Keira D'amato is Suspicious

casual obsever wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

The question here is what is it about D'Amato's "rate of progression" and/or American record makes them suspect it is unnatural, and is only made possible with doping?

Is that really still a question? As mentioned before by several posters:

- fastest American ever

- after just 2 - 3 years of professional training (7 years for aerobic house?)

- at age 37

- with a 5000 m PR of 16:09 at age 21

- with a total of two USADA tests from 2019 - 2021 (including in- and out-of-competition)

It really is still a question -- because it has never been answered.

All these stats are possible from a clean athlete, and there is no basis to suggest that doping would make them the least bit more likely.

rekrunner wrote:

casual obsever wrote:

Is that really still a question? As mentioned before by several posters:

- fastest American ever

- after just 2 - 3 years of professional training (7 years for aerobic house?)

- at age 37

- with a 5000 m PR of 16:09 at age 21

- with a total of two USADA tests from 2019 - 2021 (including in- and out-of-competition)

It really is still a question -- because it has never been answered.

All these stats are possible from a clean athlete, and there is no basis to suggest that doping would make them the least bit more likely.

I want to say this carefully, partly because of my username and I want to say this with kindness. You seem to be unfamiliar with deductive logic. I’ve never answered the question of whether there are purple unicorns because I don’t have to. You may have a tenuous grasp of cause and effect. Remember that the thread title relates to suspicion. Thus, anyone arguing against the premise of the thread is taking a much more unqualified position than someone arguing for it.

rekrunner wrote:

All these stats are possible from a clean athlete, and there is no basis to suggest that doping would make them the least bit more likely.

Au contraire.

There is no evidence that these stats are possible from a clean athlete, and there is lots of evidence that doping makes athletes faster.

Actually I recall you conceding that fact, especially for female athletes.

The point is that, for the last two decades, 2:19 isn't out of the reach of the best national class athletes, on the right course, with favourable race day conditions, and male pacemakers.

And since 2018, with the new shoes, it has become that much easier.

The next point is that, in America, among the women marathoners, assuming inflated figures like "1 in 2" athletes are doping, we have to conclude, from the few women able to run faster than the much weaker sub-2:25 benchmark, since 1985, that doping cannot be all that important in the fastest performances.

The final point is that you cannot prove anything by example, even many examples. That would be a waste of your time. All you would show is that some athletes believed in doping enough to take it.

If the best you can do is "confirmation bias" and "because Lance", I find that uncompelling.

casual obsever wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

All these stats are possible from a clean athlete, and there is no basis to suggest that doping would make them the least bit more likely.

Au contraire.

There is no evidence that these stats are possible from a clean athlete, and there is lots of evidence that doping makes athletes faster.

Actually I recall you conceding that fact, especially for female athletes.

You are greatly mistaken.

There is no such evidence for elite marathon performances.

What I have conceded is the beneficial effect of male hormones on women in events that require muscular strength.

For the avoidance of doubt, this would exclude the marathon.

llort_vbo wrote:

I want to say this carefully, partly because of my username and I want to say this with kindness. You seem to be unfamiliar with deductive logic. I’ve never answered the question of whether there are purple unicorns because I don’t have to. You may have a tenuous grasp of cause and effect. Remember that the thread title relates to suspicion. Thus, anyone arguing against the premise of the thread is taking a much more unqualified position than someone arguing for it.

Thanks for taking such care.

If I understand deductive logic, the conclusion is true only when the premises are true.

I'm not really arguing for or against any premise. I'm asking those who argue in favor of it, what is the basis, in observed reality, for such suspicion, for the elite women's marathon, that doesn't involve circular logic, or assuming the conclusion or concluding the assumption? Alternatively, who has done the work to show that the required premises are in fact true? If someone could answer these questions with better arguments than "Shobukhova" and "Jeptoo" and "Lance", I would consider these answers accordingly.

The best athletes didn’t take a 7 year break and return to a form that was significantly better than that which they left sport with. That just doesn’t happen. If it did here, it is truly miraculous. I would say its almost like she is from another planet.

You seem hell bent on saying her performance, on its face, isn’t suspicious. Do you understand how strong of a position you are taking?

I’m saying that she is worthy of additional scrutiny and that I strongly suspect her of doping. To assert that she is above suspicion is pretty stupid given all of the past similar instances.

In your attempt at moderation and reasonability, you take a pretty unreasonable stance.

llort_vbo wrote:

The best athletes didn’t take a 7 year break and return to a form that was significantly better than that which they left sport with. That just doesn’t happen. If it did here, it is truly miraculous. I would say its almost like she is from another planet.

You seem hell bent on saying her performance, on its face, isn’t suspicious. Do you understand how strong of a position you are taking?

I’m saying that she is worthy of additional scrutiny and that I strongly suspect her of doping. To assert that she is above suspicion is pretty stupid given all of the past similar instances.

In your attempt at moderation and reasonability, you take a pretty unreasonable stance.

I don't say she is above scrutiny -- any and all runners can decide to dope -- but question why doping would make her performance and progression more credible.

She also had an issue with her foot requiring foot surgery, forcing an early retirement.

Most pro athletes improve compared to their college performances. The time off only delayed this normal improvement.

The strong position I'm taking is that the assumed link between doping and any potential effect on elite marathon performance is weak. This is confirmed by the failure of anyone yet to provide any name for "who has done enough to show" that doping has all these amazing properties that some here take for granted.

sorry not sorry wrote:

We've seen plenty of feel-good stories in this sport that turned out to be, well, total farces.Keira seems like a good person, she's nice and modest, but as we all know, that doesn't preclude someone from doping. Her age, her comeback, running a time like that - sorry, but I'm not buying it. Get mad at me all you want, just calling a spade a spade.LetsRun note: it is LetsRun policy to let people speculate about drugs for all athletes as we believe it leads to a cleaner sportLRC note. We have merged two threads into 1 as we like one thread per topic. The other thread was entitled, "Keira D'amato's AR is too good to be true"

No more suspicious than Sara Hall. Hall is more suspicious because she trained as an elite runner the entire time, with only mediocre results. Her 4:08, 15:20, and 9:40 steeple PBs were just OK. Then she moves to the marathon and has some progress from 2:30s to 2:26, which all seemed reasonable. And then all of a sudden, bam! She's running marathons at her previous 10k pb pace.

D'Amato makes sense to me. She was solid collegiately but plagued with injuries. Then took a huge amount of time off, healed those injuries, and increased the miles. I relate to this. I've gone from 20 min 5k runner in high school and college to 18:00 at 36 due to high mileage and lower body weight. The thing about Hall is there is no obvious transformation. Why now? What happened? To me D'Amato's story makes more sense.

llort_vbo wrote:

The best athletes didn’t take a 7 year break and return to a form that was significantly better than that which they left sport with. That just doesn’t happen. If it did here, it is truly miraculous. I would say its almost like she is from another planet.

You seem hell bent on saying her performance, on its face, isn’t suspicious. Do you understand how strong of a position you are taking?

I’m saying that she is worthy of additional scrutiny and that I strongly suspect her of doping. To assert that she is above suspicion is pretty stupid given all of the past similar instances.

In your attempt at moderation and reasonability, you take a pretty unreasonable stance.

How suspicious do you find Sara Hall's performances? One can also say the world's best athletes can't just miraculously at 35+ start running their 10k pb pace through a marathon. Especially someone who has had elite training all of her life.

To add onto your point regarding her foot surgery, understand that she spent a good deal of time prior to the surgery "spinning her wheels", so to speak, as she was hobbled by injuries related to the foot deformity that prohibited her from training and progressing to the runner she had the potential to be at the time.

llort_vbo wrote:

The best athletes didn’t take a 7 year break and return to a form that was significantly better than that which they left sport with. That just doesn’t happen. If it did here, it is truly miraculous. I would say its almost like she is from another planet.

This is pretty disingenuous. You make it sound like we all have lots of experience judging what's possible when an elite athlete retires at a young age and then decides to give it another go 10 years later. I can't think of anyone else who has ever tried to do it.

Anyway, I know people like to discount XC, but you have to be very, very fit to finish high at NCAA XC. Kiera beat Ari Lambie, Cack Ferrell, Molly Huddle, and Amy Cragg. She was legit. She was also undertrained, frequently injured, and (frankly) not nearly as ripped as she is now.

If you think that Huddle had the potential to run the AR in the marathon without doping, then it's also plausible that people who beat her in college could as well.

Just to be clear, I acknowledge that this she's not above suspicion; I don't really think anyone is. I'm just saying the notion that doping is necessary to explain the story or that it's even the most probable explanation is far from obvious.

Put another way, to say "D'Amato's story makes more sense" is saying there are other athletes whose performances are even more suspicious.

It is extremely naive to imagine that in discussing whether or not a particular athlete is doping that we are reflecting on a statistical rarity akin to the odds of being struck by lightening. Everything that is known about doping indicates that is far from the case.

I might argue that by presenting a hypothetical example. Consider that there is a shoe with marked performance-enhancing properties that is banned but the technology involved is extremely difficult to detect. Runners who use the shoe know they will have a distinct advantage over those who don't - and they are unlikely to be caught. What do you think will be the incidence of its use at the top levels of sport? That is doping.

I might add that doping aids performance more than any shoe could.

Sara Hall and D’Amato had nearly identical half marathon PRs at the beginning of 2020. You can’t be suspicious of D’Amato without being suspicious of Hall.

I’m suspicious of neither, because I’ve followed the sport my entire life and know that it is completely believable for a runner around 1:10 to commit themselves to the marathon and run sub-2:20.

I could be wrong about drugs, they probably take a little time to enhance the athlete. Shoes, for me, we’re instantaneous for me.I’ve worn all the so-called super shoes and the Next% 2 are the next thing to flying, and I’m not even a good hobby jogger.. Every time I wear the Next% 2’s,I think this has to be how Kipchoge feels breaking 2 or the World Record. No other shoe gives that feeling, only the Alpha Flys were close. Unfortunately Adidas doesn’t make size 14’s, or I’d get a better feel for them. You can’t convince me that the Next% 2’s are not mechanical doping or worse than blood doping. I’ve felt their power for myself.

Look, I feel as though I’ve laid out what I think pretty clearly and you can take it or not. If you disagree with me - fine.

However, the weirdly self-serving comparison between you improving your 5K by a few minutes is absurd. I’d find it more apt if you improved to a 62 min 10 mile or 1:20 1/2. Go do the Larry Rawson thing with 105 quarters at 80s and report back. Comparing that to improving from 20m-18m in the 5K is puerile at best. I’m sorry to break it to you.

Keira’s college 10k PR is only a few s per mile faster than 80s/quarter. The she took a ton of time off from running and returns to set her 1/2 marathon PR only 2 yrs ago. Then she doubles that up to set the AR in the marathon. We’re not talking about a professional runner who takes a baby break. We’re talking someone that was not training.

Yes, there are instances of people progressing over 12-15 years where they are able to run a marathon at their college PR pace. The amount of training and miles that go into it is absurd. This would imply any <29 min 10k guy should be capable of scaring the WR. There’s 20 of them per year in the NCAA, right? Ok, well we know that doesn’t happen. Maybe they would be better off taking a shot at 2:05?

How come we don’t see any comparables? Because they simply don’t exist. Sur une autre planète, indeed!

It just doesn’t pass the sniff test to me. Nothing would delight me more than to be wrong. The implications would be enormous. To me it would imply that KD found a method of training that is heretofore unobserved. It would say that women can have it all - the career, family, and second career as a superstar of unparalleled accomplishment. Too bad it will all come crashing down, and none of you who are fawning over it will admit that you were wrong. You want to believe it too bad because you want to live your version of it. The sad thing is that if I’m right, she doesn’t deserve your praise or admiration.

Lenny Leonard wrote:

MatthewXCountry wrote:

How suspicious do you find Sara Hall's performances? One can also say the world's best athletes can't just miraculously at 35+ start running their 10k pb pace through a marathon. Especially someone who has had elite training all of her life.

Sara Hall and D’Amato had nearly identical half marathon PRs at the beginning of 2020. You can’t be suspicious of D’Amato without being suspicious of Hall.

I’m suspicious of neither, because I’ve followed the sport my entire life and know that it is completely believable for a runner around 1:10 to commit themselves to the marathon and run sub-2:20.

So when she ran 2:22 in 2020, she wasn’t committed? Do you have any other examples of elite performances where someone was able to run a 1/2 marathon PR and then run two back to back inside of 2 years? If you really have been following the sport you really haven’t thought about it too deeply. You do realize that there’s a difference between someone learning to running 1:45 1/2 in training and then going sub 3:30 for a marathon and what she did?

I honestly don’t follow women’s track because it is so ridiculously dirty at the top levels that it is hard for me to watch. FTR, I believe every single record on the books in flat distances and the 1/2, full marathon are doped. I’ve been watching T&F since I was a little kid and it was obvious to me that Jarmila Kratichova and Marita Koch were dirty as sin. Flojo - I believe an exceptionally strong circumstantial case can be made against her. I’ve lived through Ma’s army and more recently the state-sponsored doping of the Russians. Along the way there was BALCO and any number of other mini-scandals.

Do I think Sara Hall is dirty? Idk because she didn’t just set the AR in incredibly improbable fashion. I do see a lot of people here say that Ryan is doping because he got buff. There’s at least three guys at the gym that I go to that are stronger than him and I don’t believe they dope. So I don’t think you can make the transitive argument that Sara must be doping.

As for her progression, just look at

. If that looks similar to KD, then I can’t help you.