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

This is now getting to the point when it is wasting only people's time.

If your definition of "criticizing & undermining" is looking into the material provided by the authors themselves, I'll freely admit my guilt. Nothing indicates that you have done this with the source material of the Sgró et al or Malm et al papers and I haven't for a moment have had the impression that you have had any interest to do so.

I don't want to point out all the possible shortcomings of your time series analysis, but is here one that you don't notice by going through the IAAF website of PB's of different years. If you take the highest and lowest of any time series from two years, there is some "progress" almost by definition due to variation even if the guy had no physiological progress at all. The problem is even more acute when there might've been like 1-3 attempts in year A and like 10-15 in year B.

To illustrate the variation issue, here is an interesting item from one of your dopers:

- You are insisting that Alberico di Cecco was clean in 2001 and he indeed did ran 2:12.45 in that year's edition of Rome Marathon and "improved" to 2:08.53 in two years in 2003 edition of Rome Marathon. Perhaps to illustrate how times are prone to weather, draft etc., his final standing didn't improve at all, but he was third both times. That is the value of that 2.9 % "improvement", which could as likely have been a statistical artifact of different conditions between the two editions than any PED or non-PED fueled progress.

That's funny to read "that description fits you, not me" just after I was accused of playing "I know you are but what am I?" as a child. It's also not quite correct to say "PR statements" -- where is your moderation? It's not possible to toughen up the ABP the way you want, without introducing many false positives. You keep saying Paula's case, but the fact is that no one that mattered decided there was a case to investigate. Even your man Pound had the opportunity, and did not deem it worthy. Bringing up your popularity argument, wasn't there some statistic that said 11 out of 12 experts said "could be altitude", while, in a moment of moderation, you always side with the 1 who said "doping"? I'm in favor of independence, but not in favor of making ambiguous raw values public. This will just make some of the public think there are cases that should be further investigated, or sanctions where boundaries have been crossed, for cases that were evaluated and closed for valid reasons. I'll take your word that you are a scientist, but claiming I'm not is again another example of baseless imagination.

If we say the Africans were more talented (and someone did above), then this means that doping doesn't explain all of the difference. This is true even if both groups doped and achieved faster times because of it.

Rekrunner is a liar wrote:

[quote]rekrunner wrote:

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

[\quote][\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.

rekrunner wrote:

If we say the Africans were more talented (and someone did above), then this means that doping doesn't explain all of the difference.

This is true even if both groups doped and achieved faster times because of it.

Rekrunner is a liar wrote:

[quote]rekrunner wrote:

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

[\quote][\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.

Sure it does because they were just competing against each other back then. And Baumann.

physics defiant wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

If we say the Africans were more talented (and someone did above), then this means that doping doesn't explain all of the difference.

This is true even if both groups doped and achieved faster times because of it.

Sure it does because they were just competing against each other back then. And Baumann.

Come on don't drag Baumann into this, his 12:54 is in no way evidence that non East Africans improved on pre 1990 levels. As for Baumann himself, he has a legitimate reason for his drugs bust, spiked toothpaste, that Colgate outfit, they can't be trusted.

This statement is nonsense for a number of reasons. Some of the uncertainties only go one way. No one said the distribution was normal. If we have a set of samples over time and several conditions known to produce errors in measurements, some rather large, even if the overall probability is low, eventually the large errors, or multiple smaller errors in the same direction, will produce extreme highs and lows -- measured values that will very much not be the most likely. What is the right measure when two machines, using two different technologies, come up with two different measures for the same sample?

casual obsever wrote:

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.

Lets Tell It Like It Is wrote:

Mourhit shows a 17 sec improvement in the 5000 from 98 - 00 (13:06.20 - 12:49.71/~2%). Malm et al mentions 20 - 30 secs for any given 5000m (Mourhit's 3000 time improvement is about similar at ~2.4%, roughly over the same time period (98/7:37 - 00/7:26).

Aragon does point out some interesting blood transfusion studies, but the real world shows how the likes of Mourhit, an epo doper, were a marked step up from the likes of Saïd Aouita who completely dominated in the 1980s. Mourhit would literally torch Aouita over 3-10,000m. So epo clearly works for elite runners.

I counted 8, and the best doped non-African was more than 2% slower.

Subway Surfers wrote:

Come on don't drag Baumann into this, his 12:54 is in no way evidence that non East Africans improved on pre 1990 levels. As for Baumann himself, he has a legitimate reason for his drugs bust, spiked toothpaste, that Colgate outfit, they can't be trusted.

rekrunner wrote:

What is the right measure when two machines, using two different technologies, come up with two different measures for the same sample?

]

I know the answer to that one! The machines were Pinarello and Trek with a doped engine . Both measures are correct. 5 and 7.

So you are saying the Africans were both faster and more talented, but talent didn't actually make them any faster than the non-Africans, and the difference between them was only explained by drugs? You're gonna have to show me the math on that one.

physics defiant wrote:

Sure it does because they were just competing against each other back then. And Baumann.

So I've stated repeatedly on here that if you take a pool of very, very elite runners using highly quality blood transfusions to coincide with their seasonal peaks (mid July to late August) and switched them to epo or got an identical pool, you might not see such a massive gain. Though I believe that epo is clearly the best performance enhancer for endurance athletes because it is quick and can be used all year round. The only compromising variable that we haven't talked about much on here is the effect HGH has longer track events (whether as part of a cocktail or not). We all know that the sport was drawing in the drug in the mid 90s. One has to wonder how much of a part this played in the massive gains as well. 7:20 is simply ridiculous. Though, again this would be a further nail in the coffin of Jon Orange's theories.

rekrunner wrote:

I counted 8, and the best doped non-African was more than 2% slower.

Subway Surfers wrote:

Come on don't drag Baumann into this, his 12:54 is in no way evidence that non East Africans improved on pre 1990 levels. As for Baumann himself, he has a legitimate reason for his drugs bust, spiked toothpaste, that Colgate outfit, they can't be trusted.

Talking about counting, how'd those North African stats work out for you?

Isn't it like 2AM where you live?

i think you have finally talked yourself in a circle, because this is just nonsensical here.

rekrunner wrote:

If we say the Africans were more talented (and someone did above), then this means that doping doesn't explain all of the difference.

This is true even if both groups doped and achieved faster times because of it.

Rekrunner is a liar wrote:

[quote]rekrunner wrote:

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

[\quote][\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.

Uncertainties go two ways, as you can recognize by the +/- symbol.

Otherwise it would be a systematic error. That would have a reproducible history that not even the IAAF mentioned in its propganda piece.

Ha, you said "finally"! That happens all the time to him.

On purpose I think.

rekrunner wrote:

So you are saying the Africans were both faster and more talented, but talent didn't actually make them any faster than the non-Africans, and the difference between them was only explained by drugs? You're gonna have to show me the math on that one.

physics defiant wrote:

Sure it does because they were just competing against each other back then. And Baumann.

No, I did not say that. You need reading lessons, not just math help.

Subway Surfers wrote:

Lets Tell It Like It Is wrote:

Mourhit shows a 17 sec improvement in the 5000 from 98 - 00 (13:06.20 - 12:49.71/~2%). Malm et al mentions 20 - 30 secs for any given 5000m (Mourhit's 3000 time improvement is about similar at ~2.4%, roughly over the same time period (98/7:37 - 00/7:26).

Aragon does point out some interesting blood transfusion studies, but the real world shows how the likes of Mourhit, an epo doper, were a marked step up from the likes of Saïd Aouita who completely dominated in the 1980s. Mourhit would literally torch Aouita over 3-10,000m. So epo clearly works for elite runners.

Only if the Great Aragon agrees. ? Remember he doesn't like people looking at individual improvement with confirmed dopers and coming up with estimated % gains or jumps in times. But he doesn't attack your posts as much as others...so you might okay in your analysis. ?

rekrunner wrote:

So you are saying the Africans were both faster and more talented, but talent didn't actually make them any faster than the non-Africans, and the difference between them was only explained by drugs? You're gonna have to show me the math on that one.

Definitely the East Africans are - why do you think the Morrocans were going full throttle doping and testing positive right & left? They were trying to level the playing field against the E. Africans. Same with the Russian women - they were trying to level the playing field against the E. Africans. Savinova had even said that they can't win without "pharma." And the Russians did make impact significantly improving their medal count against the E. Africans in Olympic/WC competition, though many of those medals have been stripped for doping.

Are you sure? wrote:

Only if the Great Aragon agrees. ? Remember he doesn't like people looking at individual improvement with confirmed dopers and coming up with estimated % gains or jumps in times...

I've never objected to someone looking into anything if they take into account the limitations of their material instead of making making some ridiculous "low" vs. "high responder" conclusions from slight differences in improvement knowing next to knothing about their dosages or even roughly when they blood doped.

To think about it, it is telling that you self-admittedly liked the 3 % estimate because it fits nicely into your pre-existing beliefs, that sounds like a good criterion to validate when an opinion is good and when it is not. The reason rendering Mike Ashenden or E. Randy Eichner unquotable with their ~1 % is that if they were right, you perhaps should reconsider the basis of your Y-O-Y changes.

You are right that I do attack your posts instead of taking your approach of questioning motives with series of personal attacks with no substance and relevance which make you only look incapable to address any points. The reason I have more respect for Subway is that he seems seriously interested in the topic and clearly has evolution in his thought.

Had he originally referred to the Malm and Sgro papers, I think he might've been actually grateful for additional insights on the material instead of reacting like the Goodfellas-Joe Pesci character after he is told to get his "f***ing shinebox".