Armstronglivs wrote:
I am not "repeating" what HRE said; I am questioning its veracity, on both counts: did Snell actually say what HRE claims he did (second hand) and was Odlozil blood-doping when the practice had yet to be recorded in sports and especially running in the early sixties?
The irony in your presuming to lecture me about scepticism - I am sceptical about all sports today - is that you are requiring I accept something for which there is no convincing evidence, that there was blood-doping in running in the early sixties - because HRE appears to say so on the basis of what a man in a bar said to him that Snell said about Odlozil. Quite a reversal of your usual position - but you only ever argue what is convenient for what you wish to believe rather than what is likely to be true.
Really? It turns out that HRE also said the same thing -- acknowledging both of your points are possible.
My position hasn't changed -- my position then and now is that there are a few things we know about doping, both back in the '60s and today, and many things we don't know. For example, we know blood doping was being studied, at least by the US Air Force, and by Swedish scientists since the late '40s, and that there was concern as early as 1963, about how to adapt to Mexico City's altitude, with scientists suggesting blood transfusions, but we don't know when it first appeared in the various sports, or what the Soviet countries were doing at that time. You suggest that what is most likely is that athletes waited until after Mexico City to leverage two decades of research -- I guess because athletes are typically two decades behind the scientists.
The irony is your failure to see that you have already long accepted many things for which there is no convincing evidence, forming the basis of your skepticism of sport performance today.