A closer look at EPO-era performances

mods will be mods wrote:

No, he is one of the mods, trolling to increase traffic, like jamin and flagpole.

And they pay Island 'youth rates.'

The history of Erythropoietin is very interesting.

There were people involved with horse racing that knew it would be effective in the 1950's.

The history of EPO is the same old story: FOLLOW THE MONEY.

Although endurance athletes probably began experimenting with this new synthetic hormone during the drug’s clinical trials in 1986, its use as a potential performance enhancer was first recognized in the early 1950s. Beginning in 1953, a University of Chicago biochemist named Eugene Goldwasser set about understanding how the human body cre­ated and regulated red blood cells. Solving this problem had tremendous life-saving potential. Inventing a way to artificially replace the body’s EPO would be a boon for millions of patients affected by kidney failure. After three decades of research, Goldwasser isolated the erythropoietin gene, thereby opening the door to its synthesis.

In his autobiography, A Bloody Long Journey, Goldwasser recalls that not long after he began his 1953 investigations, a man with racehorses to sell came looking for equine EPO. Horses that ran faster and longer com­manded PREMIUM PRICES, and the horseman wanted to inject his stock with EPO to increase their performance in claiming races—events where horses are sold based on their placings.

As Goldwasser recalls, “He had done his homework and knew that for short races, increasing red cells was no help . . . but in longer races, having a bigger red blood cell count was an advantage.”

Buckets of horse blood soon began showing up on Goldwasser’s doorstep. Although Goldwasser never extracted enough pure EPO from the blood to test its sporting efficacy, he, like the racing entrepreneur, saw the performance-enhancing potential in the blood-regulating hor­mone in the early 1950s.

When Goldwasser’s lab finally isolated the EPO gene in the early 1980s, an infant biotech startup called Applied Molecular Genetics approached him, and Goldwasser began sharing his three decades of knowledge with the company that would later rename itself AMGEN.

AMGEN was funded by Montgomery Securities, an investment bank founded by Lance Armstrong’s U.S. Postal Service team backer THOMAS WEISEL... (It is just a coincidence.)

Amgen finally cloned EPO in November 1983, opening the door to industrial scale production of a synthetic version of the hormone under the name Epogen. It also licensed the patent to Johnson & Johnson, which sold its EPO as Procrit.

The startup exploded into a pharmaceuti­cal giant worth over $100 billion today. By 2006, annual EPO sales were $13 billion worldwide. After Amgen went public in 1983, the com­pany generated a stock-market windfall that seed investor and dedicated cyclist Weisel would later use to FUND PRO BIKE RACING TEAMS and pay for his own personalized coaching by Eddie Borysewicz.

The spectacular rise of Amgen and its miracle drug coincided with what appeared to be a rash of mysterious deaths among endurance ath­letes. Echoing claims made in other general news and cycling-specific publications, a May 1991 New York Times article concluded that EPO’s development came too close to a glut of 17 pro cyclist funerals to be mere coincidence.

http://www.nytimes.com/1991/05/19/us/stamina-building-drug-linked-to-athletes-deaths.html

From the 1991 article: "I began hearing about EPO two to three years ago (= 1988 to 1989) through the grapevine in running circles," said John Treacy, a silver medalist in the 1984 Olympic marathon. "The story was there was this new drug that would take over from blood doping, and that it was much better."

Len Pettyjohn, coach of the Coors Light cycling team, which is competing in the 11-day Tour Du Pont in the Middle Atlantic States this week, said: "We've all heard about EPO. I could only speculate on its use now, but it wouldn't surprise me. I don't think any Americans are using it, but anybody doing something like that is certainly not going to talk about it."

Even the Sporting News, a magazine that usually keeps its nose pointed firmly in the direction of stick-and-ball sports, got on the EPO-kills bandwagon, writing in a 2004 piece titled “Cycling’s Deadly Downward Spiral” that “death is yet the unseen rider in world-class cycling.” The story cited the death of nine riders due to heart failure between January 11, 2003, and June 30, 2004, including “one in a den­tist’s chair.”

Marathoners also got their moment in the EPO-kills glare. “Fear on the Marathon Starting Line,” blared an April 22, 2001, piece in Scotland’s Sunday Herald. It asserted that the top runners in that year’s London Mar­athon were wondering whether their days on Earth were so numbered that they would not have time to spend their appearance fees. The reason? EPO. Spanish marathoner Sergio García had died earlier that year at the age of 39, and coaches and runners were abuzz with speculation that his death was related to EPO. “Garcia’s spectre has been stalking the corridors of the London Marathon race headquarters this week,” the paper whis­pered.

In December 2006, Danish researchers reported that 10 percent of a clinical trial group of 516 head and neck cancer patients on heavy EPO doses experienced accelerating tumor growth, even while undergoing radiation treatment. This confirmed studies going back to 2003, which also showed that EPO could boost cancer growth. And 10 years earlier, a 1996 study of dialysis patients was halted because patients on high EPO dosages suffered more heart attacks than a control group on lower amounts of EPO.

The deaths were not related to something that was inherently destructive about EPO. Instead, they were caused by overdosing. In 2007, Johnson & Johnson’s annual EPO sales were $3.5 BILLION, while Amgen moved $5.6 BILLION worth of the product.

To attain these astronomical numbers, Amgen and Johnson & Johnson built incentive programs that financially rewarded doctors who administered heavy “off-label” doses of EPO to cancer and anemia patients. One West Coast office of six oncologists pocketed $2.7 million in incentives from Amgen in 2006 alone. The nationwide priming of the EPO pump led to a well-documented rash of heart attacks and carcinoma deaths in cancer and renal failure patients—so many that in 2007, the FDA released a report suggesting the dollar-incentivized high doses were neither improving nor extending patient lives.

Interestingly, health care system differences ended up saving the lives of cancer victims in Europe compared to the United States. In 2001, Amgen released a new EPO called Aranesp. To spur product sales, the company offered $1,200 kickbacks to doctors for every prescription written. Amgen also ran a TV ad blitz that encouraged patients to ask for Aranesp as an antidote to fatigue. Prescriptions skyrocketed 340 percent in the United States, but increased only 52 percent in Europe. Across the pond, direct-to-consumer marketing is illegal, national health care systems use their buying clout to negotiate lower drug costs, and doctors in those same health care systems are immune to Big Pharma payola.

Five years after the Aranesp release, studies began to indicate that American cancer patients were dying 10 percent more frequently than European cancer sufferers. As it turned out, EPO was accelerating tumor growth; the American sales-and-marketing incentives that got more patients to take more EPO had the unintended effect of killing them off more quickly than in Europe, where patients were shielded from the pharmaceutical company’s aggressive sales-and-marketing efforts.

One reason European athletes may have quickly adopted EPO in Europe in the late 1980s is related to a difference in European and American patent law. Shortly after Amgen successfully cloned EPO in 1982, at least four other biotech firms and the University of Washington separately made the same breakthrough. A court battle handed the U.S. patent to Amgen. European patent law, however, is reluctant to grant patents on naturally occurring substances, and Amgen did not get an EPO monopoly on the other side of the Atlantic.

As a result, Europeans had access to EPO from at least THREE manufacturers.

This pharmaceutical company competition, along with the buy­ing power of Europe’s national health care systems, kept EPO PRICES MUCH LOWER in Europe.

The affordability put the drug within financial reach of struggling European athletes while the drug’s distribution from multiple chemical manufacturers may have created more opportunities for gray market product leakage.

According to Alessandro Donati, an Italian sports professor and doping investigator, data from the sales of performance-enhancing drugs in Italy show that of 181 million prescrip­tions studied in 2000, the best-selling ones were erythropoietin (EPO) and human growth hormone (HGH).

The €158 million worth of EPO sold in Italy in 2000 did not include amounts brought in from Switzerland, nor the EPO distributed by the MAFIA—much of it STOLEN from pharmacies or obtained from illicit distributors.

Donati also cites a 1999 French study that indi­cated that ONLY 17% of GLOBAL EPO PRODUCTION WENT TO PATIENTS with pathologies, with the rest being distributed through UNDERGROUND MARKETS.

Because there were more manufacturers of EPO in Europe than in the United States, Europe had more distribution nodes from which the drug could be bought or stolen, he says.

NEJM Letter to the Editor from March 7, 1991

Recombinant Erythropoietin to Improve Athletic Performance

TO THE EDITOR:

Since the beginning of competitive athletics, people have sought methods to enhance their performance. "Blood doping," the use of red-cell transfusions to increase the oxygen-carrying capacity of the blood, has been used by some athletes to enhance performance in endurance events such as cycling and long-distance running. In 1985, Klein discussed the medical and ethical issues surrounding blood doping.1

He pointed out that while it is possible for athletes to donate blood for their own eventual use — or to have friends or relatives donate blood — it is not without danger. The processes of donation, storage, and reinfusion very likely would be carried out under suboptimal or even medically unacceptable conditions, and the use of homologous blood would expose the athlete to the risk of transfusion-transmitted disease.

A new and potentially dangerous wrinkle in this story has emerged with the availability of recombinant human erythropoietin (rHuEpo). rHuEpo is licensed to correct the severe anemia of patients with end-stage renal disease, and it is extremely effective.2 3 4 However, rHuEpo is simply the recombinant form of the normal hormone, which regulates red-cell production in humans. In patients with renal failure, as well as in normal subjects, the rate at which the hematocrit increases depends on the dose of rHuEpo (Fig. 1).

However, while rHuEpo is safe from the standpoint of disease transmission, its misuse by athletes carries risks. These risks include the fact that the effective dose varies considerably from person to person3 and that even after the drug has been discontinued, the effect on the erythroid marrow may continue for several days. Consequently, the hematocrit may continue to rise and may reach dangerously high levels.

Unfortunately, studies have documented the advantage of increased oxygen-carrying capacity in the performance of athletes.5 6 7

This principle has become widely accepted.

What is now of concern to physicians, the manufacturers of rHuEpo, and those who govern competitive athletics is that the misuse of rHuEpo can endanger the life and health of athletes. There is speculation, although no direct evidence, that rHuEpo may have been involved in the deaths of professional cyclists from the Netherlands.8

At present, there is no way to identify someone who uses rHuEpo; the recombinant hormone is virtually indistinguishable biochemically and immunologically from the native molecule.9

The responsibility that we have as physicians or manufacturers of rHuEpo is to emphasize the potential complications of the misuse of the drug. We need to educate physicians, trainers, and the athletes themselves about the possible consequences of rHuEpo misuse and develop assays to identify those who "dope" their blood with this very potent new drug.

John W. Adamson, M.D.

New York Blood Center, New York, NY 10021

Daniel Vapnek, Ph.D.

AMGEN, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199103073241014

9 references

1. Klein HG. . Blood transfusion and athletics: games people play . N Engl J Med 1985; 312:854–6.

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2. Eschbach JW, Egrie JC, Downing MR, Browne JK, Adamson JW. . Correction of the anemia of end-stage renal disease with recombinant human erythropoietin: results of a combined Phase I and II clinical trial . N Engl J Med 1987; 316:73–8.

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3. Eschbach JW, Abdulhadi MH, Browne JK, et al. . Recombinant human erythropoietin in anemic patients with end-stage renal disease: results of a phase III multicenter clinical trial . Ann Intern Med 1989; 111:992–1000.

Web of Science

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4. Adamson JW. . The promise of recombinant human erythropoietin . Semin Hematol 1989; 26:Suppl 2:5–8.

5. Ekblom B, Goldbarg AN, Gullbring B. . Response to exercise after blood loss and reinfusion . J Appl Physiol 1972; 33:175–80.

Web of Science

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6. Buick FJ, Gledhill N, Froese AB, Spriet L, Meyers EC. . Effect of induced erythrocythemia on aerobic work capacity . J Appl Physiol 1980; 48:636–42.

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7. Brien AJ, Simon TL. . The effects of red blood cell infusion on 10-km race time . JAMA 1987; 257:2761–5.

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8. Undetectable dialysis drug is tied to athletes' deaths . Los Angeles Times. May 22, 1990:1.

9. Egrie JC, Strickland TW, Lane J, et al. . Characterization and biological effects of recombinant human erythropoietin . Immunobiology 1986; 172: 213–24.

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ha ha ha

Take a look at who was training in Albuquerque, N.M a few years ago... before Dr. Leonid Shvetsov went back to Russia to 'coach' Russian runners.

Paula Radcliffe did her buildup in Albuquerque prior to her 2:15:25 world record at the London marathon in 2003. The blood tests from around that race have never been released by Paula even though she said she would release them.

Gabriela Szabo, Morceli, Khalid Skah, Leonid Shvetsov and many other runners trained there.

"The air is cleaner and the scenery and running is beautiful and motivating, as well as tough. The weather is also better here (than in England)...it's nice to be able to train in t-shirt and shorts and dry sunshine."

-World Marathon Record Holder Paula Radcliffe

"I am training in Albuquerque because it is high altitude. When I am training here, it's like when I'm in Kenya. There's no difference. I like it also because of the foothills. I can train up the hills and down the hills. And it's a training area--so many people are training here. When I'm training and I see other people training, then I think, `Here we are together.'"

-World Class Distance Runner Jane Kiptoo

"It's a lot better than coming all the way from Europe. I like the quietness, and the altitude, of course. It's a nice place to train."

-2007 World Cross Country Champion Lornah Kiplagat

"On Sunday mornings, you see hundreds and hundreds of people out running. If we go to a local Starbucks, people ask, 'Are you guys runners?' Everybody understands running, and I think that helps a lot."

-High Altitude Training Camp (Kenya) Co-Owner Pieter Langerhorst (EPO was found at the HATC. It is just a coincidence.)

Who trained In Albuquerque?

Olympic medalists and World Record holders:

NOUREDDINE MORCELI, Algeria

KHALID SKAH, Morocco

GABRIELA SZABO, Romania

JOSIAH THUGWANE, South Africa

GERT THYS, South Africa- banned for doping with an anabolic steroid

EDDY HELLEBUYCKS (Belgium/USA) -banned for doping with EPO

PAULA RADCLIFFE, Great Britain (multiple suspicious blood tests)

LEONID SHVETSOV, Russia

DEEJAH YOUNGQUIST, (Albuquerque, Seattle banned for doping with EPO

ANDREW BEGLEY, Topeka, Ind.

AMY YODER BEGLEY, Kendallville, Ind.

ELVA DRYER, Albuquerque (Durango, Colo.)

LAUREN FLESHMAN, Stanford, Calif.

BOB KENNEDY, Indianapolis

LORNAH KIPLAGAT, The Netherlands (EPO was found at her HATC center in Kenya)

TEDDY MITCHELL, Albuquerque (Longwood, Fla.)

DAVID MORRIS, Albuquerque (Eagle River, Alaska)

SIMON SAWE, Santa Fe (Kenya)

MICHAEL STEMBER, Fair Oaks, Calif.

JANET TRUJILLO, Albuquerque

ALAN WEBB, Virginia

BENOIT ZWIERZCHIEWSKI, France

TURKISH National Team members

‘How can anyone include Leonids good name to doping?’ asks Ray de Vries in a media release put out by the local agent as spokesman for two time Comrades winner, Russian Leonid Shvetsov, who this week was alleged to be both a supplier and user of banned performance enhancing substances since the mid 1990’s.

De Vries went on to say that he had been in contact with Shvetsov in Russia. “I have advised Leonid to take legal opinion as his future career has been compromised by unfounded rumours. We have asked the athlete involved to explain his actions” said de Vries.

From a speculative viewpoint it would seem the weight of opinion is against de Vries standpoint.

Britain’s Peter Whitehead, Canadian Bruce Raymar, and ex-South African and 1993 world marathon champion Mark Plaatjies are among the top international athletes to have supported the contentions made by Belgian born Eddy Hellebuycks who was central figure in the elite training group in Albuquerque during the build up to the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.

Others in that group included south Africans Gert Thys and Joshua Thugwane who went on to win the Olympic Gold medal in the Georgia city.

Thys, who won the Cape Town city marathon in September and was second in Beijing last year, has only just returned to the sport having completed a two year drug ban.

De Vries also said that that some well- known athletes, including a well-known South African Comrades winner who tested positive, have stayed at the training camp.

Plaatjies said “Everybody in the sport knew about Leonid. On the circuit, he always had the reputation as a doper. That’s what Leonid did.”

Whitehead didn’t mince his words “Leonid wasn’t clean, and never had been in my book. His times in training didn’t come close to matching up with his times in races.”

Raymer’s statement appears damning in the detail. “Leonid quite openly kept a stockpile of EPO in his refrigerator, behind the milk and orange juice,” reported the Canadian. “He approached me with the offer to sell me some EPO. He told me how easy it was to inject. He quoted me a price for one cycle—$400. I told him no thanks, and he came back to me with an offer of $350. He came back to me several times, reducing the price to $300. It was kind of bizarre. Leonid is a big, menacing guy. I almost wanted to buy some EPO just to get him off my back.”

When Raymer continued to decline Shvetsov’s sales pitch for EPO, he says, the Russian then offered to sell him the anabolic agent clenbuterol, which is also on the list of banned substances. “Leonid was pretty brash about drugs,” Raymer continues. “His room was like a pharmacy full of banned drugs. Besides the EPO and clenbuterol, I also saw Winstrol [the brand name for the anabolic steroid stanozolol] and Anavar [the brand name for the anabolic steroid oxandrolone].”

Eddy Hellebuycks was banned for EPO, and initiated the exposure during an interview for an American running magazine which was published in mid October.

http://www.coachnorrie.co.za/2010/11/22/comrades-double-record-holder-shvetsov-named-as-drug-supplier/

There is nothing to see here.

It is just a Coincidental Synchronicity™.

Because I look at performance. In the 1980s, 5 people ran an average of 1:42.11. Since 1990, only 3 people ran faster. Amine Laalou's performance is ranked 156th all time. As important as endurance is, speed is just as important, if not more.

Rocket Fuel Rick wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

In most EPO threads, I don't recall the 800m ever coming up, or any famous "busted for EPO" anecdotes.

Well...here's some:

Amine Laâlou/1:43.25/gold & bronze Med Games (EPO)

Rashid Ramzi/1: 44.06/WC gold (CERA)

Fouad Chouki/1:45.77 (EPO)

Yassine Bensghir/1:45.89 (ABP - hematological anomalies)

rekrunner wrote:

I did not expect EPO to help 800m.

Why would you think that rekrunner? ? Aerobic capacity is an important component of the 800...no surprises there:

You seem to feel pretty strongly about a suggestion you disowned, attributed to me, coming from my 12-year old brother. It seems you were wrong, if not lying, when you said I misunderstood what you wrote. If you think it is important to consider, then be my guest. It is currently an undeveloped hypothesis. You have some work to do, and I've pointed out the gaps. I think there is not any evidence to support your novel hypothesis that steroids significantly helps distance events, even in men. Ross doesn't help, because his supporting evidence was a lack of records after the strong 1980s performances -- remember table 2. I did not consider Beyer, because he was too slow. I did consider the performances of Baumann and Kisorio. I note both of them ran slower when they were caught with steroids, and neither of them were caught with EPO. Your over-interpretation of negligible facts is a continuous series of offenses. Again, look at how hard you cling to any small effect from steroids for men, to help explain a large gap, when steroids are simply not known to help improve endurance performance. But, when you've got nothing else, go ahead and accuse me again of trolling, and pushing some agenda.

rekrunner wrote:

I did not consider Beyer, because he was too slow. I did consider the performances of Baumann and Kisorio. I note both of them ran slower when they were caught with steroids, and neither of them were caught with EPO.

Your over-interpretation of negligible facts is a continuous series of offenses.

Again, look at how hard you cling to any small effect from steroids for men, to help explain a large gap, when steroids are simply not known to help improve endurance performance.

Just jumping back into this thread after not looking at it for a while, but I'm even more confused now.

So the thesis that you're trying to present in this thread is that EPO simply levelled the playing field for doping and that is why African performances rose so markedly in relation to the rest of the world during the EPO era. Yet you also believe that steroids do not aid middle and long distance running.

So you think that everybody has always doped, but Europeans and Americans had an advantage before the 90's because it wasn't so easy for Africans to dope. What were Europeans doping with then? Are you saying they were all blood doping, and EPO simply allowed Africans to blood dope as well? The only reason Coe, Cram, Ovett dominated when they did (and Moorcroft etc) was because all of them were seperately getting blood doped at expensive Italian clinics. As soon as EPO became available and the advantage was lost and hence Africans dominate and Brits finish nowhere. Is this the absurdity you're claiming now?

Wouldn't it be more rationale to simply evoke Occam's razor and admit that the most likely explanation for the far greater improvement in African performances during the EPO era was because Africans were more likely to cheat (because of far greater financial incentives, little or no testing, and endemic everyday corruption part of their cultures)?

If 'everybody cheat's was true, and only blood doping works, then you would expect a dozens of Brits to be running Coe, Ovett, Cram times in the EPO 90s, not ZERO. Maybe the high end performances wouldn't improve much, but the depth certainly would, and instead the depth of quality European running went down.

In short

➡horse trainers are always years ahead when it comes to doping.

➡epo is used mainly for cheating. They claim it is for sick people, I feel sorry for the sick people. Though I did wonder whether castration resistant prostate cancer patients may live longer with transfusions from people with low PSA readings.

➡Donati is hinting that those that take epo are also taking hgh. This is pretty much assumed. I do wonder if the Nandrolone positives were people trying to substitute for a lack of access to hgh.

➡Italy had a massive epo problem.

Maybe you can tell us which countries did not have OOC urine tests for steroids and OOC urine tests for EPO? OOC blood tests only became relevant post-2009.

Subway Surfers Addiction wrote:

So Rekrunner's hypothesis is that countries with OOC testing performed worse than countries without OOC testing during the EPO era. Yep, solid proof epo doesn't work.

Does the remote village of Albuquerque have OOC testing?

Albuquerque.EPO.com wrote:

Take a look at who was training in Albuquerque, N.M a few years ago... before Dr. Leonid Shvetsov went back to Russia to 'coach' Russian runners.

rekrunner wrote:

Because I look at performance.

In the 1980s, 5 people ran an average of 1:42.11.

Since 1990, only 3 people ran faster.

But some of the times are very close - within hundredths of seconds in some cases. And in looking at the top 25 all-time, Rudisha holds *11* of the spots including the top 3 all-time! ? Kipketer has 8 and Coe 2. Amos, Cruz, Khamis, Koskei all with 1. Only Coe & Cruz are in there from pre-90s. So, with the fastest of the fast, I'm seeing total domination post-90s with three Kenyans, a Motswana and a Sudanese.

rekrunner wrote:

As important as endurance is, speed is just as important, if not more.

Speed no doubt is an important factor but not as important as aerobic capacity as the study I posted reveals (66/34 aerobic/anaerobic). Otherwise, you should be able to take sprinters and throw them in the 800 with no endurance training and they should be kicking ass. And keep in mind two speedsters, Snell & Ovett, were doing 100+ mpw in their base training.

You are still (better: again and again) making stuff up. This here is the nonsense that you wrote, which did not come from me, and I also do not agree with that:

I am going to ignore you again. You are getting too desperate, and insultive, again. Troll somebody else.

The matter has dragged on so long, probably because all the involved parties felt that the matter was closed Jan. 2016, when the WADA-IC published its second report, after the blood was available for review by the IAAF, UKAD, WADA, and the WADA-IC and their experts, in addition to Paula's expert, and probably feel that nothing will really satisfy the remaining doubters, despite claims that "if only Paula would let real experts look at it".

case follower wrote:

I really don't think any of this matters when she refused to open her blood data to analysis by an independent panel (not some hired guns from the IAAF) of qualified people to determine doping or not. That would be the best way to remove suspicion. And even then this matter has dragged on for so long now that it looks suspicious in itself. The thing could have been cleaned up from the very beginning in this way rather than having potentially incriminating information being forced out drip by drip.

Frame it how you want -- the notion that steroids is important to consider for performance in these distance events is one that needs a lot of work.

But but but but... I don't find faster times in your study. I don't find faster times in an alltime list by going down it. Apparently the ability to artificially increase your aerobic capacity just doesn't lead to faster 800m times. This is what I expected for 800m, and this is what real performances have shown.

Rocket Fuel Rick wrote:

But some of the times are very close - within hundredths of seconds in some cases. And in looking at the top 25 all-time, Rudisha holds *11* of the spots including the top 3 all-time! ? Kipketer has 8 and Coe 2. Amos, Cruz, Khamis, Koskei all with 1. Only Coe & Cruz are in there from pre-90s. So, with the fastest of the fast, I'm seeing total domination post-90s with three Kenyans, a Motswana and a Sudanese.

...

Speed no doubt is an important factor but not as important as aerobic capacity as the study I posted reveals (66/34 aerobic/anaerobic). Otherwise, you should be able to take sprinters and throw them in the 800 with no endurance training and they should be kicking ass. And keep in mind two speedsters, Snell & Ovett, were doing 100+ mpw in their base training.

Hmmm. You do seem confused. Probably, if you took each of your sentences, and negated it, it would be a more accurate starting point. For example, I never said "EPO simply leveled the playing field", but asked, if it could have, why didn't it? A universal drug seems like a bad explanation for such long term regional dominance. Steroids for mid-D and distance needs evidentiary support -- so far I only saw three studies saying it didn't, and a bunch of events unhindered by a crackdown on OOC steroid testing post-1990. Your simple "Occam's razor" scenario is quite complex, as it involves a lot of assumptions about athletes from more than 150 nations, suddenly gaining a moral culture, in distance running only, all losing interest in winning, including Spain, a great example of EPO success, and a lot of assumptions about an unprecedented scale of doping that has gone undetected for decades, not only by traditional testing methods, but other methods like someone finally speaking out, or a real investigative journalist coming up with something more than allegations and insinuations.

rekrunner wrote:

But but but but...

I don't find faster times in your study.

I don't find faster times in an alltime list by going down it.

Apparently the ability to artificially increase your aerobic capacity just doesn't lead to faster 800m times.

This is what I expected for 800m, and this is what real performances have shown.

Huh? Well then...if you didn't like the top 25, let's look at spots 26 through 50: 19 of the fastest times are Africans post-90 with most from Kenya (Rudisha [again], Kipketer, Bungei, Koskei, Kitum). So, in the top-50 all-time fastest, 39, or 78% , are from Africans post-90s, with Rudisha alone holding 12 (24%) of the top 50 spots! ?

I don't think even you know what you're talking about now or what your argument here is. Everything is indeed complex if you start with an absurd assumption that you are apparently unable to even consider to be false (because to do so would be 'racist') - that Third World Africans with endemic corruption and little or no testing and massive financial incentives to cheat in order to escape poverty are no more likely to take a 'universal drug' than others.

Do you even deny that Moroccans are more likely to cheat? Despite the raft of failed tests and ridiculous career progressions etc.?

To most sane, rational, and unblinkered people, the fact that African performances rocketed and dominated distance running exactly at the same time that the first ever potent endurance PED became available does have a blindingly obvious explanation.

Gary Pariah Rekrunner, will you just stop all of this and come pound out my tight brown eye already!!

[quote]rekrunner wrote:

For example, I never said "EPO simply leveled the playing field", but asked, if it could have, why didn't it?[quote]EPO & PED use never levels the playing field - it unlevels it rather profoundly: High-responders, structured programs, State-sponsored systematic doping, covered drug postitives, poor OOC testing in some countries, bribes & mega-corruption.

For example, look at the damage the Russian women did with medaling in WC /Olympic events & major competitions. Fortunately, they got caught and were stripped of most of the medals & titles. And check out the damage the Russian men race walkers did with EPO & blood doping - insane! There's your "level" playing field Gary - it got "unleveled" very quickly. Lol.