Olympic Marathon Silver Medalist Eunice Kirwa Busted for EPO Doping

Yes, I very rarely read CAS decisions (Contador, Landis, Hamilton I read in full), therefore thank you for the link, that certainly is evidence even if very speculative in nature.

As usual, the problem is that even the specialists admit that there have been no studies on the effect of EPO on training load and how it improves performance, therefore (even there is a positive effect) every estimate on the magnitude is only speculation.

It would be interesting to see the mechanism described by the junkies, but to the contrary it is pretty well established that cyclists of the 1990s let their HCTs to fall to low levels during OFFseason and couldn't care less about training with HCTs in the high 50s, I think Lance had his figure around 41 % only a few weeks before the 99 Tour.

But that is a source nevertheless, actually a relatively good one.

Sorry, but I can't agree with experts who studied doping but never studied training. I KNOW THE BOOST OF ONE MINUTE OVER 10000m IS A TOTAL BULLSHIT, of course when the training of the athlete is as top level, and has carried out with continuity for long time.

I respect dr. Schumacher, but all his analysis don't include the effects of training, in altitude, for long time, at the max level used by the best runners (CLEAN).

I don't deny that many top athletes used EPO. I deny that they ran fast BECAUSE of EPO.

Many explain that, taking EPO, it's possible to better recover training, moving, for that reason, to higher volume and intensity. This means that everybody (scientists and researchers included) agree that the DIRECT REASON for the improvement of doped athletes is THE IMPROVEMENT OF THEIR TRAINING, something before were not able to do.

But this is exactly the point : there are athletes able to do the same level of training of doped athletes, IN CLEAN WAY, because they believed in themselves from the beginning of their career, and had the stimulus to look at strong and big continuous increase in their training (both volume and intensity, because the final goal for any improvement is the INCREASE OF THE VOLUME OF THE SPECIFIC INTENSITY).

This behavior depends on two factors, mainly :

a) The character of the athlete, and his ethic. I coached athletes who REFUSED to take any medicine (sometimes also when sick) and any supplement, because their main stimulus was to show TO THEMSELVES that could be the best in the World, because their talent but especially their motivation and their self-confidence.

b) The ambience where they trained. If they have a coach who is not only somebody giving programs and using the watch, but is a TEACHER and an EDUCATOR, too, they KNOW that is possible running at the personal best in clean way, and the general behavior of the group is to train clean.

On the opposite, if you train in an ambience where some of the best uses doping, the general behavior goes in that direction (for example, the area of Kapsabet in Kenya produces almost the 70% of the athletes banned till now).

When you write : "Put I and II together, and you see how next to impossible it is to run a world record clean", not only I can't agree, but I consider this a big lie and a total bullshit, because, how I already wrote, I KNOW OF CURRENT WR

COMPLETELY CLEAN, AND NOT ONLY FROM SOME MY ATHLETE.

We know that with EPO we can increase the transport of Oxygen. We know that the speed in endurance is based, under the organic point of view, on the transport of Oxygen. These two points produce a logic hypothesis that, with EPO, because you can transport more Oxygen, you can run faster.

But some honest coach of top athletes knows that this is not completely true, because not always, transporting more Oxygen, athletes can run faster.

Which is the limiting factor in this direction ? Because the increase in O2 transport is a FACT, the improvement of aerobic level if there is s better O2 transport is also a FACT, but, believe me, in many cases we have also the FACT that, in spite of the two previous effects, SOME ATHLETE CAN'T RUN FASTER.

So, in our physiology there is some limiting factor that doesn't allow athletes already with great and continuous training to run faster when their Hct and their Hb continue to raise. But NEVER this situation was studied by some scientist, everybody looking at doping only, and not at some more deep investigation about the effects of training.

I bet those scientists know that male marathon runners don't end up with a testosterone level of .8. I give them a lot more credence than I give you.

(bullsh*t and lies, your not a PhD so stop making up ASSUMPTIONS without any DATA or RESULTS that you have done YOURSELF!!)

yo bro CHILL OUT.....i dont know how you get away with cussing on here and posting, let me guess your protected, just like your protected in kenya...but you will go home devastated soon enough

lolz this guy makes me laugh these days, like an old man trying to hold onto his glory days that never happened, cussing and swearing at the neighborhood kids....

"oh man watch out for old man renato, he is mean, my parents say he is insane"

lolz

Aragon wrote:

Yes, I very rarely read CAS decisions (Contador, Landis, Hamilton I read in full), therefore thank you for the link, that certainly is evidence even if very speculative in nature.

As usual, the problem is that even the specialists admit that there have been no studies on the effect of EPO on training load and how it improves performance, therefore (even there is a positive effect) every estimate on the magnitude is only speculation.

It would be interesting to see the mechanism described by the junkies, but to the contrary it is pretty well established that cyclists of the 1990s let their HCTs to fall to low levels during OFFseason and couldn't care less about training with HCTs in the high 50s, I think Lance had his figure around 41 % only a few weeks before the 99 Tour.

But that is a source nevertheless, actually a relatively good one.

You have to fill the blood bag before you can use it later.

Renato Canova wrote:

a) The character of the athlete, and his ethic. I coached athletes who REFUSED to take any medicine (sometimes also when sick) and any supplement, because their main stimulus was to show TO THEMSELVES that could be the best in the World, because their talent but especially their motivation and their self-confidence.

Too bad the Russian athletes don't think that way. Lol.

Ivan wrote:

Renato Canova wrote:

a) The character of the athlete, and his ethic. I coached athletes who REFUSED to take any medicine (sometimes also when sick) and any supplement, because their main stimulus was to show TO THEMSELVES that could be the best in the World, because their talent but especially their motivation and their self-confidence.

Too bad the Russian athletes don't think that way. Lol.

A lot of Kenyan athletes do not think that way either.

Neither did a lot of Chinese athletes.

Neither did a lot of Qatari athletes.

caller out of B.S. wrote:

Ivan wrote:

Too bad the Russian athletes don't think that way. Lol.

A lot of Kenyan athletes do not think that way either.

Neither did a lot of Chinese athletes.

Neither did a lot of Qatari athletes.

Or a lot of American athletes. Dopers are everywhere.

LoneStarXC wrote:

caller out of B.S. wrote:

A lot of Kenyan athletes do not think that way either.

Neither did a lot of Chinese athletes.

Neither did a lot of Qatari athletes.

Or a lot of American athletes. Dopers are everywhere.

Hmmmm, I wonder what the first three nations listed share in common but is not true of America....what could it be?

Except that sightings and testimonials about BBs are zero at the 1999 USPS/motoman pre-EPO test tour.

There are real negative consequences for mythologizing the effects. When you exaggerate the effects of PEDs, this glorification is essentially promoting the use of PEDs in the sport, and reinforcing the message, to youngsters everywhere, that doping is necessary to win. It's tragic if this is really a false message based largely on myths. Furthermore, when you cast the cloud of suspicion onto innocent athletes, this harms innocent athletes, and harms the sport. When the sole basis for your doubt are good performances, this goes beyond assuming doping works (even a little), but assumes that ONLY doping works -- further glorifying and promoting the use of doping, reinforcing the message that doping is necessary, and ensuring the "inexorable march" continues. Athletes strive to be the best that they can be, and many athletes (even at 50% prevalence, this means 50% are clean) try to do it the right way. It must be frustrating for the few who actually succeed, doing it the right way, to not be rewarded and appreciated for their success by "fans" of the sport, but instead are the subject of ignorant accusations.

High performances are not my "sole reason" for suspecting doping. It has been my awareness of what athletes have used in over fifty-odd years of sports and are using today, of how doping is able to add to performance - none of these drugs are neutral - of how widespread doping has become as a practice and yet is so difficult to detect, and how I have seen in the roll of dishonour that it has been increasingly reflected in elite performances in all sports. All this is informed by talking with anti-doping officials, coaches, and athletes, from what I have observed, and from what I have read. So, no - I don't make an assumption based on only a single criterion. Finally, even if 1 in 2 athletes is clean - as you suggest could be the case, and I don't disagree with that - it, regrettably, means none escapes suspicion. It is actually a matter of significant personal loss for me, because, like so many, I valued sports as an arena of genuine human achievement. Doping has taken that away.

Sorry -- in this case, "you" wasn't you specifically, but a royal "you".

To a large degree you let doping take it away from you by not being as critical as you should be about some of the information you now rely on, and propagate.

If "All this is informed by talking with anti-doping officials, coaches, and athletes, from what I have observed, and from what I have read", why do you not answer when I ask for some of these anecdotes of effect that you said you trust that form the basis of your firm convictions?

rekrunner wrote:

Sorry -- in this case, "you" wasn't you specifically, but a royal "you".

To a large degree you let doping take it away from you by not being as critical as you should be about some of the information you now rely on, and propagate.

If "All this is informed by talking with anti-doping officials, coaches, and athletes, from what I have observed, and from what I have read", why do you not answer when I ask for some of these anecdotes of effect that you said you trust that form the basis of your firm convictions?

I have no interest in writing screeds from conversations I have had over the years or observations I have made. I'll instead offer these few comments.

I first became aware of doping in track as a schoolboy, when I saw an English runner performing exceptionally well at the Kingston Games in 1966. He was way better than when he performed at the Tokyo Olympics in '64. Remarkably, he later admitted to doping at Kingston. I recall testosterone was part of his package.

Track colleagues told me how prevalent doping was becoming in the late '60's, when a top field events exponent was openly handing out supplements to whoever whoever requested them - steroids, testosterone tablets, amphetamines. He was known as "The Doctor". Doping wasn't confined to field events. The same products were being used by Russian middle-distance runners fifty years later. Blood doping was also occurring in the late 60's, and I heard claims that runners at Mexico City were on it. It had become an open secret by the Munich Olympics of '72.

With the benefit of hindsight we have it confirmed that doping was systemic in the E Bloc in this period, that included the middle and long-distance events - Cierpinski being a case in point.

In the late seventies I also was told by a friend who was a professional athlete that he had seen all manner of doping substances in the fridge of a certain world-beating runner. He said doping was common amongst top runners. It also extended to his knowledge of professional tennis players, one of whom went deep at Wimbledon in the early 80's. My friend was involved in the horse-racing industry and his description of the effects of doping in horses - their tirelessness and extraordinary recovery - paralleled his description to me of doped athletes.

I later became involved in tennis, and I was told by professional coaches in recent years that doping was "everywhere", that players and their entourages openly discussed their doping programmes, and it was claimed by some that failed dope tests by certain top players were covered up. Andre Agassi confirmed this had occurred. EPO's were identified as the drug of choice because they made players tireless over long matches.

Of course, over this time we saw many of the great doping scandals - Ben Johnson, cycling, Balco, baseball, and so on. What I had been told was all too often coming to light.

A few years ago I talked with a top official from WADA, who I had known from my earlier sporting days, and he spoke candidly with me about the sheer scale of the problem. He acknowledged that athletes were routinely accomplishing "impossible feats" out there in all range of sports, and that EPO was the major culprit, because of the boost it gave to athletes' stamina. He said in certain countries such doping was endemic - "they have been doing it for years; they are really good at it" - because it was so hard to catch them. When I asked him about the likely incidence of doping he said it was at least in the region of 20%-30% across the board - higher in some sports than others. Given that we know that dopers have been able to mask their doping since the early '2000's I asked him if WADA had lost the battle. He said, "we have the means to catch them, but we need independent enforcement bodies to do it". In other words, sports governance bodies are part of the problem. That was also the assessment of the Jamaican whistleblower, Ann Shirley.

To put that in a wider context, I have seen it reliably reported on Aljazeera that there are "over a hundred undetectable drugs available" out there currently, and the black market in doping amounts to "more than a billion Euros". Running has been identified as being at the front of the doping pack.

If you can smell the corruption it is likely the infection runs even deeper than you think.

You mentioned tennis in your post - Durianrider has some interesting info on doping in tennis (1 min into the video). The rest is interesting info on doping, not just Kenyans but everyone else in his opinion:

https://youtu.be/YU4KH5N_qDU

it would be a huge help if people like you could spill beans instead of using the "someone i know" routine...without real names and being honest with 100% transparency the reks and canovas on this board will call you a liar (even though they never once prove how they are the authority on said topics)

in high school i did a paper on doping, and yes i used what little knowledge i had on EPO at the time in the paper as well...but anyways what i found was back in the Greek times the athletes would have Bulls piss and if possible ejaculate into a bowl of oats or grains (cant remember exactly), then eat it, researchers did this and analysed the mixtures and found that urine from bulls had a small amount of testosterone and semen had more...

they did this because they wanted to have an edge or advantage on their competitors. and im sure renateous canovieous preached hard and his protege rekrunneous told the ancient greek noobs that eating bull urine oat cakes doesnt work, especially on the top tier spartans...lolz

- the poster formally known as m!ndweak

I appreciate the lengthy insight -- honestly.

So forgive me if I say, it documents mostly a history of observation and confirmation of USE -- something I don't doubt is a problem across many countries and many sports and many events.

Interesting your friend says 20-30%, because in my opinion, the only correct interpretation of the Tuebingen study is that 30% is the best lower bound estimate for 2011 World Championship.

You mention Russia, which is a great example of doping USE, with a less impressive record of EFFECT. Russia is by far the top known doping country, but how are their athletes performing with the benefit of doping? (Sorry to reference my other performance thread, but) In this post-1990 performance analysis:

- there were ZERO Russian men in the 1500m, 3000m, 3000m steeple, 5000m, 10000m, and marathon running faster than a top-5 average pre-1990.

- there were TWELVE Russian women in the 1500m, 3000m, 5000m, 10000m, and marathon running faster than a top-5 average pre-1990.

Recall someone just posted that Russia doped 1000 athletes. For distance events, I counted ZERO men and TWELVE women, faster than my arbitrary "pre-EPO" benchmark.

Let's put aside any question if 1990 was a clean or doped reference, the Russian men could not achieve what athletes from Spain, New Zealand, Ireland, Germany, USA, Australia, Holland, Canada, and Portugal could, not to mention Morocco and Algeria.

From the Russian women, there were ZERO in the 1500m (there best female was from 1980), THREE in 3000m, SIX in 5000m, SIX in 10000m, and SIX in the marathon. (Removing duplicates gives TWELVE women in total for these 5 events).

For the Russian women in the shorter distance events, it appears the doping post 1990 was not as strong as the doping in the 1980s.

You might be "comforted" by the larger numbers from 5000m on up, but it should be balanced by the fact that these events were relatively immature for the women.

Recently in another thread, I compared the Russian marathon women to the Japanese, a country not particularly known for doping, in terms of QUANTITY and QUALITY. Out of the top-95 (up to Jan 2018), there were 11 Japanese (top-5 average 2:20:24) versus 6 Russian (top-5 average 2:20:53). Russian marathon women lacked the depth (5 all-time) of quality to outperform Japan.

It is these kinds of examples, and many more, that seem like apparent contradictions, or disparities, between the USE of doping, and fast results from its EFFECT.

I've discussed the Russian situation with you before. Race walking is the dominate sport for men's athletics over there. The idea initially was to excel in a sport that they could have world domination. Race walking doesn't feature the East Africans, therefore that's a sport they felt they would have a better chance at.

The Russians put a lot of $$$ into their race walking training program, and it's also their National past time. They do, however, have a few men in distance running with Borzakovskiy being the most well-known and successful.

On the women side: They could care less about running faster than your top 5 pre-90's times. Lol. Their primary objective is to win Olympic & WC medals, and major marathon titles. Thier State-sponsored doping program is predicated on that premise and goes back to thier Soviet days. Look at the Olympic & WC medals and major marathon titles the Russian girls have won over the decades with many being stripped for doping.

https://www.iaaf.org/news/news/why-is-russia-such-a-strong-race-walking-nati

An assumption in your observations about the relative lack of superiority of Russian runners over competitors from other countries is that their competition is not doping also. I would have my doubts about that, as unpopular as I might make myself for suggesting that. Doping isn't confined to a few nationalities and a few sports.

You question the effect of doping. In the recent Aljazeera documentary series a Russian whistleblower who got caught doping said she had run 1.56xx for the 800 while doped. The drugs she had been given were testosterone, steroids and amphetamines. She was a world champs medallist. Trying to perform clean she was as yet unable to break 2.02. While I accept that women are likely better responders than men, 5-6 seconds is a very substantial margin over 800. Let us say it is only 2 seconds for a male and you still have the difference between placing and finishing last in a final.

I don't doubt that doping will have an effect on those using it - for some more than others. I've seen plenty of evidence for it. You may recall that the tennis player Maria Sharapova incurred a doping violation. She was using a banned stimulant called meldonium. It is a medication for those who have weak hearts. Before she was caught I recall thinking Sharapova's court speed and stamina was unusually impressive. In a later report, a person who had tried the drug said they were amazed at its effect on their speed and stamina. Meldonium is but one of many medicines that are banned substances.

We can debate the estimated effect that drugs will have on performance but the question is not whether they work but by how much. It doesn't have to be much to give an athlete the edge they are looking for.