Peter Bol tests positive for EPO

Lets analyze in general leaving aside a final judgement here in this case for the moment since all the facts are not in. He could well be innocent.

But, lets say you're a "good" but not great athlete. Maybe you can run a 1:46 or 1:45 even. That will get you dickola in the long term.

But, with some help, you can run just a little faster and make a decent (or even good living).

So, don't cheat and may as well start flipping burgers or do cheat and maybe get caught (and go flip burgers) or don't get caught and become a famous athlete.

The point is, if your *only* chance to achieve fame (and money) is to cheat, there is little downside risk to cheating.

Ah this poor guy. So unfortunate that his superior blood chemistry was so naturally close to that upper threshold limit (of basically motor oil consistency blood), that maybe a chance workout at altitude then coming back down to sea level just vaulted him up and over the threshold into the realm of implausibility.

What a curse to be so physically blessed that you always ran the gauntlet of an unfair suspension...

On the other hand I would have actually just respected it if he said "look every c-nt out here is doing it so why should I have to miss out on my chance" - now that I would have been fine with.

He's not - it's James Templeton who was the agent of Lagat, Rudisha.

Done for EPO in your plss, hard to come up with a burrito type story to explain that one. Tested in Australia, pretty much no chance of bizarre circumstances re handling, contamination, tampering or dodgy equipment.

Barring the 10,000/1 chance the B is neg then he is cooked.

He has dramatically improved his endurance recently, check his 1500 progression. Heats, semis, finals tough to back up if your endurance is weakness.

Also Templeton, still his manager? Lagat's manager back in the day, Rudisha's, Choge's, mostly managing Kenyans from memory.

P.S. I am an Aussie.

Yeah James loves his Kenyans. The way James got into athlete management was at the 1996 World Juniors in Sydney. James was a team liaison (possibly for Kenya, not 100% sure) and got talking to athletes and coaches about how the professional system worked. So he strikes up an arrangement with Japhet Kimutai (who won the 800m and held the world junior record for the 800 at one point) and after the championships starts this transition to the track and field world. Picks up Lagat and a bunch of other decent Kenyans plus some solid Germans (as they based themselves in Tubingen, Germany with Isabelle Baumann's group) and that's how he got rich.

Now, I do think it's easy to see the obvious link with the Lagat incident and story (because right now it appears almost identical) and tie James in with this but I'm not sure. I think we overestimate how much agents have to do with the athletes on a daily basis. Like Templeton isn't down at the track daily with any athletes - not even close. Coaches are more likely to be involved (a la Jama Aden, Salazar), but agents not so much. Some agents might only bump into their athletes only a few times a year at meets as they hop around different combos of meetings etc.

I do think what looks really similar are the responses (which by now are so cookie cutter and cringeworthy) and this definitely comes from James, but what else is he supposed to do/say (other than let the kid say what he did which NEVER happens, ever). Either way, is this unbelievable - absolutely not. Is it surprising? Yes. Have to be pretty careless to get dusted for EPO these days given what everyone knows about microdosing etc.

1) what is the false positive rate on the test for synthetic epo? Is it urine or blood that they test for the signature?

2) does one have to be injected with the substance to test positive?

3) what is the window that someone would test positive for the metabolites?

4) any possibility to mix up samples?

I believe his coach (JRinaldi) was a very prolific poster here at one time. Perhaps he’ll chime in at the appropriate time.

lol - was it truly authentic?

Very curious about this as well.

I wish I didn’t know this.

Curious to see the Brojos show up and call everyone who believes Bol is guilty a "hater"

Waiting to see Lauren Fleshman call this a "tragedy"

waiting for the lamenting of "innocent athletes" getting caught from the running media.

Pineda? Rosa?

Are they really oblivious as to what is going on, or are they complicit?

While in *general* I agree with you, Templeton is a self admittedly different agent than others - he prefers only a very few athletes at any time and fully devoting himself to helping them. He discussed this approach in detail in a podcast with RunnersTribe about a year ago. That is how he carried out his relationship with Lagat, Rudisha and now Bol.

When in Europe, he doesn't just travel to every race with Bol, but Bol actually lives in Templeton's house in Tubingen. Rudisha would similarly live in Templeton's Tubingen house, a la Lagat. It's also why Rudisha would travel to Australia every year, as he could spend more time with Templeton.

Let's not forget who Lagat (and Templeton) initially went to Tubingen to train with. You have mentioned the wife here, but Dieter Baumann is probably the name most people on these boards would recognise. Are we starting to see a trend?

Any decent coach would be able to tell if their athlete is doing EPO. You'd see a clear improvement in practice, recovery, in body composition, and even of personality.

If Rinaldi was even 1% as honest as you claim, he would have disassociated from Bol long ago.

A surprising one for me, though he did make major progress at 1500 last year — endurance didn't seem to be particularly strong and then he's running 3:35.86 at age 28 FTW. This sort of profile (middling 400m speed and endurance in an 800m runner), would be sort of what you'd look for as far as EPO being effective.

Of course, we'll see the B sample, but it's unlikely that will change things. I suppose on the positive side of things (no pun intended), the only medal he took was at the Commonwealth Games.

Ok here's my question -- what is the actual percent that test positive with their A sample but not B sample? It's probably a very small percent so this feels like a whataboutism. We can't use this logic because it's not what happens in a majority of situations like this.

Bol has a very good lawyer/consultant/pr team that crafted his statement, which has created a 50/50 dialogue when talking about his case -- its exact intended purpose. If he has never taken EPO then why the positive test? It does the sport a disservice to release statements like this because every doper that gets caught will use the same PR firm to put out a carbon copy of this. The playbook is in plain sight for dopers. Nobody will ever admit to doping when they get caught. Any clear cut doping case becomes instantly clouded, as there are automatically two sides to every case. The incentive to dope is strong when you can play the victim, serve your time, and be welcomed back into the sport with open arms by fans/meets/sponsors.

One problem with your theory: His career's gonna be done if after the B sample and further analysis it is confirmed by the authorities that it is synthetic EPO. 4-year-ban gets him to age 33, which is too old for an 800m runner.

Also, what EPO athletes have welcomed back with open arms? The incentive to cheat is there, but I think you're crazy if you don't think there's a massive disincentive.

Ok. You asked for it. You got it.

This thread does disgust me. I just got on here and the 2nd post was as follows:

Steve The Addict OFFICIAL -----^^^^^ wrote:
Denying it. He's a liar and a fraud.

I almost responded immediately, "How in the hell do you know? You know NOTHING about the case except that he reported his A is positive for EPO." But I decided to read all of the posts before replying.

The dude's B sample hasn't even been tested yet. He very well may be a total lying fraud. But in this country - and I assume it's the same in Australia - you have a presumption of innocence.I

I think this is a great opportunity for us to learn about the EPO test. I've always wanted to write up a piece looking back at Bernard Lagat's EPO positive A sample, negative B sample anyway. I remember thinking that was shady as heck but did ask a scientist friend of mine if it was possible and he said he thought it was for A to be positive and B to be negative for EPO. It was his understanding that the EPO test is actually somewhat subjective. It's not like it's a Covid test where a bar pops and it says, "Positive."

So let's find out if that's the case.

Now I don't like his coach's statement either.

How in the world can you 100% confirm? You can't. You can say, "I'd be my life, etc" but you don't know 100%.

abc.net.au

Australian Olympian Peter Bol in 'total shock' after failing drug test

https://www.abc.net.au/news/tom-wildie/8097894

Australian Olympian Peter Bol declares his innocence after being provisionally suspended for failing an out-of-competition drug test.

Open link