Olympic Marathon Silver Medalist Eunice Kirwa Busted for EPO Doping

Subway chose 27 flat and 2:07. You need to direct those questions to Subway. This isn't my "closer look" thread. 13 Moroccans for 5000m is the same picture. Moroccans continue to abuse EPO, as the ABPs show, yet the corresponding performances predicted by such EPO abuse seems to have dried up. What have they done lately? Your minute is running out.

Nevertheless, I also included 27:14.77, when I wrote:

"only 10 non-East Africans have run faster than 27:14.77."

Thank you for informing us that the following US athletes were doped :

26'44"36 Galen Rupp

26'59"60 Chris Solinski

27'20"56 Mark Nenow

27'22"28 Dathan Ritzenhein

27'24"67 Bobby Curtis

27'25"61 Alberto Salazar

27'28"19 Tim Nelson

27'28"22 Matt Tegelkamp

27'29"16 Craig Virgin

Thank you for informing us that the following British athletes were doped :

26'46"57 Mo Farah

27'18"14 Jon Brown

27'23"06 Eamonn Martin

27'27"36 Chris Thompson

Thank you for informing us that the following Australian athletes were doped :

27'24"95 Ben St. Lawrence

27'29"73 Collins Birmingham

27'29"81 Patrick Tiernan

Thank you for informing us that the following Portuguese athletes were doped :

27'12"47 Antonio Pinto

27'13"81 Fernando Mamede

27'17"48 Carlos Lopes

Thank you for informing us that the following Italian athletes were doped :

27'23"55 Salvatore Antibo

27'24"16 Francesco Panetta

Thank you for informing us that the following Belgian athletes were doped :

27'23"18 Vincent Rousseau

27'26"95 Axel Hagelsteens

Thank you for informing us that the following Spanish athletes were doped :

27'14"44 Fabian Roncero

27'27"80 Juan Carlos de la Ossa

27'29"60 Jose' Rios

Thank you for informing us that the following Mexican athletes were doped :

27'08"23 Arturo Barrios

27'18"59 Juan Armando Quintanilla

27'28"82 Juan Luis Barrios

Thank you for informing us that the following German athletes were doped :

27'21"53 Dieter Baumann

27'24"93 Werner Schildhauer

27'26"00 Hansjorg Kunze

Thank you for informing us that the following Japanese athletes were doped :

27'29"69 Kate Murayama

27'29"74 Tatsuya Yozoiraka

Thank you for informing us that the following Canadian athlete is doped :

27'02"51 Cam Levins

Thank you for informing us that the following French athlete is doped :

27'22"78 Antonio Martins

Thank you for informing us that the following Dutch athlete is doped :

27'26"29 Kamiel Maase

And finally, Thank you for informing us that the following Brazilian athlete is doped :

27'28"12 Marilson dos Santos

Where the weak antidoping and the small WADA organization can't arrive, fortunately we have some enlightened scientist like Casual Observer who can explain to all the World the truth : if you are not African, can't run under 27'30" (or may be also something slower).

Thank you for responding, Renato, but you overlooked the words "could be".

I'd like to read from you the words "could be" referred to the possibility to run a WR clean. Instead, it seems that, for you, this never "could be", and, because in reality this already happened, all your ideas are going in one direction only.

And this behavior doesn't have anything to share with some "scientific" approach.

I) Well, we have seen two experts' estimates that blood doping alone can provide a boost of one minute (or more) over 10000 m. E.g., Schumacher is a renowned scientist.

II) We have also heard from several different sources that there continues to be a high prevalence of doping. Even rekrunner doesn't argue against that anymore.

Put I and II together, and you see how next to impossible it is to run a world record clean.

Presumably that's why you argue so hard against point I. But don't blame me for that - it wasn't me who came up with that minute.

40-50 (or 30) dopers caught also seems unrealistic. For 2016, WADA reported catching 205 dopers in Athletics.

Anyone under 27 minutes is most likely doping. You are welcome.

Aragon wrote:

Subway Surfers wrote:

... let one spend two years on unlimited use of epo and the other do unlimited autologous blood transfusions that the later would deliver superior results. Transfusions are good but epo is the best.

Nobody claimed that transfusion is superior.

But the answer to my question seems to be an emphatic "no" from your part.

You have repeatedly rejoiced in coming on here at sporadic times with unknown studies claiming that very fact fact. Look at Renato he claims that altitude training is superior to transfusions and we know that sea level natives (North Africans) on epo were beating East Africans on epo. Still transfusions are a very good performance enhancer.

But it is you suggesting that these expert anti-doping scientists are talking about 1 minute gain for world record level performances. It is you suggesting anti-doping experts are also world class performance experts. It is not clear that Schumacher, nor any other scientist, has observed anyone running faster than a 31 minute 10K in a doping study, assuming such studies were properly designed. Furthermore, we know that altitude training can also produce significant improvements, replicating the same mechanism of EPO triggering RBC production, but in a legal way. So given a WR performance, it is not possible to determine whether such a performance came from a clean, highly trained, altitude runner, or from a doped runner. Even assuming a high 50% prevalence, this still means it is 50/50, if the WR performance comes from an altitude based athlete.

casual obsever wrote:

I) Well, we have seen two experts' estimates that blood doping alone can provide a boost of one minute (or more) over 10000 m. E.g., Schumacher is a renowned scientist.

II) We have also heard from several different sources that there continues to be a high prevalence of doping. Even rekrunner doesn't argue against that anymore.

Put I and II together, and you see how next to impossible it is to run a world record clean.

Presumably that's why you argue so hard against point I. But don't blame me for that - it wasn't me who came up with that minute.

If you can find studies to debunk the claims made by me, feel free to refer to them, PMC database is open 24/7.

The silence from casual obsever about the 1/6 ratio between delta-performance and delta-Vo2max is interesting, because I failed to see him pointing out even the obvious shortcoming in the papers.

About that rHuEPO induced training effect, I'd be interested if there is even speculation about it in the academic body of literature.

Just to complete the response to this misguided "cherry-picking" accusation --I reported all the figures both here and in the "closer look" thread: My "closer look" thread mentioned both sub-27 and sub 27:14.77:

And my response to Subway (who selected sub-27 and sub-2:07) likewise included both sub-27 and sub 27:14.77:

I did not compute sub-2:07 numbers to respond to Subway, but deferred to my previous computed statistics based on 2:07:11, only adding Moens, feeling it not worth the time to open up a spreadsheet on another computer.

Now I have - I would only have to remove one performance, South African Ian Syster's 2:07:06.

Whether it is 2, or 4 or 10 or 6 or 12 or 18, the picture is the same -- not supporting "now these times are easy and common" if the athlete is not East African.

Aragon wrote:

If you can find studies to debunk the claims made by me, feel free to refer to them, PMC database is open 24/7.

The silence from casual obsever about the 1/6 ratio between delta-performance and delta-Vo2max is interesting, because I failed to see him pointing out even the obvious shortcoming in the papers.

About that rHuEPO induced training effect, I'd be interested if there is even speculation about it in the academic body of literature.

I gave you a real case study of Jim Ryun's performance to Vo2Max ratio, likely conducted by Jack Daniels and you ignored it.

Subway Surfers wrote:

we know that sea level natives (North Africans) on epo were beating East Africans on epo. Still transfusions are a very good performance enhancer.

Who were these East Africans on EPO that were being beaten by the other guys?

The problem with random case studies is that there are several factors that affect performance capability and actual results, and it is far from certain that elevated Vo2max is the only positive effect of altitude adaptation process, and Stray-Gundersen et al LHTH guys failed to improve in speed after elevating Vo2Max as much as the LHTL group. If an athlete has no change in Vo2max and improves performance, is the ratio infinite vs. zero?

If you focus on acute manipulation of only one factor (as people interested in blood doping should do), it remains still unexplained why c:a 55-65 ml/kg/min caliber guys get regularly close to 10 % boost in Vo2Max after being infused with 900 ml of blood but their running speed increase is only 1.7-3.5 % in roughly similar studies.

And in the only double blind studies that measured both, the ratio was around 1 to 6.

I think you are cherry-picking the stats to serve your purpose. And now you're all bent out of shape because I called you out on? Lol. Too bad -- you think you can put one on everyone because of your statistics background. Big deal...I'm not falling for your deception anymore. And then you go and blame Subway. Too funny.

Yes...you mention in your closer look thread the "27 flat" time in your observations sub-column. But at the top where you compile the stats with the different continents; you have the heading: Mens 10000m:Pre-1990 (Top 5): 27:14.77.

Therefore, why didn't also mention the 27:14.77 time in addition to the "27 flat" time under the rocket-fueled Moroccans statement? You darn well know that using "27 flat" only 2 Moroccans ran faster where 5 faster than the 27:14.77 time used in your analysis of the 10,000.

And of course you conveniently didn't mention the 13 Moroccans running faster than 13:02 or the 10 Moroccans running faster than your 3000 cutoff time (7:32.54). With the exception of Aouita all of the Moroccan times in the 3 ,5 & 10 were set post-90s (very interesting).

I haven't look at your SC numbers yet - but Boulami's sizzling WR time set in 02 that was flushed for an EPO positive would still be the WR today! So, a confirmed doper has set the bar as one of the fastest world records set in the prevalent EPO-era.

Aragon wrote:

The silence from casual obsever about the 1/6 ratio between delta-performance and delta-Vo2max is interesting, because I failed to see him pointing out even the obvious shortcoming in the papers.

You have an interesting, or rather wrong, impression of me. That would be rekrunner's job.

No -- I'm quite pleased to receive false accusations from someone too lazy to scroll back one page and read the thread. The record here contradicts what you think. I responded to Subway using his context. This explains everything. Subway chose 27 and sub-2:07 -- go back and look. I did not mention 5K because Subway did not -- go back and look. Nor 3K nor steeple, nor Moroccans sub-27:14.77, because Subway did not -- go back and look. In any case, your points make no difference. Finding these similarly small quantities of 5, or 10, or 13 equally serves my purpose -- it was not "easy and common" for athletes who were not East African to go sub-27 or sub-2:07, or alternatively sub-27:14.77 or sub-2:07:11.

Aragon wrote:

If you can find studies to debunk the claims made by me, feel free to refer to them, PMC database is open 24/7.

The silence from casual obsever about the 1/6 ratio between delta-performance and delta-Vo2max is interesting, because I failed to see him pointing out even the obvious shortcoming in the papers.

About that rHuEPO induced training effect, I'd be interested if there is even speculation about it in the academic body of literature.

How about the conclusions of three (3) of the top IAAF anti-doping experts? I take it you never read the Zaripova CAS hearing?

Quick background: Zaripova was a Russian SC athlete (9:05) who won gold at both the WC at Daegu and the London Olympics. Hematological anomalies were detected in her ABP data and the medals were a stripped along with her PB annulled. Quite a blow to the Russians since the primary objective of their State-sponsored doping program is to win Olympic & WC medals.

CAS 2015/A/4006

Paragraph 49 (i):

49. The contents of the declarations of the experts can be summarised as follows.

"i. Professor Schumacher confirmed the opinion expressed in the Initial Review and in the Joint Expert Report and explained that EPO increases an athlete’s maximal oxygen uptake (the “VO2max”) by 1% to 4% for a period of up to 4 weeks after the erythropoiesis stimulation, depending on the dosage of its administration, and confirmed that the use of micro-doses over a longer period can produce long-lasting effects. At the same time, Professor Schumacher indicated that manipulation is possible to rapidly and significantly decrease the HGB values, by infusing plasma expander. Without manipulation, HGB values drop 6 to 10 days after the end of the stimulation phase. Professor Schumacher, then examined the Athlete’s ABP indicating, inter alia, that also samples 1 and 2 are not normal and that sample 6 shows a pattern of prolonged stimulation (in light of its values, inconsistent with a single administration), with sample 7, marked by a drop in RET%, marks a “suppression” phase. In the same way, according to Professor Schumacher, the

sequence shown by the Athlete’s blood values mentioned by Mr Scott in his opinion is not normal."

Paragraph 50:

"3. If the answer to question 2 in relation to sample 6 is ‘yes’, do you consider

that her blood doping out-of-competition on 20 July 2011 is likely to have

assisted her training for or affected her performances in the subsequent

competitions in which she participated at the World Championships on 30

August 2011 and in the Diamond League on 16 September 2011?"

"VO2max is the maximal oxygen transport capacity, a measure of maximal endurance performance and the key physiological measure that is modified by EPO administration or blood transfusion through the increase of red blood cell mass. In the literature, several studies report the effect of EPO treatment on VO2max several weeks after cessation of treatment …: … the increase in VO2max is still significant 3 weeks after treatment. … the improvement is still significant 4 weeks after treatment. … the increase in VO2max per gram of increase in haemoglobin concentration is 20 ml of O2 per gram increase in Haemoglobin and that the results are similar to those observed after the transfusion of red blood cells. These findings were confirmed …. In summary, the effect of blood manipulation on VO2max, depends on the relative increase of haemoglobin concentration. Relating these facts to the profile, it is obvious that the athlete was training with the beneficial effects of an increased red cell mass and thus a higher VO2max in the lead up to the competitions in August and September 2011: Sample 6 clearly displayed a stimulated erythropoiesis (see

previous paragraph and our initial review), meaning that red cell mass was increasing already. An increased red cell mass will have allowed her higher running speeds in training and thus greater training stimuli. Previous research has also shown that the effects of performance enhancing substances might influence the ability of the body to respond to new training impulses long after the use of such substances …. Although the impact of EPO on the ability to cope with training has

not been scientifically examined until present, the available body of literature … on non-haematological action of EPO underlines the high likelihood for a positive contribution”.

"In other words, the Appellant underlines that “it is the unanimous opinion of the IAAF experts in this regard that it is highly likely that Ms Zaripova’s blood doping on 20 July 2011 assisted her training for and participation in both the World Championships in Daegu on 26 August 2011 … and the Diamond League meeting in Brussels on 16 September 2011”.