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

Can you be more specific, which statements you found to be junk, with no facts in evidence? I'll make it multiple choice:1) We don't actually have EPO performance data at the top2) Drugs or no drugs, East Africans advanced a lot in the "EPO-era"; non-Africans not so much3) Based on real performance data4) The difference between Baumann and Bekele are factors other than drugs5) We don't have many good examples of EPO use at the top6) None of the above -- please specifyYou describe yourself as in "EPO works until there are studies proving it doesn't" camp. If there was a "diet" study, where participants lost 25-50% of their weight, would you wait for proof that it doesn't work the same way for 110 pound Ethiopians? It's not as scientific as you think to project performance models from existing EPO studies to the extremes.

Mr. Obvious wrote:

Too bad.

we were making such progress.

You have totally backslid into making unscientific junk statements with no facts in evidence.

Oh well.

Nice try. There is no "leap of faith" in proposing a radical theory that fits the limited data we know. I'm not offering it as a proven conclusion. But it is a "leap of faith" to assume that the "kept secret" data will debunk it. (And don't forget, that the secret is not Paula's alone -- all of the organisations with the authority to judge her, and the expertise, already know her secrets.)Putting Paula aside, there are other examples of this "opposite" theory: Baumann, Kisorio, and Hellebuyck, have personal best times well before the time they are known to have doped. If Renato is to believed, Rita Jeptoo too.The problem with "nothing to see" is that you can see what you want, when you get to invent what you don't know.

casual obsever wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

We know Paula's "suspicious values" (the ones we know about) came well after her world records. That actually supports an opposite theory that blood doping slowed her down.

Again, only if you assume that her values during her WR's were lower. Quite a leap of faith, in my humble opinion, with zero evidence. Paula has decided to keep those values secret... despite repeatedly announcing to be transparent before all of that. Pleading the 5th, so to speak, but nothing to see her, right?

No problem. Ross Tucker actually talked about it here, but used the values 12.0 (from her autobiography) and 2.8 (from her statement):http://sportsscientists.com/2015/09/paula-radcliffe-off-scores-and-transparency/

Aragon wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

To my knowledge, 12.8 g/dl was never written anywhere... Subtracting that from the "leaked" post-race value of 15.6 gives a pre-race value of 12.8. Note, her autobiography gives a lower pre-race value of 12.0. Both samples were collected according to the less stringent (and error prone) pre-ABP standards of 2003.

Rekrunner, thanks for the clarification. That certainly clarifies the origin of the Hb value. In the first place it raised truly a red flag that I didn't encounter this figure after going through the IAAF response and through some material by Ross Tucker. Regardless of what conclusions to make of this figure, apologies for rjm33 for implying in any way that he was getting the figure from nowhere.

rekrunner wrote:

Putting Paula aside, there are other examples of this "opposite" theory: Baumann, Kisorio, and Hellebuyck, have personal best times well before the time they are known to have doped. If Renato is to believed, Rita Jeptoo too.

The latter was already proven wrong, as both IAAF and CAS agreed that the evidence was enough to ban her for her 2:18 in Boston as well.

Canova was also wrong about Schwazer...

As for your examples: again, this would only be correct if these people had been clean earlier, which we do not know. We do know that these people are lying drug cheats, though. Considering how difficult it is to catch dopers, it is reasonable to extrapolate that most dopers were not caught right after their first offense.

rekrunner wrote:

No problem. Ross Tucker actually talked about it here, but used the values 12.0 (from her autobiography) and 2.8 (from her statement):

http://sportsscientists.com/2015/09/paula-radcliffe-off-scores-and-transparency/

Right. So either there were coincidentally two pre-race tests, or Paula mistakenly downplayed the increase in Hb, just like she mistakenly overstated the race temperature. Of course that wouldn't have been on purpose.

rekrunner wrote:

Can you be more specific, which statements you found to be junk, with no facts in evidence? I'll make it multiple choice:

1) We don't actually have EPO performance data at the top

2) Drugs or no drugs, East Africans advanced a lot in the "EPO-era"; non-Africans not so much

3) Based on real performance data

4) The difference between Baumann and Bekele are factors other than drugs

5) We don't have many good examples of EPO use at the top

Point 3? Something got lost.

But I'd agree to the rest. I just can't believe that you are seriously suggesting that people like Baumann und Junxia didn't use EPO, and that EPO is useless anyway. You are way too smart for that. Fits to your troll character though.

kjgl wrote:

Over-estimated effect of Epo in endurance study. What do you say now?

Me? I fully agree. No way that EPO helps an elite runner to improve by 5%. 5% of 13:15 would be 40 seconds!

Don't over think this. The article says: "In London, seven first places, six second and seven thirds were taken by athletes with blood tests deemed suspicious by experts who analysed the leaked database."In 12 years, 2 races per year, there are 24 first, 24 second, and 24 third places.7+6+7 = 2024+24+24 = 7272-20 = 52If 20 places "were taken by athletes with blood tests deemed suspicious", that means 52 were not "taken by athletes with blood tests deemed suspicious".Despite Renato talking about women, the OP said this thread was about the men. However, I think the Russian scandal gives a good indication of where doping works, and where it doesn't work so well.Regarding dirty records, I'm less interested in determining if a record holder doped, than determining how much doping helps. This is also a question of statistics, but not so simple.

casual obsever wrote:

kjgl wrote:

Over-estimated effect of Epo in endurance study. What do you say now?

Me? I fully agree. No way that EPO helps an elite runner to improve by 5%. 5% of 13:15 would be 40 seconds!

How about trying approximately 7% with 800/1500 meter runner Yuliya Stepanova:

According to the McLaren report, Stepanova initially began using EPO through her coach (Mokhnev) in 2007 where her 800 baseline time was 2:13, and previous PB was a pedestrian 2:08.47. A year later on the high-octane program she improves to 2:03.47...a 5 second improvement from her PB! And another year later in 09, she sets a PB of 1:58.99...another improvement of just under 5 seconds, and a total improvement of near 10 seconds in approx 2 years! 😨. Good enough to put her in the finals of the 2011 WCs. Too bad medal winners Savinova & Poistogova aren’t cooperating with WADA so we could know more about the specifics of their program, as all they care about is clutching onto their ill-gotten achievements 😕.

Redemption wrote:

Have you found any of Savinova's pre-08 times to compare with her times when she started on the Russian rocket fuel program? As I previously pointed out with one of her training partners, Stepanova, there's evidence of an incredible, unbelievable, mind-blowing improvement with her times that coincided with her usage of EPO/steriods/HGH.

The key word here is the word coincided, because it isn't that easy to establish a solid causal link between the ~7 % improvement and the "Russian rocket fuel" as you describe it. That is to be kept in mind when comparing pre and post results, because PEDs are almost never the only input that is changed when athletes start training professionally under a personal coach with or without PEDs.

If the Russians had adhered to progressive high quality training close to their limits for several years from relatively young age and clearly showed tendencies of reaching a plateau in their progress when they entered the PED program, there case that most of the improvement from that point onward was due to the program looks suddenly significantly strong.

But we know nothing about their training history. Nothing about their backgrounds, earlier training volumes, variance of their exercises, commitment to training, financial incentives to train nor even when they started to run regularly.

Both of the women were barely 20 years old when they entered the PED program and even while women reach their performance peak at slightly younger age than men, from Rio 800m participants alone you can see runners with IAAF ratified times going back several years being capable of improve 3-4 seconds in a time period of one year even their mid-20s (and you can't really know whether some of them did take PEDs).

I don't claim nor have I claimed that the PEDs couldn't have been a factor in the improvements of the Russians, but I see it is very unscientific to assume that PEDs explain all of the 7 % improvement. On the other hand you may hold this position, if despite IAAF records telling totally different reality, you still insist that there is a parallel reality where Savinova improved from 2:02 to 1:56 in years time just because Alyssa Montaño briefly mentions that occuring during an interview. Based on your logic it should also be almost equally strange that she herself improved from 2:05.49 to 1:59.29 in a time period of just two years when she was almost at the beginning of her career.

And the key problem with your point is that it is like saying anabolic steroids won't be of much benefit to someone who has their androgen levels within the normal range and so would not be of much help to elite athletes. It is just another rehash of the drugs will only help sick people but will not work in elite athletes argument.

And I suggest that you recount again or use another data source. In athlete FROM KENYA ALONE within a 2 year timeframe 8 athletes were busted from nandrolone:

I'm seriously suggesting we don't have that evidence. It is brown-tinged personal speculation on your part.Nothing suggests Baumann took EPO, either in 1997, or at any time, except a theory that EPO must have helped him achieve an exceptional performance -- a theory that then uses Baumann as one of the best examples to support that theory.An unusual focus on EPO downplays the fact he was caught with a steroid -- something really in evidence. And then how to explain that in 1999, when he was actually found positive, he was again running slower times, slower than 13:00, times already achieved by other Europeans a decade earlier.This is a technique you rely on heavily, making up facts in your favor when you don't know.That's fine for discussions in the bar with your friends.Similarly, if Junxia doped, maybe EPO was one part of her cocktail, but I seriously suggest that male hormones were the more active ingredients. If EPO was the singular main cause, then I would expect Junxia-esque could be repeated outside of China, especially during a period where it was undetectable.

casual obsever wrote:

But I'd agree to the rest. I just can't believe that you are seriously suggesting that people like Baumann und Junxia didn't use EPO, and that EPO is useless anyway. You are way too smart for that. Fits to your troll character though.

According to Rodchenkov, a steroid cocktail was an important part of the Russian doping. Hard to argue then the impact of EPO, especially given the proven performance of steroids in women.

Neglecting the metabolites was simply sloppy from my part, no escaping that fact, while still I can't see rowes of elite runners testing positive following the years from the introduction of the rEPO test in 2000. While nandrolone administration roughly quadrupled the hematocrit elevating effect of rEPO (+34.8 % vs +8.4 %) with androgen-depleted patients, it isn't that clear same effect can be seen with normal people. If for no other reason than simply for the fact that it takes more the steroid to elevate the circulating levels of androgens by the same percentage.

Perhaps I'll be proven wrong, but just based on intuition I see two weaknesses in the thesis that rEPO-enhancing effect of the nandrolone was the key motivation to take the steroid.

- Athletes testing positive for before the introduction of the rEPO test most likely weren't using detectable drug to mask their rEPO use but took nandrolone for some other reason.

- Microdosing strategy to use rEPO is almost certainly still far more difficult to detect in doping test than nandrolone. A RBC is a RBC. rEPO is still diffculta to detect and a large part of blood doping cases are tried based on ABP anomalies, so in the end it is irrelevant how the erythropoiesis was stimulated in the first case.

rekrunner wrote:

Nothing suggests Baumann took EPO, either in 1997, or at any time, except a theory that EPO must have helped him achieve an exceptional performance -- a theory that then uses Baumann as one of the best examples to support that theory.

Incorrect. A cheat who risks using detectable steroids known to add on the EPO effects has no reason to not use undetectable EPO. Definitely not ethics. That is not "nothing", that's logical.

Also, history shows that drug cheats rarely if ever rely only one drug. Examples are abundant. Baumann got lucky that EPO was undetectable; you can't use that in your favor.

Finally, you can speculate all you want that a drug cheat doped only once, but that is pure speculation which again is highly unlikely, as we also know from history - Jones, Armstrong, Gatlin, ... , Schwazer, Jeptoo.

rekrunner wrote:

Don't over think this. The article says: "In London, seven first places, six second and seven thirds were taken by athletes with blood tests deemed suspicious by experts who analysed the leaked database."

In 12 years, 2 races per year, there are 24 first, 24 second, and 24 third places.

7+6+7 = 20

24+24+24 = 72

72-20 = 52

If 20 places "were taken by athletes with blood tests deemed suspicious", that means 52 were not "taken by athletes with blood tests deemed suspicious".

Typical for you. Nothing is mentioned about the other places - nobody knows anything about their blood tests, or how many of them were in that leaked database, documented to have been incomplete. You just made stuff up again, as per usual. And prior to that, you even pretended that those "facts" were in that article!

Like Baumann. The fact that he was dirty in 1999 does not imply at all that he was clean in 1997, on the contrary. Note that I said "imply", not "prove".

I am done here.

Where are you getting the 2:05.49 time from? Montano has listed a 2:03.47 indoor from 07 and a 1:59.47 outdoor the same year (USATF Championships). Montano was also the California State H.S. Champ in 04 with a very impressive time of 2:08.97, which also was 10th best Nationally that year...therefore; she's had some serious talent from an early age👍.

So, where are the H.S. times of the Russian dopers? Where's Savinova's pre-08 times? IMO, I think these were athletes who didn't have the natural talent to compete at a high level on the World stage, let alone win medals and, therefore, resorted to doping (both high & Low-octane PEDs) to "unfairly" level their playing field where they could now be competitive for medals at top events. In the McLaren report, the coaches & athlete's have stated that they couldn't win medals without "pharma" (imagine that, lol). If their natural talent wasn't good enough to put them in hunt for medals, then their doping program was the "game changer" for them. If that's not the case, then why the need to dope? In this instance, it's had catastrophic consequences for not only Russian athletics, but the entire country in general. And of course, other athletes got cheated out of Olympic & WC medals, and the financial awards that can follow.

And lets not forget on the men's side of race walking where the Russians were killing it from 2008-2013 with 02-vector doping and steriods. Dominating the medals at WC's & Olympic events and even setting a World Record now & then (currently they hold the 2nd fastest times for both the 20 & 50k events). A high-response to 02-vector doping & steroids was the ill-gotten winning formula for these guys 😯

Redemption wrote:

Where are you getting the 2:05.49 time from? Montano has listed a 2:03.47 indoor from 07 and a 1:59.47 outdoor the same year (USATF Championships). Montano was also the California State H.S. Champ in 04 with a very impressive time of 2:08.97, which also was 10th best Nationally that year...therefore; she's had some serious talent from an early age👍.

So, where are the H.S. times of the Russian dopers? Where's Savinova's pre-08 times? IMO, I think these were athletes who didn't have the natural talent to compete at a high level on the World stage...

The information about Montaño is from her IAAF-profile, the 800m outdoor progression from age 19 (2005) to 21 (2007). Stepanova (1986-) entered the PED program when she was 20 and Savinova (1985-) most likely roughly around the same age (not sure whether the year has been established for Savinova), so assuming the information on Montaño is accurate, there is room for natural progress in women around the age of 20.

Despite the age difference of some two years, I don't find you too unbiased when you describe 18-year old Montaño's 2:08.97 as "very impressive" that showed "serious talent from an early age" whereas half a second faster time by 20-year old Yuliya Stepanova is "pedestrian". The earliest time I managed to find for Mariya Savinova is the 2:07:03 from 2005 when she was only 19 years and 10 months old. That is two seconds faster than Montaño's time when their age difference isn't really that huge (ie. 20 months).

Aragon wrote:

so assuming the information on Montaño is accurate, there is room for natural progress in women around the age of 20.

To conclude that, you must first speculate that Montaño was clean.