Seriously, is cycling dirtier than T&F?

It's time we become adults about this and just accept it. Look being a pro athlete is freakin HARD on the body. To peform at the top level of human athletic skill, be it fball, t&f, cycling, etc... requires help. Why not just let them take the meds that allow them to train and peform?

The USA is finally moving closer to accepting weed as just a recreational drug like alcohol, just accept that top athletes have to have take certain drugs to get through the training.

Citizen Runner wrote:

Clifford Diffley wrote:

perhaps at the highest levels, sure. among the teeming masses of distance prodigies springing from east africa every year? hardly. isn't africa the place that can barely keep up with demand for aids drugs? you telling me that wanjiru, before beijing - when he couldn't even find a singlet to fit him properly - had the wherewithal to support a sophisticated drug regimen?

Your general point is reasonable enough, but Wanjiru was living and training in Japan on a corporate team since his high school years. Not a very good example to make your point.

Plus it's agents who are often responsible for supplying PEDs, not charitable NGOs nor governmental aid packages.

The science starts from x-country skiing , get's modified in cycling and by the time it gets to running is fairly sophisticated. It endurance related and fairly specific.

Speed drugs " sprints" do start within the track community ie: Balco as a example. Agents have little to do with distribution or use , they turn a blind eye stay happy with the results , collect the paychecks and hope to god the trainers and doctors keep the masking program up and use cycles of outside of testing protocol.

Oh, stop being a bunch of morons.

Do you think that when an African distance runner gets extremely (relatively) rich out of running, that he's the only one that's profiting from his performances?

So, in fairness, we know EPO is effective. Why doesn't someone take a bunch of talented African distance runners and dope them, with the promise of money enough to feed their families for a lifetime. (this is the reason why the don't dope isn't it, not enough funding?) Or is it because the Africans are just such good people?

Lots of machete, AK47 related deaths, but nobody from Kenya or Ethiopia would ever take PEDs.

Naivete , wow... Its simple , athletes want to make money and compete , coach wants fame and glory , agents wants a commission. Its not life long en devour , its a simple means to a end. Global politics play little in the lives of these athletes.

Corrupt officials may try and hold them up for a few $$$ , but this is becoming less and less.

salazar sounds way to scientific in his coaching methods.

he isn't a physiologist.

Conte, who returned numerous phone and E-mail messages over the past month but did not answer a knock at his home in Burlingame, has no formal medical or scientific training. He claims to have worked with some of the world's greatest athletes dating back to the mid-'80s, including John Elway and Dan Marino, long-distance runner Alberto Salazar, and tennis player Jim Courier, along with dozens of others. All the athletes or agents contacted in a Daily News investigation either denied knowing Conte or said they only had him analyze their nutrition in a limited capacity.

http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/sports/2003/10/17/2003-10-17__guru__accused_of_drug_doping.html

the godfather of doping chiming in on the 2008 t/f trials

"I'm also skeptical of the performances recently recorded by some of the male and female sprinters at the Jamaican track and field trials. None of the small Caribbean countries have an independent anti-doping federation in place ..."

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/more_sports/2008/06/30/2008-06-30_not_so_fast_victor_conte_chimes_in_on_fa-1.html

FYI, training groups such as the Reebok Enclave, Nike Farm Team, Hansons and smaller groups in Boulder were around in the 90's and earlier 2K years. They were quite organized. The difference was, most of the guys who came onto those teams were not of the caliber of the guys at the OTC. Look at the OTC in Eugene, not that spectacular, but then again neither are the athletes who are part of it. Look at the group in Portland, most of those guys were multiple time NCAA champions.

Ritz and Teg were top 5 at world cross as teenagers.

Ritz ran 13:27 as a teenager.

Teg ran 7:34 & 13:04 long before he joined the OTC.

Rupp was a 13:37/28:15 runner as a teenager.

Solinsky ran 3:37 & 7:36 long before he joined and is like a 5X NCAA champ.

Goucher ran 3:55 and 13:10 his first year out of college and won both the short and long course USA cross titles on the same weekend, about 5 years before he joined OTC.

Webb - Well everything he has done was before OTC - 3:53 in high school, 1:43, 3:46, 13:10, 27:34.

And on and on with Kara, Shalane, Bairu, even Rohatinsky was XC NCAA champ but he's not lighting up the world while at OTC.

The point is, every one of these people were VERY, VERY good before joining OTC. The only exception would be Rupp because he's essentially always been a part of it.

4 sub 4's in the last year? Between the group they have probably racked up 20 or 30 sub 4's or the 1500 equivelent in their careers. Big deal. There were about 15 marks at the sub 4 equivalent in the NCAA last year, maybe 20.

Sub 13's ok. One guy who ran 13:04, 7:34, and 8:07 2M years ago finally went just under 13 and another guy who has often beat him went faster by running a PERFECTLY even race. Africans can hit those times while fartleking.

Again, Ritz ran 13:27 as a TEENAGER, and now is :31 seconds faster after 3-4 years of marathon training and in his mid 20s. Where would you think he should be? 13:10?

The only big and wild mark in my mind is Solinskys 27 and thats mostly because we never saw him as a 10K guy. However you look at some of the 3K & 2 mile races at PRE and Solinsky has been right up there in the hunt on multiple occassions. He's been on pace for 13 and blown up over the last lap to fall short. You look at the list of sub 27:00 guys and a lot of them are only 13:0x runners.

These guys may be dirty, but you'd probably have to convince me that most of them started as teenagers, and I just doubt that. And certainly not because they are a group in Portland. Look, you take decent high schoolers from all around the country and bring them together on a college team and 95% of them are going to improve drastically.

These guys are improving, but most of them are still are in their early-mid 20's and now approaching 2-5 years of 90-100 mile weeks. In the prime of their lives with every possible training advantage they can imagine these guys are struggling to run withing 20 seconds of the world record at 5K and withing 15 seconds of where numerous africans have.

If these guys were not as high profile as they were coming out of high school or college I might feel more inclined to think doping. If Tim Nelson had run 27:12 I'd be more suspect. Keep in mind that most of these top guys were a helluva a lot more decorated and faster than Meb coming out of college.

Dude, what's up with posting all this really loose stuff?

You throwing conte around like anyone who ever met him is injecting steroids?

You walk into a GNC, there are loads of products with steroids in them, but you're interested in fish oil and vitamins. Oops, you shopped at GNC...DOPER!!!

Really, really loose stuff your tossing around. How about using some news on postive tests?

As posted previously:

Mourhit was caught for drugs (Moroccan to Belgium).

Hissou (Moroccan) ran his best marks from 96-99 down to 7:28 and then hit 7:37 in 2000 (*year of epo test*) and 7:45 in 2002! Keep in mind that is a 12:50 & 26:38 guy from 1996 running a best of 7:45 in a non olympic / non world championship year and only a few years after winning the world championships 5K.

How about Brahim Lahlafi?

Busted for drugs it gets worse for his brother who was connected to Ramzi:

2002 was definitely not a lucky year for theBoulami family. After Brahim's positive doping test, his older brother Khalid Boulami - 5000m silver in 1995 and 1997 world championships and bronze medallist in Atlanta - got a life suspension from the Moroccan federation and was forbidden to have any activity related to athletics for ever. A technical advisor for Bahrain during the last Asian Games in Busan, he is accused of inciting Moroccan athletes to change citizenship. Four Morroccan athletes competed for Bahrain in Busan : Rachid Ramzi (gold medallist on 1500m), Mohamed Rached/Rachid Khouya (gold medallist on 800m), Zakaria Abdelhak/Abdelhak El Gourch (silver medallist on 10.000m and bronze medallist on 5000m) and Abdelkabir Louraïbi (8th on 1500m).

How about Algerian Ali Saidi Sief who ran 7:25 in 2000, the year of the EPO test?

The international federation granted a special dispensation to Algerian runner Ali Saidi Sief to qualify for the world championships. While his suspension for doping will be over on 17 August, he'll have the possibility to get an A standard until the 27, on the eve of 5000m heats.

More on N. Africans:

Moroccan 800 m runner Amina Aït Hammou (2:00.33 in 2008) and her sister Seltana (2:00.87 in 2008) have been suspended for one year after missing three drug tests.

Moroccan miler Adil Kaouch, one of the favorite for the 1500m world title, has been provisionnally suspended by the IAAF after failing a drug test at Rome Golden League meet on July 13th.

Moroccan runner Omar Jimila (aka Noureddine Jalal) failed a drug test for EPO at Paris marathon where he finished 5th in 2:10:44.

Moroccan runner Aissa Dghoughi has been suspended for three years until December 27th 2009 for escaping a control. Closely related to Frenchwoman Latifa Essarokh, who failed a test for stanozolol in 2006, Dghoughi had been spotted selling drugs around St Moritz. He had already made the headlines in early 2005 in France when EPO and growth hormone had been found in his car during a routine customs control.

A bag with 10 syringes, two EPO bottles and a box of growth hormone was discoverd in Moroccan runner Aïssa Dghoughi's car during a routine control by French customs at a tollbooth. A 10000m runner (28'12 in 2001) Dghoughi will be prosecuted by the French justice for illegal drug possession.

Moroccan runner Abdelkader Hachlaf, 1500m bronze medallist at the 2003 World indoors, got a two year suspension following a positive test (EPO) in April. In the end of July, Moroccan daily Aujourd'hui le Maroc announced that 800m specialist Khalid Tighazouine also failed a drug test (nandrolone), but it seems that no official sanction was taken yet.

Do you think all the kenyans and ethiopians are clean too?

Kenyan runner Janet Ongera, failed a drug test (norandrosterone) last October in Reims' half-marathon (France) where she came second in 1h12'. She's been suspended for two years by her federation.

French sports daily L'Equipe announced that cross-country short race world champion Edith Masai failed a drug test in a French half-marathon last year and got a 3-month ban in France. She didn't have any problem with IAAF, however: the product in question, lidocain, isn't listed as a doping product by the IAAF contrary to WADA or the IOC.

Ethiopian runner Alene Emere has been suspended for two years by the Japanese federation after testing positive for nandrolone, according to Ethiosports.

Kenyan runner Pamela Chepchumba and Morocco's Asmae Leghzaoui failed a drug test for EPO during the cross-country world championships in Lausanne.

Her progression turned out too good to be legit. Kenyan quartermiler Elizabeth Muthoka, who had never run below 52 seconds before clocking 51.56 and 50.82 fin end June, early July, was withdrawn from the Kenyan team before the Games after failing a drug test

Kenyan born Musa Amer Obaid / Moses Kipkirui failed a drug test for testosterone during an out of competition control in Ifrane in June 2006. He's been suspended until September 12th 2008

And these are countries without NEAR the testing prgrams that we have.

no one doubts that N. Africa has had many drug cheats. Good work detective.

But as far as East Africa, wow, you found a couple drug busts in East Africa, and none of the major elites, and your conclusion is.... ? What, drug use must be rampant in east african distance runners? please.

There have been a few drug busts or acknowledged drug use by white europeans or american distance runners too, so what should we conclude there? I guess, based on your brilliant logic, we should conclude: Mottram, Willis, ritz, rupp, Solinksy, Teg, Webb, Flanagan and the rest are all doped. And of course PED use by euro or US endurance athletes in other sports is endemic. I guess I have no doubts where the US resurgence in distance running has come from.

Did I play your game correctly? Funny how you didn't make that conclusion concerning the western runners, though, did you?

Yea

[quote]Sir Lance-alot wrote:

no one doubts that N. Africa has had many drug cheats. Good work detective.

But as far as East Africa, wow, you found a couple drug busts in East Africa, and none of the major elites, and your conclusion is.... ? What, drug use must be rampant in east african distance runners? please.

quote]

No certainly not but the fact nearly every year a kenyan and/or ethiopian runner do get busted for drugs and most americans seem to think that not one of them ever does. Some of these were winners of major marathons and a world cross short course champ no?

Not the best, but you would think that the best would also be better educated and protected if they were taking drugs. That doesn't mean they are, but I would bet if they wanted to their agents & doctors are very knowlegeable in contrast to the second and third tier runners.

However we have, what Slaney and Jacobs? How long ago was that now? How old were they? If we had a runner or two coming up every year I'd be more likely to believe more of our runners were doing it. Yet somehow when Kenyans and Ethiopians are caught much more often, with a drug test system MUCH LESS sophisticated or dedicated as ours we still have a large majority that think our distance runners are more likely to be using PEDs than theirs.

That just seems a bit of a stretch since they are coming up with positive results and ours are not.

I count ten Kenyan athletes who have been busted, compared to Jacobs, Slaney, Hellebuyck and Youngquist. Considering the fact that there are many more Kenyan distance runners subject to testing in the world than there are US distance runners subject to testing, I don't see your point.

Drug testing in professional athletics is a joke. What the sprinters are taking , which are usually in the steroid family, are much easier to detect than what the distance runners would take, which are blood manipulators. That doesn't mean that distance runners are cleaner than sprinters.

Even though its true that cyclists and distance runners would take the same types of PED's, the higher number of cyclists caught does not mean runners are cleaner either. By in large the only cyclists that are getting caught are idiots like Landis who wear a patch during a race and those caught in raids of doctors offices and rider's apartments. Do you see local police raiding the homes of distance runners? If you went off positives, then only two or three cyclists produce positives every TdeF. That is basically what you have in track, with only positive tests used to bust people. No local police involvement, no special UCI hired customs agents waiting at airports, no investigations into doctor's and manager's wearabouts. Did you know that the Russian woman who were producing those crazy middle distance times in 2008 passed every single test? The only reason they got caught was because of internal treason from within the Russian federation.

These are the facts, if a professional distance runner wants to take a blood manipulator, he/she can do so with practically no chance of ever getting caught. Even more so in medically advance countries like the US or the European countries.

I personally don't care. I love track. I love the fact that Jamaicans swept the 100 at Beijing. I love the fact that US white boys are tearing up the distances. Though I do find the two-faced manner in which Letsrunners accuse one clean athlete and defend another(white-english speakers) a little annoying.

I am most excited about the prospect of fast times for this upocoming season. Mark my words, white men and women will rewrite what is possible by those of non-African origins this summer. Just don't start crying foul when those sub 13 and 27 times are being produced by a handful of Spanish and Italians, and not just good ol' honest Americans.

what about this? wrote:

Drug testing in professional athletics is a joke.

That hasn't been my experience. I've found both USADA and UKAD testers to be thorough. Christian Cantwell famously had to give a sample the day his son was born.

I think you misunderstood my post. I meant it literally - I don't think anyone here knows the extent of doping in elite distance running, because no one here is close enough to the athletes, coaches, or agents. I don't know, I don't think anyone else willing to post on letsrun *really* knows. Everyone here is just guessing.