Another naive post. You will do anything not to see doping in the sport. When David Howman, the former head of the main antidoping organisation WADA, goes public to say dopers are "getting away with it" and antidoping is "ineffective" it must apply to the kind of performances we have just seen in the London marathon. He didn't say record-breaking marathon runners are an exception. You also have to believe that clean athletes are faster than any doped athlete - and there are many of them.
The claim that athletes are using drugs that can't as yet be tested for is made by antidoping experts. This was published in an Al Jazeera investigation but it is also demonstrated by antidoping retaining blood samples for 8 years. That means there are drugs being used that won't show up in tests - and may never show up. If posters here knew what these drugs are then so would antidoping.
You can choose to be inspired by what you see in the sport but it means you have to turn away from reality. Professional sport today does not exist without drugs. Howman has spelled that out for those hard of hearing.
Can you link any of this to reality?
Why must it apply to the kind of performances we have just seen in the London marathon? Howman didn't say that.
Can you give us the name the "antidoping expert" (sic) in the Al Jazeera investigation, and give us his title and the area of his background expertise?
I've lost hope with it really. I think almost all of the top athletes are doping. It's only logical really. If it gives so much of an advantage how would someone clean even begin to compete with them? They wouldn't. Full stop. It's probably always been this way. The sport is really tainted. I mean I still enjoy watching it, but it's always there in the back of my mind. I really don't think there are many competitive clean athletes which is sad. And if everyone is doing it, it gives more of a justification for someone else to as well.
Maybe they should just level the playing field and say OK, fine, do whatever you want. They won't, ever, though - because of the possible health effects and the danger of it, they can't. So we'll be stuck with this situation, knowing most of the marks aren't clean but not knowing which ones. I wish it wasn't such a massive issue. Anti-doping seems like a farce some of the time as well, and I'm sure a lot of money is wasted there.
I find it sad that there are people in Kenya struggling for food and money is being chucked at this. To see whether people are on substances as they trot around a track for a set number of laps for a set time. It's ridiculous really in the grand scheme of things.
I've lost hope with it really. I think almost all of the top athletes are doping. It's only logical really. If it gives so much of an advantage how would someone clean even begin to compete with them? They wouldn't. Full stop. It's probably always been this way. The sport is really tainted. I mean I still enjoy watching it, but it's always there in the back of my mind. I really don't think there are many competitive clean athletes which is sad. And if everyone is doing it, it gives more of a justification for someone else to as well.
Maybe they should just level the playing field and say OK, fine, do whatever you want. They won't, ever, though - because of the possible health effects and the danger of it, they can't. So we'll be stuck with this situation, knowing most of the marks aren't clean but not knowing which ones. I wish it wasn't such a massive issue. Anti-doping seems like a farce some of the time as well, and I'm sure a lot of money is wasted there.
I find it sad that there are people in Kenya struggling for food and money is being chucked at this. To see whether people are on substances as they trot around a track for a set number of laps for a set time. It's ridiculous really in the grand scheme of things.
Your lost hope is founded on this unfounded condition: "If it gives so much of an advantage ..." But what if it doesn't?
I haven't lost hope because I have looked for a long time for such evidence "at the top", and despite many allegations and accusations, I have found next to no evidence, for distance running events, and especially for men in the marathon, that "it give so much of an advantage". Not in 4 decades of doping performance research, and not in 4 decades of anecdotes of performances.
Although a lot of attention has been on Kenya in the last decade or so, doping has always been a worldwide problem. If doping really gave "so much of an advantage", we would have already long ago seen notable examples at the top worldwide, also outside of Kenya, outside of East Africa, and outside of North Africa, also from non-Africans. We would have seen it in the '90s, before worldwide standardization of anti-doping, and before testing could detect popular endurance doping with EPO and blood transfusions. We would have seen it in Russia in the 2000s, when they were doping all of their athletes.
But we didn't see any of that.
If you have lost hope, I fear you have done this to yourself, prematurely falling for the hype, both from people who don't know any better, and those who should know better.
I've lost hope with it really. I think almost all of the top athletes are doping. It's only logical really. If it gives so much of an advantage how would someone clean even begin to compete with them? They wouldn't. Full stop. It's probably always been this way. The sport is really tainted. I mean I still enjoy watching it, but it's always there in the back of my mind. I really don't think there are many competitive clean athletes which is sad. And if everyone is doing it, it gives more of a justification for someone else to as well.
Maybe they should just level the playing field and say OK, fine, do whatever you want. They won't, ever, though - because of the possible health effects and the danger of it, they can't. So we'll be stuck with this situation, knowing most of the marks aren't clean but not knowing which ones. I wish it wasn't such a massive issue. Anti-doping seems like a farce some of the time as well, and I'm sure a lot of money is wasted there.
I find it sad that there are people in Kenya struggling for food and money is being chucked at this. To see whether people are on substances as they trot around a track for a set number of laps for a set time. It's ridiculous really in the grand scheme of things.
I hear you, Track Chick. Sadly, this is a reflection of the corrupt world we live in.
Your lost hope is founded on this unfounded condition: "If it gives so much of an advantage ..." But what if it doesn't?
I haven't lost hope because I have looked for a long time for such evidence "at the top", and despite many allegations and accusations, I have found next to no evidence, for distance running events, and especially for men in the marathon, that "it give so much of an advantage". Not in 4 decades of doping performance research, and not in 4 decades of anecdotes of performances.
Although a lot of attention has been on Kenya in the last decade or so, doping has always been a worldwide problem. If doping really gave "so much of an advantage", we would have already long ago seen notable examples at the top worldwide, also outside of Kenya, outside of East Africa, and outside of North Africa, also from non-Africans. We would have seen it in the '90s, before worldwide standardization of anti-doping, and before testing could detect popular endurance doping with EPO and blood transfusions. We would have seen it in Russia in the 2000s, when they were doping all of their athletes.
But we didn't see any of that.
If you have lost hope, I fear you have done this to yourself, prematurely falling for the hype, both from people who don't know any better, and those who should know better.
You decided decades ago that Africans don't dope and that even if they did it made no difference to their performance.
There is no evidence in the world that could make you change your opinion on this.
Yes. He is also lying a lot. Strong evidence that doping helps in distance running exists a plenty, from the science to the experts' and coaches' statements and behavior, and still standing old world records such as the 800 m W and 1500 m M from the last century, and barely beaten 3000 / 5000 / 10000 m M from before the ABP despite super spikes and bicarb.
"notable examples at the top worldwide" also exist a plenty outside of Africa (Baumann/Decker/Ma's army/Jacobs/Mourhit/Tomashova/Shobukhova/Savinova/Zaripova/Alptekin/....
Another naive post. You will do anything not to see doping in the sport. When David Howman, the former head of the main antidoping organisation WADA, goes public to say dopers are "getting away with it" and antidoping is "ineffective" it must apply to the kind of performances we have just seen in the London marathon. He didn't say record-breaking marathon runners are an exception. You also have to believe that clean athletes are faster than any doped athlete - and there are many of them.
The claim that athletes are using drugs that can't as yet be tested for is made by antidoping experts. This was published in an Al Jazeera investigation but it is also demonstrated by antidoping retaining blood samples for 8 years. That means there are drugs being used that won't show up in tests - and may never show up. If posters here knew what these drugs are then so would antidoping.
You can choose to be inspired by what you see in the sport but it means you have to turn away from reality. Professional sport today does not exist without drugs. Howman has spelled that out for those hard of hearing.
Can you link any of this to reality?
Why must it apply to the kind of performances we have just seen in the London marathon? Howman didn't say that.
Can you give us the name the "antidoping expert" (sic) in the Al Jazeera investigation, and give us his title and the area of his background expertise?
When Howman said antidoping is "ineffectual" and "athletes are getting away with their doping" he didn't make exceptions. Logically, that claim must therefore apply to athletes in the London marathon.
The Al Jazeera investigation didn't attribute the claim to a single expert but "experts". If the claim was incorrect it would have been refuted by WADA. It wasn't - because it accords with their own practices. The claim is borne out by the fact that antidoping keeps blood samples for up to 8 years because there are drugs being used that aren't revealed by current tests.
You decided decades ago that Africans don't dope and that even if they did it made no difference to their performance.
There is no evidence in the world that could make you change your opinion on this.
Sadly, that makes your opinion irrelevant.
Irrelevant or not, this makes no sense, because that is not my opinion.
Africans do dope. This is not opinion. There is plenty of documented evidence over the last 15 years. But not so much evidence from the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s.
Non-Africans dope too. This is not opinion. There is also plenty of documented evidence.
My opinions about doping-related performance over distance events were formed based on non-African performances, and their general struggle to replicate the pre-African milestones of the 1980s, until the supershoe era.
My opinion is either 1) non-African distance runners themselves didn't believe doping would work for them, or 2) they did believe it without any substantial basis, but were unable to substantiate their belief with results, before the supershoe era, with some exceptions for women in shorter distance events.
What can change my opinion are performance trends among those populations known to dope, correlated to their known doping, e.g., Russia outperforming Europe, America, and Japan.
This post was edited 7 minutes after it was posted.
Why must it apply to the kind of performances we have just seen in the London marathon? Howman didn't say that.
Can you give us the name the "antidoping expert" (sic) in the Al Jazeera investigation, and give us his title and the area of his background expertise?
Crickets from Armstronglivs.
This post was edited 3 minutes after it was posted.
Irrelevant or not, this makes no sense, because that is not my opinion.
Africans do dope. This is not opinion. There is plenty of documented evidence over the last 15 years. But not so much evidence from the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s.
Non-Africans dope too. This is not opinion. There is also plenty of documented evidence.
My opinions about doping-related performance over distance events were formed based on non-African performances, and their general struggle to replicate the pre-African milestones of the 1980s, until the supershoe era.
My opinion is either 1) non-African distance runners themselves didn't believe doping would work for them, or 2) they did believe it without any substantial basis, but were unable to substantiate their belief with results, before the supershoe era, with some exceptions for women in shorter distance events.
What can change my opinion are performance trends among those populations known to dope, correlated to their known doping, e.g., Russia outperforming Europe, America, and Japan.
But if <insert random African athlete> tested positive today, your first instinct would be to claim that there was somehow an irregularity with the testing and you won't 'make a judgment on the athlete's guilt' until you get further evidence. (Evidence which is nearly always beyond the realms of realism).
I can barely remember a time when you've said, 'yep, that athlete got caught', even when they admit it you claim there was some flaw in the system.