Yes - how can you be clean and beat the best, most talented dopers of them all?
I go with the middle ground here, somewhere between your downplaying the 1500's past and Kipyegon's performances and connections to "any fast time can be looked upon with suspicion" and Kelsall's "they are nothing more than a fake sport-cringing variety of runners".
“Yes - how can you be clean and beat the best, most talented dopers of them all?“ -I have thought this through, and here is my suggestion to an answer:
It all depends on doping prevalence. If f.ex the prevalence is below 10% of the top elite, we could have a situation like this: El Guerrouj clean, Lagat clean, Kiprop dirty and really a 3.29 man who has cheated himself down to 3.26 (him as an example is only theoretical, but chosen because of his conviction -that might be a false positive), Ingebrigtsen clean, Morceli clean, Kiplagat clean, Ngeny clean, Cheruiyot clean, Manangoi clean, some 3.31 man doping down to 3.28 (I don’t know who, and the whole list is anyways only paraphrased after memory). If the prevalence is more than 10% El Guerrouj could still be clean and the best, but only if none of the natural clean guys on 3.26, 27 or 28 did dope +-they would then surpass him. (Some say Lagat doped, because of his positive A sample -I’m not among them - but if true that would f.ex make him a 3.29 who doped down to 3.26…) The point here is that if none of the nearest to El Guerrouj isn’t clean, he can’t be either -the gap would be to o unnatural huge…. So prevalence matters -90 % doping among top elite would of course increase the probability of the Goat being a doper…
Lastly: Choosing the middle ground will sometimes be wrong!
The problem with your "doping prevalence argument" is that there is no factual basis for us to conclude that the very best athletes are not doping. We see the reverse: Armstrong, Johnson, Marion Jones, etc - and of course Kiprop and Kenyan Olympic marathon winners. The view of antidoping experts, like Renee Ann Shirley, is that doping is present amongst the top athletes in every sport and in every country. The very best athletes are no less motivated to succeed than their inferiors who chose to dope. So they will likely dope, too, because with the narrowness of margins at the top they will lose to competitors of similar ability who dope. Taking El G and Ngeny, would either choose not to dope if they suspected the other was? That is where the sport is.
In my home country Norway there’s been a huge problem with hobby lifters and hobby “bodybuilders” using anabolic steroids in the training studios but almost none in the elite. Do you propose Jakob Ingebrigtsen and the whole Norwegian team should be banned because of this!?
just wow. norway is one of the worst doping countries, starting with xcountry skiing and ending with the ingebrigtsens.
The problem with your "doping prevalence argument" is that there is no factual basis for us to conclude that the very best athletes are not doping. We see the reverse: Armstrong, Johnson, Marion Jones, etc - and of course Kiprop and Kenyan Olympic marathon winners. The view of antidoping experts, like Renee Ann Shirley, is that doping is present amongst the top athletes in every sport and in every country. The very best athletes are no less motivated to succeed than their inferiors who chose to dope. So they will likely dope, too, because with the narrowness of margins at the top they will lose to competitors of similar ability who dope. Taking El G and Ngeny, would either choose not to dope if they suspected the other was? That is where the sport is.
I agree with your first sentence, because we cannot know for sure that the ten athletes I list are clean. One the other hand we cannot know if they are / were dirty (except by reliable testing / investigation.)
Everyone sub 3.30 might be clean (except for the ones busted In reliable tests) - I’m quite sure of that, interpolating from Herb Elliott’s 3.35 convinced me of this (I’m frankly puzzled that the 1500m / mile WRs are so “soft” in a world with such an easy access to doping).
I have in some of my earlier posts tried to be honest, and declared that I think the prevalence of doping among the top elite (also the Kenyan one) is low, although I never have hidden that my assumptions are based on (fluffy) indications and not facts… But now I somewhat regret this, and will take some of your (best) arguments more seriously, because I think this is more scientific correct (than my previous position). But this doesn’t mean that I’m not still very critical to your bombastic conclusions. (But as I have said before: Bombastic may sometimes get lucky an hit the truth).
Judging my fellow country men Ingebrigtsen and Nordås, as well as the top Kenyans Cheruiyot, Kipchoge and Kipyegon, my gut feeling is that they are clean. But I admit that this isn’t scientific -although there is a lot of indications for these athlete’s cleanness, one also can principally find the opposite; it depends on the watching eye…
The problem is this: Gut feeling can be very wrong, and can be based on coincidence that has little to do with the real case! F.ex my estimates can be based on feelings from my athletic background in a racing club with no doping whatsoever (at least that I was aware of). And likewise your gut feeling (based on what you have told about your own experiences -a lot of doping) may be based on your (likewise random) background. But then we are both unscientific, and must look for better evidence than feelings!
Here is my take on doping: Among the top elite the prevalence can be sub one percent or nearly a 100% or everywhere between. We can estimate based on indications, and researchers f.ex do this all the time, but their estimates are all over the place -no consensus! And indications can be extremely subjective and fluffy: I could f.ex propose that the “soft” WRs (when compared with Elliott’s 3.35) is an indication of very little doping, but then this must be balanced against something I haven’t thought of before: Athletes can dope wrongly and inefficiently (and a lot of dope may not work all that much), and therefore not hit the lists with better pb,s, but doping it still is. And so on and so on…
We will never know the doping prevalence, or erase doping. But we can do much better with better testing and information. This is my only hope for this topic..
I would just make the point that comparing an athlete like Elliott to today's athletes in terms of whether they are doping isn't useful because in his day doping was virtually nonexistent in distance running. The drugs that would help a runner like him hadn't been developed in the late '50's. Today there is a comprehensive array of drugs that can enhance performance and most athletes can have access to them with a low risk of being caught. Prevalence is therefore estimated to be high without it being necessary to identify an exact figure.
You are an idiot. I made no suggestion that "no WADA banned PED exists that can be correlated to marathon performance". I said the opposite, that marathon runners have been caught using banned peds. Only a denier such as yourself then tries to argue it will have had no effect on their performance.
Correlation: elite distance runners have been caught using banned PEDS. It is a false argument to then argue, as you do, that the drugs may have had no effect on their performance because we can't measure it.
I guess you can find any correlation if you get to just make up what correlation means.
I would call this a "proof by example" fallacy. Getting caught using PEDs just means that someone believed in it. This can happen to everyone regardless of talent and performance.
I would just make the point that comparing an athlete like Elliott to today's athletes in terms of whether they are doping isn't useful because in his day doping was virtually nonexistent in distance running. The drugs that would help a runner like him hadn't been developed in the late '50's. Today there is a comprehensive array of drugs that can enhance performance and most athletes can have access to them with a low risk of being caught. Prevalence is therefore estimated to be high without it being necessary to identify an exact figure.
I don’t understand what you are saying here, because my point was that Elliott (who I too think must have been clean) is a very good argument for the current WR (that isn’t better than Elliott’s, adjusted for track, shoes, lack of pacing ++) being natural and clean (although not a definite one, because it might of course be dirty). Saying that of course some of the drugs (at least for some athletes) may be performance enhancing.
Another Kenyan done. 'Only' won the Tokyo marathon. Just low end, not elite blah blah blah....
The AIU predicted more Kenyan busts, with an "it's going to get worse before it gets better", when it announced that it was testing more Kenyans more often.
Here's what the BBC wrote back in July, speaking with the AIU's Brett Clothier:
Kenya's unique problem is the sheer abundance of talent that sits below global level.
"In Kenya, there is a huge pyramid of top-class athletes," explains Clothier. "The difference in ability, in that pyramid, between the top and those below is not very much because of the depth of their talent.
"In the past we have been testing the top of that pyramid, but the bottom ones have not been subject to out-of-competition testing.
"That pyramid is hundreds, or even thousands, of athletes.
"So even though we are controlling the ones at the top very well and are capable of catching cheaters, because of the pressure from the athletes below, who aren't being tested out of competition, the athletes at the top are taking risks and there is pressure to stay on top."
Only Russia and India - whose specific problems almost entirely involve athletes below international level - have more athletes currently suspended for doping offences than Kenya's 64.
You are an idiot. I made no suggestion that "no WADA banned PED exists that can be correlated to marathon performance". I said the opposite, that marathon runners have been caught using banned peds. Only a denier such as yourself then tries to argue it will have had no effect on their performance.
Of course you did -- you just don't realize it.
Wrong. You show again you don't know how to use "correlation" correctly.
Correlation: elite distance runners have been caught using banned PEDS. It is a false argument to then argue, as you do, that the drugs may have had no effect on their performance because we can't measure it.
I guess you can find any correlation if you get to just make up what correlation means.
I would call this a "proof by example" fallacy. Getting caught using PEDs just means that someone believed in it. This can happen to everyone regardless of talent and performance.
If you were talking only about one person you would have a point. But it has been going in for decades in all sports in all countries and involving countless athletes. Grasping the obvious is not within your toolkit. Very little is.
"Only Russia and India - whose specific problems almost entirely involve athletes below international level - have more athletes currently suspended for doping offences than Kenya's 64."(quote)
Clothier appears to think doping is rather serious in Kenya.
"Only Russia and India - whose specific problems almost entirely involve athletes below international level - have more athletes currently suspended for doping offences than Kenya's 64."(quote)
Clothier appears to think doping is rather serious in Kenya.
Why do you write "(quote)" if you have just used quotation marks?
And are you that dense that you don't know how to use the Quote Post thing?
"Only Russia and India - whose specific problems almost entirely involve athletes below international level - have more athletes currently suspended for doping offences than Kenya's 64."(quote)
Clothier appears to think doping is rather serious in Kenya.
Why do you write "(quote)" if you have just used quotation marks?
And are you that dense that you don't know how to use the Quote Post thing?
You are talking to some of letsruns pure geniuses who was not able to find an Olympic distance running champion from 3 Olympic games within 3 MONTHS (should not take more than 1 minute). Someone who almost always lacks any common sense in his argumentation (countless examples). Someone who NEVER would admit when being wrong on something. Never.
"Only Russia and India - whose specific problems almost entirely involve athletes below international level - have more athletes currently suspended for doping offences than Kenya's 64."(quote)
Clothier appears to think doping is rather serious in Kenya.
Why do you write "(quote)" if you have just used quotation marks?
And are you that dense that you don't know how to use the Quote Post thing?
Have you worked out what Clothier said yet or are quotation marks your limit?
Why do you write "(quote)" if you have just used quotation marks?
And are you that dense that you don't know how to use the Quote Post thing?
You are talking to some of letsruns pure geniuses who was not able to find an Olympic distance running champion from 3 Olympic games within 3 MONTHS (should not take more than 1 minute). Someone who almost always lacks any common sense in his argumentation (countless examples). Someone who NEVER would admit when being wrong on something. Never.
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