Rhonex Kipruto suspended

I just find it a bit stunning that in this day and age people think that doping might have little effect.

Sport is big business. Olympic medals bring a lot to a country.

A huge amount of money will have gone into designing or assessing how effective various substances are for improving performance. Of course there are going to be things that work and work well! You can manipulate the human body, you can make recovery better, easier. You can do so many things. People were doping back in ancient times. We had this back in 1904 (and way before that). Look at the 1970s and 1980s. Things have moved on since then. The technology we have is incredible really.

Of course there are amazing, naturally talented athletes. But these same amazing naturally talented athletes will also most likely improve with PEDs. Does it not make sense that the majority of people at the top will be both?

In all my years of posting on LetsRun "rekrunner" has got to take the cake as one of the most uninformed people I've ever seen. Like, how can you be so ignorant?

Care to explain why?

So the obvious conclusion is that we are all still at square one, starting at a blank drawing board. Science tells us nothing and historical performance tells us nothing. All we have is faithful religion and wives-tale gossip circulating among athletes and their fans.

But I'm curious. What qualifications do I need exactly to "know" that a study on 48 non-elites that measured mean and peak power is not the "real world of elite runners"? Didn't we both vehemently agree that that is a fundamental defect? Do you now suggest only current and former elite runners are able to see what both you and I just saw, and properly categorize this study as irrelevant?

I can see and say it is irrelevant because I have a brain, and I use it. I have never been a cat or a dog, but I know a dog is a not a cat when I see one.

If it helps, Canova has also said that these kinds of studies are defective by design and do not reflect the realities of elite performance. In the absence of any requisite personal knowledge, I defer to a knowledgeable elite coach in the sport for more than 50 years.

But by that same token, were you ever an elite runner? Was Coevett? Because you both presumed to speak on behalf of thousands of dopers, pretending to know their experience was precisely the one you want to believe in so strongly.

The fact remains athletes world wide are still caught doping. My advice is public -- if you want more EPO and more RBC -- live and train at altitude.

rekrunner:

You do understand that with Heuberger you are citing someone's postgraduate research, right? A student? It's not peer reviewed, it's not published in a journal. It's a student's work. Why on earth would you do that?

He summarises that on the list are 23 classes of substances, but for only five of these is there is robust evidence that they enhance performance. Right. That's because the list tries to include everything, including substances that are harmful and that affect other sports.

For example, alcohol is on the prohibited list but I don't think anyone is arguing that it helps distance running.

The WADA list is for ALL SPORTS. So one substance will work for one sport (e.g. for archery to steady a hand) but be a disadvantage in another sport.

You are taking his research completely out of context. That is what you would actually expect to find: that in a list of banned substances for a wide range of sports, a few work for one sport, a few work for another.

He tested amateur cyclists. We are talking about elite athletes. He also found that the EPO cyclists performed better than the non-EPO cyclists in the lab.

Why do I need to have been a high level athlete to understand the logical absurdity of believing that thousands and thousands of elite athletes would not continue risking everything by doping if they were not getting benefits from doing so??

Doping and anti-doping are also big business. They both become bigger when the benefits are hyped up with myths.

Whatever you think makes sense, even the most pessimistic "official" estimates show that doping is only a minority "of people at the top".

I agree with you that Armstronglivs is absurd for suggesting only elite athletes can have an opinion.

But let's all remember your understanding is just your own personal speculation as a non-elite who never doped nor performed.

When you're assessing research you need to look at the source. The authors, their affiliation(s), who funded it, their history, the journal itself (how rigorous it is), the peer review process etc. Even with all of that, it's not a perfect process. You are on better ground with well respected journals though. They tend not to want to publish bullchit. You don't take a PhD thesis to back up a point!

Also, what he is proposing is that every single thing on the WADA list is tested to see if it enhances performance or it is taken off the list. This would have to be across many sports, sexes, ages, ethnicities. At the moment the list is more cautious but he is saying that basically, if one study fails to show a positive effect, it's off the list. People can use it. No problem. He wants to make the doping list "shorter and more effective".

No it's not, it's basic understanding of human psychological motivation.

I emailed the Brojos recently and suggested to them that they limit your posting to a maximum of 10 posts a day. Of course they didn't reply. Wouldn't be surprised to learn that they have actually made you a moderator here.

Seriously? Ignorant about what exactly? I am more than happy if someone with information can bring it into to these discussions, or at least point me to where I can become better informed. Usually what happens are vague accusations that I am ignorant or uninformed, provided with no basis. These kind of personal attacks are poor substitutes for genuine substance and information.

Most every opinion I have expressed on this topic is one backed by mounds of information and also opinions shared by experts in coaching, anti-doping, and science. It is based on data found in WADA reports, dozens of scientific studies (on well trained amateurs, with all its defects) on performance, information found in AIU and AAA and CAS reports, reports conducted and published by WADA, and the WA(/IAAF), and analyzing trends from a fairly complete set of best historical performances.

I can't imagine that everyone else here is better informed than having all this information from all these official sources.

Aren't you an American athlete? With your insider knowledge, do you have real information? Who is the best known doped distance running male American that best illustrates the significant power of doping for elite athletes? Christian Hesch? Who was the best doped non-African male runner in the 1990s when no test existed for EPO, and cyclists from every non-African nation was consuming EPO to their eyeballs?

Coevett says I've convinced no one in 10 years. I don't really care about that, but I do strive to be better informed.

Thanks in advance for any new information.

You mean things like hope and faith... Human psychology is often irrational.

Even Armstronglivs vehemently argued that there is no scientific basis for elite athletes to dope.

I don't think rekrunner should be limited in posting. Especially just because we all have differences of opinion! He is entitled to post whatever he wants about this topic. I don't find it offensive - it's just a different viewpoint...

Did anyone else know this? I wasn't aware of it.

Historic/ancient Olympics:

"If they were caught cheating, their likenesses were often engraved into stone and placed in a pathway that led to the Olympic stadium."

Are you saying the "British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology" is not a peer-reviewed journal? But even then, Heuberger successfully defended his PhD.

I agree with most of your points, and over time have made these very same points.

When deciding which substance are banned, WADA only concerns itself with a "potential to enhance" performance. WADA has no interest to actually prove performance enhancement for any, let alone all Olympic sports. They just need enough to make a reasonable subjective one-sided, unchallengeable assessment.

And I agree a drug that "works" for archery, or cycling, or sprinting, may not necessarily "work" for distance running.

Heuberger's time-trial found that EPO cyclists "performed" in a lab as expected, but this did not translate to a real world time trial "performance" up the Mont Ventoux, contrary to expectations. The EPO cyclists were (insignificantly) slower, despite the improved lab parameters.

That seems like an important result. The conclusion here is that realities found in the lab do not necessarily describe the reality on the track or the roads. This is what most studies say in their limitations sections.

I'm not sure what I took out of context, but whether or not I take his research out of context, the proper way to rebut these points would be to come up with disproving counter examples. For example, when he concludes, after conducting a literature review, that studies look at the wrong things on the wrong people, if he is wrong then, we should be able to find one or more studies who looked at the right things on the right people. When he says that few studies use control groups, and/or are double-blinded -- this can be verified or contradicted, whether the statement is peer-reviewed in a journal, or not.

Rekrunner has a valid point about studies not using elite athletes. However I think rek, overleans on this, to then develop an incautious worldview

I look at Lance, Lance Armstrong.

.....

The Lance Armstrong era in pro cycling, suggests PEDs do help elite athletes. The cycling teams had their own sports scientists and other relevant specialist staff. Surely PEDs would not have been embraced, unless these staff and their own "6 million dollar man-like" evaluation systems, saw clear gains.

In the immediate aftermath of the Lance Armstrong scandal, When ped use had to be more limited. I recall Tour de France times falling

So if I were forced to bet my life, on whether PEDs turbo-boost elite athletes (inc the elite of the elite). I'd say yes, PEDs do

I can also agree with this, to a point. But I think it is also important to look at the claims themselves, how well they are backed by data, and whether they can be contradicted by other data, rather than looking at the names and backgrounds of the people who wrote them. Knowledge is not static, but fluid, and can evolve over time based on new information.

I didn't just talk about Heuberger's statement of the WADA lists, but his qualitative review of existing literature on doping performance, showing that many are not controlled, not blinded, looking at the wrong things on the wrong people. I also provide another quantitative review characterizing the results when looking at the highest quality studies. Both of these papers appeared in peer-reviewed journals.

But I also agree with some proposed WADA reforms, regardless of publication status, including a review and reduction of some of the banned substances not really known for enhancing performance. This would permit channeling limited funds to higher priority testing.