Doesn't Russian Doping Scandal Prove Canova is Right about EPO?

rekrunner wrote:

The unanswered question is whether EPO helps athletes with strong minds when their bodies are strong. Unfortunately there is zero data for that, so the question remains unanswered.

Not a scientific question. You cannot even define what this means, much less formulate an actual thesis that could be tested.

Here some actual facts:

In 1985 (which Rekrunner, for reasons unknown, defines as his baseline):

The world record for 5000m was 13:00.40. The fastest non-African (born, as Maree was American by then) was Cova in 13:10.

Since the introduction of EPO the following white men have run faster than the world record:

Kennedy, Baumann, Mottram, Ritz, Rupp, Tegenkamp, Solinsky. That is off the top of my head, so I may have missed a few others.

So at least 7 white men have broken the baseline world record since the introduction of EPO.

Did they all use EPO to run faster than 13:00? I don't know. Neither does anybody else for sure. Perhaps they were all no faster than 13:10 runners without EPO and ran 12-16 seconds faster due to the EPO. That would be powerful evidence that EPO works. Perhaps none of them doped. Perhaps the truth is somewhere in the middle.

The truth is that science depends on publicly accessible facts. In the world of doping, which is clandestine by its very nature, facts are necessarily hidden. Which means, in a scientific sense, none of this counts as evidence of anything.

Sub 12:50 and 26:50 are rare times.Only 16 runners have run sub 12:50 -- ten before ABP, and six of these were in one post-ABP race in 2012 -- three Kenyans and three Ethiopians (and four more sub 12:56 -- two Kenyans and two Ethiopians.) Looks like even after ABP, there is no shortage of runners capable of sub 12:50 in a fast race.24 runners have run sub 26:50 -- six of these were post ABP. This despite a decline in the number of opportunities. 10,000m has been taken out of Golden League and Diamond League series, and is rarely run on the track anymore.There is more money to be won in marathons. ABP should be able to catch some of these. If not, more non-Kenyans and non-Ethiopians should discover this secret. Erupe is the fastest caught with EPO, and he is 39th fastest all time, some 2m17s slower than the world record.

Subway Surfers Addiction wrote:

..., but Kenyans and Ethiopians mysteriously can no longer run sub 12:40 or sub 12:50 either.

...

Since the ABP came in Rupp has run the fastest 10,000m. Why are Kenyans and Ethiopians suddenly struggling to run sub 26:50?

Why are Ethiopian and Kenyan males focusing on running marathons? Because they can train and dope carefree for an entire year without testing.

Conduct an experiment that also controls for training. Train them first, then observe EPO changes on the fastest ones. Build a model.

Mr. Obvious wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

The unanswered question is whether EPO helps athletes with strong minds when their bodies are strong. Unfortunately there is zero data for that, so the question remains unanswered.

Not a scientific question. You cannot even define what this means, much less formulate an actual thesis that could be tested.

Gosh, all this makes Radcliffe look Armstrong-esque in her doping program.

I think that's what bothers her the most, that she can't prove she was clean. At all. Nothing supports it. Not her era of running. Not her best times. Not her choke at the Olympics at the peak of her powers. Nothing. It all leads to doping proof. Wow.

rekrunner wrote:

There is more money to be won in marathons. ABP should be able to catch some of these. If not, more non-Kenyans and non-Ethiopians should discover this secret.

Well, some are arguing that they have indeed discovered this secret:

"Athletes with suspicious blood scores are said to have collected more than £3m in prize money for winning city marathons."

You build a model and conduct an experiment. All the weight of the evidence is that EPO works. You are the one claiming otherwise. It is your burden to prove.

rekrunner wrote:

Conduct an experiment that also controls for training. Train them first, then observe EPO changes on the fastest ones. Build a model.

Mr. Obvious wrote:

Not a scientific question. You cannot even define what this means, much less formulate an actual thesis that could be tested.

1985 is safely before all definitions of the EPO-era, yet late enough to produce competitive records.In the 5000m, Baumann is the best non-African, and ranks 41st athlete all time, 17 seconds behind the world record. Using your 12-16 seconds, would you reasonably suggest that Bekele can at least run 12:49-12:53, "clean", faster than Baumann, clean or dirty?With Baumann, what do we assume -- he was fully doped with steroids and EPO in 1997, because that is "reasonable"?Or do we assume what little we know and can prove -- that 12:54 was actually "clean", and he was only caught with nandrolone, not EPO, two years later, in 1999 (while not able to run faster)?Does that suggest that Bekele, as a high altitude native, is a high responder, while Baumann is not? Or is Baumann also a high-responder, but, as the best non-African, still not able to compete with the other 40 Africans that have run faster.Either way, nothing -- no combination of any drugs and training, and anything else, have helped non-Africans run faster than Baumann, while 40 Africans have, 13 of them post-ABP. No truth about EPO, seems to reasonably explain why 40 Africans are faster than Baumann. Is the African secret for over three decades all drugs and no-testing? Or is the African secret something inherently unique to Africans?I suggest that the faith placed in EPO, to explain performances in the EPO-era, is highly misplaced. If EPO is presumed to be effective in "high-responders", there is something much more significant than EPO, that explains the difference between top-Africans and the rest.

rekrunner wrote:

, and he was only caught with nandrolone, not EPO, two years later, in 1999 (while not able to run faster)?

"These data show that androgen therapy significantly augments the action of exogenous EPO such that lower doses of EPO are sufficient for an adequate hematopoietic response."

jCo wrote:

Gosh, all this makes Radcliffe look Armstrong-esque in her doping program.

I think that's what bothers her the most, that she can't prove she was clean. At all. Nothing supports it. Not her era of running. Not her best times. Not her choke at the Olympics at the peak of her powers. Nothing. It all leads to doping proof. Wow.

Well, she knows about her doping, so of course she can't prove that she is clean. That's why her frozen samples don't get mentioned anymore, and her blood values remain covered up - unless a journalist finds them.

You are making all sorts of inferences that are not good science and not at all supported by any facts at all.Here is the fact that we know: Since the introduction of EPO, quite a few white men have run faster than anybody ever had before the introduction of EPO. We can't prove that is because of EPO.What we can say pretty surely is that this fact does not support the statement: EPO does not work on white men.Many Africans have also run faster since the introduction of EPO than anybody ever had prior to the introduction of EPO. We cannot prove that this is so purely or solely because of EPO.What we can say is that this fact does not support the statement: EPO does not work on Africans.

Maybe EPO has a major effect on cyclists, and much less on runners?

Difference in performance before/after EPO hera is important between the two sports.

Zed wrote:

Maybe EPO has a major effect on cyclists, and much less on runners?

Difference in performance before/after EPO hera is important between the two sports.

It is possible. I confess that I am not all that interested in cycling and have only a passing knowledge of it.

There is scientific literature from clinical trials that show that EPO works in running.

I do not know if it is more or less than in cycling., but if you make contributions in that area I'll be happy to read them.

rekrunner wrote:

With Baumann, what do we assume -- he was fully doped with steroids and EPO in 1997, because that is "reasonable"?

Or do we assume what little we know and can prove -- that 12:54 was actually "clean", and he was only caught with nandrolone, not EPO, two years later, in 1999 (while not able to run faster)?

You are joking, right?

If not:

Drug cheats are lying drug cheats.

EPO was undetectable in 99.

Nandrolone adds onto the EPO effect.

We know that the fastest white man over 5000 was a drug cheat, and a whopping 32 years old at that time. Yet some people still think the sport might be clean. Unbelievable.

Do you really think he might have started doping only after becoming Olympic champion and his sub-13? Or that doping only helped his weak mind?

As for the rest, what's the point? That Africans don't benefit from EPO because they are faster than the doped Europeans? Logic?

Africans were caught doping, and Europeans were caught doping. Nobody can claim anymore that Africans don't dope.

7 winners out of 12 races means that 17 winners of the London Marathon over the same 12 years did not have any suspicious blood values in the leaked database. We've seen altitude training can cause suspicious scores.

whitewashed wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

There is more money to be won in marathons. ABP should be able to catch some of these. If not, more non-Kenyans and non-Ethiopians should discover this secret.

Well, some are arguing that they have indeed discovered this secret:

www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/aug/09/seven-london-marathon-winners-in-12-years-doping-suspicion

"Athletes with suspicious blood scores are said to have collected more than £3m in prize money for winning city marathons."

You said I couldn't formulate an actual thesis that could be tested.That's the test I would do -- highly train the subjects first, to get the bodies strong, and EPO test the best subjects (strongest bodies and minds) at peak fitness.There is currently no data at the extreme. Your weight of evidence is not at the top.It would be unscientific to attempt to draw any firm conclusions about elite performances based on extrapolation from non-elites.My argument is that if EPO does indeed work, individually, that two decades of non-Africans did not really make it work for them, to get to the top.The proof is in statistical analysis of the top times over decades.

Mr. Obvious wrote:

You build a model and conduct an experiment. All the weight of the evidence is that EPO works. You are the one claiming otherwise. It is your burden to prove.

rekrunner wrote:

Conduct an experiment that also controls for training. Train them first, then observe EPO changes on the fastest ones. Build a model.

The point of that question is probably not obvious.On the one extreme, I was asked to reasonably assume the Portuguese were doping, without evidence, while on the other, I'm was asked where my evidence was that all Africans and all non-Africans doped.What is the standard we should apply to Baumann?My point of the rest is that, when Baumann was actually caught doping, with nandrolone, and maybe EPO, he was not running his best.This is indicative of the burden of proof most people require of themselves when they say "EPO works at the top". Baumann is considered one of the best "anecdotal proofs", a non-African runner that maybe took EPO, two years after setting his personal best time, in a fast race where he took fifth. Maybe he took these same drugs two years before he was caught. And yet he was beat all time by 40 African runners not known to have taken any drugs.

How fast did these kidney patients run a 5K with a hematocrit of 32?

whitewashed wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

, and he was only caught with nandrolone, not EPO, two years later, in 1999 (while not able to run faster)?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1986567

"These data show that androgen therapy significantly augments the action of exogenous EPO such that lower doses of EPO are sufficient for an adequate hematopoietic response."

You said this wasn't about the women.t think what might bother her most is that some people still feel she needs to prove she was clean. Although maybe that doesn't bother her anymore, after the WADA IC report failed to take the bait.It all leads to doping "proof"?

jCo wrote:

Gosh, all this makes Radcliffe look Armstrong-esque in her doping program.

I think that's what bothers her the most, that she can't prove she was clean. At all. Nothing supports it. Not her era of running. Not her best times. Not her choke at the Olympics at the peak of her powers. Nothing. It all leads to doping proof. Wow.