Kenya definitely has a doping problem. How many high-profile Ethiopians have been busted for doping, though?
Kenya definitely has a doping problem. How many high-profile Ethiopians have been busted for doping, though?
Not as extensive as the Kenyan or Moroccan list:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Ethiopian_sportspeople_in_doping_cases
spade detector wrote:
Kenya definitely has a doping problem. How many high-profile Ethiopians have been busted for doping, though?
So does Ethiopia, IMO.
Were you aware of the big doping ring broken up in Spain last June where Ethiopia had their own branch based out of Madrid? One of the athletes arrested was Gizaw Bekele. I wish more details were made available because this is Big....real Big.
https://www.efe.com/efe/english/sports/spanish-police-arrest-6-athletes-on-suspicion-of-doping-bust-dealing-ring/50000266-3657078http://www.sportsintegrityinitiative.com/spanish-police-arrest-six-athletes-anti-doping-operation/You guys are falling into the classic trap of binary--or either/or--thinking.
It's possible, perhaps even likely that many top Ethiopian runners are doping AND that Sand Dunes is a racist.
lklkj wrote:
You guys think EPO is a magic elixir.
Why don't you get on it, and get back to us when you make the Trials.
Oh, right, it won't happen, because EPO is as close to a placebo as 4% is to 4% improvement.
It's a magic elixir to another level, not necessarily the top level.
But you already know that, Jon.
here we go again wrote:
lklkj wrote:
You guys think EPO is a magic elixir.
Why don't you get on it, and get back to us when you make the Trials.
Oh, right, it won't happen, because EPO is as close to a placebo as 4% is to 4% improvement.
Thank you. It's a shame that this thread has to be about doping when it's supposed to be about Ethiopian running.
And yes EPO is a placebo but Americans need an excuse don't they?
So do Brits, Jon. That's why they dope like nobody else.
here we go again wrote:
Hopefully some time in the next few years. Especially when the general public realise that his power outputs were in the normal range.
Mine is 500W, anyone over that is on the sauce.
here we go again wrote:
Sand Dunes wrote:
Awesome, so when are we going to reinstate Lance Armstrong seven Tour Dr France wins?
Hopefully some time in the next few years. Especially when the general public realise that his power outputs were in the normal range.
If they were normal the whole group would finish in a dead heat and you'd be there too.
Sand Dunes wrote:
Not as extensive as the Kenyan or Moroccan list
Go away, racist turd.
spade detector wrote:
Kenya definitely has a doping problem. How many high-profile Ethiopians have been busted for doping, though?
See Seppelt's most recent vid, the local testing in Ethiopia is a joke.
Gumpo wrote:
I enjoyed this:
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/the-running-blog/2018/aug/15/why-ethiopias-running-success-is-about-more-than-poverty-and-altitude
I enjoyed it too, Gumpo. And I learned something from it. Very little on this forum astonishes me, but I'll confess to being surprised by how aggressively and completely the participants in this thread have missed the point. I don't know whether this is a result of abject racism--always a problem here--or a cynicism so all-encompassing that it just can't allow any air, much less intelligence in the room.
The problem with both things (racism, cynicism) is that they blind their possessors to some elements of contemporary Ethiopian running culture, as evoked by in the article by an embedded Western researcher/runner, that, if properly understood, could be adapted to contemporary American running culture. Some runners here, for example, might benefit if they followed this lead:
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
"They were constantly weighing the value of various places: the “heaviness” of the air at Mount Entoto against the expanses of grassland in Sendafa where the “kilometres come easily”. The chill of the forest against the heat of Akaki, some 800 metres lower. It was not unusual for us to sit in a bus for two hours to get to training and take four hours to struggle home again. If the environment was a factor in their success, it was not a passive “natural” advantage – runners’ engagement with their environment was active and creative.
Conversations on the relative merits of locations could go on for hours. On one occasion, I woke up on Saturday morning to find Teklemariam – who lived 20km away in Legetafo – vigorously washing his face at the outdoor tap in our compound. “What are you doing here?” I asked him, bleary-eyed at 5.45am. “I came for the hill,” he said, before adding reverentially: “It is Tirunesh’s hill,” explaining that it was where the Olympic 5,000-metre and 10,000-metre gold medallist Tirunesh Dibaba used to train.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Michael Sandrock's RUNNING TOUGH begins, as I recall, with an anecdote about Shorter and...can't remember the second runner. Rodgers? Out training in the mountains around Boulder, I believe, on a truly s--tty winter day. Cold and wet. The upshot is voiced by one of the two: "Nobody else would be out in conditions like this, but we are, and that's what the best runners do." Competing well, training to bring out your absolute best, is about spiritual discipline and spiritual seriousness. It's about taking place, as a concept--the terrain, the terroir--seriously, and about making sacrifices. It's also about the power of the group to bring out the best in the individual.
None of these concepts, individually, is foreign to American elite distance running culture. But this article shows the way in which those concepts are taken to a significantly higher level in Ethiopia, and about the way in which that "higher" becomes apparent to a non-Ethiopian runner who stays around long enough to figure that out.
Best practices. Drugging? I'm sure that goes on. Can all Ethiopian distance running success be chalked up to that? Only a fool would say that.
Read this piece and learn a few important things about how success is created, and earned.
Very well said - This is a truism which will resonate with all African distance runners- yet Americans will always subscribe to their “superior scientifically supported coaching” as evidence anyone running much faster must be doing so illegally.
KudzuRunner wrote:
Gumpo wrote:
I enjoyed this:
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/the-running-blog/2018/aug/15/why-ethiopias-running-success-is-about-more-than-poverty-and-altitudeI enjoyed it too, Gumpo. And I learned something from it. Very little on this forum astonishes me, but I'll confess to being surprised by how aggressively and completely the participants in this thread have missed the point. I don't know whether this is a result of abject racism--always a problem here--or a cynicism so all-encompassing that it just can't allow any air, much less intelligence in the room.
The problem with both things (racism, cynicism) is that they blind their possessors to some elements of contemporary Ethiopian running culture, as evoked by in the article by an embedded Western researcher/runner, that, if properly understood, could be adapted to contemporary American running culture. Some runners here, for example, might benefit if they followed this lead:
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
"They were constantly weighing the value of various places: the “heaviness” of the air at Mount Entoto against the expanses of grassland in Sendafa where the “kilometres come easily”. The chill of the forest against the heat of Akaki, some 800 metres lower. It was not unusual for us to sit in a bus for two hours to get to training and take four hours to struggle home again. If the environment was a factor in their success, it was not a passive “natural” advantage – runners’ engagement with their environment was active and creative.
Conversations on the relative merits of locations could go on for hours. On one occasion, I woke up on Saturday morning to find Teklemariam – who lived 20km away in Legetafo – vigorously washing his face at the outdoor tap in our compound. “What are you doing here?” I asked him, bleary-eyed at 5.45am. “I came for the hill,” he said, before adding reverentially: “It is Tirunesh’s hill,” explaining that it was where the Olympic 5,000-metre and 10,000-metre gold medallist Tirunesh Dibaba used to train.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Michael Sandrock's RUNNING TOUGH begins, as I recall, with an anecdote about Shorter and...can't remember the second runner. Rodgers? Out training in the mountains around Boulder, I believe, on a truly s--tty winter day. Cold and wet. The upshot is voiced by one of the two: "Nobody else would be out in conditions like this, but we are, and that's what the best runners do." Competing well, training to bring out your absolute best, is about spiritual discipline and spiritual seriousness. It's about taking place, as a concept--the terrain, the terroir--seriously, and about making sacrifices. It's also about the power of the group to bring out the best in the individual.
None of these concepts, individually, is foreign to American elite distance running culture. But this article shows the way in which those concepts are taken to a significantly higher level in Ethiopia, and about the way in which that "higher" becomes apparent to a non-Ethiopian runner who stays around long enough to figure that out.
Best practices. Drugging? I'm sure that goes on. Can all Ethiopian distance running success be chalked up to that? Only a fool would say that.
Read this piece and learn a few important things about how success is created, and earned.
KudzuRunner wrote:
Gumpo wrote:
I enjoyed this:
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/the-running-blog/2018/aug/15/why-ethiopias-running-success-is-about-more-than-poverty-and-altitudeI enjoyed it too, Gumpo. And I learned something from it. Very little on this forum astonishes me, but I'll confess to being surprised by how aggressively and completely the participants in this thread have missed the point. I don't know whether this is a result of abject racism--always a problem here--or a cynicism so all-encompassing that it just can't allow any air, much less intelligence in the room.
The problem with both things (racism, cynicism) is that they blind their possessors to some elements of contemporary Ethiopian running culture, as evoked by in the article by an embedded Western researcher/runner, that, if properly understood, could be adapted to contemporary American running culture. Some runners here, for example, might benefit if they followed this lead:
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
"They were constantly weighing the value of various places: the “heaviness” of the air at Mount Entoto against the expanses of grassland in Sendafa where the “kilometres come easily”. The chill of the forest against the heat of Akaki, some 800 metres lower. It was not unusual for us to sit in a bus for two hours to get to training and take four hours to struggle home again. If the environment was a factor in their success, it was not a passive “natural” advantage – runners’ engagement with their environment was active and creative.
Conversations on the relative merits of locations could go on for hours. On one occasion, I woke up on Saturday morning to find Teklemariam – who lived 20km away in Legetafo – vigorously washing his face at the outdoor tap in our compound. “What are you doing here?” I asked him, bleary-eyed at 5.45am. “I came for the hill,” he said, before adding reverentially: “It is Tirunesh’s hill,” explaining that it was where the Olympic 5,000-metre and 10,000-metre gold medallist Tirunesh Dibaba used to train.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Michael Sandrock's RUNNING TOUGH begins, as I recall, with an anecdote about Shorter and...can't remember the second runner. Rodgers? Out training in the mountains around Boulder, I believe, on a truly s--tty winter day. Cold and wet. The upshot is voiced by one of the two: "Nobody else would be out in conditions like this, but we are, and that's what the best runners do." Competing well, training to bring out your absolute best, is about spiritual discipline and spiritual seriousness. It's about taking place, as a concept--the terrain, the terroir--seriously, and about making sacrifices. It's also about the power of the group to bring out the best in the individual.
None of these concepts, individually, is foreign to American elite distance running culture. But this article shows the way in which those concepts are taken to a significantly higher level in Ethiopia, and about the way in which that "higher" becomes apparent to a non-Ethiopian runner who stays around long enough to figure that out.
Best practices. Drugging? I'm sure that goes on. Can all Ethiopian distance running success be chalked up to that? Only a fool would say that.
Read this piece and learn a few important things about how success is created, and earned.
The runners in question were Shorter and Pre and they were delusional to believe nobody else was training harder than they were at that moment. Both of them lost multiple times to runners working just as hard or harder.
You're right: others were working just as hard, or harder--if not in America, then in Finland and North and East Africa. But they believed it. That's what I mean by spiritual seriousness. As opposed to the "they're all doping and that's all I need to know" copout retailed by your (sub)average LR'er.
Shorter and Pre have earned their way into the record books and the mythology. No apologies needed. They got it.
That was an excellent article and told me more about the general level of Ethiopian running than dozens of typical articles. It is extremely competitive just to get on a club team. Doping is a serious issue, however, on the elite level in Ethiopia where Jos Hermens and other foreign agents have their claws in the top runners, from Geb to Bekele and others. There is so little testing as of yet that we know little of what is the case, but EPO is readily available in country, even right by the national stadium where the trials were being held. Try 12:37 going solo the last 3k. And Hermens has his athletes go to Healing Hans.
KudzuRunner wrote:
You're right: others were working just as hard, or harder--if not in America, then in Finland and North and East Africa. But they believed it. That's what I mean by spiritual seriousness. As opposed to the "they're all doping and that's all I need to know" copout retailed by your (sub)average LR'er.
Shorter and Pre have earned their way into the record books and the mythology. No apologies needed. They got it.
Um, Shorter is still whining about Cierpinski doping.
Great response (along with your previous post).
KudzuRunner wrote:
Gumpo wrote:
I enjoyed this:
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/the-running-blog/2018/aug/15/why-ethiopias-running-success-is-about-more-than-poverty-and-altitudeI enjoyed it too, Gumpo. And I learned something from it. Very little on this forum astonishes me, but I'll confess to being surprised by how aggressively and completely the participants in this thread have missed the point. I don't know whether this is a result of abject racism--always a problem here--or a cynicism so all-encompassing that it just can't allow any air, much less intelligence in the room.
The problem with both things (racism, cynicism) is that they blind their possessors to some elements of contemporary Ethiopian running culture, as evoked by in the article by an embedded Western researcher/runner, that, if properly understood, could be adapted to contemporary American running culture. Some runners here, for example, might benefit if they followed this lead:
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
"They were constantly weighing the value of various places: the “heaviness” of the air at Mount Entoto against the expanses of grassland in Sendafa where the “kilometres come easily”. The chill of the forest against the heat of Akaki, some 800 metres lower. It was not unusual for us to sit in a bus for two hours to get to training and take four hours to struggle home again. If the environment was a factor in their success, it was not a passive “natural” advantage – runners’ engagement with their environment was active and creative.
Conversations on the relative merits of locations could go on for hours. On one occasion, I woke up on Saturday morning to find Teklemariam – who lived 20km away in Legetafo – vigorously washing his face at the outdoor tap in our compound. “What are you doing here?” I asked him, bleary-eyed at 5.45am. “I came for the hill,” he said, before adding reverentially: “It is Tirunesh’s hill,” explaining that it was where the Olympic 5,000-metre and 10,000-metre gold medallist Tirunesh Dibaba used to train.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Michael Sandrock's RUNNING TOUGH begins, as I recall, with an anecdote about Shorter and...can't remember the second runner. Rodgers? Out training in the mountains around Boulder, I believe, on a truly s--tty winter day. Cold and wet. The upshot is voiced by one of the two: "Nobody else would be out in conditions like this, but we are, and that's what the best runners do." Competing well, training to bring out your absolute best, is about spiritual discipline and spiritual seriousness. It's about taking place, as a concept--the terrain, the terroir--seriously, and about making sacrifices. It's also about the power of the group to bring out the best in the individual.
None of these concepts, individually, is foreign to American elite distance running culture. But this article shows the way in which those concepts are taken to a significantly higher level in Ethiopia, and about the way in which that "higher" becomes apparent to a non-Ethiopian runner who stays around long enough to figure that out.
Best practices. Drugging? I'm sure that goes on. Can all Ethiopian distance running success be chalked up to that? Only a fool would say that.
Read this piece and learn a few important things about how success is created, and earned.
This is the usual "the East Africans train so much harder" BS that we have heard for decades. Well, since the mid-90s thousands of European and American runners have travelled to Eldoret, Iten or other magical places to do that superhuman training and very little has happened.
I remembered an interview with Marius Bakken, who would train for months every year in Kenya, and when some of their best 5000 runners (several of them sub-13 guys) tried to do his training with 200 km weeks with 6 threshold type sessions every week they were only able to do it for a week, and then they left him with the words "you´re crazy".
Not just Kenya...but also Ethiopia wrote:
spade detector wrote:
Kenya definitely has a doping problem. How many high-profile Ethiopians have been busted for doping, though?
So does Ethiopia, IMO.
Were you aware of the big doping ring broken up in Spain last June where Ethiopia had their own branch based out of Madrid? One of the athletes arrested was Gizaw Bekele. I wish more details were made available because this is Big....real Big.
https://www.efe.com/efe/english/sports/spanish-police-arrest-6-athletes-on-suspicion-of-doping-bust-dealing-ring/50000266-3657078http://www.sportsintegrityinitiative.com/spanish-police-arrest-six-athletes-anti-doping-operation/
I agree that testing it poor and that doping meds would be easy to come by in Ethiopia, but I just haven't seen enough busts of their athletes to think it is as big of a problem as it is in Kenya. I find it odd when people lump the two countries together.
But we have seen numerous busts of Ethiopians running for Turkey, Spain and other European countries but a surprisingly low level of domestic Ethiopians, though they are still training together. Then we hear that the testing is near zilch, this explains it.