Less Drug Use in the Marathon?

Some Joker You Don't Know wrote:

By agreeing with the statement, he's basically implying that foreigners are all dirty and Americans are all clean....

and therein lies the American athletes excuse as to why they can't compete on even terms.

"and therein lies the American athletes excuse as to why they can't compete on even terms."

Agree! The flipside to this is that USA is just as guilty or even more guilty than any other country when it comes to PEDs.

And you can laugh at Canova all day if you want. His arguments are very compelling imho.

age old bs wrote:

Some Joker You Don't Know wrote:

By agreeing with the statement, he's basically implying that foreigners are all dirty and Americans are all clean....

and therein lies the American athletes excuse as to why they can't compete on even terms.

And that was my whole point. Ritz isn't as fast as many people from history that were probably clean. Assuming Ritz himself is clean, if everyone else were clean too he would still not be winning or dominating at the 5k or 10k. Keep training, keep improving, no excuses. When you get 2 silver medals behind a guy with yellow eyes who can run 48 for the last 400m, then bring out the drug speculation...

yes but no wrote:

Renato's comments on drugs aren't funny, they are sad. I agree with him that a lot of Africans don't need drugs to be world class, but he does talk a lot of BS about EPO.

have you guys actually tried EPO, or blood doping? I've for medical purpose. don't make snide remarks about EPO or renato's comments if you haven't. See a tape with stringe does not make you an blood transfusion expert. You need to have donated blood or have blood taken out before a surgery to comment.

have you tried epo? wrote [/B}

have you guys actually tried EPO, or blood doping? I've for medical purpose. don't make snide remarks about EPO or renato's comments if you haven't. See a tape with stringe does not make you an blood transfusion expert. You need to have donated blood or have blood taken out before a surgery to comment.

There's brilliant logic. By that way of thinking, Renato can't say anything about EPO because he's never tred it. And the only people who can are the couple athletes that have confessed to using it who say it WORKS. By the way, should a Doctor not perform a open heart surgery if he has never had it. Truly a dizzying intellect you have.

And to the person who asks what elites I have worked with... I could pull a couple names, not nearly as many or the caliber of Canova but, that's not the point. Physiology is the same wheteher or not you have many achievements. The our de France riders don't climb wellout of brute strength. I know for a fact there is little correlation between climbing ability and maximum squat lift. We actually studied it once. As I've said befoe, there will not be a physiologist who backs that statement up. Or the statement that EPO does not help elite endurance athletes. The number is 2-3% aidin performance times for he top echelon. Plain and simple. More if you train with it.

With EPO. Even if you get caught, if you put a good lawyer on it, it will not stick. The only way to prove anything is pretty much getting the athlete to admit it. First avenue, the lack of a B sample, next whether or not there is proper "chain of custody" and handling (who else could have got to the sample and other smoke and mirrors, and also the test itself is so questionable that any case is filled with holes. Furthermore, the action of the drug far surpasses its half life. EPO is truely a wonder drug but confining its use to madicinal purposes is just beyond the realm of possibility. I can't see how the endurance sports will ever be clean again. I don't want to sound disenchanted, because I still love the sport. Just like in baseball, athletes can only be judged relative to today's standards because this is a much different world than before the 60's. Steroids, blood doping, and then EPO - likely more of an effect on decreased times than better training methods. In fact, in some countires despite all of these breakthroughs in chemistry, knowledge of physiology, and training, still have a hard time getting to the times of the 60's! Wassup with dat?

have you tried epo? wrote:

yes but no wrote:

Renato's comments on drugs aren't funny, they are sad. I agree with him that a lot of Africans don't need drugs to be world class, but he does talk a lot of BS about EPO.

have you guys actually tried EPO, or blood doping? I've for medical purpose. don't make snide remarks about EPO or renato's comments if you haven't. See a tape with stringe does not make you an blood transfusion expert. You need to have donated blood or have blood taken out before a surgery to comment.

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Top cyclists, many of them it seems have used EPO since 1988. Do you really think that they would spend huge amounts of money injecting a drug which didn't make them faster?

Even the ones who are very talented, train very hard and have a very tactical racing head, still use the drug.

Why do they do this? because they can win more races and make more money with EPO rather than without.

It's true that blood thickening is a problem with anything that increases red blood cell counts. This is part of pulmonaary edema, the process that kills people on very high mountains. Some of the XC skiers that were caught at the Salt Lake City Olympics were first identified by having plasma expanders in their blood. Basically, this involves putting something inert in your blood that has a high molecualr weight (cellulose derivative) so that water moves in by osmosis. This increases the total volume of their blood, to offset the thickening.

The problem is obviously worse in warm weather.

If you look at tapes of the nordic WC from the year that many Finns were caught doping, the first thing they do after hitting the finish line is... get a big drink of water.

If you don't think the top distance runners, like the top cyclists, are using some kind of performance enhancers, then I have a couple of bridges to sell you in New York. The disparity from 10k on up is just too great, and no, it's not because the Africans simply train harder.

HUH??? ok, sure, your "heat" theory may be valid on some level, but

A) you are making huge assumptions about other aspects of the Olympic marathon race

B) and ignoring many other factors involved in the race.

Assumptions:

1) HOW THE HELL DO YOU KNOW THAT MEB AND DEENA ARE CLEAN, AND

2) THAT THE MAJORITY OF RUNNERS THAT HAVE RUN FASTER THAN THEM BEFORE ARE DIRTY??? You don't! Maybe Meb and Deena dope. Maybe THEY were some of the biggest cheaters of all in that race and thus the cheaters actually prevailed ( I don't think so, by why assume "the successful Americans" were clean??) No one knows who was clean or dirty in those races, so you are making some awfully big assumptions about Meb, Deena, and their competitors.

Factors Ignored:

1) MEB IS EAST AFRICAN!! Obviously everyone knows that the East Africans have produced the most successful distance runners. So why is it a shock when our Olympic breakthrough for men's marathon comes from an East African?? It isn't. And Abdi (another East African), is bearing down on MEB's 10k AR. And LAGAT, another East African, is bearing down on the US mile, 3k, and 5k records. Coincidence?? I think not. Meb is supremely talented, like OTHER East Africans. That is the biggest reason for his "American marathon" breakthough.

2) There are often upsets in the Olympic marathon. I think this is because (despite what I said about Meb above),

a) while East Africans are supremely talented for the marathon, it is not their BEST event IN GENERAL. I think Geb has shown this too. 1500-10,000 are there best events. Clearly they are not so good at the sprints, and I think the very long distance races they are very good at, but those longer races are not their BEST events. They clearly have some great anaerobic abilities, along with aerobic, and those anerobic abilities are wasted in the longest races. (West Africans are most suited for the 100/200/400, Euros for the 400/800/mile, and some Euros and Japanese for the longest races). East Africans seem to be MOST suited for 1500-1/2 marathon. Now of course there are exceptions to all these trends, but the trends still exist). So...... sometimes the top East Africans might fail at the big marathons

b) the marathon, being the longest race, is where the most things can go wrong for a runner

c) believe it or not, some of the best marathoners focus on the big $ races rather than the Olympics

All of the above explain why their are "upsets" in the Olympic marathon races.

In summary, concluding that "lack of cheaters" was the main reason that Meb and Deena succeeded at the Olympics is a theory full of assumptions and one that leaves out many other factors about Olympic marathons.

I didn't "conclude" anything. It was merely a possible explanation for what I saw in Athens. I thought I made that clear.

Wait a minute ... Meb is East African? Why didn't somebody tell me?

For an equal number who says it works, you also have to factor in those who have used and not performed better.

From Renato's claim, he specifically name name, of people who have used blood doping and failed, as well as his observation of how it affected the athlete ability to *run* well -- not cycle.

Your doctor analogy is inane because a doctor will perform a surgery if he had done it to someone and worked, but he will attempt new cases if after consideration it is the only avenue to save the patient. Open heart surgery often fails (new complicated cases fails more than 80% of the time).

The same goes for training and living in altitude.

Does it work if it was done only for a short period?

You may want to pull out your names to defend yourself.

And people spending money and using it for some perceived notion of enhancement -- look at all the add for penile extention (people buys them does not mean it works) -- has nothing to do with the real physiological improvements. One need to argue or provide evidence of how it will work and experiment on oneselve -- or others and see the effect.

John Meyer wrote:

I didn't "conclude" anything. It was merely a possible explanation for what I saw in Athens. I thought I made that clear.

Wait a minute ... Meb is East African? Why didn't somebody tell me?

you comments are so silly and out-of-line for fair play that you should apologize. you basically assume that when american loses, they were beaten by cheaters, when they win, they competitors are clean.

should i make a plausible explanation that in the 400m and 1500m (swimming) where Australia always does better than the US, that there are less steriods being used (mainly by those americans -- see barry bonds, marian jones etc.) compare to the sprints. Surely the with the high incident of steriods used in US high school give credence to my theory.

Disenchanted, I explain for the last time, in the most synthetic way (English is not my language, as you know), WHY I DON'T THINK THAT EPO CAN WORK WITH TOP ATHLETES :

a) You HAVE EVIDENCE that EPO works with normal athletes, tested thru several researches. I ACCEPT THIS FACT, how you can read in my posts.

b) You DON'T HAVE SOME EVIDENCE that EPO can work with top athletes, because NEVER there was any research with them.

You DON'T ACCEPT THIS FACT, but prefer to suppose that the human behavior using EPO is the same for everybody, forgetting that this was a pharmac created for supporting sick people going for dialysis.

c) I HAVE EVIDENCE that, without EPO and ANY PHARMAC (you can believe or not, BUT THIS IS A FACT THAT I KNOW DIRECTLY VERY WELL, BECAUSE I'M SPEAKING ABOUT MY ATHLETES, not about something that I heard from somebody else), ANY INTEGRATOR and ANY VITAMIN, is possible to beat World Records (Shaheen in 3000st, Paul Kosgei 25 km and HM (depends on the race of Gebrselassie), to win World Championships (yet Shaheen and Paul Kosgei, but also Christopher Koskei, Dorcus Inzikuru and many juniores).

d) I SUPPOSE TO HAVE EVIDENCE, looking at performances of my CLEAN Athletes (7:28 in 3k for Kwalia, 26:30 for 10k for Nicholas Kemboi, and many others) that, in any case, with EPO is not possible to enhance your performances for the percentage that many think possible (26:30 of Kemboi can become under 26:00 with EPO ? I don't think)

e) Regarding cyclists, I HAVE EVIDENCE that the Business of pharmacs is one of the most important in every Country ; that there is a lot of mediatic pressure (newspapers, TV, magazines etc.) pushing in direction of some support / integration for every activity in our life ; that doctors involved in cyclism USE THEIR KNOWLEDGE FOR MAKING MONEY and not for really helping the athletes, USING CYCLISTS FOR THEIR ADVANTAGE, making them to think that, without drug, is not possible to be competitive ; and that cyclists themselves don't have any possibility of comparing their level WITH and WITHOUT some doping, BECAUSE THE SYSTEM WAS TO ASSUME DRUGS FROM THE BEGINNING OF THEIR CAREER, so this is the ONLY THING THAT THEY KNOW.

f) I HAVE EVIDENCE that some athlete, running 2:14 (Marathon) before EPO and 2:10 after (like Italian Roberto Barbi, the first officialpositive during Edmonton World Championships 2001) was able to increase of 50% HIS TRAINING AFTER TAKING EPO, REACHING THE SAME VOLUME OF TRAINING THAT I PORPOSED HIM BEFORE EPO AND THAT HE REFUSED BECAUSE SUPPOSED THAT WAS NOT ABLE TO RECOVER. So, in this case, THE EFFECT OF EPO WAS :

1- To increase his recovery, or

2- To give him the idea and the courage that he could finally try to run more volume, and faster, BECAUSE HE BECAME SURE ABOUT THIS FACT BECAUSE OF EPO ASSUMPTION ?

I think that his improvement is due to the increase of his training, and this was MENTALLY POSSIBLE for the assumption of EPO. So, for me this is a placebo effect.

For all these reasons, I know that :

a) EPO can help weak athletes and normal persons (so there are more doped athletes in amateur competitions that in top competitions)

b) Is possible to beat World Record WITHOUT any aid, depending on talent and methodology (and, of course, how you are able to be serious in training)

c) If you are mentally strong, YOU CAN thru training reach levels of volume and intensity so high, that drug for endurance cannot work

Different the case (and I wrote this) of DOPING FOR STRENGTH. Without steroids, YOU NEVER CANNOT REACH THE SAME PICK OF STRENGTH. That's the reason because from 1988 there are no new WR in throwing and in women T & F (from sprint, to jumps, throws and hurdles).

So, are two different doping. Please, don't mix everything without distinguishing final targets.

Where is this alleged video?

fgfgdg wrote:

What a bs, some marathons don't even test at all, many "nonames" flying under the radar of the WADA.

That should be MOST marathons don't test at all. Only the major ones do. Of course the same can be said of track meets as well.

The key is out of competition testing. How many countries even try? (I can think of the US, Australia and Norway as having the best OOC programs.)

In cycling one can certainly take in adequate fluids to keep dehydration at bay. However, it is also considerably hotter for much of the TdF than it is at major marathons.

The Dizzle wrote:

it's been said on this board a thousand times. Eventually PED will become as much as a part of training and racing as intervals & spikes.

Just like everyone lost their minds when some athletes wanted to be paid, eventually everyone accepted it. (They were called cheaters and DQ'd too.)

A colleague and I were talking about something like this. He said there is a bike race in Australia (Tour Down Under) that one day wants to have a complete genetic type screening. If you do not pass, you are not let in the race. The prize money would need to be huge.

I suspect there would be a day where you will have a "clean" competitions and "open" competitions. The latter would have no testing. Kinda like what bodybuilding and powerlifting have done.

That is a hypothesis, not a theory.

There does seem to be something about the heat and a "slow" course that favors Americans. I also know that no marathon team has been as well prepared as the Americans were for the conditions. Deena for instance was able to find a long run that virtually mimicked the Athens profile in Mammoth Lakes (and at altitude).