A closer look at EPO-era performances

Yes, Sir. If you get to choose the cut-off with such small numbers, you can prove what you want. Like rekrunner on the first page.

say no to drugs wrote:

Valid stats start at 100. Your stats with 2 + 7 + 2 don't mean anything.

What are you talking about? So if I toss a coin and it lands 99 times heads up, I can only start taking it seriously statistically wise when I toss it for the hundredth time?

And these stats are not taken in isolation. The Spanish did have a doping culture that went beyond cycling back then. BTW, the Brits would have been more likely to be clean from the fact that we were pretty hopeless at cycling until the 2000s and the lottery funding poured in (as well as becoming a bit more serious regarding testing).

say no to drugs wrote:

Yes, Sir. If you get to choose the cut-off with such small numbers, you can prove what you want. Like rekrunner on the first page.

They're not small numbers are they? 7 is almost four times 2. And I gave the 5000m figures as well which for spain are 3 - 16 -12. What would satisfy you? 2 - 100 - 1?

Number of 1500m runners under 3:37

Spain 1980-91 NINE

Spain 1992-04 SEVENTEEN

Spain 2005-17 THIRTEEN (with several north african epo fails)

GB 1980-91 EIGHTEEN

GB 1992-04 TEN

GB 2005-17 THIRTEEN

Number of Oceania Runners under 3:37 1980-1991 EIGHT

Number of Oceania Runners under 3:37 1992-2004 EIGHT

Number of Oceania Runners under 3:37 2005-2017 SIXTEEN

Coevett wrote:

GB 1980-91 EIGHTEEN

GB 1992-04 TEN

GB 2005-17 THIRTEEN

So, cold war doping, crystal clean, doping with lottery funding, yes?

Coevett wrote:

Number of Oceania Runners under 3:37 1980-1991 EIGHT

Number of Oceania Runners under 3:37 1992-2004 EIGHT

Number of Oceania Runners under 3:37 2005-2017 SIXTEEN

Yes that's how it goes. Pick your cut-off (3:33, 3:36, 3:37, or top-2, top-5, top-10) depending on which argument you want to make. Carry on!

rekrunner wrote:

I know you speak for "any idiot", but why wouldn't at least some of the best of the rest of the world dope themselves silly too? I'm told Spain was doping themselves silly. Cycling was too, without any particular barriers to doping.

C'mon Gary rek...Spain was doping themselves silly with dominate performances & some serious speed to boot! Open your eyes and analyze the results!

Lets start with this Gary: There were two major organized systematic doping rinks going on in Spain in the 00s, i.e., Opeation's "Galgo" & "Puerto." Galgo alone was spitting out champions right & left! Julio Rey (2:06) was winning European marathons like crazy! Estévez (3:30) was lighting it up. Domínguez was out of this world with fast times & major competition medals. Alemayehu Bezabeh has numerous XC golds & was a smoker with a 12:53 PB! He was even caught rehanded with a bag of his own blood to be used for a transfusion! Lol. Puerto is a little more difficult as you know since the names haven't been released and we can only speculate for now.

So, get with the program Gary and start looking at the confirmed doping cases & organized doping rings and quit worrying about why other nations weren't doping themselves "silly," or at all. Maybe they weren't interested in cheating (believe it or not this could actually be true), maybe they didn'thave the resources for organized doping rings, maybe they were using smaller doses and didn't want to push it...could be many reasons Gary rekrunner. You worry too much why other nations weren't doping - look at the evidence of the nation's that were doping. You're welcome.

A few examples from just this week:

Doctors from the Italian Athletics Federation (FIDAL) who allegedly helped Olympic race walk gold medallist Alex Schwazer to avoid being caught for using banned performance-enhancing drugs have been sent two-year prison sentences.

Pierluigi Fiorella and Giuseppe Fischetto were both found guilty by a court in Bolzano.

Rita Bottiglieri, the former technical director of FIDAL, received a nine-month jail sentence.

The two doctors were also fined €10,000 (£9,000/$12,000) each

Schwazer, the Beijing 2008 50 kilometres champion, returned to competition in May 2016 after serving a ban following a positive test for erythropoietinon the eve of London 2012.

The Italian had returned to competition following a three-and-a-half-year doping ban when he won the 50km at the IAAF World Race Walking Team Championships in Rome.

Soon after his return, though, it emerged that urine sample Sdhwazer had provided for a test on January 1 that year had been analysed more than three month later, using different methods which had detected the presence of an anabolic steroid.

He claimed the positive test was either tampered with or deliberately rigged to discredit him.

Schwazer was still given an eight-year sentence that he is currently continuing to appeal against.

Olympic figure skating bronze medallist Carolina Kostner also received a 21-month ban in 2015 for being complicit in the cover-up of Schwazer, her then boyfriend, before London 2012.

https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1060733/italian-doctors-and-official-who-ignored-olympic-champion-taking-drugs-are-sent-to-prison

Ethics committee of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) is in Kenya to carry out more investigations and hearings before issuing a final verdict on three suspended former Athletics Kenya officials.

“They are focusing mainly on the alleged doping and financial scandals involving the officials,” explained the source, adding that it has been the desire for IAAF Ethics Board to hold the sessions discreetly to avoid media attention.

SUSPENDED OFICIALS

In November 2015, IAAF Ethics Board suspended three senior AK officials on suspicion of subverting doping process in the country. They are former President Isaiah Kiplagat (now deceased), Vice-president David Okeyo and former treasurer Joseph Kinyua - for six months.

Three months later, the same board suspended AK Chief Executive Officer Isaac Mwangi for six months, also for allegedly subverting anti-doping mechanisms in Kenya.

Two drugs cheats Joyce Sakari and Francisca Koki, who had been banned for four years, alleged that Mwangi had asked for Sh2.5m from each of them on October 16, 2016 so as to have their bans reduced.

Okeyo and Kinyua are being investigated by the IAAF’s ethics board over allegations of financial impropriety on American sportswear giant Nike’s contract with AK and DOPING cover up.

https://www.nation.co.ke/sports/athletics/IAAF-probe-team-in-Kenya/1100-4285186-sej2jq/index.html

Of particular interest to the Justice Department, according to the subpoena, is the world governing body for track and field, known as the International Association of Athletics Federations. That federation awarded the sport’s 2019 world championships to Doha, Qatar, and the 2021 event to Eugene.

The investigation is being conducted by the United States attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York. The Brooklyn office includes the same prosecutors who have spent years investigating FIFA, the global governing body for soccer, resulting in a range of bribery and corruption charges that produced upheaval in the organization. The office has also spent years investigating systematic DOPING in Russia.

FIFA, too, has a major competition scheduled to be held in QATAR: the 2022 World Cup. At the FIFA trial last year, new information emerged about alleged bribery that helped to steer that tournament to Qatar.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/31/sports/fifa-ioc-usoc-iaaf.html?action=Click&contentCollection=BreakingNews&contentID=66450734&pgtype=Homepage

rekrunner wrote:

Not sure how you got from there to all this, but it looks typical for you to jump to these kind of far-fetched conclusions.

This is bloody funny as hell.

The guy who has his head about three feet up his own arsehole whilst spinning in circles in an effort to sow doubt about the efficacy of EPO is accusing others of "far-fetched conclusions."

rekrunner wrote:

why wouldn't at least some of the best of the rest of the world dope themselves silly too?

[/quote]

This is like asking "Why doesn't it get below freezing in Texas at least some of the time?"

That is, you are asking a question that you presume to know the answer to, but clearly don't.

People around the world are doping quite enthusiastically. But it has long been easier to do this when you train in some remote location in Africa, and apparently your rusty sieve of a mind cannot account for this.

Also, if you don't understand why it's easier to find huge performance gains at the tops of all-time and yearly lists than it is to locate these closer to the middle of such lists -- especially given that you prate on in the language of a statistician -- then no one here can help you. And no one here should even be trying to help you, Gary. You deserve nothing but the utmost in sarcasm, abuse, mockery, trolling, derision, contempt, threats, scorn, e-mail viruses, and roars of unrestrained laughter, and if I could I'd take a huge steamy dooker on your goddamn lawn.

Update:

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has launched an investigation after learning that newly-introduced sample bottles are susceptible to being opened manually.

New-generation BEREG-KIT Geneva security bottles made by Berlinger could potentially be opened if a sample is frozen, the organisation said.

German journalist Hajo Seppelt said a documentary on ARD today would prove that "sample bottles for Winter Olympic Games are manipulable".

It comes with the fall-out from the Russian doping scheme at their home Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics and Paralympics still continuing.

A covert operation to replace tainted samples with clean ones was supposedly in operation at the Games.

Russia are being forced to compete neutrally at next month's Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang after being sanctioned due to the scandal, with numerous athletes stripped of medals and banned.

The news on the bottles is bound to cause concern with the Games in South Korea opening on February 9.

"The ARD doping editorial team was able to open sealed containers without trace," said Seppelt on Twitter.

WADA said they were alerted about the issue on January 19, with the new bottles only introduced in September last year in response to the Sochi scandal.

"WADA was informed by the WADA-accredited laboratory in Cologne, Germany, that security bottles of the new generation 'BEREG-KIT Geneva', introduced in September 2017 by Swiss manufacturer Berlinger Special AG (Berlinger), may potentially be susceptible to manual opening 'upon freezing' of a sample," the organisation said.

https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1060780/wada-launch-investigation-over-fears-sample-bottles-can-be-opened

Whoops.

In other news...

Dr. Martial 'Plan B' Saugy is no longer the director of the Lausanne WADA lab.

Dr. Saugy was Ms. Radcliffe's blood test "expert."

Dr. Saugy will not be available this year to destroy 67 Russian samples again.

Oh well.

There is nothing to see in any of this IAAF corruption stuff.

https://www.si.com/more-sports/2015/11/12/iaaf-corruption-police-find-bribe-money-gabriel-dolle-home

It is just a coincidence.

Populist Demagogue Iconic Hero wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

why wouldn't at least some of the best of the rest of the world dope themselves silly too?

This is like asking "Why doesn't it get below freezing in Texas at least some of the time?"

That is, you are asking a question that you presume to know the answer to, but clearly don't.

People around the world are doping quite enthusiastically. But it has long been easier to do this when you train in some remote location in Africa, and apparently your rusty sieve of a mind cannot account for this.

Also, if you don't understand why it's easier to find huge performance gains at the tops of all-time and yearly lists than it is to locate these closer to the middle of such lists -- especially given that you prate on in the language of a statistician -- then no one here can help you. And no one here should even be trying to help you, Gary. You deserve nothing but the utmost in sarcasm, abuse, mockery, trolling, derision, contempt, threats, scorn, e-mail viruses, and roars of unrestrained laughter, and if I could I'd take a huge steamy dooker on your goddamn lawn.[/quote]Ouch! ? Don't you think that's a little harsh? Gary means well - he just thinks the world of doping is a black & white issue.

I did. Jessica Augusto is the 9th fastest non-East African, and the 2nd fastest Portuguese women. Jessica Augusto is the slowest of 44 women who ran faster than Ingrid Kristiansen ran 14:37.33 in 1986.

Wrong.again.rekrunner.com wrote:

Did you know that Jessica Augusto from Portugal has a 5000m PR of 14:37.07 from 2010, which is faster than ALL women from the USA?

It turns out that Jessica Augusto is on the leaked Fancy Bears Atypical ABP list with Mary Keitany (Kenya) and Meseret Defar (Ethiopia).

There are ZERO female runners from the USA on the leaked Atypical ABP list.

How idiotic do you have to be to say "it did however enable Africans to cheat as effectively as the rest of the world"? Even any 5-year old half-brained idiot could see that this was a thread about relatively poor quantity and poor quality outside of Africa, in the EPO-era. It wasn't about accusing "whitey" of cheating without evidence, a straw man no one believed. Number of Spanish runners faster than pre-1990 #5 Abde Bile (3:30.55) -- ONE. Certainty that Fermin CACHO was EPO-aided: Not busted for EPO. Guilt by association. My point exactly is: "the Spanish were almost certainly EPO doping", and that is the best they could do.

Coevett wrote:

Can you actually communicate in English non-aspergically? If you were asking some expert if something was difficult, and they told you - 'no, even a child could do it', would you understand that to mean the expert was calling himself a child?

Number of Spanish 1500m runners under 3:33 from 1980 to 1991 - TWO.

Number of Spanish 1500m runners under 3:33 from 1992 to 2004 SEVEN.

Number of Spanish 1500m runners under 3:33 from 2005 to 2017 TWO.

Fastest Spanish 1500m time 1980 - 1991 : 3:30.92 (José Luis GONZÁLEZ)

Fastest Spanish 1500m time 1992 - 2004 : 3:28.95 (Fermín CACHO)

Fastest Spanish 1500m time 2005 - 2017 : 3:31.57 (Juan Carlos HIGUERO)

Yes, the Spanish were almost certainly EPO doping. Their pattern is almost identical to that of the Kenyans and moroccans. Very unlike the British, Oceanics, Americans. And what exactly is your point?

Number of Spanish runners faster than Henry Rono 13:06.20 in 1981 -- TWO + ONE (Ethiopian) Number of Spanish runners faster than Henry Rono of North African descent -- ZERO Number of Spanish runners faster than Henry Rono of East African descent -- ONE For comparison: Number of "5 continents" faster than 13:02.08 -- EIGHT Number of "Native Spaniards" faster than 13:02.08 -- ZERO Number of "East African Spaniards" faster than 13:02.08 -- ONE Number of "North Africans" faster than 13:02.08 -- THIRTEEN Number of "East Africans" faster than 13:02.08 -- NINETY ONE The Spanish (and the host of North Africans) were almost certainly EPO doping, and that is the best they could do. They couldn't even represent "5 continents".

Coevett wrote:

Number of Spanish 5000m runners under 13:20 1980-1991 THREE (Two of which were Abascal & Gonzalez moving up)

Number of Spanish 5000m runners under 13:20 1992-2004 SIXTEEN

Number of Spanish 5000m runners under 13:20 2005-2017 TWELVE

The Spanish stats are complicated by the fact that AFTER the EPO era a host of North Africans have been representing Spain, and often getting busted for EPO. Of course, the UK stats are slightly complicated by one suspicious African Mo Farah.

For comparison :

Number of British 5000m runners under 13:20 1980-1991 TEN

Number of British 5000m runners under 13:20 1992-2004 NINE

Number of British 5000m runners under 13:20 2005-2017 SIX

rekrunner wrote:

Number of Spanish runners faster than Henry Rono 13:06.20 in 1981 -- TWO + ONE (Ethiopian)

Number of Spanish runners faster than Henry Rono of North African descent -- ZERO

Number of Spanish runners faster than Henry Rono of East African descent -- ONE

For comparison:

Number of "5 continents" faster than 13:02.08 -- EIGHT

Number of "Native Spaniards" faster than 13:02.08 -- ZERO

Number of "East African Spaniards" faster than 13:02.08 -- ONE

Number of "North Africans" faster than 13:02.08 -- THIRTEEN

Number of "East Africans" faster than 13:02.08 -- NINETY ONE

The Spanish (and the host of North Africans) were almost certainly EPO doping, and that is the best they could do. They couldn't even represent "5 continents".

Hmmm, nobody said that the Spanish were able to get away with unlimited doping like the East Africans were (and largely still are). Further, the population of Spain is/was about 1/3 of combined Ethiopia and Kenya. Given all the dozens of other sports that the Spanish compete at at a high level, including sports that benefit from EPO such as Cycling, I would say maybe 5% of talented Spanish runners end up as runners, whereas in Kenya/Ethiopia it's more like 99%. So that's comparing about 1 million male Spanish talents with about 60 million East African talents. So it's not really a surprise that the EPO El G and Lagat and Bekele were all from East Africa rather than Spain, and that you had far more East Africans running absolutely ridiculous times that are rarely matched now in the Biological Passport era, even though Kenyans etc still likely have as much ability to dope without getting caught as the Spanish did in the 90s.

Let's be honest Gary. You really don't understand statistics do you? Throwing numbers about to 'prove' your racist assumptions regarding black athletic superiority is not a good way to spend your time.

never has but you... wrote:

I hope Shalane Flanagan never fails a drug test.

I agree.

What about Dieter?