Clemence Calvin - who allegedly refused a doping test last month - sets new French NR of 2:23:41 in Paris

rekrunner wrote:

"leave the East Africans in the dust"?

Did she though?

She took 4th place behind an Ethiopian sweep, running 2:23:41. To put it in perspective, this is more than 2 minutes slower than Joan Benoit Samuelson and Ingrid Kristiansen ran in 1985. This time puts her well outside of the top-100 all time women marathoners.

So you think that suspicion of a French athlete just goes to show that East Africans are doping? Isn't that the same kind of logic that leads you to call El Keniano (and others) racist? Why are you in so much denial about the massive doping problem in the rest of the world?

I didn't say anything about a French athlete proving that East Africans doping. Have you gone crazy? At least you were mildly logical before and didn't resort to outright lies.

I base the fact that Africans are doping on the constant flow of doping busts coming out of Kenya (and previously Morocco), which has turned into a torrent since standards were raised to even minimal levels (if you count an anti-doping system that involves paying tea money and 24 hour text warnings of 'unannounced random tests' as minimal standards).

Where is the proof that there is a 'massive doping problem in the rest of the world'? You've given me one example of a French woman married to a Moroccan runner, who misses a test in Morocco. That's almost as bad as claiming that it's Chris Froome's case that proves that Kenyan runners are all doping.

How many Africans finished behind this Frenchwoman who jut set the national record? And you know I was referring predominantly to your wife Paula.

Why are you demanding 'proof' etc when you're stating the contrary position to the IAAF, most athletics fans, the general public, Kenyan athletes themselves, and even the majority of people here? (that doping is no worse in Kenya than elsewhere).

long time lurker wrote:

Training in Morocco ? Yeah as if that's not suspicious as hell.

Why was she in Marrakesh? Unless there is a real good reason, I'd ban her for that alone. Seriously, everyone knows that virtually every Moroccan used to be on EPO.

Can someone tell us why she was in Morocco to begin with?

As for the rest of this thread, what does Paula Radcliffe have to do with any of this? If we are having a thread debating the merits of lack thereof of Donald Trump, talk about George W Bush sucking or excelling as a president are pointless.

zxcvcxzv wrote:

This one is hard to fathom. How could they let her run right after catching her? Now the national record is bogus.

Here, "they" was France's Council of State, which has no interest in the national record. Basically they said that she can't get punished before being able to defend herself.

Now the ball is back in the AFLD's court.

rekrunner wrote:

So you think that suspicion of a French athlete just goes to show that East Africans are doping? Isn't that the same kind of logic that leads you to call El Keniano (and others) racist? Why are you in so much denial about the massive doping problem in the rest of the world?

Rekrunner believes that the UK has a 'massive doping problem' and yet steadfastly defends Paula as clean.

Hmmmm...

Coevett wrote:

Have you gone crazy? At least you were mildly logical before and didn't resort to outright lies.

You must be new here.

Coevett wrote:

Where is the proof that there is a 'massive doping problem in the rest of the world'?

You must be new to the sport.

She was training in Morocco after a training camp in Kenya.

What really raises a red flag is that she turned down a doping test in March to ratify a 5km record.

Also, she was already nearly suspended for three missed tests, but her lawyer got her off.

A lot of wierd stuff going on...

Yurp wrote:

What really raises a red flag is that she turned down a doping test in March to ratify a 5km record.

Also, she was already nearly suspended for three missed tests, but her lawyer got her off. .

I thought that 3 missed tests within a certain period of time was an automatic ban - Farah was having to pull the busted doorbell excuse because he had missed only 2 tests before London 2012. What excuses were made in this case?

rojo wrote:

long time lurker wrote:

Training in Morocco ? Yeah as if that's not suspicious as hell.

Why was she in Marrakesh? Unless there is a real good reason, I'd ban her for that alone. Seriously, everyone knows that virtually every Moroccan used to be on EPO.

Can someone tell us why she was in Morocco to begin with?

She was in Ifrane. Well-known place to train for Europeans : elevation and good weather. The FFA (French federation) even had an official training week planned there for their athletes in April (probably because the track in Font-Romeu is unavailable for the moment) but decided to cancel it after this Calvin-gate.

Also well-known place for doping, with a drugstore just in front of the track and the border guys calling the coaches as soon as anti-doping people land in the country.

Kevin Meyer reacts to claims that comprehensive systems are in place to support doping by a majority of French elites (

https://www.lequipe.fr/Athletisme/Actualites/Dopage-kevin-mayer-charge-patrick-montel-sur-les-reseaux-sociaux/1006865

Again, my big issue is that Western countries claim the moral high ground based on supposed superior OOC testing and the (ridiculous) fact that almost no one tests positive for banned substances or red ABP flags. Assuming that Clémence Calvin has been at it for a while, likely years, why hasn’t she ever been caught? Of course if the AIU concentrates a quarter of its efforts and resources on just one country then said country will yield more positives than protected sacred cow countries that aren’t targeted because they’re ‘the right kind’. This stinks to high heaven.

rojo wrote:

Can someone tell us why she was in Morocco to begin with?

As for the rest of this thread, what does Paula Radcliffe have to do with any of this? If we are having a thread debating the merits of lack thereof of Donald Trump, talk about George W Bush sucking or excelling as a president are pointless.

Rekrunner likes to talk about Paula at every opportunity.

Speaking of outright lies ... I did not bring Paula into this thread, nor talk about her.

Coevett wrote:

rojo wrote:

Can someone tell us why she was in Morocco to begin with?

As for the rest of this thread, what does Paula Radcliffe have to do with any of this? If we are having a thread debating the merits of lack thereof of Donald Trump, talk about George W Bush sucking or excelling as a president are pointless.

Rekrunner likes to talk about Paula at every opportunity.

It follows from your "level the playing field" comment, and a strong inference that she did the same as East Africans. But fair enough, your "proof" is in the number of busts, just like the "proof" for the doping problem in the rest of the world can be found by the many busts reported in annual WADA ADRV reports -- something I just showed you in another thread. It's puzzling to me why you keep bringing up Paula -- my only comment is "no comment". I didn't actually ask you for any proof, and I'm only stating a position in line with WADA's ADRV reports.

casual obsever wrote:

Coevett wrote:

Have you gone crazy? At least you were mildly logical before and didn't resort to outright lies.

You must be new here.

Agreed

Coevett wrote:

Where is the proof that there is a 'massive doping problem in the rest of the world'?

You must be new to the sport.[/quote]

Nope, I've been following since the late 70's when I was a kid, although admittedly my interest did wane from the early 90s when North Africans were suddenly able to run a second a lap faster than the likes of Coe with the same training.

You're entitled to your view that there is a massive doping problem in the entire world of athletics, I disagree, or at least I believe the proof coming out of Kenya - with endless doping failures despite utterly corrupt and abysmal testing standards - is far greater than any existing proof that countries like the USA and UK are equally doped up, at least as far as middle and long distance running concerned.

I've also given arguments as to why I think doping isn't and hasn't been such a problem elsewhere. For example, the fact that middle-distance running declined in the 90's in the UK (and Europe save for 'dirty triangle' member Spain) is circumstantial evidence that most European countries weren't doping themselves silly with EPO, and therefore also likely weren't doping themselves with steroids in the 80s. I think you (unless I'm mistaken) have made the claim that the reason UK middle-distance declined was because of stricter steroid testing. Fair enough, but it seems dubious to me that the likes of Coe, Ovett, and Cram would have roided up no problem when they could, but the very talented guys who came after them like Curtis Robb, David Sharpe, Anthony Whiteman etc didn't appear to use EPO.

Dieter Baumann is also evidence that there was less doping in Europe in the 90's than Africa. The one European who could compete with the Epiopians to an extent gets popped.

You also often reference two surveys that questioned athletes at a global championships and at an African championships as evidence that doping is the norm. The fact that the surveys found that athletes admitting to doping was significantly greater at the African championships suggests to me that doping is very much significantly higher in Africa.

I think it's widely agreed here that you have to a bit stupid as an athlete to get caught taking EPO unless you are subjected to a truly random and unannounced test. We know that, unlike in Europe and the USA, Africans aren't subjected to unannounced tests. Hence it's a bit silly to believe that Kenyans do not dope more when there is far less risk for them to do so and far greater motivation to dope in terms of relative financial rewards. The fact that they are getting caught despite this only confirms it even further.

Having said that, I do confess that I because of my time on this forum, I am more inclined to believe that things are murkier than I previously would have suspected. Not so much that you and others have convinced me (to some extent you have, and more so Subway has) but rather British athletes like 'ex-runner' who has indirectly admitted to doping, even if he was only a fringe elite, and the guy who claims to be a regional UK coach 'spade detector' who is obviously doping his athletes given his rampant and unashamed doping apologism here.

El Keniano wrote:

Assuming that Clémence Calvin has been at it for a while, likely years, why hasn’t she ever been caught? Of course if the AIU concentrates a quarter of its efforts and resources on just one country then said country will yield more positives than protected sacred cow countries that aren’t targeted because they’re ‘the right kind’. This stinks to high heaven.

France will be hosting the 2024 Olympics so I assume they will be given a sort of free reign to dope their athletes to the max to boost their medal hall and sort of justify the waste of tax payer's money for hosting the event. This has always been the case - the Russians max doped before 1980, and so did the Americans before 1984, the Spanish before 1992, the Greeks before 2004, the Chinese before 2008 and the Brits before 2012. I see no reason why the French should be any different.

She says in her press conference 4-5 day before that the controllers did not identify them selves as conrollers...

Difficult to say whats true though it indicates that things did not go as usual, when you have a control.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocolj61tLJc

I understand that Kevin Mayer was mad at Montel. Montel is the journalist that covers track for years on the public French TV. Telling that there is doping would have been OK, but telling that there is doping and that no WR is clean is definitely not OK. When you're seen as an authority in the matter by the public (and Montel is seen as such in France), you can not just lay such serious charges with no proof.

And of course Mayer was offended as a WR holder. Especially unfair because, as far as I know, there's nothing shady about him. He was already amongst the very best while young, does not train in suspect places nor with suspect trainers,...

As a European I totally think that we have doped athletes. Even if they don't get caught, we know who they are, they're those with a shady reputation, that we hardly know where there are while training, with shady trainers/doctors,...

Call me a naive but I truly believe that we also have very high level athletes that are clean. As a Belgian, I follow Belgian athletes in particular and I'm pretty sure Nafi Thiam or Koen Naert are clean. They're really easy to locate (and in Belgium most of the time, small country with no remote place), no shady trainer/partner/... And I know athletes get tested since I got tested myself several times eventhough I was only a 4'40 1500m female runner...

While Mohamed Mourhit was at his best, he did not get caught (happened only several years later) but it was an open secret. Everybody had doubts, the guy was never reachable, ...

Coevett wrote:

casual obsever wrote:

You must be new here.

Agreed

Coevett wrote:

Where is the proof that there is a 'massive doping problem in the rest of the world'?

You must be new to the sport.

Nope, I've been following since the late 70's when I was a kid, although admittedly my interest did wane from the early 90s when North Africans were suddenly able to run a second a lap faster than the likes of Coe with the same training.

You're entitled to your view that there is a massive doping problem in the entire world of athletics, I disagree, or at least I believe the proof coming out of Kenya - with endless doping failures despite utterly corrupt and abysmal testing standards - is far greater than any existing proof that countries like the USA and UK are equally doped up, at least as far as middle and long distance running concerned.

I've also given arguments as to why I think doping isn't and hasn't been such a problem elsewhere. For example, the fact that middle-distance running declined in the 90's in the UK (and Europe save for 'dirty triangle' member Spain) is circumstantial evidence that most European countries weren't doping themselves silly with EPO, and therefore also likely weren't doping themselves with steroids in the 80s. I think you (unless I'm mistaken) have made the claim that the reason UK middle-distance declined was because of stricter steroid testing. Fair enough, but it seems dubious to me that the likes of Coe, Ovett, and Cram would have roided up no problem when they could, but the very talented guys who came after them like Curtis Robb, David Sharpe, Anthony Whiteman etc didn't appear to use EPO.

Dieter Baumann is also evidence that there was less doping in Europe in the 90's than Africa. The one European who could compete with the Epiopians to an extent gets popped.

You also often reference two surveys that questioned athletes at a global championships and at an African championships as evidence that doping is the norm. The fact that the surveys found that athletes admitting to doping was significantly greater at the African championships suggests to me that doping is very much significantly higher in Africa.

I think it's widely agreed here that you have to a bit stupid as an athlete to get caught taking EPO unless you are subjected to a truly random and unannounced test. We know that, unlike in Europe and the USA, Africans aren't subjected to unannounced tests. Hence it's a bit silly to believe that Kenyans do not dope more when there is far less risk for them to do so and far greater motivation to dope in terms of relative financial rewards. The fact that they are getting caught despite this only confirms it even further.

Having said that, I do confess that I because of my time on this forum, I am more inclined to believe that things are murkier than I previously would have suspected. Not so much that you and others have convinced me (to some extent you have, and more so Subway has) but rather British athletes like 'ex-runner' who has indirectly admitted to doping, even if he was only a fringe elite, and the guy who claims to be a regional UK coach 'spade detector' who is obviously doping his athletes given his rampant and unashamed doping apologism here.[/quote]You're forgetting about Operation Puerto -- about 29 athletes involved whose identities will never be revealed. It's a good bet that not all them with be Spanairds but from other European countries.

Also, I don't believe all the names from Galgo were released either. In fact, there was one Dutch woman intially involved but later acquitted.

Minor correction: The second survey was not "African Championships", but the 2011 Pan "ARAB" Games, which participation from 21 "ARAB" nations, and excluded, for example, Kenya and Ethiopia. It was also not limited to Athletics, but covered 28 sports.

Coevett wrote:

...

You also often reference two surveys that questioned athletes at a global championships and at an African championships as evidence that doping is the norm. The fact that the surveys found that athletes admitting to doping was significantly greater at the African championships suggests to me that doping is very much significantly higher in Africa.

...

Yurp wrote:

Please post links.

Look, I think this situation stinks to high heaven, but please stick to verifiable information if possible.

Also, please keep racism, and Paula out. I would like to see this thread continue. I see quite a few separate debates creeping into this thread which are off topic.

This is a very interesting investigation, don't drop the ball.

@Rojo and the mods, there was another thread on Clemence Calvin a few days ago, could you please merge them? There was a lot of relevant information there for those new to this thread.

"Don't drop the ball"...? You mean like Uncle Jama's 26 pre-loaded epo syringes, the Dibaba Sisters, and Mo's picturesque visits to sunny Sabadell?