Dominguez detained in doping investigation

I guess the brojos are wanking until their dicks start bleeding right now. A guy like ventolin must be their ultimate wet dream.

fff wrote:medicine is not hard-core science as e.g. physics and is not rigo(u)rous as mathematics, Ivy League or not.

you must be young

30+y ago, no parents wanted their kid who was near/at top at their school in science to do maths/physics at uni, where after graduation you might end up as a $50k/year actuary ( today's =vent ) or more likely a $40k/year school or uni teacher when you had coud be a cardiologist ( that's not me btw - you need a lot of luck in that cut-throat line )

does it really need spelling out what decision is likely to be made if you were offered a choice between

medicine v maths/physics

back then ( or even now ) ??

Well, other than the very silly arguements that seem to be taking place between those who believe that drugs work vs. those who believe drugs do not work, I see that some of the defendants have been released without charges being filed and without bail having been posted. I'm not sure what this means, either they will charge them later after more investigation, or there is no real case. I guess I'll just have to keep reading my crappy translated version of the Spanish newspaper to get a feel for the latest news on this matter.

Brojos are retards wrote:I guess the brojos are wanking until their dicks start bleeding right now. A guy like ventolin must be their ultimate wet dream.

i doubt it

there a coupla dozen MDs who post here, many far more focused than myself on the job & smarter, but they are mostly younger with different life/sports experiences/interests

if the brojos are indulging in

"wanking"

( i assume you are an ozzie & this is some quaint neanderthal-antipodean term expressing some type of recalcitrant possibly recherche pastime, iblis forbid )

it'll be because of traffic numbers to their site, not because of some perceived occasional, hardly read postings by one of 10,000+ posters

Mate,

Just my five cents here and no doubt I'm saying the obvious.

To a point I agree with you. We should be open minded here and no doubt there will be plenty of rumours, innuendo and dodgy journalism. Inocent until proven guilty! However if any of them are judged to be guilty, and I'm sure that the Spanish authorities won't turn this into a "witch hunt", then they should be given the stiffest appropriate penalty.

I didn't mention money, just the nature of professions. You didn't address my point and your posts display that MDs overestimate themselves (Your "analyses" of races)

I am not as young as you think and I wish.

Since you have so much time at hand, one wonders whether you are a high-school kid or Air-Lyndons succesor.

If you are troll, you are the very best. You make all of us

who reply look silly. Congratulations.

Ventolin, I am now a fan.

Thank you, and your opinion is well taken.

When Alemayehu succeeded in coming to Spain in 2004, there followed one year of very tough living, basically as an illegal immigrant, on the streets of Madrid. His 'domicile' in Madrid, more often than not, was the Parque Bravo Murillo, where he shared (dangerous) space with other illegals, drunks and ex. cons from the Eastern Block countries - hardly an ideal setting.

Spain was not Alemayehu's first choice. He had wanted to join his brother - Sisay - in Australia, but Australia was not impressed with the prospect of hosting Alemayehu....a grave mistake, but this was Spain's gain. Sisay, himself, has represented Australia in the Olympic marathon, in Beijing, but everyone knows that Alemayehu is more talented than his now Aussie brother.

These days, athletes are without borders, and even developing countries, like Turkey and Azerbaijan, are recruiting East Africans (principally from Ethiopia). The downside to this, is that the idea of 'Nationality' in the true sense does not mean much anymore....but that is another issue. One cannot blame athletes like Bezabeh for 'selling' themselves to the highest bidders. They are like modern gladiators, the warriors who represent their new countries, and offer pride and fame to their new adopted countries.

Back to the Spanish story - Father Antonio Diaz found him, and helped the pencil thin Alemayehu obtain food coupons and temporary accommodation in a Salvation Army type lodging house in Madrid.

In 2005, things started getting better. Bezabeh had found lodging with other Ethiopians, but his compatriots were not runners, so the setting was still, far from ideal. He did any job, which put food on the table. Then he got in touch with compatriot, Fekadu Bekele, and joined the aptly named 'Bikila' club in Madrid.

His progression on the track started in 2005, when he started running 1500m races. He ran 3.46 in 2005, and the next year improved to 3.43 in La Laguna. These were domestic races, so one knew that he could go faster in ideal conditions. However, it was clear that Alemayehu was a 'diesel type' runner rather than speed man.

In 2009, he ran 3.41.64, significant time, as this was equal to sub. 4 minutes for the mile....a pre requisite, surely, to do anything of note in the 5000/10,000. And this time improved to 3.39.85 in Huelva in 2010, and then his 12.57 5000 which was testament to his strength and ability to sustain pace.....

Flash forward, again, to this saga. Unfortunately, Bezabeh has lost his lodging at the High Performance Blume Residence - the place where most of the top Spanish elite train and live. He has moved to a modest apartment in the working class district of Vallecas. This is somewhat of a setback, because Blume is located outside the center of Madrid, and the training locales are better. In Vallecas, he has to run in heavy traffic to get to any local park - hardly ideal.

Hopefully, the Spanish authorities will see fit to fully reinstate the probably innocent Bezabeh, so that the former Ethiopian can reclaim his rightful place at the Blume Residential compound, and continue his career. He is still young and has a lot to show, but will things ever be the same?

Ghost in Saudi,www.kfupm.edu.sa, apply today.

I'm always impressed when masters of knowledge use words like idiot, fool, and newbie.

Your anecdotes are biased and uncontrolled. There are too many confounding variables. If you want to speak of statistical significance, your sample size is too small. I wasn't talking only about EPO, but what if RBC is not the primary limiting factor?

You're still making up numbers. Maybe the 3:30 guy is more like 0.2-0.3 seconds. See how "lateral thinking" can change the argument?

I see it more like this:

- A 3:30 potential guy, who is stuck at 3:35 because of bad training, can find 4-5 seconds improvement through doping

- A 3:34 potential guy, stuck at 3:35, can only find 1 sec.

- A 3:30 potential guy, who runs 3:30, can not find significant improvement through doping.

Do you have any anecdotes that disprove that?

no

there have been few dozen epo +ves just in athletics

not one didn't improve on epo if progression is analysed

i'm talking epo - that's all that counts in distance race doping & in these races rbc is the defining factor

no

huge weight of anecdote suggests it is x10 this value

there have been dozens of guys in history stuck at 3'35

name 1 who looked a 3'30 guy in wolf's clothing

if you are stuck at 3'35 year after year it means you are a 3'35 guy

nonsense

unless he suufers with myelodysplasia he might, but myelodysplastics don't run 3'34 in 1st instance

that is delusional

look up ramzi's progression & then go watch his 3'29.1

Ghost. Really moving story there. It seems like you're revering the guy even more now that he's admitted to being a cheat.

Australia's grave mistake not giving him citizenship? Do you think cynical cheats are something countries want knocking around their athletic system or something?

A lot of athletes have come from very impoverished backgrounds and terrible situations, and not all of them feel the need to do what he's done.

But of course, it's all the naughty white man's fault. East Africans don't have it in them to do anything illegal.

ventolin^3, keep doing what you do.

I no longer watch an athletics competition at any level since I doubt just about every performance. All I now care about are those whom I personally coach, since I can be 100% sure of their performance and how it was achieved.

Renato, you're sounding more like a snake-oil salesman every day.

This has to be one of the most entertaining threads that I have ever read on letsrun.

First, we have a world-class coach who has categorized an athlete who won the 12km World Cross Country championships TWICE within the last decade as a ‘B’ grade talent. Given that this competition is arguably the most difficult race for any distance runner to win, the criteria that the coach seems to have used instead to classify this athlete as ‘B’ grade are: (i) he was not Kenyan or Ethiopian, and (ii) he was not coached by him.

Then, we have another character who claims that he has more than enough credentials to be a world-class coach because (i) he earns more money than any world-class coach —maybe the solutions to American distance running lie at Wall Street, (ii) he has read some introductory medical textbooks, and most importantly (iii) he is a “seasoned watcher” of athletics meetings on his satellite television. This last point is backed up with his metaphorical descriptions of races gone by such as “panza divisions” of German athletes circling the track at high speed.

Finally, caught in the crossfire between these two protagonists, we have a collection of individuals who seem to think that injecting rhEPO into world-class athletes will have no effect on their physiology pertinent to running because these world-class athletes are “supatuff”. Given that injecting rhEPO into somebody is a rather blunt pharmacological intervention (after all, there are EPO receptors all over the body) I cannot help wondering if these people believe that world-class athletes would also be immune to the effects of a cyanide injection.

Please keep this thread going, there has obviously been some trolling but it’s helped me through a boring week at work and I have not laughed so much in a long time.

Sir. you are correct!

Excuse me? Bezabeh has never admitted to cheating. He has only admitted to wanting to self administer previously extracted blood back into his body. This was not a deliberate cheating attempt. He sincerely did not believe that this was illegal. Just read the transcripts on offer.

Bezabeh really did not know what was going on and did not want to gain unfair advantage over any other athletes, beyond legal ways to run faster through hard work and training.

Looking at all the transcripts in 'El Pais' and 'ABC' one can deduce, pretty clearly, that Bezabeh follows orders from coaches and agents. After all, this is a guy (Bezabeh) with hardly more than a 6th grade education (Primary/Elementary school), and a ton of talent for running, but little else. So if Bezabeh is ever found guilty of doping, the real guilty people who should be punished are the coaches and agents surrounding Bezabeh, who reap profit from the former Ethiopian extreme ectomorph.

One can only feel empathy for Alemayehu, especially now that his pregnant wife has joined him in Madrid. This is not the time for a witch hunt, but rather a time to get a clear picture of what happened and understand Alemayehu's role in this (if in fact there was one, but he appears to have been a minor player in the grand scheme of things). The health of Madame Bezabeh should not be compromised at this important time, lest the health of the coming progeny be equally compromised.

Bezabeh's progress since 2005, when he started competing in Spain, has been very steady. This is no Rachid Ramzi.....who improved 9 seconds in the 1500 (3.39 to 3.30) in one year, when on to something. He is an honest, hard working athlete. It took 5 years for him to improve from 3.46 to 3.39...if he had been doped all along, he would have been running in the low 3.30s.

Ghost in Saudi,

www.kfupm.edu.sa

, apply today

Let's not forget the impassioned defense of the innocent victim who was not trying to gain a doping advantage over competitors, but only trying " to self administer blood that had been previously extracted from his body."

ghost,

your attempts to excuse cheating under the excuse that the athlete is naive and being taken advantage of is a waving red flag of racism. "That poor African athlete didn't want to cheat, it was only whitey taking advantage of him because he was stupid."

[quote]Thoroughly entertained wrote:

This has to be one of the most entertaining threads that I have ever read on letsrun.

First, we have a world-class coach who has categorized an athlete who won the 12km World Cross Country championships TWICE within the last decade as a ‘B’ grade talent. Given that this competition is arguably the most difficult race for any distance runner to win, the criteria that the coach seems to have used instead to classify this athlete as ‘B’ grade are: (i) he was not Kenyan or Ethiopian, and (ii) he was not coached by him.

I think Canova's point is that Mourhit is inherently a "B grade" athlete (by super-elite standards) who attained "A grade" performance via epo.

ventolin^3 wrote:

a +ve epo test is just that - it tells us the athlete was likely taking epo

it tells us nothing about what their performance was at the time or their progression to that point

for that you have to check their stats & with caveats after checking those, there aren't any who didn't improve on epo

you didn't get the point.

to be tested epo positive, an athlete has to *keep on* taking epo. and the only reason to keep on taking epo is an improvement in his performance. the ones that don't improve on the drug and stop taking it are as invisible as those pious Greeks that won't tell about the uselessness of their prayers because they're drowned at the bottom of the sea.