Is Canova Right About EPO?

As with so many scams, the reasoning here is completely circular and question-begging. He's just defining top level success in such a way as to exclude the possibility of EPO being an effective performance aid. But whether or not EPO works on the best athletes in the world, and whether or not some of these athletes occupy the positions they do because they have used EPO, is an empirical question-- a question that can be definitively answered by experimental science.

Canova has formulated the question in such as way as to make his claims unfalsifiable. When a top athlete tests positive for EPO, which would prima facie falsify his claim about EPO not working on top athletes, he just says either that they would have been a top athlete anyway (i.e. are taking a drug that doesn't work on them), or that they are not actually a top athlete by his definition, and have cheated their way to that status.

This reasoning is a bit like that of a the faith healer who claims he can only heal those who "truly believe", wherein the only evidence of "true belief" is the effectiveness or not of his healing.

Renato's Canova's statements about EPO should call into question everything he has to say about running and coaching. The evidence would suggest he is not stupid enough to believe what he says about EPO, which means he is probably a disingenuous person.

You say "a question that can be definitively answered by experimental science", and this exactly the point : the question COULD be answered by experimental science, but nobody used the right procedure.

Testing one athlete doesn't mean the other athletes have the same behavior. Since one of the most important factors of training is the INDIVIDUALIZATION, it's not difficult to understand that different athletes react in different way to the same proposal of training.

The same happens with blood manipulation, and I can say the most talented can rich the same level with proper training without EPO, that cant give anything more to their level of performance.

You can say I never used EPO with my athletes, so how can I say it doesn't work ?

And my reply is : if EPO really works, with top talented athletes, how it's possible I had athletes such as Shaheen WR holder, or Nichiolas Kemboi 26'30", or Moses Mosop 2:03, or Florence Kiplagat with 5 WR on road, who achieved those results completely clean ?

You can also say : how do you know they were clean ?

In the case of the athletes above, I'm sure 100%, because I lived with them all the year, sometimes in the same room (like with Nicholas in St. Moritz before 26'30" for about 2 months), and I know very well everything they used (nothing !).

I already explained how is possible to make an experiment able to clarify if EPO works for strong athletes in altitude, using proper training.

1st step : we have to select athletes of high level, almost with same value and same performances, for example looking at National Kenyan Championships of 10000m, calling the athletes between 6th and 12th position, who probably don't have any management.

2nd step : we give them a contract for 10000 USD for the research, and of course the agreement that they will not banned at the end of the period of research

3rd step : WADA/AIU names a doctor for administring EPO with 3 of them, while the other 3 takes a placebo. Only the doctor knows who takes EPO and who the placebo, the coach doesn't know.

4th step : The coach trains all the athletes with a similar program for 3 months. At the end of the 3 months we put all the athletes in a REAL competition (not a test where the resul depends on the motivation).

5th step : We compare the times of NC with the times of the last competition, looking at the difference between the two performances. So, we can see if they improved their performance, and how much were able to better their PB, for both doped and clean runners.

The training system must be the same, so we need the same coach.

I'm at disposal, for free, for coaching athletes selected in that way, for having finally some SCIENTIFIC result, and not something achieved without training system, without omologus values, and without time enough for changing the situation with the proposed training.

Back in the mid 90s a journey rider named Bjarne Riis suddenly in his mid-30s became unstoppable and won the TDF, deposing Indurain in the process. Riis's nickname was Mr. 60% because epo gave him such high hematocrit levels. That is what it does. Mules to race horses.

But the better example is Ricardo Ricco. This was by the mid 2000s aftder cycling had been rocked by doping scandals and Ricco had emerged as a GC contender. Testing revealed that his hematocrit levels were very high, over 50%. Ricco claimed this was due to a natural condition, that he had this naturally. He even went so far to get tested for two weeks at the UCI lab to "prove it". Of coursem some time after going to considerable lengths to dispel that he was doping, he was caught using a designer EPO. Turns out his naturally high hemaytocrit levels were obtained in a bottle.

I suspect the "EPO does not work on high altutude born athletes" is a variation of this, and that it is a obfuscation to avoid admitting widespread doping practices.

I just say: What a stupid suggestion. And you can't even be 100% sure runners like Mosop, Shaheen, Kemboi and Kiplagat ran clean with then the very bad doping testing in Kenya.

Sorry if I caused any offense. Sure, Renato should be able to clarify what he means, as many seem to be confused about who he is talking about.

But you said "There have been too many top athletes who have had sudden jumps in improvements who were caught on EPO or Athlete Biological Passport. Not just Kenyans." I'm intrigued: which non-Kenyan top athletes did you have in mind, or was it just the four athletes I mentioned? Maybe Russian and Chinese and Turkish women?

Yes. Canova is correct. You can achieve near maximum levels of hct under PERFECT training conditions, with a PERFECT training plan, and a PERFECT athlete. The probability of getting those three factors aligned is very difficult and time consuming. EPO is way more efficient to achieve the maximum effect athletes are looking for.

I repeat my claim: This is a disingenuous person. An honest person would simply say "of course, one can never be certain, even less so given how many top athletes have been caught, with coaches and agents in every instance either remaining silent or denying knowledge or responsibility". He should understand, and should admit, that we have good reason not to believe him.

Likewise his claim in an earlier post that athletes testing positive recently for drugs other than EPO is evidence that they may have begun to recognize that EPO will not work for them and may have chosen to try other substances. Here, a reasonably skeptical person would admit that it is likely that if an athlete is willing to run the risk of being caught and banned at all, they would use the drug with the greatest promise to improve performance, perhaps along with other drugs. In other words, it's a lot more reasonable to assume that someone convicted of using a drug like nandralone is also using EPO, but has not yet tested positive for it-- certainly more reasonable than the assumption that they have tried EPO, found it to be ineffective, and moved on; or, perhaps, they they have simply heard (maybe from Canova) that EPO would not work on them, in spite of its continued wide spread use among endurance athletes of all kinds, and proceeded to try something else instead. This suggestion is so facile that only a stupid or dishonest person would offer it. And it's pretty clear this guy is not stupid.

Generally speaking, none of us knows for certain who, apart from those who have been caught, has doped and who has not, and none of us knows for certain how much doping has improved the performance of any one athlete who has doped. That this guy, in spite of his long time position at the very upper levels of this sport, can speak with such certainty about doping at the highest performance levels, even just about his own athletes, should serve as a pretty clear warning as to his general level of trustworthiness on ANY subject related to the sport. The reasonable and honest position at this point regarding Kenyan success in particular is one of general skepticism-- not cynicism, for sure, but definitely skepticism. Let's hope one day it will be different.

THANK YOU, RENATO. I would support funding this project. Let's start a GO FUND ME. Maybe we can reduce to $5000 USD per runner? 6 runners max? $30k total? Or do we need more?

Hicham ran 3:43 in 1999, a record that still stands 24 years later in our current age of super shoes. Heck yes EPO works.

Your argument is asinine. It appears to based on some sort of implicit position that the times they ran could only be achieved by someone who is taking EPO, but there’s no way they could have been taking EPO because you apparently know every single thing they took during that time, therefore times this fast can, in fact, be run without the use of EPO due to the fact that your 100% clean athletes accomplished them. This, in your twisted view, means EPO doesn’t work in your athletes. It’s astounding you continue to put these words down in writing and think they actually prove your point, let alone validate you as a great coach.

Maybe it’s not disingenuousness after all but just plain idiocy.

Kenyans dope to impunity because the risks far outweigh the benefits. If they don't get caught, they've won the lottery. If they do, they still get away with the dough. There needs to be a 'doping trust' where the racing winnings are not released for a time pending on a period of test results. In the the case of positive results, payment of void. The athlete is banned. The coach is banned. The management ream is banned. As for EPO; all we know for sure is a lot of Kenyans have been busted. A real lot.

Sorry, the answer to 'Is Canova right about EPO' is no.

There are FAR too many athletes caught for EPO who showed a distinct increase in performance at some point before their positive test to believe it does not work. There are MANY of these circumstances and MANY cyclists and runners have come clean and described how they benefited physically. Of course, there are high and low responders, but that is just varying degrees of effectiveness.

To believe "it doesn't work" is nearly the same as believing the earth is flat or the sun revolves around the earth.

Let me change "top" to "competitive." The key here is: jump in improvement roughly correlating to the time they tested positive, and results that were subsequently removed dated back to X point.

I have in mind the same athletes anyone else does. It's all very public information. Not being sarcastic, just saying it rather than naming a bunch of people.

You didn't cause any offence.

But it's true, I didn't say or imply "knowledgable." I may be the most self-debracating person on the planet and never do profess to be anything more than ordinary.

As for testing positive, you know the story of Marion Jones and Lance Armstrong, the latter being on quite the cocktail for some time....neither tested positive but both admitted to it.

So, our top athletes today could be doping and we may never know.

I think you mean the benefits far outweigh the risks.

The other thing that "doesn't work" is your countries unable to produce sufficient elite runners as it was in the 40s, 50s and 60s.

Stop using using first and second generation African runners and show us your "science of progress".

"..this is the reason because I strongly believe ALL the athletes in this category are clean."

(2) thru (5) are quite vague.

Nonetheless, he is a fool or a liar if he says "I strongly believe ALL the athletes in this category are clean"

Huh? I have the opposite reaction: that shows EPO DOES NOT WORK. How many have been banned for EPO since 1999!!! Hundreds if not thousands?

Learn the history. A test for EPO wasn’t developed until 2004. In 1999, El G could have walked to the starting line with an IV bag of the stuff strapped to his back and still peed clean post race.