225 Athletes from 39 Countries Implicated in Doping

What on earth do lawyers have to do with preventing names being released? The names should be made public immediately and then the athletes and their coaches and managers should try and explain how their blood-test results were so off the charts. A panel of scientists, physiologists and doctors could determine whether the explanations are reasonable or not and there would be absolutely no need for any lawyer to be involved in this affair.

Most likely, some of the suspicious samples are not indicative of actual doping. Samples were given different color codes depending on the level of suspicion. Anyone know the breakdown?

Relevant portions of the Telegraph article:

That whistle-blower claimed that the abnormal blood values, not thought to be enough themselves to prove doping, should have been followed up with target-testing of the athletes in question…..It can now be revealed that three British athletes’ names appear on various types of documents, with the major star’s identity recorded under a heading “Suspicion red” and a second competitor appearing under “Suspicion orange”. The third athlete appears on a page headed “M suspicious 2007”, which includes detailed readings of the competitor’s blood values.

Representatives for the biggest of those names continued to ignore requests for comment on Wednesday……Whether it would be possible to interpret the information beyond that remains to be seen, particularly in individual cases, where the reasons for abnormal blood values are many and are often perfectly innocent. When samples are taken – particularly at what point in an athlete’s training cycle – is one such factor. Illness could be another.

'When samples are taken particularly at what point in an athletes training cycle is one such factor. Illness could be another.'

It's even possible that it could be EPO, of course that is not very likely

Meh. This will all be water under the bridge soon.

1) It shows that they DGAF about busting athletes if they have such egregious lack of controls in following up on suspicious blood testing levels. That's really the only damning point. The names on the list won't matter.

2) No bans will result from the list being released.

3) Because of #2, only ardent followers of the sport (that didn't already think it was rife with doping) will believe those on the list to now be tainted.

4) At least a few on the list likely have legitimate reasons for having suspicious findings, but will get lumped in with the dopers. Given how small the population of #3 is, it won't mean anything that a small group now believes them to be suspect.

Rinse, wash, repeat.

This is Jamaican me crazy!!!!!

Link wrote:

Suppose every one of the top athletes for the last 25 years was doped. What do we do?

Stop believing in dope pushers. You, the coaches and the athletes are all brainwashed by the druggie dogma.

The real 'performance enhancer' is completely natural. It's called adrenalin. Look it up.

No, I'm not J.R. she is obviously fixated on Paula Radcliffe, I'm sure Paula's blood values were normal.

Terrible sport wrote:

Remove race walking as a sport please. It looks insane and it doesn't make sense to have it as all proper endurance athletes run, swim or cycle.

And all the walkers are doped up. Ridiculous sport

You are correct about "walkers are doped up"; doping in the RW is rampant. WADA has put so much of its resources into running that walking was almost overlooked especially when it comes to OOC testing.

so...in a year...

with all the russian women gone, the E Africans probably decimated, the jamaicans disappearing...the '15 WC and '16 OG are going to be fascinating. Could this be the return of Americans and West Europeans to the podium?

If real housecleaning goes on and the sport doesn't implode, this is fantastic news for the cleanish countries. For fans of US distance running, this is what we have been waiting for.

Yes all of the little countries that haven't won in years could make the finals of events. Maybe India produces a finalist in something.....

Drugs,Drugs,Drugs! wrote:

Yes all of the little countries that haven't won in years could make the finals of events. Maybe India produces a finalist in something.....

ha

india is usually the country with the most drug suspensions

A start wrote:

What on earth do lawyers have to do with preventing names being released? The names should be made public immediately and then the athletes and their coaches and managers should try and explain how their blood-test results were so off the charts. A panel of scientists, physiologists and doctors could determine whether the explanations are reasonable or not and there would be absolutely no need for any lawyer to be involved in this affair.

Libel laws are a lot lot stricter in many European countries. The burden is on the accuser to prove the allegations are true, rather than the accused to prove they are not.

Therefore if you accused say, PR, of taking drugs online you would either need undisputed proof or big pockets to fork out for legal costs, win or lose.

Link wrote:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/athletics/11286600/Fail-to-tackle-this-Russian-doping-crisis-and-athletics-will-never-recover.html

has it right. This story ought to be HUGE. The fact that it has only attracted a couple of dozen comments here on the LRMB is indicative of how jaded we all are. Let's take the (now likely... )extreme case: Suppose every one of the top athletes for the last 25 years was doped. What do we do?

I agree. I don't understand how people remain hard-core fans of the sport (or any professional sport, for that matter). How clear does it need to be made that everybody who reaches the pinnacle of their sport is most likely cheating? The sheer numbers of athletes being identified as dirty - and keep in mind, it's only the unlucky or stupid ones who get caught - mean it doesn't require a mind-blowing feat of extrapolation to conclude that more or less all of them are dirty.

It's not just a few bad apples who turned to the dark side. Cheating is what people do when the motivation is sufficient. But fans of T & F will happily move from one doping scandal to the next, still pretending that the sport is mostly clean, and that their favorite athlete would never cheat because they're too nice or too religious, too much like them - until they do get busted, and then they find somebody new to worship.

Iceberg Tip wrote:

The sheer numbers of athletes being identified as dirty...

It's not just a few bad apples who turned to the dark side.

It's athletes and officials. Momentum is building:

Top IAAF trio quit over drugs scandal

Here are reasons to follow the sport and why doesn't necessarily take willfull ignorance to have some faith in the sport.

1) these tests were a long time ago - 2006-2008.

They are in fact before the passport became operational. Now that the passport is operational, there is reason to think things are better. In fact, look at how crappy the russian women did in individual female running events at the 213 WC (in Moscow!) - 1 silver 1 bronze. Is that not evidence that the passaporte is working? Probably but hard to say.

2) I believe there are 2,500 people in athletics at the OG. these 255 suspicious tests weren't necc. from that group - probably a large amount of them did not compete at the WC or OG. So the % of these suspicious tests who actually competed for medals could be low. Point is 255 is a large number but hard to know if they are A list people, B list, C list, etc...

3) Since no A list US distance men or women have been caught for many, many years, it is not crazy to root for them. So I root for Jenny S or Mary Cain or Ritz. I don't think they are doping. You can probably say the same for Canada and Australia and japan and maybe the UK. I don't really root for east african women any more - that seems blown.

From a source, the article is legit and this information has been known about among a select group for quite some time, but the WADA/IAAF chose not to make it public. Here are a few caveats:

1. It is inaccurate to say there was a cover up, WADA/IAAF has already acted upon this information in cases where they could and in the other cases the information is still being processed. WADA/IAAF chose not make public information that can't be acted upon at this time, which makes sense to me.

2. The BP program in a general sense has thresholds which show inconsistencies, anomalies to improbable. To the best of my knowledge, there is no such thing as an outright positive. Up to now the BP results have been used to collaborate other information and/or to lunch an investigation, which has resulted in at the very least some analytical positives.

3. What the BP program has done and will most likely do with most of the recent Olympics/WC results is, there will be athletes who are not pronounced as positive, but are made aware their BP results and they either get off of what they are on or are 'asked' not to compete in IAAF events. I mentioned this some time ago and got a lot of push back, but I am almost certain that this is what has already happened with 2 athletes. Think of a few uninjured elite athletes who for some unknown reason can’t come close to their form from a previous season. Also, think of a few uninjured elite athletes who unceremoniously left the sport at what should have been the prime of their career. This will give you the 2 athletes I know of and it's probably the case with many other athletes as well.

4. My source does not much more about the contents of the article than what was in the article; however, he believes the IAAF will now have to move quicker on whatever actions they intended to take and make a public statement soon. The public statement will not contains names; however, most likely the list doesn't contain too many well-known athletes because that would have leaked already in the same way that the fact the IAAF had a list.

...and another thing - I don't believe that there is any distinction in events here. If 90% of throwers and sprinters were doping in some way I would not be surprised - I have given up on throwing and sprinting as hopeless.

the Kenya and Ethiopia red flags are troubling - of course those are distance runners.

agip wrote:

...and another thing - I don't believe that there is any distinction in events here. If 90% of throwers and sprinters were doping in some way I would not be surprised - I have given up on throwing and sprinting as hopeless.

the Kenya and Ethiopia red flags are troubling - of course those are distance runners.

These 250 odd are from 400 upwards aren't they? Along with multi-events?

I don't think there are any on the list from other events.

Could be wrong though.

This is indeed getting bigger by the day.

trollism wrote:

agip wrote:

...and another thing - I don't believe that there is any distinction in events here. If 90% of throwers and sprinters were doping in some way I would not be surprised - I have given up on throwing and sprinting as hopeless.

the Kenya and Ethiopia red flags are troubling - of course those are distance runners.

These 250 odd are from 400 upwards aren't they? Along with multi-events?

I don't think there are any on the list from other events.

Could be wrong though.

hmmm the writing in the article is strange but you're right - it does seem that it is 400 meters and up:

WDR’s whistle-blower focused on readings taken between 2006 and 2008 but the full documents show some were obtained as early as 2001.

...but another point to be made - some of these readings went as far back as 2001! That's the EPO era, no? in any case, it was a long time ago.

and the 3 london winners? could be all the walkers, most likely.

I should stop trying to shoot down this report. but it is important to understand exactly what it says.