A closer look at EPO-era performances

Try to think, Gary wrote:

Of course something can be observed. People haven't done any really fast track running since they cracked down on EPO. Geez, you're thick.

+1

Other observations with focus on male non-Africans as per rek's guidelines:

- times improved a lot from the 70's to the 80's (roid time)

- 5000 m times improved hugely after the 80's as well (no test for EPO)

- the fastest decade in the 5000 was the 00's (pre ABP)

- the fastest decade in the 800 was the 80's (roid time)

- the fastest 800 overall was in the 80's (roid time)

- the fastest 5000 overall was in the 90's (no test for EPO)

As for world records in long distance running:

- vast majority between late 90's and early 00's

- no male world record after ABP introduction and outing of corrupt Diack

- female world records continue to be broken, from countries with only rudimentary OOC testing and athletes on the IAAF likely doping list

- female marathon world record from the EPO era remains untouched.

Yes -- "hugely" and "a lot". Good observations put into perspective.

I still fail to understand why you think someone like Estévez is a "second class" runner just because he didn't make your cutoff. Estévez's PB of 3:30.57 may not be El G warp-speed type stuff but in looking at the 8000+ deep all-time list, his time is 161st fastest or top 2% (I'll keep Cacho out of the conversation because like you said, we don't know if he was doping).

And Cathal Lombard, in 18 months, improved his 10,000m PB by "three minutes and two seconds, clocking an Irish record of 27:33.53." So, I guess he's a second class runner who held at one time the Irish NR (flushed due to doping).

To be fair with Hesch, he took only three (3) one-month cycles over 2 years, hardly any consistency there. According to the article, he says the first one-month cycle boosted crit from 44 to 51.7 (~18%) but doesn't mention any other Hct values with the other two cycles over the next 2 years, though he says he was monitoring his blood values regularly.

OTOH, the Brien et al study showed an average improvement of 1 min 9 seconds on 10k race times just several days after RBC infusion:

casual obsever wrote:

Other observations with focus on male non-Africans as per rek's guidelines:

- times improved a lot from the 70's to the 80's (roid time)

- 5000 m times improved hugely after the 80's as well (no test for EPO)

- the fastest decade in the 5000 was the 00's (pre ABP)

- the fastest decade in the 800 was the 80's (roid time)

- the fastest 800 overall was in the 80's (roid time)

- the fastest 5000 overall was in the 90's (no test for EPO)

As for world records in long distance running:

- vast majority between late 90's and early 00's

- no male world record after ABP introduction and outing of corrupt Diack

- female world records continue to be broken, from countries with only rudimentary OOC testing and athletes on the IAAF likely doping list

- female marathon world record from the EPO era remains untouched.

Very interesting casual observer. Have you read this paper on the steroid use with the East German T&F athletes? Fascinating read - the improvement documented with the women's 800 & 1500m is incredible:

Yes. And earlier I provided the exact numbers. Quite a contrast to your claim of "poor improvements".

Voice of Reason wrote:

Very interesting casual observer. Have you read this paper on the steroid use with the East German T&F athletes? Fascinating read - the improvement documented with the women's 800 & 1500m is incredible:

No - thank you, nice.

I did follow some of the "discoveries" 20 - 25 years ago, back then in parallel with people like Springstein still coaching elite runners (for a quite while actually).

There are no rules how you feed your family.

Like all the numbers on page 1?

casual obsever wrote:

Yes. And earlier I provided the exact numbers. Quite a contrast to your claim of "poor improvements".

rekrunner wrote:

Like all the numbers on page 1?

No, they weren't by decade like my numbers and observations.

EPO is the secret weapon. wrote:

There are no rules how you feed your family.

No, but there are rules about doping your family that Springstein continued to violate.

I agree - you fail to understand what was explained in the very first post, and here we are 30 pages later.

Rocket Fuel Rick wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

- Only second class runners, like the Spanish, and Lombard, took EPO to help them run 1980s times.

I still fail to understand why ...

That is quite a contrast.

casual obsever wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

Like all the numbers on page 1?

No, they weren't by decade like my numbers and observations.

rekrunner wrote:

I agree - you fail to understand what was explained in the very first post, and here we are 30 pages later.

Rocket Fuel Rick wrote:

I still fail to understand why ...

You are a terrible Teacher then.

I never claimed to be a teacher.

repetitious explanations wrote:

You are a terrible Teacher then.

That's right...and some Moroccans are the best examples of EPO & blood doping working: High responders, well-dialed in programs, amazing results:

Mourhit - 12:49/26:52/7:26 (EPO)

Boulami - 7:53.17 (EPO)

Goumri - 12:50.25 (ABP sanction/hematological).

Ramzi - 3:29.24 (CERA)

Laâlou - 3:29.53 (EPO)

And unless you believe in a 100% detection rate, these are, for whatever reasons, the only ones caught. These five easily beat your Holy Grail top-5 average pre-EPO era times. The 5000 times annihilate the your 13:02 pre-90s average and Boulami's steeplechase time was a WR (flushed), which has not been beaten since. And the 3k - 10k would be the most effective distances for 02-vector enhancement.

This is getting stale! The key word you use is "could have." How do you know everyone from the non-Africans countries wanted to use EPO? Perhaps many were apprehensive in using a PED that was new to the scene and having a reputation of being dangerous with some of the European cyclists who died experimenting with it in the late 80s. Perhaps some used very small but less effective dosages during the 90s, and into the 00s to avoid the wrath of testing positive. Since this issue seems to worry you so much, why don't contact some of the UK athletes/coaches in your neck of the woods who were competing/coaching during the 90s and get their take on this issue instead of always asking this question on this forum. ?

Much lower talent pool. The #1 sport in Spain is football followed by cycling. Basketball is also quite popular with the younsters (look at the emerging number of Spaniards playing in the NBA). And Spanish cycling? Look at the number of Grand Tour winners over the decades; Contador, Indurain, Heras, Valverde, Sastre, Delgado- all these talented guys could have easily chosen distance running. Where's cycling in Morocco? Kenya? Ethiopia?

rekrunner wrote:

- Only second class runners, like the Spanish, and Lombard, took EPO to help them run 1980s times.

Please remind us: who was running 3 28 for 1500m in the 1980s and who were all the Irish runners that were running 27 33 for 10000m in the 1980s?

Are Olympic/World champions from the 1990s ranked as second class runners in your classification system?

So many pages into this thread and all we can say is that people ran faster in the 1990s following the introduction of EPO as a PED into endurance sports.

Voice of Reason wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

- Only second class runners, like the Spanish....

Much lower talent pool. The #1 sport in Spain is football followed by cycling. Basketball is also quite popular with the younsters (look at the emerging number of Spaniards playing in the NBA). And Spanish cycling? Look at the number of Grand Tour winners over the decades; Contador, Indurain, Heras, Valverde, Sastre, Delgado- all these talented guys could have easily chosen distance running. Where's cycling in Morocco? Kenya? Ethiopia?

There's virtually no money in running for most of the world. Unless you're Japanese and run marathons (very quickly). ?

At this point, if I'm restating the question, it's only to remind people that I was not asking: - Why East Africans are now running slower, since EPO crack-down - For examples of North Africans, or anyone, running fast with EPO If it's getting stale for you, then you can imagine how stale it is for me, to have to read about these best examples Mourhit, Boulami, Goumri, Ramzi, and Laalou, again, an answer to a question I never asked.

"My classification system" can be found in the very first post. After the second and third post, we could say much more than "people ran faster" -- we could say how many (or how few), from where, by how much.

memory check wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

- Only second class runners, like the Spanish, and Lombard, took EPO to help them run 1980s times.

Please remind us: who was running 3 28 for 1500m in the 1980s and who were all the Irish runners that were running 27 33 for 10000m in the 1980s?

Are Olympic/World champions from the 1990s ranked as second class runners in your classification system?

So many pages into this thread and all we can say is that people ran faster in the 1990s following the introduction of EPO as a PED into endurance sports.