You seemed to be content with merely showing me EPO works, by providing a long list of anecdotes containing mostly Africans, and women, busted for EPO, or sometimes busted for steroids, and running fast times. While you think this is responsive, this is an answer to a question I did not really ask. Agreed, Ramzi is top 50th performance, and around the 16th best performer of all time, producing a time that would be a world record -- in 1986. Agreed, he individually improved by 4%, from the young age of 22, and EPO likely played an important role -- but not the only role -- in that massive transformation "to the top". With this anecdote, we can only speculate/postulate/hypothesis/wonder/hope/doubt what he would have achieved "clean", or with legal methods like hi-lo altitude training, also "proven" in studies. Would he have stayed at 3:39, improved to 3:32, or even 3:29? No one can say for sure. However. Let me re-ask the question everyone is avoiding, in the desperate hope of avoiding talking about the selection bias/confirmation bias anecdotes of Ramzi, Celapak, and Kisorio, anymore in the future: Where were all the NON-AFRICAN MALE "Ramzis" during the two (or three) decades of the EPO-era? Keep in mind all the promises of EPO: - Up to 3-4% effective for everybody, regardless of race, gender, event, or talent - Up to 6-9% effective in extreme cases like Olympic Gold Champion Sumgong, or Irish National record holder Lombard - Endurance effect proven "in the field" "at the very top" by cycling - Proven over and over again by EPO studies on amateurs, including Kenyans - Widely abused by top athletes -- cheaters can be found EVERYWHERE -- always have, always will - Virtually undetectable from 1987 until today. No test until 2000; Urine tests with short window practically useless; ABP today still too generous, allowing 20% increases in Hgb and Hct without even raising a flag. - Micro-dosing still leads to macro-benefit - Combined with steroids, HGH, testosterone produces many high-responders showing the synergies with "O2-vector doping" - Abusers get two "freebies" a year, by not listening to the doorbell, or running away at the airport. All this sounds too good to be true! If I were a Western athlete, from America, Europe, or Australia, and getting spanked by dozens of East African and North African competitors running away towards my horizon, surely I, or one of my compatriats, would be extremely tempted to "jump on the sauce". Non-Africans from first world nations, with means to dope, means to refrigerate, and the means to avoid detection, represent 85% of the global population. The FIRST WORLD is 85% of the GLOBAL population. So I ask again, where were the NON-AFRICAN MALE Ramzis during the entirety of the EPO era? Why do we see so few, barely "at the top"? Why do we see "AT THE TOP" so many East Africans (about 5% of the global population -- actually much less if you look at individual tribes) and a few North Africans, and then a few "best examples", even then, only running times competitive in 1985, from the remaining 85% of the FIRST WORLD GLOBAL population? Lack of OOC testing for an untestable and easy to evade detection drug, for those with a high IQ? Africans able to macro-dose, when micro-dosing provides nearly the same benefit? Better testing in the West, when testing only catches 1-2% of dopers. and 57% of athletes doping is a conservative under-estimation? Deterrent effect of testing for athletics, or lack of ability due to national controls, when their national compatriots in cycling were out of control? This is the great contradiction, of a widely abused, powerful, and undetectable drug, presumed to be the main cause of the great drop in performances in the '90s, continuing until Bekele through 2007, thereafter moving to the marathon -- the "not great drop" in performances from the FIRST WORLD. The best answer so far, actually addressing this question, seems to be the Spanish athletes, who "dominated" for a decade, like known dopers Sanchez, Garcia, and not known doper Cacho, who managed to set a few European records during their dominance. Or Baumann, who broke 13:00 once, in a race where he took 5th, 15 seconds behind the winners, and was busted, not for EPO, but for steroids, two years later, after running SLOW for two years. So my follow up question is -- Are these the best examples of the best of the West in the era of EPO? For me, as the French say, "c'est un peu peu". If we look at anecdotes, we should see enough examples to show a trend, correlation, or form a general rule, rather than few limited low quality exceptions. And my bold claim is that -- EPO WORKS! -- it WORKS for East Africans, THE SAME as it WORKS for everybody else.
High-Octane Dopers wrote:
Huh? He has a top 50 all-time best of 3:29.14 (06). He also had a huge ~4% improvement in time from his PB of 3:39 in 03 to 3:30 a year later. ? Not bad for a runner described in the article as an "also ran" earlier in his career: