8 UK athletes (inc. Farah) release blood test data

Factually Incorrect wrote:

".....but his late 2010 26:47 seems fairly normal for a 12:53 guy)"

Mo ran a PB of 27:28 in 2010

His 26:46 was in 2011.

Oops, this one's my bad. I got the years confused.

The point still stands though: 26:46 is about what you'd expect from a 12:53 guy. Rotich has 12:55/26:43. Merga 12:53/26:48. Hell, Rupp's 12:58/26:44.

Dibaba & Farah have shown it's worth entering all the events. I was a sprinter but I still liked to know my 4, 8, 1500 times etc. and get a full picture of where I was at. Would be nice to have the same for peak Lagat, Bekele, other Dibabas etc.

I even did cross country even though I wasn't that great at it!

eh... wrote:

Opinionated guy wrote:

Hmmm, join this group and almost immediately drop huge chunks of time in your races.

Just like Mary Cain?

For context please see the subject heading of this thread.

I'm not willing to say he's clean yet; he still willingly joined Salazar's group, where he went from world elite to unbeatable.

With that said, I now give him a much higher chance of either being legally clean or operating in a 'grey' area (and not outright doping) than I gave him a year ago. (The BBC piece on the NOP didn't actually reveal much I didn't already know. Hence why the very act of joining the NOP raises suspicion with me). I'm honestly considering the idea that Rupp was doping but Mo wasn't.

Mo way wrote:

I watched Mo progress through his late teens and early 20's, he was a good runner but if somebody had told me he'd be double world champ I'd have laughed in their face, he wasn't even particularly outstanding at National level and was often in the shadow of Chris Thompson. He also never had a kick, he wS a pretty big standard 1500 metre guy well into his mid 20's.

13:09 in 2006

12:57 in 2010

12:53 (PB) in 2011

13:41 in 2012

If you look at youtube videos of him between 2006 and 2012 you can see gradual progress on his kick.

amateur runner dabbling in all events = precisely analogous to an Olympic 10000m champion being the 8th fastest person in history at 1500m, the most competitive and prestigious track event aside from the 100m.

These off-scores tell us nothing when not given with the hct and rct scores.

Mo Farah progression at world and Olympic level.

2000: 10th 5000m World Juniors

2001: 59th X-country World Juniors

2003: 74th. X-country Worlds (short race)

2005: 37th. X-country Worlds (long race)

2006: 40th. X-country Worlds (short race)

2007: 6th. 5000m World Champs

2008: Eliminated in heats 5000m Olympics

2009: 7th. 5000m World Champs

2010: 20th. X-country Worlds

2011: 1st. 5000m Worlds

2011: 2nd. 10000m Worlds

2012: 1st. 5000m Olympics

2012: 1st. 10000m Olympics

2013: 1st. 5000m Worlds

2013:1st. 100000m Worlds

So 11 years after coming 10th at World Juniors and never being placing higher than mid-pack in any event at World level, Farah at the age of 28 becomes one of the most dominant distance runners in history? Perfectly normal

Scores on the doors wrote:

These off-scores tell us nothing when not given with the hct and rct scores.

Good point. What conditions could give us a high off score? This explains it well, but is 4 years old. You can have a high off score either from too much old blood, or having some drained.

Presumably by now they know a bit more about whether anything legit (dehydration after a huge session, altitude, illness?) can legitimately bump a score up. I don't think a series of scores is informative without knowing the context - which the IAAF does know, but the Sunday Times doesn't.

Full picture wrote:

So 11 years after coming 10th at World Juniors and never being placing higher than mid-pack in any event at World level, Farah at the age of 28 becomes one of the most dominant distance runners in history? Perfectly normal

The results you posted don't disprove the argument for Farah. His defenders agree with you that Farah started placing much higher in big races around 28. They argue that his better results did not come from a big jump in his overall fitness, but from a small jump in his closing speed. This jump allowed him to start winning tactical races, races that he couldn't win earlier because he got outkicked.

In other words, Farah is only dominant because he can outkick guys in tactical races. He still can't compete in time trials at the longer distances.

I am not saying this argument is right. I am just saying that you can't disprove it by pointing to the feature of his career that everyone agrees needs explaining -- the big jump his races placements starting around age 28.

To see whether this story makes sense we need to know two things. First, we need more to know his times and especially his splits, so we see if his improvement really is only in his closing speed. Once we know exactly where he improved, and by how much, we can then ask how likely it is to improve that much without drugs.

In other words: More data!

Mo will never get respect round here , dont hold your breath on it

Just to make it easier.... wrote:

Could shorten this whole conversation if you named an athlete with a similar career progression to Mo. Any track event.

carlos lopes

3:28

Twice

After the age of 30

Lopes got beat plenty of times after 76.

Another thing it allows is for us to get a 'best fit' with for example Ventolin's numbers. For Farah, we even have his 100m time on TV (I think 12.98)!

That's basically top to bottom. Radcliffe I think we also know her PBs from 400m to Marathon. Thus we can see her slope of VO2 max and slow twitch.

Interestingly, Colin Jackson has 25% fast twitch (Jamaican heritage).

While we're just throwing out wild allegations Nick Willis strikes me as the typical sneaky doper.

I'm guessing you're saying that on the basis of Nick Willis going from mid-pack to completely unbeatable at the age of 28? And those 5 world and Olympic golds he's got? And being top 10 in history at an event he doesn't train for? This miraculous transformation all coming after he started working with a coach who's faced numerous accusations of playing fast and loose with with doping rules. The same coach who runs experiments on how much androgel you can use before triggering a positive test.

Or maybe Nick Willis isn't all that much like Mo. Mo spanks him over 1500m for starters

Nick was far better credentialed as a junior than Farah.

If only he had "gradually improved his kick" like Farah did