Dominguez detained in doping investigation

Using EPO worked for Eddy because he was already superfit. People ponder how fast he would have run without EPO, and most believe he would have run around 2.14 - 2.17.

To reap the benefits of EPO you already need to be superfit.

Back to Bezabeh. He is technically 'clean' because he has never admitted to doping, and he has never tested positive, despite residing in Spain (off and on admittedly) for the past 6 years. He appears to be honest adn admitted that he was going to replace his previously extracted blood, but did not know that this was illegal. Cynics will say that there is no excuse, and that intent is tantamount to crime, but if that were so, then there would be a lot more convicted criminals out there.

It appears that this will be a long and drawn out affair, because there is little news these days in the Press about Bezabeh and Dominguez, who is rumored to be a 'supplier' - but with regard to the blonde superstar - there is no proof, either that she has supplied anyone or doped herself.

We are still in the rumors and innuendo stage, and need more time to clarify things. Hopefully those two (Dominguez and Bezabeh) will be proven innocent, and resume their illustrious careers as soon as possible. Bezabeh, still young, has a lot to prove, and he should not be kept in athletic limbo for protracted periods, lest he lose his form and will to train. It is hard for him and his recently arrived wife, and some leeway on compassionate grounds might not be amiss.

Ghost in Saudi,

www.kfupm.edu.sa

, apply today, over 50s welcome!

Where did I ever say it's not a concern???

You have totally missed the point, as I said is is useless to try and discuss health with anyone distorted by medical views. However some people will SEE the point of this lessons, which is that drugs and medications DO NOT MAKE YOU HEALTHY and do not improve the conditioning of the body. To me, anything less than 98 percent is concern! We live in a totally different world.

Medical protocol is to give milk and molasses to people with slow digestions, such treatment resulting in gas, cramps, bloating, irritation to the bowels, pain, and then other protocol is to run a tube through the nose into the stomach in an attempt to relieve the fermentation caused by the stupid F***ing wrong type of enema. Such procedures are taught in nursing and medical schools.

Your confidence in natural healing is about as high as mine is in medical quacks.

That was not my point but why would anyone be happy with those who incessantly cause people to suffer and die before their time, due to greed and failed protocols.

The point is that any $1300 injection of epo DOES NOTHING to improve the health or condition of the body. It did not make my Dad to live any longer, but shortened his life and caused him great suffering, as disguise and PREVENTION OF REAL HEALTH and conditioning.

Eddy was getting old and I doubt that he would be running 2:12 if he did not take EPO, specially in Boston. And we don't know if he was taking steroids and HGH, too. Recovery would be important because if you can't recover or get injured, you will not be able to perform. About being superfit, if you are a professional runner you are supposedly superfit but you can still improve by using PEDs. I would like to know how well the Africans would be doing if they did not have Europeans coaches. I'm suspicious about some of these European coaches and what really goes on in these training camps. Maybe some human experiments?

mopak wrote:

You did however suggest that EPO dramatically improved your fathers oxygen saturation for a short period, was that your point?

What I said is that the epo did NOT cause any improvement of my Dad's health or conditioning, and caused harm by preventing them, the exact OPPOSITE of your bass ackwards technology.

Even though I wave this in front of your eyes, you still are not able to see it.

Here's a general counterpoint to Renato:

I trained at a very high level, for years, lots of weights included. I was VERY fit, and very strong.

I did maximal reps frequently, I knew PRECISELY what my maxima were in the various lifts.

When I was 32, I tried my first bottle of creatine monophosphate. It was EAS brand, and very pricey at the time.

WITHIN 2 MONTHS my bench went from around 245 to 325, my squat from 325 to 415, and my cleans from around 165 to 245.

To this day, I don't know what was in that bottle. It MUST have been laced with 'roids, or something other than creatine; but the point is that it WORKED, DRAMATICALLY AND QUICKLY. And I was highly trained--weights weren't so high to begin with as I was doing lots of athletic training at the time, and not concentrating on the weights specifically.

It was scary. After having trained hard until age 32, all of a sudden I put on over 15 lbs of solid muscle, and gained tons of strength in less than 2 months.

I never did it again, but the gains have remained--amazing and bizarre. If I lay off weights, they go down, of course; but within a solid 2 months, they rise back to the high levels of yesteryear, and even higher--bench around 355, squat around 450 (don't do maximal cleans anymore).

Of course I can't suggest how this experience translates to EPO use. All I'm saying is that this highly trained and already-strong runner experienced MASSIVE gains using whatever supplement was in that bottle.

Renato's probably answer to this is that, well, I wasn't an "elite" to begin with. That is no answer at all, as nowhere is "elite" satisfactorily defined.

When talking about the biochemical effects of a PED, any definition of "elite" MUST be restricted to the biochemical dimension affected by the PED. To speak of "elite" in terms of athletic performance is meaningless, as that performance has too many other dimensions to make it meaningful to assessment of the PED effectiveness.

I readily admit to not having been an "elite" sprinter by my own performance standards, but a big reason for that is physiologic and not metabolic or neurologic.

As to whether I was elite in whatever dimension was affected by the stuff in that bottle, no-one will ever know.

What I DO know is that if I had continued on that path, I would have been a world-champion powerlifter in less than a year. The progression showed no signs of stopping or slowing. After my euphoria at breaking a record every time I stepped into the gym, I stopped to check myself out in a mirror one day, and came to the realization that I was starting to look like a 'roid monkey. I quit immediately.

I believe that PED's, whether 'roids or EPO or SARMS or whatever, can affect ANYBODY's physiologic factors, at least over the short term, if all the biochemical support required for that PED's activity is also provided. And it's not only knowledge of myself, but of many other high-performance athletes who I have known in the past, some of whom were world-class, and WR-holders.

This view may be supported solely by my own anecdotal evidence, but that evidence is no weaker than any evidence Renato provides to the contrary.

As far as I recall, no one talked about steroids at all, or about EPO not working, only about "blood doping" not being effective for some "high altitude" athletes, already at the top.I think we can not compare 3:39 sea-level athletes, with 3:30 high-altitude athletes, without more controlled studies.

BS Detector wrote:

I just can not believe that peopole are serious saying that EPO and steroids do not work.

I think you can't compare the two situations.

ghost wrote:

It is hard for him and his recently arrived wife,

You mean Madame Bezabeh?

Thank you for clarifying your opinion.

Nevertheless, at the highest level today it can still be very difficult to argue whether one world champion is more talented than another top class athlete. If we look at 5000m pb times then we see that Sileshi has ran 12-47, one the fastest times ever. But in the Sydney Olympics result we see that Wolde defeated Lalafi (12-49 pb) and Said Saif (12-50 pb) who were also some of the fastest 5000m runners ever. Who can say who is more talented? It is a very fine hair to split, maybe Wolde lost motivation or had injuries after the Sydney Olympics, I do not know. The whole point of having a world or olympic championship competition is to have big battle to find out who is the best athlete. Of course this has certain restrictions, maybe one athlete is injured or out of form, or maybe the pacing of the race favors certain athletes. But these restrictions apply whenever athletes perform at the highest level anyway; maybe a world record falls short because of poor pacing, or poor weather conditions, or injuries etc etc, and this is why performances such as sub 12-50 or world records do not happen every week.

The world cross country championships is regarded as one of the toughest races because you have teams of 9 athletes that means 9 Kenyans, and 9 Ethiopians, etc are competing with each other. You can argue that when it is muddy some runners fare better than others but the objective is always to cover the distance of the race as fast as possible,and it is rarely a tactical race.

With respect to Mourhit, what he achieved in terms of performance in 2000 and 2001 was very unusual, even among the best athletes ever. To win over a muddy cross country race of 12km (granted in 2000-2001 he competed with only 6 kenyans, 6 ethiopians etc..) , and to finish second behind El Guerrouj in the world indoor champs over 3000m within a few weeks of each other is exceptional in terms of performance. Maybe only Bekele has demonstrated this sort of versatility.

As I remember, Mourhit tested positive for EPO in 2002. If we assume that he used EPO before this time, then we can reasonably assume that EPO can improve an athlete who is already extremely good to perform at pretty much the best levels achieved to date. What proportion of the athletes have used drugs to perform at this very best level is something that I do not know. That is not to accuse everyone, it just to say that I do not know.

Thoroughly entertained wrote:

With respect to Mourhit,

you respect cheaters?

From the moment he arrived in Belgium he was juiced(95?). So was his little brother that got caught!

From hardly top 10 in belgium first year he ran there to World Champion.

EPO DOES work!

Thoroughly entertained wrote:

As I remember, Mourhit tested positive for EPO in 2002. If we assume that he used EPO before this time, then we can reasonably assume that EPO can improve an athlete who is already extremely good to perform at pretty much the best levels achieved to date. What proportion of the athletes have used drugs to perform at this very best level is something that I do not know. That is not to accuse everyone, it just to say that I do not know.

It is important to remember that (1) a positive test does not mean epo use, and (2) epo use does not mean it provided any benefit.

Mourhit was world class, whether or not he had a positive test, and whether or not he used epo.

Sprint Geezer and others,

In casually reading this list I've come to the following conclusion: It really isn't a question of whether a particular athlete uses PEDs or not. The question is in which sports (or individual events) is there any overlap at all in the performance of those who use PEDs and those who don't.

I would assume that in weightlifting there is no overlap. Throwing events would be about the same -- all users outperform all non-users. (At about the same age, etc.) It seems to be the case in endurance sports like X-country skiing and cycling. Sprinting would probably be right up there. Is long distance running in that category?

Thanks rekrunner for your opinion.

I'm curious why you think that a steroid situation, an EPO situation, and a blood doping situation cannot be considered analogous.

I would think that they would be: they all introduce into the body compounds that are produced endogenously (considering testosterone as the steroid), and which endogenous production rises naturally with training level.

They are all but one link in their respective biochemical pathways within the body, and require supporting factors for their effectiveness.

Consider it this way: if the body is capable of producing elevated level and activity among all supporting factors, but the level of the factor supplied by, variously, testosterone, EPO, or blood is limited by the body, then introducing an exogenous source of that compound should enable increased biologic activity.

I do agree with you in that there appears to be some disagreement as to whether EPO and blood doping are effective for elite endurance runners, but there is no reasonable disagreement as to whether 'roids are effective for any elite power or strength athlete.

Sprint Geezer wrote:

WITHIN 2 MONTHS my bench went from around 245 to 325, my squat from 325 to 415, and my cleans from around 165 to 245.

To this day, I don't know what was in that bottle.

How much do you weigh?

Judd Biasiotto benched 319 and squatted 600, both world records, at the bodyweight of 132.

I did olympic weightlifting for 2 years in my mid 20's during a spell of no running. Within that time I was beating people in contests who had been training for 5 years. Of course there were many who did much more than me, as this was a site where many national class competitors trained and with a very well known olympic weightlifting coach. It was funny, one of the people in my weight class who trained there regularly was looking in my bag and asking me what I was taking.

I thought he was trying to give me a back handed compliment and I think that he was, but also maybe he was serious. In any case my interest has always been in personal achievement, I had no interest in any medications and never took any. Even so I was beating people who had trained longer then me, and maybe who were taking such things. However I think they were not assisted by them if they did. I think that had I continued on with the olympic lifting for more years that I could have been national class, again from training only, not from anything else.

However I wished that I'd not done that training, though it was a good experience, as it took several years after that for my muscles to adjust to distance running again.

Maybe the bottle was empty.

Yes, I know the world records in powerlifting are ridiculous.

I was around 174 when I started the odyssey, and was around 189 when I finished. I have settled down around 180-182.

I know the weights I mentioned aren't on the powerlifting radar, except for a deadlift of 700 lbs--I meant the world-class comment as hyperbole.

What I wanted to emphasize was the staggering RATE of improvement. If I had continued at that rate, I statistically would have been world-class within the year, if my body had held up. I didn't mean to imply that I was even close, with those weights.

More than that, it was meant to show that an excellent (not elite) trained athlete could experience huge gains with whatever PED was in the bottle.

Your point that maybe there was NO PED in the bottle is well-taken, and something that I had honestly never considered. Taking that stuff was the only thing that I did differently, and for me the conclusion that there WAS an active substance in the bottle was an easy one, and at the time the only one.

Just goes to show, letsrun is a place to expand your mind. I am humbled. Just as I (rightly) criticized Renato for not being able to know everything his athletes are doing, here I sit not even having considered all of the possibilities in my own history.

Of course to counter-balance my chagrin, I will now impose a sense of auto-heroism on my self-construct, and will forever deny that there was any PED in that bottle!

JR, you should consider a career as a sports psychologist.

I can see your point but it's highly plausible that Bezebeu might have been duped.

Sprint Geezer, I like your educated way to discuss, giving your opinion and explaining the reasons.

I say that there is no difference, under moral point of view, between any kind of doping. But we have evidence that doping works at different levels, depending on the qualities involved, looking at the final results.

Briefly :

a) When we speak about roids, with the specific goal to increase the different types of strength and muscular power, THERE IS NO DOUBT THAT IT'S NOT POSSIBLE TO REACH THE SAME LEVEL OF PERFORMANCE USING TRAINING ONLY.

This fact is widely demostrated by the list of WR in track and field. WHERE THE MOST IMPORTANT QUALITY IS MUSCULAR POWER (throwing), NEVER there was any WR after 1988, when IAAF started to fight in better way the cancer of steroids in Athletics. WHERE the impact of steroids can change the natural situation in bigger way (with women), NEVER there was any WR after 1988, again. Not only, but the average (in percentage) of the winning performances decreases dramatically.

I saw personally some of the WR that are very far from the today level in the same event : Discus (76.80 in Neubrandeburg from Gabriele Reinsch, during a match between Italy and GDR in 1987), and Javelin (80.00 in Potsdam immediately before OG of Seoul 1988 from Petra Felke), and now you are almost sure to be the winner in top Championships, throwing a 15% shorter !

I saw, during their training in Munich before OG '72, athletes like Brian Oldfield (Shot putter over 22m) beating in 30m (not 10m !) starting from blocks the best sprinter of US, so it's unquestionable roids can change many things, in direction of strength.

b) But, when we speak about EPO (from 2001 it's possible to investigate DIRECTLY the substance, while before that year the system was to look at the level of hematocrit : if higher than 50, the athletes had to stop competing fro 15 days, in order NOT TO RISK THEIR HEALTH), we have the following list of WR after the official start of antidoping tests :

2001

7:55.28 (3000 SC) Brahim Boulami (Bruxelles) 24 Aug

2:19:46 (Mar W) Naoko Takahashi (Berlin) 30 Sep

2:18:47 (Mar W) Catherine Ndereba (Chicago) 7 Oct

2002

2:05:38 (Mar M) Khalid Khannouchi (London) 14 Apr

2:17:18 (Mar W) Paula Radcliffe (Chicago) 13 Oct

9:16.51 (3000SCW) Aleysa Turova (Gdansk) 27 Jul

2003

2:04:55 (Mar M) Paul Tergat (Berlin) 28 Sep

1:17:21 (20k WM) Jefferson Perez (S. Denis) 23 Aug

3:36:03 (50k WM) Robert Korzeniowski (S. Denis)27 Aug

1:05:40 (HM W) Paula Radcliffe (S. Shields)21 Sep

2:15:25 (Mar W) Paula Radcliffe (London) 13 Apr

9:08.33 (3000SCW) Gulnara Samitova (Tula) 10 Aug

2004

12:37.35(5000 M) Kenenisa Bekele (Hengelo) 31 May

26:20.31(10000 M) Kenenisa Bekele (Ostrava) 8 Jun

7:53.63 (3000 SC) Saaeed Shaheen (Bruxelles) 3 Sep

1:12:45 (25k Road) Paul Kosgei (Berlin) 9 May

14:24.68(5000 W) Elvan Abeylegesse (Bergen) 11 Jun

9:01.59 (3000SCW) Gulnara Samitova (Iraklio) 4 Jul

2005

26:17.53(10000 M) Kenenisa Bekele (Bruxelles) 26 Aug

1:28:00 (30k Road) Takayuki Matsumiya(Kumamoto) 27 Feb

1:22:13 (25k RoadW)Mizuki Noguchi (Berlin) 25 Sep

1:38:49 (30k RoadW)Mizuki Noguchi (Berlin) 25 Sep

2006

14:24.53(5000 W) Meseret Defar (New York) 3 Jun

2007

56:26.0 (20000 M) Haile Gebrselassie (Ostrava) 27 Jun

21,285m (1 HR M) Haile Gebrselassie (Ostrava) 27 Jun

55:31 (20k Road) Samuel Wanjiru (Den Haag) 17 Mar

58:53 (HM M) Samuel Wanjiru (Ras Kha.) 9 Feb

58:33 (HM M) Samuel Wanjiru (Den Haag) 17 Mar

2:04:26 (Mar M) Haile Gebrselassie (Berlin) 30 Sep

14:16.63(5000 W) Meseret Defar (Oslo) 15 Jun

1:02:57 (20k RoadW) Lornah Kiplagat (Udine) 17 Oct

1:06:25 (HM W) Lornah Kiplagat (Udine) 17 Oct

I had some problem with internet, so now I continue in the list :

2007

1:17:16 (20k WM) Vladimir Kanyankin (Saransk) 29 Sep

2008

2:03:59 (Mar M) Haile Gebrselassie (Berlin) 28 Sep

3:34:14 (50k W) Denis Nizhegorodov (Cheboksary) 11 May

18,517m (1 hr W) Dire Tune (Ostrava) 12 Jun

14:11.15 (5000 W) Tirunesh Dibaba (Oslo) 6 Jun

8:58.81 (3000SCW) Gulnara Samitova (Beijing) 17 Aug

2009

1:27:49 (30k RoadM) Haile Gebrselassie (Berlin) 20 Sep

41:29 (15k RoadM) Deriba Merga (R. Khaimah) 20 Feb

46:28 (15k RoadW) Tirunesh Dibaba (Nijmegen) 15 Nov

2010

1:41.09 (800m M) David Rudisha (Berlin)

1:41.01 (800m M) David Rudisha (Rieti)

26:44 (10k RoadM) Leonard Komon (Utrecht) 26 Sep

41:13 (15k RoadM) Leonard Komon (Nijmegen) 21 Nov

55:21 (20k RoadM) Zersenay Tadese (Lisbon) 21 Mar

58:23 (HM M) Zersenay Tadese (Lisbon) 21 Mar

1:11:50 (25k RoadM) Samuel Kosgei (Berlin) 9 May

1:19:53 (25k RoadW) Mary Keitany (Berlin) 9 May

And, in the same period, we have to add some other WR before forgotten, as :

30:21 (10k RoadW) Paula Radcliffe (S. Juan) 23 Feb 03

1:25:41 (20k WalkW) Olimpiada Ivanova (Helsinki) 7 Aug 05

7:02:43 (4x800m M) Kenya (Mutua, Yiampoy, Kombich, Bungei) in Bruxelles 25 Aug 06

Of course, many of these WR are in new distances (on the road, till the end of 2003 there were not official WR, but best perfromances only), so the technical level is not the same as classic record on track.

However, there is one common denominator :

ALL THESE RECORD ARE OFFICIAL, AND FOR BEING OFFICIAL THEY NEED THE ANTIDOPING CONTROL WITH SPECIFIC BLOOD TEST AGAINST EPO.

So, somebody can think ALL THESE ATHLETES ARE DOPED, and never one of them was negative ?

And, if on the opposite way, they are clean, WHY WE HAVE TO THINK THAT WITH EPO (of course, we know some other athlete is under EPO) the best can improve, while everytime there is some athlete caught doped is not one of the real top in the World ?

And I speak essentially about long distances, well knowing EPO can give some advantage in case of POWER, so mainly regarding 1500m.

While more advantage in short distances than in long ?

Because, longer is the duration of the race, more is fundamental to have little viscosity, because you have to use only a percentage of your max aerobic power, and the most important factor is to be able to enhance the percentage, not to enhance the power.

So, I'm sure that this affirmation can be source of a new discussione from a lot of physiologists, having different points of view.... and I'm curious to see their opinions, and to learn something new.

Thank yor very much for your contribution.Just for the record I would like to mention that the holder of this WR did EPO doping:

2007

1:17:16 (20k WM) Vladimir Kanyankin (Saransk) 29 Sep