I never pretended that taking EPO was the only thing that changed because common sense will tell anyone that in real-world circumstances you are not going to be able control things things so closely. Note the use of the words "largely because" in my posts.
Yet again, you are asking for a controlled clinical trial on elite athletes to convince yourself on the effects of EPO but you know that this will never happen with the current ethical regulations in place for scientific/clinical studies.
Despite knowing this you do not want to look more closely at what has been going on with elite athletes who have tested positive for EPO. For you, what happened was not under the conditions of a controlled clinical trial so therefore any explanation is plausible (you say that you don't hold any position) to explain their performance improvements.
For the third time, why did no one else trained by the same coach as Cathal make such a dramatic breakthough? Why did his brother, who was also a decent runner, not make the same sort of breakthrough?
WRT to Lance Armstrong do you really believe that his TdF performances were largely because of a change in "mental state" rather than the sophisticated doping regimen he put in place? i.e. if he could have changed his "mental state" without doping then do you think that he would have still have destroyed all his competitors (who were doping) in 7 TdFs?
[quote]rekrunner wrote:
Yes I believe that it is possible:
- That Cathal Lombard trained hard, but wrong
- Besides EPO, Cathal Lombard changed coaches, and radically changed his training (less mileage, more bounding)
- Abraham Kiprotich's progression doesn't look too different than Ryan Hall
- I didn't bother to look at Hassan Hirt -- but in both cases, we need to understand what else changed
The problem here is a lack of control over other variables. You pretend EPO was the only change.
I don't hold any position -- I just say it is also possible based on the existing evidence.
And it's possible to change your training and mentality, without EPO, and improve.
No EPO study I've seen controls for placebo effect.
Lance put a sophisticated program in place. Besides any physical changes, this clearly put him in a different mental state.
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