Half Marathon WR holder Abraham Kiptum busted by Bio Passport!!!!!!!!

I think one of the problems you have is your reputation for using your "90's cutoff times" as a measuring stick against some of these doping cases (both recent and past).

Case in point: I debated you quite some time ago on the prevalence & history of Spanish doping mentioning confirmed doper (EPO) Alberto García, a PB of 13:02.54 and European Champion (and a ~3% performance jump in his profile). All you did was harp on the fact that he didn't run faster than the "90's cutoff time." You've also stated from time to time that the Spanish "dope hard" but don't have the times to show it (something along those lines).

In the Rutto thread you seem to undermine Rutto's PB and also insinuating his placing at WC 5000 final it's not that great of a performance:

"Who said they look at the numbers, and numbers don't lie? Two numbers I saw:

In my look at performance, my 1990-cutoff definition of top-times was 13:02, a really fast time for 1990. This best Kenyan 2017 WC finalist placed 13th/14th in the 2017 WC final."

If 13:02 is a really fast time for 1990, why do you consider 13:02.54 (García) & 13:03 (Rutto) slow times? (or do you?).

Now I know all about your position on 02-vector doping benefits being "over-estimated/stated." I believe you've mentioned .03 - 08% (?) that you determined from your EPO-performance analysis thread that used unreliable data from the pre-90's. As causal mentioned, some of the experts in the field are looking at "up to 3%."

The Schmaucher et al paper (Detection of EPO doping and blood doping: the haematological module of the AthleteBiological Passport) mentions even a higher than that:

From the intro of the text:

"The capacity of the organism to transport oxygen to the workingmuscle is a key factor for endurance performance.[1] For many years, one of the prime targets of manipulating athletes was therefore to improve the oxygen-carrying capacity of the blood as it offered gains in performance of 5–8%.[2] As early as 1970, athletes started to use the then legal transfusion of blood (blood doping) to enhance their endurance. This technique was banned in 1988 and is since a prohibited method listed by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). The logistical requirements for blood manipulations were rather significant, which limited their use in the athletic population. With the commercial introduction of recombinant human erythropoietin (EPO) – the first erythro-poiesis stimulating agent (ESA) – the increase of red cell mass to boost performance became available to everyone and was soon widespread in most endurance sports. This paper reviewsthe development of the fight against ESA doping and blood doping and focuses on the most recent technique, the haemato-logical module of the Athlete Biological Passport (ABP)."

Also, here's a good read for you from Micheal Joyner. One the key issues here is though the ABP has stopped "industrial-size doping" it hasn't stopped microdosing at all which can still produce significant gains in performance and be a deciding factor in medals & placing at competitions.

Here's the Guardian article with the interview of Joyner:

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/aug/20/doping-world-athletics-championships-cheats

rekrunner wrote:

Perhaps you misunderstood -- "too high" here means "alarmingly high", as expressed in the sentence that precedes it.

12% was not meant to be the "real" estimate, or "best" estimate, but an indication that I would consider the lowest expert estimate I can find, 12%, a problem.

Oh. Mea culpa. Can't recall seeing such a low estimate - what was the context?

rekrunner wrote:

Speaking of games, labelling me with "troll" is one of your games.

Lol. The only reason I keep responding to you is, that you make sure by completely overdoing your trolling here or there that we all understand that you are just playing troll games à la opposite day.

Please see previous response were 12% was not meant as my estimate, but something I would still consider a problem. Prevalence is a problem for me whether it is 12% or 57%. Note 12% comes from experts. Note my cautious reservation to apply estimates from slow performances to elite performances is also one shared by experts.

Armstronglivs wrote:

So the 12% argument by rekrunner shows right there a minimising of the problem. Same with the understated estimates of the benefits. As these do not accord with the view of many diverse experts on doping it is either wilfully naive or a form of denial. The question for me is why would someone with a passionate interest in the sport take that approach - whose interest does it serve?

2011 IAAF study. 12% was the result for males (samples) only, and the study was only for blood doping. Not a good estimate for overall prevalence, but was meant to say that even this low value would be a problem.

casual obsever wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

Perhaps you misunderstood -- "too high" here means "alarmingly high", as expressed in the sentence that precedes it.

12% was not meant to be the "real" estimate, or "best" estimate, but an indication that I would consider the lowest expert estimate I can find, 12%, a problem.

Oh. Mea culpa. Can't recall seeing such a low estimate - what was the context?

rekrunner wrote:

2011 IAAF study. 12% was the result for males (samples) only, and the study was only for blood doping.

Not a good estimate for overall prevalence, but was meant to say that even this low value would be a problem.

12% overall? What about prevalence with individual nations? Russia alone has got to be extremely high. Their prevalence of doping just based on AAFs & ABP cases is uncanny. They have 4 new cases on the AIU provisional suspension list in just the last year! (3 ABP cases & 1 whereabouts). They still operate under the former Soviet Union doping doctrine. Lol. And if this gets out...it'll be nothing short of catastrophic for the Russians!!!

Also, two former Soviet block nations, Ukraine & Belarus, along with Ethiopia & Kenya (who would have thought) are on the IAAF's most likely to dope list. Man...that's something to be proud of. Lol.

Same as it ever was... wrote:

12% overall? What about prevalence with individual nations? Russia alone has got to be extremely high.

If I remember that correctly, that was from the study with Russian advisor Saugy as the main author...

If that's the one: they used the numbers from the ABP with a 99.9% threshold, and yes, only blood doping as it was before the roid module was added. So it includes neither the roid users, nor the ones with "only" a 99.8% certainty of blood doping, nor the ones who didn't hear the doorbell, nor the ones who didn't have proper OOC testing, nor the ones whose federations or NADOs covered up for them.

All of that combined, it's not really surprising that such an extremely low number came out of it.

The incidence of doping is likely to be much higher than many believe because of one simple but stark fact. It is difficult to tell who is doping from who is clean. I say that because those who have been caught may have only been marginally more successful than their fellow-competitors. They may not have been the best. They didn't always win, they didn't always set records or run the best times. One view that seeks to explain that anomaly is that doping confers fewer advantages than many think. That is the view of those like rekrunner. I don't subscribe to that view. There has been ample research as well as empirical evidence that points to significant gains by athletes who have doped. I won't hazard to put an exact figure on that because it will vary from athlete to athlete but it can also become the subject of unending debate, which I don't wish to enter into. Doping is not homeotherapy, or what is sometimes described as "quack" medicine. It is well established how drugs like anabolic steroids, EPO and growth hormone affect the body's efficiency - they've been around a long time. So when athletes are plucked from the bunch, or the dais, for having failed a drug test we can well ask, how clean is their competition, because there are so many others achieving parity with and even exceeding the performances of the known drug cheats. If we can't easily tell a doped performance from a clean performance - and that is often the exact debate on these boards, of who is cheating and who isn't - then it is likely that there are many more doping than are caught or that we can reliably estimate. If it were not so we would effectively be seeing two separate races in every event: those who are doped and those who are clean. But - apart from a few spectacular exceptions - we don't see that. We also can't infer from that that most races or competitions are therefore likely to be clean, because we know the market in banned substances is enormous; it isn't recreational athletes who are driving that market.

I hope I don't need to explain the purpose of a cut-off. I don't know what you mean by "reputation" but it seems undeserved the way you describe it. My 1990 cut-off was a measuring stick for post-1990 performances, not against doping cases. My 1990 cut-off had a limited purpose for the thread I defined it in. If you tried to talk about Alberto Garcia in that thread, I tried to cut it off because it wasn't about him. I will let Spain's position in all time lists speak for itself. In the Rutto thread, two posts had mentioned my analysis, so I kindly confirmed the cutoff value. Despite being coincidentally roughly the same, there is no connection to this cut-off, and Rutto's doping case. I think 13:03 is a fast time for Garcia, Rutto, or anyone. I will let Rutto's time and place speak for itself with no positive or negative insinuation. Not "0.03%-0.08%" and not "O2-vector doping benefit". I measured 0.3%-0.8% for non-African progress post-1990. This is a measure of change in performance between different populations. It was not intended to be a measure of O2-vector doping benefit, and cannot be. My opinions are loosely guided by this small progress, and other things, but this is just my opinion -- it is not knowledge or even pretend knowledge. Schumacher's paper mentions 5-8%, but 5-8% of what? This looks based on a 1972 study using a bicycle ergometer. I've seen the Joyner article before. I quickly looked and saw 0.5% for 10000m. Hmmm. Oh that was a hypothetical margin of victory.

The didn't name countries but did give results for 7 countries, designated by letter for anonymity. Country A had estimates between 48% and 78% for men.

Same as it ever was... wrote:

12% overall? What about prevalence with individual nations? Russia alone has got to be extremely high...

I hope you are not (hypo-)criticizing an expert's opinion or competence. Authors were: Pierre-Edouard Sottas, Neil Robinson, Giuseppe Fischetto, Gabriel Dollé, Juan Manuel Alonso, Martial Saugy Here is how they described two measures, a conservative one, and a more aggressive one which assumed micro-dosing: "Period prevalence of blood-doping in samples was estimated by comparing empirical cumulative distribution functions of the abnormal blood profile score computed for subpopulations with stratified reference cumulative distribution functions." "a minimal estimate M1 is calculated as the maximal difference between the reference CDF that assumed no doping and the empirical CDF of the subgroup being studied." "If the doping product and protocol are assumed a priori, here doping with rEPO microdoses, the measure M2 is defined as the ratio of the area between the reference CDF that assumed no doping and the empirical CDF and the area between both reference CDFs." Here is an online copy:http://clinchem.aaccjnls.org/content/57/5/762

casual obsever wrote:

Same as it ever was... wrote:

12% overall? What about prevalence with individual nations? Russia alone has got to be extremely high.

If I remember that correctly, that was from the study with Russian advisor Saugy as the main author...

If that's the one: they used the numbers from the ABP with a 99.9% threshold, and yes, only blood doping as it was before the roid module was added. So it includes neither the roid users, nor the ones with "only" a 99.8% certainty of blood doping, nor the ones who didn't hear the doorbell, nor the ones who didn't have proper OOC testing, nor the ones whose federations or NADOs covered up for them.

All of that combined, it's not really surprising that such an extremely low number came out of it.

Hahaha no. I was gently pointing out, as I have one of my generous days, that you left out half of the facts as per usual by calling this an IAAF study: 3 of the 6 authors are from the IAAF. What's more, they are the less important ones, for both the first and the last author are from the so-called WADA lab.

Exactly, so your 12% (actually the mean of M1 was 14%, not 12%) of blood doping was a serious underestimation ("minimal estimate M1") for the reasons given above (part of which nicely demonstrated in Figure 2). Additional problems come from assuming a select control group being clean, something the authors wrote on a couple of locations throughout the work (e.g. "reference CDF that assumed no doping").

Still, looking at endurance events, the mean of M1 went up to 18%. Ironically the "more aggressive one" gives pretty much the same numbers (14% and 19%).

rekrunner wrote:

The didn't name countries but did give results for 7 countries, designated by letter for anonymity.

Country A had estimates between 48% and 78% for men.

Interesting...I wonder who "Country A" would be? ? My first thought was Russia but the estimate says for "men." However, the Russian men don't have a strong presence in distance running (low turnout) as opposed to race walking. So, if that estimate includes race walking it's probably very accurate. Russian race walkers dope A LOT! In fact, the AIU recently reported that WC Sergey Bakulin was provisionally suspended for his second ABP violation. Lol.

If race walking is not included in that analysis - then perhaps Morroco is the mysterious "Country A?" Nonetheless, 78% doesn't surprise me.

It still looks like you are casting aspersions on competent peer-reviewed anti-doping experts. I thought that was a no-no. Half the facts? Didn't you just call that a game? If you thought the answer was incorrect, why not just simply correct it? By only mentioning Saugy, you left out 5 authors, or 83%. I didn't realize authorship, or the study itself, would be so interesting, but luckily for everyone interested, I provided the complete list of authors (100%), and the complete study (100%) including body, figures and tables and supplemental data. As I said when I provided the context, 12% was the average (M1 and M2) for male samples only. 18% was for female samples only, and 14% combined both. Table 2 illustrates the value of separating men from women, and separating events (e.g. sprints, fields, distance running, race walking), and separating countries, rather than just reducing all of that to "14%".

rekrunner wrote:

Half the facts? Didn't you just call that a game? If you thought the answer was incorrect, why not just simply correct it?

By only mentioning Saugy, you left out 5 authors, or 83%.

At first, you only wrote IAAF study, and 12% (and admitted a couple of posts later that that was only the "minimal estimate" from blood doping of male athletes).

I added the fact that Saugy was the main author, which actually makes this more of a WADA than of an IAAF study. Only in your bizarro world is that leaving out facts on my side.

Why not simply correct it? Don't you want to learn how to fish?

rekrunner wrote:

Regarding experts' estimates, to the extent they are based on 9:00 runners (3K), 16:00 runners (5K), or 33:00 runners (10K), I think we need a good model to project these findings onto elite performances, a model that is not provided by experts. I have my own ideas, but do not pretend it is "knowledge".

What model would that be? You could never do a study with elites for ethnical reasons. Maybe if they're utilized right after retirement but then there's the problem of the "retired" elites coming out of retirement and they would be under the suspicious eye as a "doper" from the other competitors.

Also, if a study was to be conducted with elites it would need to be more representative of real world doping, i.e. including other PEDs and not just EPO. The vast majority of dopers use multiple PEDs such as androgens, HGH, growth hormone releasing peptides (GHRP-2), etc, in combo with EPO/blood transfusions for synergistic effects (nothing new there). There's also the "speed peptide" that aduck mentions regularly on these doping threads.

Recall the Russians brought back an old friend from their 1970's stockpile; oral turinbol, combining it with EPO & blood transfusions (as well as also using the highly anabolic steroid oxandrolone ). And I think they had some crazy cocktail called the "Duchess Cocktail," which was a multiple-PED combo. Lol. All you need to do is look at the damage their women distance runners and men race walkers did in Olympic & WC competition from mid-2000s up through the London Olympics.

You're probably also famaliar with Guardian article on Ethiopian doping highlighting an unnamed high-profile female runner on a "45-day program," taking EPO and HGH on alternating days. And then stopping one week before a competition to avoid testing positive.

It's simply crazy out there - WADA has got a big challenge.

Speaking of bizarro worlds, are you honestly suggesting that a study you said contained 3 IAAF authors out of 6, on IAAF blood data, is misleadingly called the "2011 IAAF study"? If I had said "2011 WADA study", no one would know which study that is. How about "2011 IAAF blood samples study" then? Some corrections: - At first I didn't write IAAF at all, because that was not important in a statement that says even 12% prevalence would be a problem. - When I did, in the post when I said "IAAF study", I also said it was males and a blood doping estimate -- not a couple posts later. - I didn't say 12% was the "minimal estimate" in any post, let alone a couple posts later. - 12% is both the "minimal estimate" M1 value and the "assumed doping" M2 value. - Who is the main author? Sottas is listed first. - Sottas and Saugy work for the University of Lausanne, not WADA -- why not call it the Lausanne study, like the WADA-commissioned survey study is called the Tuebingen study? "Why not simply correct it?" As you can see, making corrections is not so simple: two of your statements require six corrections. Oh, I get it now. You are teaching me how to troll for fish.

casual obsever wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

Half the facts? Didn't you just call that a game? If you thought the answer was incorrect, why not just simply correct it?

By only mentioning Saugy, you left out 5 authors, or 83%.

At first, you only wrote IAAF study, and 12% (and admitted a couple of posts later that that was only the "minimal estimate" from blood doping of male athletes).

I added the fact that Saugy was the main author, which actually makes this more of a WADA than of an IAAF study. Only in your bizarro world is that leaving out facts on my side.

Why not simply correct it? Don't you want to learn how to fish?

I honestly don't understand what point you want to make to me. That model would be the one that I think we need but experts have not yet provided. I guess you didn't mean "ethnical" reasons. Regarding the rest, you don't need to convince me that the use of many PEDs is widespread, or that Russian women respond well to cocktails including steroids. I don't get the value of the Guardian article -- every country has pharmacies.

Letsrun should organize a 4x 400, LRC’s anti-dopers vs. doping apologists.

Team Anti-Dopers

Armstronglivs

A Duck

Subway Surfers

Matt London

Team Doping Apologists

Rekrunner

Casual Observer

Canova

Pharmacist

Who do you think will win?