they were not tested. In conjunction with government-sponsored dopper programs it is like old GDR!
they were not tested. In conjunction with government-sponsored dopper programs it is like old GDR!
Ethiopian Federation is not testing their elite athletes during preseason camps. (October-November to March).
They are tested only "in competition" periods. (WC's, Olympics, Diamond League, etc)
wejo wrote:
I read all the Sunday Times stories last night and they gave much more perspective. We're going to see if they can be republished on LetsRun.com.
Some factors are more alarming after reading the whole thing, in terms of cover-ups.
I'm in the Minnesota wilderness but some highlights:
The 2 experts marked samples as "yellow" = suspicious and requiring more follow up (they said this indicated a 1/1000 chance of being natural) or red = "likely to be doping".
(Side note, 1/1000 to me seems like it would be likely to be doping so I'd like to ask them more about this).
The amount of suspicious tests (this is only for athletes with abnormal blood values indicating possible blood boosting/doping, the experts did nothing to look at steroid usage) by country
Russia 415, Ukraine 102, Morocco 82, Spain 81, Kenya 77, Turkey 52, Greece 42, Belarus 42, Romania 32, Portugal 32, USA 32, Britain 12
So Kenya gets a ton of attention, but it is less suspicious as a country than Morocco or Spain who have a lot less top level athletes. USA is nearly half the level of Kenya.
Am I surprised it is easy to get EPO in Kenya? No. The more troubling aspects to all of this for me are possible coverups.
I don't think athletes could be sanctioned for these offenses until 2009 and it says since 2009 70 athletes have had suspicious values and not received the proper scrutiny. That is the part that is alarming to me.
But the good thing it it would mean by the vast majority of these things were before 2009. So since 2009 when athletes new they could get sanctioned the most blatant cheating has stopped.
****
The paper also talks about "Off-scores" and its a measure of whether the blood values are natural. It talks abut 1/10000 chances and 1/100,000 chances. I think at that level we should be sanctioning athletes unless it means 1/10000 athletes can have blood values like that.
It says Andy Baddeley was beaten by an athlete with a 158 off score which means 1/million chance of being clean. If the precision is really that accurate all of these people should be sanctioned.
They talked to Lisa Dobriskey at length and talked about how she was battling with 2 likely dopers without naming the person or the race. Dobriskey was never 3rd at a major championship but was 2nd at Worlds and 4th at the Olympics.
2008 Olympics
1. Nancy Langat KEN
2. Irina Lishschinska UKR
3. Nataliya Tobias UKR
4. Lisa Dobriskey
2009 1. Maryam Yusuf JAMAL BRN
2. Lisa DOBRISKEY GBR
3. Shannon ROWBURY USA
4. Nuria FERNÁNDEZ ESP
Now the way the article is written most likely it is a race where 2 people beat her. But I didn't need leaked blood values to tell you the 2008 Olympics silver and bronze were very suspicious. 7 years later I've never heard of them.
And that reminds me of the LRC doping polls:
http://www.letsrun.com/tag/doping-poll/One British athlete gets singled out, the newspapers points to blood doping with their own blood as being a possibility. The athlete says they'd sue if their name came out and the paper says a later test was investigated by an Iaaf panel that looked at their results and 11 out of 12 experts cleared them saying it could come from training at altitude.
***
The IAAF spends 5% of its income on anti-doping. They act like this is very little but I bet it blows away other sports with perhaps the exception of cycling. Anyone know figures for other sports?
Kenya gets more suspicion because when Moroccans are caught for example, they're punished. Those poor Kenyans - if a big name - are generally given a behind the scenes slap on the wrist and told to lay off the sauce, so they come up with stories of car accidents and injuries and the like as cover for performances that aren't at the athlete's previous record breaking levels.
The Ngeny story started with NBC employees at the 2000 Games who heard that Ngeny had tested positive and then quick and quiet hush hush operations went into effect to preserve the sport's image, "poor" Kenya's image, etc. And Ngeny supposedly has an accident that sees him running fast but not near record times anymore. Sure, could be a rumor, but we see it over and over again with athletes after hearing they were popped. Oh, it's just a nasty rumor, but the athlete never performs at their previous high levels again, they're suffering from injury, surgery and so on. Sure.
It isn't only Kenyans obviously, but some of the things we used to see in the heyday of EPO use have tailed off. Don't see top guys running sub 13 to finish off a 10k, or even too many guys capable of sub 12:50 do we?
The sport is a mess, and the guilty parties should be punished, this includes E. Africans who have had a field day when it comes to missing out of season testing, spot testing.
aduck2022 wrote:
Something smells fishy .........
ZERO Ethiopians on list is just not possibl
to obvious that list leaked on purpose
with massive agenda.
pushing the russia bad senario once again
seb coe has it in the bag and
If this is the lengths that iaaf go to
then doping only going to get worse...
Incomplete breakdown, and there are certain PC agendas in place that align with policies that are far bigger than athletics itself. A lot of what is seen on the track and in certain sports is part of an ongoing socialization program, get people believing certain things, make a certain group slowly but surely feel they can't compete here, then there, then in something else as things are turned up by degree.
Gideon wrote:
Just getting up to speed on this article, but it also stood out to me that Ethiopia is not on the list. Was trying to think of any Ethiopians who have been busted, and I cannot recall any. Does anyone know of any?
Also surprised Algeria is not listed; I always thought they were about as dirty as Morocco.
Incomplete list. Look at the Algerians who have been caught...
ethiopianrunning wrote:
The Ethiopian runners that live and train in Ethiopia are clean. They are superior runners compared to the rest of the world. The Ethiopians will reclaim gold in both the men's and women's in the 5k and 10k at WC.---No gold for Mo Bot.
Considering Jos Hermens has been plying his trade there for so long, referring to them as the Epopians is likely accurate.
I use to think the East African's were clean purely because on economics and a lack of chemists and pharmacist, but when I think about how easy it is to get EPO, HGH and anything else in Mexico, that kind of blows my theory out of the window. It is easier to get pharmaceuticals in 3rd world countries than in the U.S. There are Mexican-based online pharmacies that advertise banned drugs and provide instructions on how to avoid dictation.
its my belief that most top athletes are on something.They need to be,to be competitive.Thats only my opinion of course.The russian and ukranian results dont suprise me,but there should be a hell of a lot more americans and brits on the list than that,hundreds more.And if the kenyans are a nation of cheaters,the ethiopians are,too.
Shmorgesborg wrote:
The singled out athlete is clearly Paula. But I believe that she just got unlucky and that a 1 in 10,000 event of bad luck happened to her...because Wejo swore she was clean.
Everyone trains at altitude. How do her values get so drastically higher than everyone else's?
I didn't swear she was clean. I said I strongly thought she was.
I have said all along what Paula told me, "You only know about yourself."
If she is the suspicious athlete, I think the data should be published and she can explain it. What her blood data was is a factual thing. That is why I think it should be public for all athletes. Instead, we have people guessing who it was since the Times decided to clear certain people but not others.
wejo wrote:
[quote]["If she is the suspicious athlete, I think the data should be published and she can explain it. What her blood data was is a factual thing. That is why I think it should be public for all athletes. Instead, we have people guessing who it was since the Times decided to clear certain people but not others.
The editorial in the NY Times yesterday by Ross Tucker and Jonathan Dugas, which might have been referenced already--sorry if I missed it--makes exactly this point. Transparency and more data, along with (in my opinion) harsher punishments in terms of 5-6 year bans are the only way to move toward a cleaner sport. Even then, of course there are still going to be cheaters, but at least this will make it harder, and begin to remove the sense that you "must" dope in order to be competitive. (this is also Nick Willis's point in the article referenced on Let's Run's front page.)
The per capita stats are pointless.
The denominator should be # of athletes tested I think
Ben L Wrong wrote:
Ethiopian Federation is not testing their elite athletes during preseason camps. (October-November to March).
They are tested only "in competition" periods. (WC's, Olympics, Diamond League, etc)
In the absence of a national anti-doping agency, the IAAF will test athletes in the testing pool year round, wherever they are. The testers for Ethiopians fly up from South Africa.
jeff tallon wrote:
its my belief that most top athletes are on something.They need to be,to be competitive.Thats only my opinion of course.The russian and ukranian results dont suprise me,but there should be a hell of a lot more americans and brits on the list than that,hundreds more.And if the kenyans are a nation of cheaters,the ethiopians are,too.
Some are, but not most. People aren't that great at keeping secrets.
So to summarize your early findings: Suspect everyone, but keep your dirty doubting mind off Paula. Thats just an anomaly....got it.
Tommy2Nuttz wrote:
So to summarize your early findings: Suspect everyone, but keep your dirty doubting mind off Paula. Thats just an anomaly....got it.
That is now what I said. I have written at length on why I was open to Paula being clean despite running 3 minutes faster than any other woman.
I think you are misreading what Wejo has said. He is explicit in saying that he welcomes scrutiny of Paula and examination of her blood values. I think the reason why IAAF does not act on suspicious results is having the proof beyond reasonable doubt. They way the report was published, one would have thought that the Kenyans doped more than anyone. Germans invented doping and yet they do not dope?
Tommy2Nuttz wrote:
So to summarize your early findings: Suspect everyone, but keep your dirty doubting mind off Paula. Thats just an anomaly....got it.
I find the number of Americans (32), if accurate, to be quite depressing. I'm assuming this number is for people in the 800 and up and not sprinters who were taking EPO as part of their Conte cocktails?
How many athletes have we had between 2001 and 2012 who could make a WC or Olympic final in the distances? 150-200? Am I wrong to assume many of the suspicious levels probably came from this caliber of athlete?
Finally, in the video one of the columns of blood data appeared to show hematocrit levels. I noticed quite a few values in the mid 50s (WTF!), didn't cycling red flag anything above 50 when they were in the midst of their doping scandal a few years back?
Zero ethiopians on list impossible.....
this is biggest scandal
Talking zero suspicous blood values only
not " zero failed drug tests " .
no way bekele had anything under mid 50
hct , would that not be suspicous values.
regardless of all other parametera normal
cant think of any failed tests which very
believeable considering ethiopia is more about quality over quantity.
all from same close training groups and managers being main way they have access to dope otherwise not as easy.
can one walk into pharmacy in ethiopia the
same as kenya.
Showes how important image of ethiopian
athletics is first ,country then athlete.
a failed test can not happen
very talented but they run a tight show.
wejo wrote:
Portugal 32
Surprised that no one is talking more about this result. A small country (and economically poor by western European standards) with a population of just 10 million throws out as many abnormal blood tests as the US. Makes you wonder about all of their ditance running heroes ...
Above the question was posed regarding the population on which the 'normal' values are based.
A huge portion of the blood tests listed in the data will be from the establishment period between 2001 and 2009 when the IAAF and WADA were gathering data. At every WC's and OG's they tested representatives from each competing nation with the sole purpose of using the results to provide an understanding on the expected blood sample within the elite population.
I was one of those tested at WXC 2005 in France. Athletes were asking questions about why so many athletes were getting random blood tests prior to the comp and one of the WADA representatives explained what they were doing and that the blood samples were not for testing but for this bio-passport research.
Hope that helps.