'We Can Now Estimate the Effect of Blood Doping'

casual obsever wrote:

Straight from her mouth:

"Q. You got here to Boston late; when did you arrive and did you get a chance to see the course?

RITA JEPTOO: I arrived on Friday.

Q. And did you get a chance to see or run on the course at all, or was the first time you saw it when you lined up?

RITA JEPTOO: Yeah."

http://www.asapsports.com/show_interview.php?id=38474

So in all this is Renato trying to say Jeptoo wasn't really a doper? Just another "hardworking talent". Really?

physics defiant wrote:

That's 1002 times you've repeated those words. Which is insanity.

"those words". Amazing specificity.

What I find insane, is that after the first 1001 times, posters are still building scarecrows to knock down.

Armstronglivs wrote:

Rubbish. You have repeatedly referred to the Springer study to make your points. And then

"More important than studies, are reliable and controlled and carefully measured observations -- i.e. data."

Race times, in other words. Of course these are "carefully measured" They are timed FFS. We can all make those "observations". So without a benchmark how does any of that tell you whether any of the performances are doped?

What is the Springer study? Springer is a kind of resource library with more than 7 million articles plus 6 million other resources.

Making a point is not drawing a conclusion. To the extent I make points, or draw conclusions, I am most confident when it is based on reliably controlled and measured data in the study, and not necessarily the study itself, or the conclusions of the study.

I don't attempt to make conclusions about which performances are doped.

I have made conclusions about poor progress of the fastest performances, for most of the world, for nearly three decades, as a real world basis for some of my expressed doubts.

I have attempted to look for correlations with reported population doping prevalence, and elite population performance. Sometimes it appears to be correlated, sometimes not.

Armstronglivs wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

Rubbish. You have repeatedly referred to the Springer study to make your points. And then

...

And this particular sequence is rather confusing.

You accuse me of drawing conclusions without studies, then follow up with accusing me of repeatedly relying on at least one study to make my points.

Both seem to miss the point that I am looking for data that is carefully measured, and carefully controlled, as a basis for my ideas and doubts. This data can be found both in studies and outside of studies.

You haven't answered my point above. How do you draw any conclusions from your data about doping unless you have a baseline separating a clean from a doped performance? Without that you have no link between your timeline of performances and the existence of doping in the sport, only mere correlation.

The Springer study I was referring to may have been from Heuberger. The constant theme you have reiterated from certain studies is their caution against linking blood doping to superior performance in elites (which were of cyclists). Yet we know elite distance runners have never taken part in any such study.

rekrunner wrote:

physics defiant wrote:

That's 1002 times you've repeated those words. Which is insanity.

"those words". Amazing specificity.

What I find insane, is that after the first 1001 times, posters are still building scarecrows to knock down.

Of course it's specific. They are right in your post.

It only takes a scarecrow to knock them down. You actually think just repeating them verbatim gives more weight to your point?

physics defiant wrote:

Aragon wrote:

Here it is noteworthy that the term "professional" is an umbrella term with athletes of very different capability. In the cycling world there are professional cyclists with Vo2Max values below 70 ml/min/kg, and particularly an European full-time pro runner making a living through sports can be relatively mediocrish runner.

If there is a gigantic fall in the performance boost from amateur to professional (20 % -> 3 %), by the same logic, the boost should be close to zero with elite pros if average pros get only a 3 % boost (3 % -> ??).

Even close to zero is a difference maker in a game of millimeters.

No disagreement here.

Armstronglivs wrote:

You haven't answered my point above. How do you draw any conclusions from your data about doping unless you have a baseline separating a clean from a doped performance? Without that you have no link between your timeline of performances and the existence of doping in the sport, only mere correlation.

The Springer study I was referring to may have been from Heuberger. The constant theme you have reiterated from certain studies is their caution against linking blood doping to superior performance in elites (which were of cyclists). Yet we know elite distance runners have never taken part in any such study.

I have answered your point above. I don't attempt to draw conclusions about which individual performances are doped.

Attempting to define some sort of baseline becomes difficult, when studies show that legal methods like hi-lo altitude training can provide similar benefits as banned methods of blood transfusions and EPO.

Yet we do have some doping data by country, and this can be compared against performance data for the population of that country.

Again, please limit any discussion of my views to blood doping in running, and avoid vague references to "the existence of doping in the sport". Doping has existed in the sport since before 1928, when the IAAF became the first international federation to ban doping.

I used Heuberger's meta-study to show that some of my criticisms of EPO and blood doping studies to date are also shared by peer-reviewed researchers. My doubts about improvements in the fastest performances arise from my tendency to favor observations that we can see and have seen, over projections from short term gains in one population onto long term gains in a significantly different population.

What studies? Which of them had elite altitude-trained distance runners as the subjects?

You wish to confine yourself to discussion of blood-doping but how do you know if that is the only kind of doping practised by distance runners? Many athletes who dope are known to use a cocktail of drugs.

What about prior to 2006? Pamela Chepchumba was banned for an EPO IC-positive at 2003 World XC championships. So, there must have been some EPO going around in Kenyan as early as that time period.

Let's get to the bottom of this wrote:

What about prior to 2006? Pamela Chepchumba was banned for an EPO IC-positive at 2003 World XC championships. So, there must have been some EPO going around in Kenyan as early as that time period.

We have also seen that in Daegu 2011, Kenyan blood doping was average among all nations including Russia, thus worse than average of the countries without state sponsored doping.

So most likely they started well before 2011.

rekrunner wrote:

Vaporfly Wang wrote:

Use of the scientific method is but one way to prove/disprove an hypothesis. Other ways are equally valid and can be vastly more efficient, depending on the context—and I am a physics PhD.

I understand your sentiment, of course. One thing you seem to misapprehend is that for the purpose of controlling doping, the class of things that “have the potential” to enhance performance includes all those things that “do” actually enhance performance.

Of course there are several valid ways to prove/disprove a hypothesis. There are also many invalid ways.

I'm not all that interested in the "purpose of controlling doping", but, for an example of one invalid way, it was suggested that, by virtue of a substance being banned by WADA, it must benefit the fastest performances.

Take another look at that last bit, and understand that it was a qualifier that is required for the point I made.

You are arguing that there has been no scientifically-acceptable proof of the instant proposition. At a certain level of precision, that is correct—correct, but misguided.

It is misguided because the proposition is not amenable to scientific inquiry within the current system, if ever. Your argument is a red herring of a type used often in advocacy—and by such a usage, you have in fact identified yourself as an advocate.

If you are truly dispassionate, you must accept the fact that for the purposes of ensuring honorable competition, non-scientific, or quasi-scientific, reasoning must suffice.

This is the case in many areas of life, especially social and public ones, and ones that involve human behavior and human subjects. It is not a fact to lament, it is a simple acknowledgement of the reality of the world.

So instead of arguing the currently-inarguably obvious—that there is no scientific proof of the proposition that EPO doping improves elite running performance—as a dispassionate student of the sport, you should argue in the sandbox in which the argument is actually taking place.

That sandbox is not your sandbox. Sprintgeezer was correct when he said that none of your argument matters, at least relevant to the ultimate issue.

Some of the facts to which you advert are, however, of limited utility.

There may have been no dope IN Kenya but that doesn't mean there was no dope in Kenyans.

Pamela Chepchumba went to train in Mexico, for long time, together with German Silva. When she was positive, she developed all her training in Mexico.

If you go to see the history of Kenyan doping, and the list of the first athletes, you can see how the prohibited substances were mainly connected with steroids, and not with blood manipulations. It's very difficult that, if really there was blood doping before 2010, myself, Brother Colm and Patrick Sang could not have some doubt, and every athlete could be so able to hide the practice.

In Kenya, like in every Country, athletes know one another, and if there is some suspicious behavior, somebody speaks inside the training groups.

For example, I discover that Brahim Boulami used doping because, during African Champs 2002 in Tunis, Stephen Cherono and Wilson Boit Kipketer, after their warm-up, before the race, when wanted to go inside the dressing room, found the door closed from inside, and only after 5 min Boulami and one doctor came outside. In the WC of the dressing room, they found 3 different syringes, and immediately shared their suspicions with me. Ten days later, Boulami bettered the WR in Zurich, but was banned for EPO.

Of sure she was not doped in 2006. I continue to think she took EPO only because was too thirsty of money after winning Boston in 2014. She already won Boston 2013, Chicago 2014, Boston 2014 and was not possible for anybody else to overtake her in the Jackpot (500,000 USD). She had, as number one in the World and defending Champion, a very big appearance for running Chicago 2014, but had, after Boston, a big car accident, and could not train for almost 3 months.

If was not thirsty of money, and was correct, could inform the organizer of Chicago that had the accident, and could not compete. In this case, I can assure that she NEVER could be DQ, and could receive the money of the Jackpot.

Instead, she started to use EPO for cutting the time necessary for reaching a high level of Aerobic Power, something normally possible in 5 following months of training, not with less than 3 months after other 3 months of full rest.

And don't forget she in Chicago was not in shape, but won because all the other athletes (including Florence Kiplagat who was in top shape, but feared the personality of Rita) didn't have the courage to run fast, because Rita could not be able to run under 2:22 in any case (and some other athlete, instead, could do this).

But, of course, the Majors can't accept that an acclarated doped can be the winner of the Jackpot…. so they had to find some solution, and Rita gave them big opportunity to solve the problem, everytime changing excuse in very stupid way.

It is correct, that his arguments are a red herring. And he is effectively an advocate or apologist. But despite his constant reference to the "scientific method" we can also see that he doesn't meet the test required by that method, as he forms his views on research that doesn't directly relate to the subject and claims trends in performances are indicative of doping or its absence without having a baseline for clean performances.

He will never play in our sandbox, however. He doesn't know how to .

Armstronglivs wrote:

What studies? Which of them had elite altitude-trained distance runners as the subjects?

You wish to confine yourself to discussion of blood-doping but how do you know if that is the only kind of doping practised by distance runners? Many athletes who dope are known to use a cocktail of drugs.

Like the EPO and blood doping studies, the altitude studies I have seen also used non-elite well trained runners. From that point of view, we are comparing similar subjects achieving similar gains from the various methods of raising blood values.

I wish to confine you to the discussion of blood doping, because these are the doubts I have expressed for distance runners.

Armstronglivs wrote:

It is correct, that his arguments are a red herring. And he is effectively an advocate or apologist. But despite his constant reference to the "scientific method" we can also see that he doesn't meet the test required by that method, as he forms his views on research that doesn't directly relate to the subject and claims trends in performances are indicative of doping or its absence without having a baseline for clean performances.

He will never play in our sandbox, however. He doesn't know how to .

I can't and don't apologize for doping. I guess I am an advocate for data, reason, logic, and the scientific method.

I formed my views on historical performance results, and a broad knowledge of several factors necessary for best performances.

This would make sense if the topic were the "purpose of controlling doping", or the "purposes of ensuring honorable competition".

For these purpose, I can accept that fact.