely doper, and the Jamaican clen story broke. Surely both facts would increase their "suspicion index".

Also, your friend Paula openly suspected Ayana based on one race alone.

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=7610954

Though I enjoy watching him run and he probably has the best running style in modern history, there is no way WvN is only a 5, considering he took the 400m WR off MJ who was a cartoonish bodybuilder racing around the track, much like Dibaba taking a WR off the Chinese.

Interestingly (and I've posted this before) Dick Pound asked Victor Conte to name 5 athletes to target test he said Bolt, Blake, Mo, Rupp and Jeter.

WvN, agreed. That's one South African looking out for the other. Just like the Brits here defending Coe and Radcliffe (and Farah to a smaller extent), and the Americans Jager (and Rupp to a smaller extent).

Conte, yes, while scum, is quite underrated here. One of the few insiders speaking out freely - if not the only one.

Lets Tell It Like It Is wrote:

... I post Malm et al and highlight the estimations and you act like a wiseass calling me out on it! I post Sgrò et al today, and you do the same BS...

If you have an issue in taking a deeper look into the source material behind the estimates or about incentives of the people making the estimates, are you implying that one should never go through the material and open the original literature for the 99 % of people who don't bother to locate and go through it?

OK, I keep forgetting I cannot speak in absolutes when I want to express the general rule. What is clear, when uncertainty gives you a choice, you often choose to select a negative interpretation, and then downplay or ignore the uncertainty that allowed it. Just look at your counter-example as another example. Here are two possible choices about the "IAAF corruption" under Diack: 1) The WADA IC found that the IAAF lacked the governance to detect and prevent corruption by a powerful IAAF president with an unofficial structure; 2) The WADA IC found that the IAAF itself was corrupt. I don't have a problem with "suspicion" as such, if we always recall that suspicions are not conclusions. Keep in mind, in most modern civil societies, suspects are innocent until proven guilty. This principle of protecting the innocent doesn't come across in most of your posts. Suspicions are formed before you have all the facts, so in part requires imagination and faith. Most of your posts seem to go beyond mere suspicion, as if they were indisputable conclusions, and conviction just a matter of formality. Rather than acknowledge that there is uncertainty inherent in your suspicions, you attempt to attack every element of the anti-doping system: thresholds are too lax, organizations are corrupt or incompetent, independent organizations are not independent, etc., if they fail to convict based on the series of tenuous reasons for your suspicion. Of course, you have the right to form and express your opinions, and meeting the threshold of forming suspicions is not a very high one, but now you want to claim that you are the voice of moderation between two extremes. I wasn't impressed with Ross's suspicion list, and generally unimpressed with his expressed views on doping and it's potential to improve distance running performance. Yet he still possesses enough honesty, when he writes, that he leaves open the possibility that he is wrong. Did Paula say that? I don't really read much of what Paula says, unless someone points it out. When I do, I sometimes cringe, and I conclude that she was an athlete, and is not a scientist. I am equally unimpressed by anyone's suspicions based on tenuous evidence -- this includes Paula and Ross.

Of course it's easy to imagine various possibilities. It's easy for me too. I did go to Monaco once, and I can confirm I did not have to change the time on my watch.

Subway Surfers wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

And it's a mystery to me why, in the 1990s, outside of Africa, so few non-Africans, from so many nations, could improve, and then only by so little.

I'm one timezone away from London.

Well this is easy, elites were either cheating pre 1990 by other means (Aragon has outlined how blood transfusions gave similar physiological outcomes to epo) or training was already maximized (Lydiard + Anaerobic/Zatopek + Fartlek + altitude training + technique) add in declining birth rates from the late 1960s & less enthusiasm for running. Easy. But many still improved.

Yes, Monaco is 1 hour ahead of London. Coincidentally the IAAF is headquartered there, while Paula also resides there.

But certainly a higher talent implies a smaller contribution from the effects of doping.

not so mysterious at all wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

And it's a mystery to me why, in the 1990s, outside of Africa, so few non-Africans, from so many nations, could improve, and then only by so little.

Because Africans are more talented and more of them doped.

rekrunner wrote:

But certainly a higher talent implies a smaller contribution from the effects of doping.

not so mysterious at all wrote:

Because Africans are more talented and more of them doped.

correlation does not imply causation.

Agreed.

[quote]rekrunner wrote:

But certainly a higher talent implies a smaller contribution from the effects of doping.

[\quote]

No. No it does not. A more talented runner who dopes ends up running faster than a less talented runner who dopes.

Both the more talented runner and the less talented runner achieve better times than they would have without doping.

You have that double backwards. First, that description fits you, not me, and second, reversed (positive interpretation, overstate).

Keep in mind that uncertainties by definition go two ways, and that the measured value is the most likely one in case of normal distributions.

In the end, you go with the PR statements of the IAAF/WADA/etc., whereas I am closer to Tucker and Pound. I already gave some examples for Ross; I will put Pound's statements, who is well aware of the tip-of-the-iceberg principle, into the next post for clarity.

+1

I am not saying that Bolt should have been banned. I am saying I don't believe he is clean, and the IOC/WADA should have fully investigated the clen scandal.

I am also saying IAAF/WADA should toughen up their ABP. It was openly stated that the thresholds there are so large to avoid false positives, yet violating the thresholds does not count as a positive.

I am also saying Paula's case should have been investigated by an independent team, not the very IAAF who was accused of covering it up and who then used Paula as star witness instead of suspect.

I am also in favor of independence and transparency. And so on.

Funny statement, considering that Ross and I are the scientists, and you are not.

Anyhow. As a reminder, here's more in that Ayana context:

+1

That's why the dopers end up on top.

In that context, here are some of Pound's statements (iirc from his time as WADA President):