Aras Kaya, "turkish" x-kenyan gets 3 years for EPO.

It's not unlikely that Kaya will never come back. For whatever reason he supposedly was in the process of transferring allegiance again, namely to Russia. Which does not seem to make any sense as Russia is banned anwway.

I agree.

You disputed the claim of "thousands of athletes", when it is obvious doping extends to those numbers. You dispute that top athletes like distance runners are doping. You further dispute that if they have doped it will have improved their performances. You dispute the assessments of antidoping experts like Howman that the numbers doping will be much greater than those caught. You dispute that drugs like EPO are performance enhancing - because "it all depends", and you say that it is only "belief" or "faith" by athletes that drugs aid performance, not fact. Everything you maintain is the opposite of what I say - and the truth. That you say "we have so much in common" proves two things: you have no idea about anything - and you are a chronic liar.

Rekrunner is fanatical in his determination to prove that athletes do not dope in the numbers many say they do - and if they do he says it doesn't really help them. What the fanatic on this board doesn't get is that there are athletes who are just as fanatical about succeeding in any way they can as he is about denying they will do whatever it takes. It is so ironic. He doesn't see that in his unswerving dedication to the task he has set himself he is a paradoxical demonstration of why athletes dope. Fanatical adherence to a personal goal. But to see that would take self-awareness. Alas.

Is it countless, or thousands?

This whole thing is only because someone asked if the athletes were right. Right about what? What do the athletes actually say about their doping experience with respect to changes in their performance? Both you and Coevett say there are thousands, perhaps countless, but yet cannot provide a single athlete sharing their experience, and if it was positive of negative.

I'm happy to accept that no athlete has ever talked for decades, but then how can you pretend to know the experience of thousands, if not countless numbers, of athletes, and how can anyone ask if the athletes are right?

In addition to propogating many myths about doping and elite performance, for some reason you and Coevett and countless other posters, feel the need to create many myths about what my "dispute" is. I can only gather you are unable to genuinely dispute the merits of what I really say, so you have to fabricate many other myths, and knock down these scarecrows.

These threads would be a lot shorter if you and others would actually read and understand them rather than propogating the same falsehoods. Here are some corrections:

- I don't dispute "thousands" (e.g. Ashenden/Parisotto identifed 800 suspects in 12 years), but asked what do/did some, or any, of these athletes actually know/experience/say? All I have is your word, and Coevett's, but not theirs.

- I don't dispute top athletes are doping, and have conceded many times that dopers can be found far and wide from top to bottom.

- I don't dispute doping could have improved their performance, but dispute that their is sufficient data and observations to establish the correlation, let alone cause and effect.

- I don't know what Howman actually said, so cannot dispute it. I accept without dispute that the numbers doping are much greater than 1-2%. I accept without dispute both of your figures of 10x and 10%.

- I don't dispute that EPO potentially improves performance. Indeed, I'm a strong believer in altitude training, and the benefit from altitude training includes increased EPO production.

- I do suggest that that which has not been established as fact, or supported by factual evidence or observation, is in the realm of speculation, hypothesis, myth, religion, belief, and faith.

- I do dispute that what you say has been established as "the truth", or as "fact". It would be more convincing if you could ever provide any substantial evidence of any of your statements, rather than blaming me for pointing out your failure to do so.

Because you never acquaint yourself with anything outside the musty attic of your mind you have never read the accounts by athletes of their experiences of doping. Jose Canseco wrote an entire autobiography about it. There were athletes busted in the lead-up to Atlanta (interviewed by Panorama) who spoke glowingly (excuse the pun) of what doping did for them. There have been articles in which those who have experimented with performance enhancing drugs described the experience. I have read these. We have witnessed the dramatically improved performances of those we subsequently knew had doped because they were caught. Finally, from the athletes who have doped for generations we have the affirmation that doping worked for them. If it had not they would have long given the practice away and we would not be discussing the topic. Doping would not exist. Athletes in every sport would not have risked careers and reputation for something that gave them no advantage.You are so entrenched in the pile of manure that is your denial it is beyond your capacity to see that.

Nothing you say refutes what I have said. Your circumlocution is simply slithering to the same old denial of the true prevalence and effect of doping. For example, "altitude-training increases (natural) EPO" but taking EPO as an exogenous drug does not enhance performance as you say altitude-training does. So - your usual denial masquerading as science.

So you haven't asked any of the athletes who choose to use EPO. But you know better than they what the drug doesn't - or doesn't - do for them.

More to the point, all of the things you say I dispute, I did not dispute. You are arguing with yourself to a scarecrow of your own making.

Have you? How do you know better than they what the drug doesn't - or doesn't (sic) - do for them?

I have observed that only a few non-Africans progressed very little during the EPO-era.

I often ask you for reading material and you are always quite vague and non-specific. For example, which are some of these articles where I can read "in which those who have experimented with performance enhancing drugs described the experience." Can you name just one from an elite distance runner? Maybe Kisorio in an interview with Seppelt, after taking drugs while running slower?

With Russia we have also *not* witnessed "dramatically improved performances" from those "we subsequently knew had doped because they were caught". Also India and China. There is no obviously strong correlation.

I watched your BBC Panorama "lead-up to Atlanta" and your "Al Jazeera" black market documentaries. That's how I know you made mistakes retelling them. Neither of them talked about elite distance running performance. I didn't read Jose Canseco -- did he talk about distance running?

Where is this "affirmation that doping worked for" "athletes who have doped for generations"? This is affirmation of hope and faith. Athletes would risk their careers and reputations based on hope and faith, that it would give them an advantage, because they are not as critical as scientists.

EPO. Breakfast of champions.

I don't have to ask them. I don't presume to know that the drug doesn't work for them, as you do - who have never used it or know anyone who has.

So you have shown be example, what the expected standard is, and I will follow your lead.

You still presume far too much. Without asking any athlete, or providing any quote, or using the drugs yourself, or knowing any athlete who has, you presume to know the knowledge and experience of any of the "thousands" of athletes. You even presume on my behalf, that I presume to know that the drug doesn't work for them -- something I never claimed.

"The scope and scale of doping in ‘tested’ sport remains unclear. Numerous studies suggest that prevalence rates could be much higher than doping control tests reveal [1, 2]. One study based on a combination of questionnaires and statistical models of plausible biological anomalies estimated a figure of 14–39 % compared to the 0.5–2 % level of positive doping control tests [3]."

"In an interview with BBC in July this year, WADA Director General David Howman claimed that more than 10 % of elite athletes were doping. The greatest area of concern, he noted, was the level of up and coming athletes trying to get what he called a ‘breakthrough’, which made them more susceptible to substance abuse."