ABP is old wrote:
The ABP is in full effect since 2009. Even before that, adjustments for altitude were made, see Paula's cases of 2003 - 2005.
I note that the Norwegians chose to neither reveal Henrik's values nor forms, making it hard to comment in detail. Missing information? Maybe, e.g. if Henrik failed to inform the IAAF (not WADA) about his altitude stay on the test form.
FYI, I just pulled up the leaked files. Henrik is one of only 16 athletes with the highest suspicion status of "likely doping", not simply judged by the software but listed as "Hematological Expert report opinion".
We know that for example 15% of the endurance athletes used in-competition blood doping at worlds 2013, thus a couple of 100. And that neither includes those who only blood doped out-of-competition nor all those road (marathon and otherwise) runners that never would go to worlds, but are included in the likely doping list like G. Mutai, nor those who weren't good enough to make it to worlds. Plus the likely doping list includes athletes like Yego (javelin) who were not part of the 100s of doping endurance athletes.
Long story short: the 16 likely dopers of that list were evidently only the tip of the iceberg. Most of them got only away because their doping needs to be proven by over 99.99% specificity. Very few of them had apparently medical conditions like Helah Kiprop and G. Mutai - not mentioned for Henrik anywhere, neither there, nor later by the Norwegians.
Thank you for a good matter of factly post!
1. WA started with ABP in 2011, not 2009. But the point here is adjustment for altitude training or not. The famous blood testing of all athletes in Worlds 2011 and 2013 was not adjusted for altitude training (they did put in some general parameters to compensate people who originated from countries with altitude, but that is something quite different). I have copied an extract about the missing registration of altitude training in the research below + the link to the whole research.
But I am really shocked that this registration de facto was missing even in 2013, and that these researchers could call their document “scientific research” being this unnecessary flawed. So what about Henrik that year, and the next two -I have seen so much in my life that the adjustments you take for granted I don’t before explicitly stated!
Front. Physiol., 25 February 2020
Sec. Red Blood Cell Physiology
Volume 11 - 2020 |
Prevalence Estimate of Blood Doping in Elite Track and Field Athletes During Two Major International Events
Altitude exposure before the events was considered and differentiated between endurance and non-endurance athletes with an allocation of athletes between categories: <1000, 1000–1500, 1500–2000, and >2000 m. Because no information about prior altitude exposure was available in Daegu, following proportions in the respective categories described above were arbitrarily applied to endurance athletes (0.5, 0.2, 0.2, and 0.1) and non-endurance athletes (0.96, 0.02, 0.01, and 0.01). Since prior altitude exposure data was only partially recorded in Moscow, athletes were allocated to the same categories with the following proportions: endurance (0.5329, 0.1557, 0.1557, and 0.1557) and non-endurance (0.96, 0.0133, 0.0133, and 0.0133). All athletes were assumed to be healthy (i.e., not sick at the moment of sample collection) and non-smoking.
While data about prior altitude exposure were missing for Daegu and only partially recorded in Moscow, the reference population was constructed with an allocation of 50% of the athletes to some form of prior altitude exposure. Definitely, including more accurate information on prior altitude exposure would help improve the determination of an estimate of blood doping prevalence with the proposed method.
You are saying “..maybe Henrik failed to inform..about his altitude training..” But the fact is that neither Henrik nor “The Norwegian Federation of Athletics” have heard anything from WADA (or WA) in this case (according to interviews). -Nobody (in WADA) has contacted Henrik for information about altitude training that could have cleared the case…
I googled “fancy bears + leak” and found the same 2 WADA forms you are citing from, and your presentation is correct. But this is already known facts -the question is how altitude training is treated. And this of course: There’s a reason why no case has been raised against Henrik. And here you are totally correct: He doesn’t come above the very strict per cent setting WADA them self has set. And the reason for this setting: Lowered from 99,9 two f.ex 99.0 will statistically give circa 10 % false positives…
There may have been a lot who doped in 2011 /13 (as mentioned in the research. But the researchers are far from certain on their own numbers -the estimates differ from 9% to 28%…
I’m obviously no expert here. I just want to question a “likely doping” when there obviously are questions to be asked here…