Rhonex Kipruto suspended

Mr Canova, can you explain then why so many Kenyans are caught taking EPO/PED's in general?

That's an easy one to answer. Have you ever been to ITEN, Eldoret, Kapsabet, and other hot spots for running in Kenya? I'm guessing not. Well, there are several thousand athletes in serious training there year after year looking for that chance to race abroad and make money. In fact I've lived and observed many of these guys training and wondered why they even bothered because their chances of a breakthrough were slim to nothing. I'm talking about guys running 14:20/29:50 type runners at altitude. Peds could make a difference with some of those journeyman runners. When Mzungu like yours truly return to their countries they still receive messages requesting small amounts of money ($30-$50) to be sent (to send their kids to school etc). That's how desperate the situation is in Kenya. There's one guy that I helped RTN from the Kigali marathon last year, and was stuck in Rwanda, money less ...1 year later, he's still sending me messages on WhatsApp!

Desperation leads people to do desperate things.

They believe because they get results. But that is a bridge too far for a mind like yours. Doping would not be as prevalent as it is in sports worldwide - and has been for decades - if the benefits were imaginary. It would have been exposed as a fraud long ago. You should be on the fake moon landing threads.

The article I quoted above was written by someone more expert than you - which isn't saying much - as it provided a very detailed breakdown of how the biopassport works. Unlike anything you write, it was also comprehensible.

The lure of greater success also tempts the ambitious. Many of the athletes caught are amongst the best, being Olympic and championship medallists and world record holders. Kenyans dope because it is normal to do so in their sporting culture. They don't have to be desperate.

The number of truly super elite runners in Kenya caught for using PEDs is minimal compared with ordinary elite and sub elites. I'm guessing not more than 10-20, a tiny number compared to the total number of runners in the sport. The way you slant your messages gives the impression, to the uninitiated, that PEDs are widespread in use in Kenya when the reality is very different.

Dr (Professor of Sport) Canova has shown that PED use for high level runners living and training at altitude offers negligible benefits. The numbers he crunched were not pulled out of thin air. They are also in line with what Dr Marius Bakken, a Norwegian 13:06 runner, previously stated.

We have a relevant example with the Robertson twins, who have quasi identical PBS, living in identical environments, with one taking PEDs and the other clean as a whistle. In fact Jake, who never engaged in using dubious products, is now running better than ever, running a 60:00 half, pointing to a 2:05:00 marathon or faster. Twin Studies are typically used in examining and ruling out variables which might influence an end result, e.g. studies around diets, or medical products ingestion. Zane's use of PEDs ironically conferred little benefit and resulted in an 8 year ban. Tragic.

What are you saying here? 'Only' 10 - 20 super elite Kenyans have been caught? And a doper like Kiptum coming out of nowhere to smash the half-marathon WR didn't have any advantage through doping? The doping apologism is off the scale in this post. Classic.

You have no idea whether Jake is clean, or whether the variables are similar.

Ghost1: Only 10 - 20 Kenyan stars? Look at the above, I count 18 since 2019, plus the Olympic Champs Kiprop and Sumgong and also the marathon major winner Jeptoo. And let's not forget the Kenyan dopers like Jebet who switched allegiances. Clearly more than 20.

And of course that's a small number compared to the dopers, because the 2nd tier is a lot larger than the 1st tier.

Apparently not.

I stand corrected on the exact number but the overall message I was trying to convey is that the super elites are few in number who are caught for ingesting performance enhancing products. I very much doubt that the best guys like Kipchoge, Kamworor, Kandy et al. are doing PEDs. Professor Canova has shown that PEDs offer negligible benefits for elites living and training at altitude. He has shown, crunching numbers, that the hype about PEDs and link to Kenyan athletes is misguided.

I use those youthful Kenyans (18-20) running for corporate teams in Japan as a barometer and running 13 low and 27 low showing that they can attain the very highest levels without resorting to performance enhancing products because in Japan it would be virtually impossible for any of those athletes to engage in peds. Their lives in Japan are controlled 100% by their Japanese overseers right down to minutae including the color of their toilet paper.

Only to you. But I am relieved you didn't get it. That would have quite changed my estimation of you. That's a relief.

Ghost: Super elites don't get caught so easily because they have better network around them.

And wake up: Mr. Canova claim that epo (or other peds) dont work at a special population, because they are born or live at altitude. I am normally not so bastant, but this makes no sense. Of course it works...a lot...and is he saying this to minimize the speculatios or try to protect them?

And I have never read or heard that Marius Bakken have claimed the same thing that Canova did! Source?

Loppas, if you have time, can go to read all the scientific articles posted in a previews post.

You can see that all the researches had the following subjects :

* Athletes living high and training low

* Athletes living and training at sea level, with periods of altitude of limited duration (max 4 weeks)

* Athletes living and training in altitude after moving sea level for few days only

The normal category of African runners is : Athletes living high and training high, with adaptation to altitude, for them a nomal condition.

In all these studies, NEVER we found a quantification of the performances of the athlete, and the detail of the purposed training.

In all these studies, NEVER there is the evaluation of the effects of training (how for the researchers training didn't exist).

The following words are from the article "The Influence of Training Load on Hematological Athlete BP variables in Elite Cyclists" :

Our results support that acute training load variations significantly affect (Hb), likely due to short-term PV fluctuations, underlining the importance of considering training load when interpreting individual ABP variations for anti-doping purposes.

Also if the human machine works the same way in different individuals under physiological point of view, IT'S THE LEVEL OF TRAINING (both volume and intensity) WHICH PRODUCES VARIATIONS IN HEMATOLOGICAL VALUES.

All the studies regarded a duration of maximum 40 days. We know that the most talented athletes of endurance can increase their total volume of blood till 25%, but this process has to last 3-4 months, the time occurring for reaching the max personal levels of training without going in overtraining. This means that, from the beginning of the period of hard and proper training, THE HEMATOCRYT OF THE ATHLETE GOES DOWN, AND THE NUMBER OF RBC DECREASES, WHILE THEIR VOLUME INCREASES IN THE PLASMATIC PART.

This means, also, that with the increasing of a NATURAL TRAINING there is a period (coinciding with the best shape) where the blood has the lowest viscosity, and this can help the velocity of circulation.

This is the reason because I continue to think EPO is useless, if talented athletes (not necessary African) have patience and continuity for growing WITH TRAINING ONLY till their physiological limit, and in this case NOTHING can be added to their shape in order to improve the performances.

But, of course, researchers (biologists, physiologists, chemists...) know about training methodology (systems, limits and goals) exactly like LetsRun posters : NOTHING.

Ghost did say "truly super elite" "caught for using PEDs", and not "stars" "banned".

5 of your list of 18 stars were caught for "whereabouts". That makes your count 13 + 3 + 1 = 17, or within the range of 10-20.

I don't know where the accepted line is for "truly super elite", but your benchmarks of sub-27, sub-59, and sub-2:05, while they would be "super-elite" barriers for non-Africans world-wide, are not particularly "super elite" for East Africans.

mariusbakken.com

A Practical Guide

From theory to workouts Written by Marius Bakken March 2000 “Using our technical advantages to copy their training principles” In the fall of 1998 I started using the Lactate Pro lactic…

Link:www.mariusbakken.com/training-corner/k...

Here is one article from Bakken. No reference to PEDs but one can deduce from this article that the Kenyan system obviates the need for PEDs - The Kenyans can run right at the limit of their threshold max in training 3-4 times a week, in sessions lasting 45-60 mins.

boards.ie

Great Interview with Marius Bakken

RML: Let's start with your marathon training plan. Tell me briefly about it.

Link:www.boards.ie/discussion/2055697942/gr...

More information from Bakken. No info on PEDs but one can infer that the Kenyans he interacted with were clean, by default, zero mention of PEDs. This was around 1998-2006.

Your "associate editor" expert apparently doesn't know the difference between sensitivity and specificity.

Apparently you don't either.

Why do you say "special population"?

If EPO (or other PEDs) "works...a lot...", why haven't non-African populations performed "a lot" better than their pre-EPO 1980's predecessors?