Doesn't Russian Doping Scandal Prove Canova is Right about EPO?

Countless of times on this thread you have said that the population you seleted was non African athletes. Now you shift your goalpoasts yet again to bring African athletes into your argument. As it happens guys such as Geb or Bekele and their manager Hermans became very rich through distance running, richer than any non African distance runner in fact. Geb was able to set up a business empire, he is the closest you have in distance running to Lance Armstrong in terms of wealth he generated from his sport.

I gave a reply in the other thread, and then it seems to have disappeared (the thread, along with my reply).At that time, I said:- Guys in the '60s were probably smarter at math than today- The problem is easily solved with pins (around the curve), a piece of string, and chalk- something about using Radians and polar coordinatesI do want to take a look at it, but haven't had the time it would require. I will see if I can make any better progress than five equations with five unknowns.In the meantime, this might provide you some clues:http://barnyard.syr.edu/waterfall.shtml

calculo wrote:

rekrunner

once you or wiggo are finished wasting your time on this utter nonsense thread, can I ask you, if you have maple or mathematica or to have a look at this serious problem on :

"how far is mile start line on outer lane from start line"

Indeed -- but that's not my argument.

Subway Surfers Addiction wrote:

You didn't answer my question. Which country did not improve any national distance records during the EPO era? Britain, Finland, NZ and Sweden are the only serious countries I could find. Not to pick on the Finns but they were widely accused of blood doping, which leaves a total of about 76m people out of 6b people residing on planet earth at this time that did not see an improvement in national distance running during the EPO era. That is a statistically insignificant sample size to back up your arguments.

I can reply your thesis one by one.

About the first article, from "Nation", and the 10 names of doped Kenyan athletes, this is the situation :

1-2 : They are Rita Jeptoo and Mathew Kisorio. We spoke about them "ad nauseam", nothing to add. Mathew asked for doping after finishing in very bad way Boston Marathon, and ALL HIS BEST RESULTS CAME BEFORE THAT MARATHON, so it seems doping didn't help him at all. About Rita, I several times wrote here my thought.

3-4-5 : We speak about a group of 400m runners, all fired for steroids. Nothing to do with EPO and the situation of endurance runners. Of course there was something advising them to take some steroid (nandrolone especially), but we don't know who was, and of sure was not a foreigner coach or manager, since nobody of them had any link with foreigner coaches or managers, never interested in some athlete who was not a specialist of middle or long distances.

6 : Wilson Erupe. I already explained it was EPO for a treatment for REAL malaria in Eldoret Hospital. He didn't know, and, also if he could know, of course in that situation didn't look at increasing his performances, but at solve the health problem for becoming again fit in short time.

7 : Emily Chebet. She can be a good support for my thesis. Her best season was in 2013, when ran 14'46" in 5000m and 30'47" in 10000m, after winning WCCCh. At that time, she was not yet married with Sume Muge, old athlete who always looked for some external aid. After marrying, she started to follow the "advices" of the husband, probably taking some illegal substance (not EPO, in any case). She was found positive on 4th June 2015, and her WORST COMPETITIONS were in the same period :

71'15" in Honolulu HM (12.04) when her PB was 68'01"

32'25" in Bangalore 10 km (17.05) in 5th position only

15'38" in Albany 5 km (30.05)

Do you think this a good proof that doping works ?

8 : Delilah Asiago. This is another case completely ridiculous. She was a great young talent, running in 1991 in 10000m in 31'40" (at that time, one of the best performances in the World). After she went Japan, and after 1997 in Mexico and Brazil. She was banned in 1999. When she came back, she was a very weak athlete. In 2006, she win Dubai Marathon only because at that time Dubai Marathon practically didn't exist (2:43'09" was her time, now the winner is under 2:20....). Her PB in Marathon is 2:37'24" in Rotterdam 2004, so she doesn't have anything to share with the top athletes we are speaking about.

9 : Julia Mumbi Muraga. She was living and training in Japan, and her best was 2:28'00". The same comment of Asiago : what she has to share with the category of athletes we are speaking about ?

Second article from "Sunday Times".

At first, the suspicion is not "according WADA officials", but according the thoughts of Ashenden and Parisotto, who had the opportunity to examinate about 12000 data belonging to 5500 athletes.

I already explained several times that these two numbers are enough for making their suspicions completely wrong. In fact, the average of tests for athlete is 2.2, when all we know (and Ashenden and Parisotto know) that, for having some "real" suspicion about the fluctuation of blood values, we need to have not less than 7-10 test for the same athlete.

So, what the two Australian scientists could see was some "single" data or higher than the average, or lower than the average, but NEVER had the opportunity to see in LONGITUDINAL WAY the trend of these athletes.

Since both Ashenden and Parisotto were in the panel studying how to create th Biological Passport, and they said to have suspicions about something that themselves well knew was without any foundation, I have to think they were not honest in their conclusions, clearly arranged according to the will of Seppelt and Sunday Times, that wanted to create specific scoops, sometimes "building" proves that really didn't exist.

At the end, my reply to the last two articles.

About what written in Runnersworld, you need to read everything, including the part where IAAF says that is not possible to see any suspicion of doping only looking at "single" data about one athlete (this is exactly what I explained in the previous post). When Seppelt speaks about the possibility Geoffrey Tarno (who died during a marathon in Kenya) died for EPO, this is obviously possible, but the fact is that this Geoffrey Tarno NEVER was an athlete, also of very low level, since there is no trace of him in any domestic competition and in any distance. So, how many hobby runners died in amateur competitions in Europe or US ? And which is the difference between an athlete - not athlete Kenyan, and an amateur from Europe or America ? This was clearly a way for creating an "emotional feeling" in the readers, in a well identified direction.

But we have to analyze everything looking at FACTS, not at EMOTIONS.

The last articles, about Anzrah and Ferguson in Rio, is a real example of not complete information, that becomes wrong information.

What happened in Rio ? The antidoping used many students for collecting the athletes of every discipline for going to antidoping. In Olympics, since everybody is inside the Village, there is not the window of one hour like during the season, but the athletes can be tested in any time of the day, of course.... if it's possible to find them !

So, the preferred place where the "athletes' collectors" want to operate is the restaurant. They went to see the name written in the accreditation of each one, asking to follow them for going to the doping control.

In the Kenyan Team there was big corruption and confusion. The official coach of sprinters, John Anzrah, didn't have the accreditation for going inside the village, that instead was used for some relative of some official.

Anzrah had to go inside the Village for speaking with his group, but didn't have the accredit for it. Outside the village, he met Ferguson Rotich (who is not his athlete and is not coached by him), and asked to use for about two hours his accredit, while Ferguson was on the track for training. Ferguson gave him his accredit, and Anzrah went in the restaurant.

The "collectors" went to the restaurant, read the name and asked him to go to the doping control, because Ferguson was on the list. You need to understand that Anzrah is 65 years old, and the "collectors", not knowing anything about any sport, supposed he could be an athlete. He at first refused, they threatened him to take back the accreditation, and at the end Anzrah followed them to the doping control. He was confused, and didn't explain again was not Ferguson. At the end, some doctor started to have some doubt he could be an athlete, and there was the final explanation, with the intervention of one of the Kenyan official of the Olympic Committee.

Anzrah never produced any sample of urine, and never tried to replace the samples of Ferguson (who had his real control two hours later). In all this ridiculous case, the most funny situation was the absolute lack of competence of the athletes' collectors, not able to distinguish a young athlete from an old coach.... and this funny and ridiculous situation was presented as the attempt to cheat the antidoping by a Kenyan official !

I selected non-African population for a time analysis of progression of their top performances, not for a discussion about who could access EPO. It's OK to use different goalposts for different subjects.You asked who had the resources. Nike, China, and Russia have the resources, and they have been known to use them. They would have access to their own doctors and pharmacists and research, so it wouldn't cost the millions that Armstrong paid to Ferrarri (charging a percentage of winnings, rather than true cost). If they didn't supply EPO to the men, maybe it's because no one believed it would WORK.Again, it seems to me unlikely that money would be a barrier to access EPO for ALL athletes in ALL rich first world nations for the WHOLE EPO-era, while hundreds of third world East Africans were lapping them on the track.

whitewashed wrote:

Countless of times on this thread you have said that the population you seleted was non African athletes.

Now you shift your goalpoasts yet again to bring African athletes into your argument. As it happens guys such as Geb or Bekele and their manager Hermans became very rich through distance running, richer than any non African distance runner in fact. Geb was able to set up a business empire, he is the closest you have in distance running to Lance Armstrong in terms of wealth he generated from his sport.

Again very few nations did not see their 800m to the Marathon records improve in the 1985-2009 period. Analysis of the genetic variation of Kenyan and Ethiopian runners found they had similar variation to the rest of the worlds population. A simple deduction would conclude that they respond in a similar way to epo as everyone else. I'm not saying that they are all on epo either. Racial variation just doesn't hold up. North Africans are considered to be Caucasian which would suggest they respond to epo the same way as other Caucasians (their DNA includes traces of the Goths, Frank's, Visigoths, Vandals etc ancestry).

We continue to speak two different language. The problem is not if African peoplvery much e respond to EPO the same way of Caucasian : I think that, if we take a Kenyan, an Ethiopian and an European not runners, and we give them EPO, their improvement is almost the same (the differences are individual, not connected with one or another category).

What I say is the EXCLUSIVITY of the category of athletes at the top of the World, athletes able running very much faster than other specialists. The difference in percentage between an athlete running Marathon in 2:04 and another running in 2:06 is 3 minutes, and if we think that 2:04 are 124 minutes, this means more than 3%. This is a lot. The difference between the famous Chatal Lombard (27'33") and the WR of Kenenisa is 1'16", that is 4.8%.

We don't speak about POPULATIONS, but about a very strict class of top runners who have a common denominator : born, living and training in altitude, and using more volume of intensity, compared with the training of Caucasic athletes.

So, if these top athletes have to stop training for one year, and after they want to come back, also at their level EPO can give advantage, BECAUSE CAN REPLACE A PART OF TRAINING. But, when their training riches the maximum level of volume and intensity, THE EFFECTS ARE NOT CUMULABLE, AND EPO BECOMES A DAMAGE FOR THE PERFORMANCE.

Why does this happen ? Nobody, at the current stat of the art, knows. We can only do some hypothesis, but this (for who works with them as coach every day, not for physiologists having tests with amateurs or knowing what somebody else wrote in some book) IS WIDELY DEMONSTRATED BY THE FACT ALL THE BEST ARE CLEAN (in spite of what many posters of Letsrun continue to think). Nobody inside the difference of 4% with the WR of some event was caught for doping (except Rita Jeptoo), and there is no reason to suppose the athletes inside this difference could run faster if decided to take EPO.

Nobody, among the readers / posters of Letsrun, and among the physiologists studying athletes of endurance, has a real idea about the type of training best athletes do (volume, intensity, recovery, modulation, continuity, rest, technical strategy. etc...). And when somebody wants to speak about what doesn't know, the most part of times says something not only false and wrong, but also stupid.

Take a look at this amazing new running and training website , one of the best websites out there:

http://www.runnerprogram.com

"POPULATIONS" is likely my fault -- while you speak of a narrow class of top athletes, I made the unpopular suggestion, looking at race time evolution, that the pattern we have seen with Russian men, is the same pattern we have seen the same globally among all non-African men for decades: the small progression in all endurance running events spanning the decades covering the EPO-era does not suggest a sudden introduction into the sport of a new powerful undetectable endurance drug capable of individual 20 second, 40 second, and 3 minutes improvements (for 5K, 10K and marathon respectively), for these non-African male populations.Then this makes me question the basis for statements like -- "EPO works for East Africans, because it works for everyone". If EPO COULD help ALL athletes, historically it HASN'T made a significant impact at the top for EVERYONE (i.e. athletes representing 85-90% of the world population for two decades). To find the required support, we can't look at non-African male elites, but instead must also look at cycling, women, race-walking, (all on drug-cocktails) and the lab studies on well trained volunteers running minutes slower.

Renato Canova wrote:

...

We don't speak about POPULATIONS, but about a very strict class of top runners who have a common denominator : born, living and training in altitude, and using more volume of intensity, compared with the training of Caucasic athletes.

...

The historical trend is that athletes improve -- some improvement, over a span of two decades, should be expected due to improved training, medical care, and a range of other external factors.Unless the specific 1985 national record was relatively weak to begin with, due to lower sample size, the non-African improvements over decades were largely insignificant, across the board.I did not only make a "genetic" or "racial variation" argument to differentiate Africans.But it looks like (I gave a link earlier) there are studies suggesting that Africans have more genetic diversity than the rest of the world combined.Genetic diversity isn't so much about having different genes, but having more varieties of different combinations of genes in a population. It's not what is the same, but what is different, and how it was expressed.Besides genetics, there are other environmental, physical, social, economic factors that separate Africans from the rest, while doping is a factor that does NOT separate Africans from non-Africans, and anti-doping wasn't a factor until an EPO test was developed in 2000.Some non-doping, non-genetic examples: high-altitude adolescents develop bigger lungs than sea-level adolescents;East Africans were found to have smaller calves, placed higher on the legs, resulting in improved exercise economy;Adult East Africans weigh less, giving them an energy and thermal advantage, especially at the marathon --Compare Bekele (123 pounds) and Geb (119) to Ryan Hall (134), Galen Rupp (134), or the chunky Solinsky (165).The EPO response you speak of is an increase in red blood cells, and not improved race performances.How, and when, more red blood cells leads to better race performances, or not, is the core of the "EPO works for elites" hypothesis discussion.

Subway Surfers Addiction wrote:

Again very few nations did not see their 800m to the Marathon records improve in the 1985-2009 period. Analysis of the genetic variation of Kenyan and Ethiopian runners found they had similar variation to the rest of the worlds population. A simple deduction would conclude that they respond in a similar way to epo as everyone else. I'm not saying that they are all on epo either. Racial variation just doesn't hold up. North Africans are considered to be Caucasian which would suggest they respond to epo the same way as other Caucasians (their DNA includes traces of the Goths, Frank's, Visigoths, Vandals etc ancestry).

rekrunner wrote:

The historical trend is that athletes improve -- some improvement, over a span of two decades, should be expected due to improved training, medical care, and a range of other external factors...

When one looks for reasons why almost all European records improved after 1985 despite the declining interest in running, draft effect shouldn't be dismissed as one factor, as European runners could run with fast Africans. The positive effect of running in a group or behind a pacemaker isn't just psychological but also physiological.

The canonical study here was done by Griffith Pugh... [Who] runs some calculations to determine that at 4:30 mile pace, drafting one meter behind another runner on a still day saves about 80% of the energy you'd otherwise spend fighting air resistance. That corresponds to about 1 second per 400 meters at that pace, and more on windy days.

That is an estimated time saving of roughly 1.5 % with the speed that correlates almost exactly with 14:00 and 28:00 times for 5000m and 10000m races respectively. A few people follow that strategy through the entire race, but on the other hand the speeds were faster than the 4:30 mile pace at events up to the half marathon.

This is a very neglected subject and there could exist other literature with slightly different figures, but the key point is that the effect does exist.

Renato Canova wrote:

We don't speak about POPULATIONS, but about a very strict class of top runners who have a common denominator : born, living and training in altitude, and using more volume of intensity, compared with the training of Caucasic athletes.

You mean like Paula Radcliffe??

The 2.2 is an average but many of the highly suspicious athletes will have more samples

Subway Surfers Addiction wrote:

Again very few nations did not see their 800m to the Marathon records improve in the 1985-2009 period. Analysis of the genetic variation of Kenyan and Ethiopian runners found they had similar variation to the rest of the worlds population. A simple deduction would conclude that they respond in a similar way to epo as everyone else. I'm not saying that they are all on epo either. Racial variation just doesn't hold up. North Africans are considered to be Caucasian which would suggest they respond to epo the same way as other Caucasians (their DNA includes traces of the Goths, Frank's, Visigoths, Vandals etc ancestry).

Indeed, if you take out just the pre-1985 British runners, (to avoid cultural "confounding factors") you would find a very different result worldwide. It has just as much validity as any of rekrunner's decisions.

Here you have again invented and introduced new standards which are totally made up and irrelevant. It is pretty easy to disprove something when you get to define and redefine what that something is.

rekrunner wrote:

"POPULATIONS" is likely my fault -- while you speak of a narrow class of top athletes, I made the unpopular suggestion, looking at race time evolution, that the pattern we have seen with Russian men, is the same pattern we have seen the same globally among all non-African men for decades: the small progression in all endurance running events spanning the decades covering the EPO-era does not suggest a sudden introduction into the sport of a new powerful undetectable endurance drug capable of individual 20 second, 40 second, and 3 minutes improvements (for 5K, 10K and marathon respectively), for these non-African male populations.

...

No, every time you state it, you change something or refuse to answer something. I am going to give you some hints, but it is painfully obvious to anybody that you have no real understanding of what it would take to define your terms or draw any conclusions from it.Your study population would be a baseline of 1. Your intervention population could only include those runners who were within striking distance of the pre-1985 world record anyway. This is far, far less than your 85-90% of the population (leaving out that you have also excluded women, which is 1/2), etc. etc. Which would leave you with an extremely small study population from which it would be very very difficult to draw a statistically significant conclusion from."time" is not an intervention. It is a measurement or result. Any analysis or statistics appears to continue to be missing. You have not supplied a shred of it and your continual assertions are not more true simply by repetition. EPO apparently does not factor into your study at all, according to you. It is just as well, as you have no way to either measure of observe it.

First of all good coaching can make or break a talented athlete, that is undisputed and what is also undisputed is that athletes respond differently to various forms of training. For example numerous Kenyans have done numerous sessions by the middle of the day, but then there is Lagat living at sea level in the US who apparently does one run per day. Some athletes seem to be doing layered type training (say a 4 mile tempo, then 3 x 1k, then 6 x 200m) and others who fall to bits when they try to two different training intensities in the one session. Often consilience occurs in running, two runners doing opposite training but delivering the same result (Coe/speed vs Ovett/endurance) so the idea that running knowledge is owned by one coach would concern me and is not very accurate. Most people in this thread understand what training needs to be done to be the best, in my case I have legs made of glass.

You seem to be fixated upon the marathon, whereas I and some of the others are refering to times on the track (800m to 10,000m) between 1990 and 2009. It is true that East Africa has a massive lead in this one event at the moment. It may well be cultural, the rest of the world may lack the discipline to run well over the marathon at the moment. But it is far easier to be a lawyer, pilot or dentist and earn a good income (and the odd 5k race) then it is to run a 2:05 marathon.

I pointed out that North African runners are actually considered Caucasian ethnically not African (but then what is African really, just black). Their performances were unreal during the EPO era. Now look at Hicham El Guerrouj, born and raised at sea level and the only altitude training was done at a moderate altitude of Ifrane (1600m) in the Atlas mountains. His track record vs Bekele is a very impressive 2-0. Now Mr Canova this brings into question the advantages of living in Kenya and Ethiopia. If someone can circumvent these advantages while living elsewhere, do the Kenyans and Ethiopians really have an advantage? Or, and I think you will all agree answers the original poster's question on whether EPO works. For if Bekele is clean like Mr Canova stipulates that he is (and he has not failed a drug test even in the present so we can leave skepticism aside) and if he like all the other Ethiopians and Kenyans do gain a massive habitat advantage from living at altitude, yet the North Africans (including those who train in North Africa but run for European countries) could match their times in the 1992-2004 period, the only logical conclusion is some sort epo-type doping regime was at work.

The issue of altitude derived advantages is really interesting. If Lagat, Centrowitz, Rupp, Willis, Farah, Makhloufi, Muir, the Moroccans can gain all the hypoxic benefits that those living permanently in Iten or Addis Ababa through "altitude stints" (in Flagstaff or Font Romeu) or through tents. It would suggest that these advantages of altitude nativism are smaller then is commonly believed.

How do you know it harms the performance of the very best? Do you know runners in great shape that have tried it and then gone backwards? If yes please elaborate further.

Can we really say that all the best are clean? In what event? Presumably you are again referring to the marathon? The last time I heard anything out of Jos Hermans he was rambling that Kimetto was some sort of drug cheat.