Ruth Chepngetich just ruined the sport of marathon

I am happy to point you to the clinical trials.

But no, I am not going to get into a "is the earth really round?" debate with you guys.

Nobody (besides you two) in the world cycling or running doubts that EPO "works" and even if half the cyclists in the Tour de France circa 1999 were too dumb to explain how it works, it still did.

I can't explain how my cellphone works either, but I know it does. Science is like that, the proof is in the pudding.

usada.org

Blood Doping and EPO: An Anti-Doping FAQ

Hailey Horwath

Blood doping, which may include the use of erythropoietin (EPO), is among the most well-known methods of doping in sport.

Open link

See the above post to There is No Special Sauce.

Or look at the results of the Tour de France from the 1990s. Or listen to interviews with people who took EPO and T. Tyler Hamilton can tell you what it feels like when you can ride so hard that the peleton can't keep up. Drugs work. We know they work because we see them in medicine every day. If they work in medicine, why wouldn't they work in sport?

Or read this long, boring science website:

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Effect of erythropoietin on athletic performance: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Athletes have attempted to glean the ergogenic benefits of recombinant human erythropoietin (rHuEPO) since it became available in the 1980s. However, there is limited consensus in the literature regarding its true performance...

Open link

You sir / madam nailed it!!

Observation is the cornerstone of the "Scientific Method"; a scientically-reasoned conclusion may be reached merely by obeservation. Thence:

Terms of Reference: The likelihood of transient external stimulants boosting Subject's athletic performance.

Experiment: Subject is timed over marathon "test distance" to create a result "sample". Locate sample on statistical distribution of expected results for the Subject's (female) class.

Observation: Average velocity of Subject over test distance unreasonably exceeds known (and even boosted) performances of the past. This sample is therefore considered a rogue outlier and is to be discarded from the sample set.

Recommendations: Ban the cheating b*&ch

This is a very good point. Give Ruth her black page!

Why are you so angry?

Black page as in the death of marathon

I wonder if doping aids "running economy"?

You don't know they were clean. Was Kratochvilova clean? Or Flojo? Ben Johnson? Nor do you know that doping is in a "better state" today. I'm sure it is - but not the way you meant. It will be immeasurably more sophisticated - and ahead of antidoping.

Doping doesn't produce a level playing field. Some respond more than others and they don't all use the same drugs according to a common prescription. It is an arms race in which athletes look to gain advantage.

Doping isn't new to the sport. None of the top performances at the top level for the last several decades can be assumed to have been clean. That applies to the 2:14 performances you refer to.

It is you that is very much mistaken. "Professionalisation" began in the 70s with svengalis like UK Athletics' Andy Norman who pushed dirty sports.

No they didn't. They got beaten by the Germans and Russians and Brits and Lewis + Decker + Johnson.

Good point. We now know that a woman can run 2:09. So yes, 2:14 should possible for an equally talented clean woman (now with supershoes + pacing + current nutrition and training).

I definitely think American's and Europeans dope and other white people dope forsure. I think there are degrees of doping. To take the Lance Armstrong argument, I think Ruth would still be better than almost everyone/most the other elites if they were all clean, or she's still better with same access to same PEDS as others (lance argument).

What I'm saying is that American's and Europeans esp in marathons can make the prize money equivalent of a policeman's or nurse's salary or thereabouts if they win a world major. The financial incentive is not there. Look at the NFL - think they dope (yes) and there is a huge financial incentive to do so.

I definitely think white people are doping. I think that the Ingebrigtsen's had a "likely doping" flag on the biologic passport a few years ago - gee ironic.

But I think the calculus to take the risk and go whole hog makes more sense in road marathons for people who really stand to benefit financially. Plus in honesty I just think E. African's are better genetically suited for the marathon on top of this. Even if an American went doped to the gills and got away with it they still probably wouldn't win. Why do it.

To be clear, I am 100% of the opinion that Chepngetich is not clean. But did you read that review article you linked to? Here are its conclusions:

-There is low-to-moderate quality evidence suggesting that, independent of dosage, rHuEPO may be more beneficial than placebo in enhancing haematological, pulmonary measures, maximal power output and time to exhaustion.
-These improvements are almost exclusively seen during maximal exercise intensities.

As far as hematocrit percentage, here is what your article says about what studies have found when grouping the studies by dosage used:

Low dose
One study reported no significant difference between the placebo group and the rHuEPO group.

Medium dose
Two studies reported no significant difference between the placebo group and the rHuEPO group.

High dose
One study reported that hct% was significantly higher in the rHuEPO group compared with the placebo group (p<0.01). In contrast, another study reported that hct% was similar between the rHuEPO and placebo groups.

I think the thing people tend to overlook with EPO is that it's a signal for increased RBC production. But just because there is a physiological signal for something doesn't mean that that thing is actually produced and/or maintained. For example, you still need a sufficient supply of the raw materials, like folate and B12, for making those RBCs that the EPO has signaled for, which is not necessarily a trivial ask in a runner doing 200km a week. And you need to convince your body not to kill off newly matured RBCs, which can happen for a multitude of reasons, some of which may be quite tricky to override.

Do you feel this way when you watch the NFL? Hockey? Baseball? Baseball in the 90's (was it pathetic) - or fun to watch.

I get it - doesn't seem real/fair to you but most sports are not clean.

Or is it pathetic b/c of who is winning dirty. Peyton Manning was on HgG - was he pathetic - probably loved watching him - quarterback rocket arm, white guy.

As much as people think the current drug testing sucks and it does suck if the goal is clean sport. What it actually allows is micro-doping up to set limits. In the Tour de France heyday prior to EPO test it was exactly what you are talking about. The limiting factor was people dying of clotting and cyclists getting up in the middle of the night to ride their bike stationary as to not throw a blood clot while sleeping. Now with biologic passport you CAN dope and not get caught if you're careful - just dope up to Hct limit and find a way to stay consistent with your blood levels. Only way you fail epo test is if you're tested within 8 hours of injecting. You can gain a % or two or maybe 3. You CAN use testosterone (but not Deca as shelby did) in low doses and pass most urine tests. But removing the testing would then become a game of who is most willing to jeopardize their health.

I think a good theory could be that she was just going harder with the EPO. Most people will use up to Hct of whatever limit is 50 or whatever it is to flag biologic passport. This allows for a debatable but say 1-3% gain in performance. But there is more to be gained beyond biologic passport limit, with diminishing returns up to a point of the blood being too thick by going beyond this. She probably just trained alone as she said went heavy or harder than she could have gone with the epo otherwise and lucked out and never got tested. Plan was probably to hide and miss test if random testing came around first time then abort plan of going hard/heavy in case a second testing came. probably never got tested and got to dope industrial strength while others are microdosing.

She could just be a super responder to said compounds or she's willing to take more risks in taking it just prior to, or in competitions. It could be methods that pose serious health risks and certain athletes are willing to take those risks. They could be wildly expensive too.

How is it that in an era where cyclists are producing outrageous numbers, one guy is making the rest of the peloton look like juniors. Either we're looking at multiple generational talents never seen before, or some athletes have found a way to gain an advantage over others who also are probably doping.

It's all just speculation, but a handful of athletes across multiple sports are in a completely different league than the rest of the sport.