Alex Hutchinson calls out CANOVA over study confirming EPO works on Kenyan runners

m!ndweak wrote:

so what you are saying is even though he wasnt as fast at 1500 or 3000, he was superior runner to Evan Jager....or is it that Evan Jager has an amateur coach and should be running 7:53 as well?

OK, so you say you are not stupid. Why do you pretend to be then?

Rekrunner is a liar wrote:

I believe that doping works to improve times in distance events because it is consistent with the studies that have been done, it is consistent with the biological mechanisms that we know improve distance running, and because there are numerous examples of very fast individuals improving while taking EPO. It has nothing to do with faith or theory, it has to do with evidence.

It is definitely true that there are numerous studies confirming the efficacy of blood doping when various parameters have been measured, but it is equally true that the performance enhancing effect appears to be lower depending on the baseline Vo2Max value of the subjects. In the study discussed here, when change in Vo2MAX is plotted against baseline Vo2Max (from the Durussel PhD), it at least appears that there is diminishing returns in this material also (with both Scotts and Kenyans).

Individual differences in Hb level/total Hb aren't taken into account and total Hb wasn't even measured from the Kenyans. When the data from Kenyans and from Scotts are plotted in isolation, the downward trend still exists even when in the case of Kenyans it barely exists. The variation in Kenyans was almost ridiculous with one subject increasing his Vo2Max by 15 % whereas it fell by 6 % in another subject after rHuEPO.

Interesting item even when far from convincing about inefficacy of rHuEPO with elites. Perhaps someday a statistician collects all the individual data from the studies for a meta-analysis.

i dont quite follow your insult

Evan Jager has faster 1500m, 3000m than brimin, yet brimin ran damn near EPO level WR in the steeple.

so i was asking why cant Jager run that fast? he is falling apart dying the bad death and running 8:00.....so for your feeble mind and lacking of reading comprehension, when Jager is faster than brimin at 2 distances, yet canova claims brimin is A HUGE talent, then what is Jager?

why is it hard to see this? according to renato, only him and sang and maybe a few others are TOP TIER coaches, so what im asking "is jager failing to run brimin times in the steeple due to him having an amatuar coach, or is Jager just not professional enough"

but whatever, i cant reason with you apologists, deniers and people who actually NEVER ran competitively or TRAINED under a great coach. maybe you noticed the 180 degree change in renatos attitude when i mention Joe Vigil and Damon Martin. thats the problem with you and the others on this place, mock and insult me, call me out, and then i told you the truth....who else on here can do that? not rek he is too terrified, no elk, and not you, or anyone else who comes on and talks the big talk and has absolutely ZERO credibility in athletics, education or anything and then calls me out.

renato claims EPO doesnt work, claims non of his runners are on it....Rosa said his runners were clean, renato defended him, then rosas runners go down and he claims he has NO idea how they were doping under his watch. then you have people like rek claiming EPO if anything makes you slower, you have Diack doing serious corruption, you have russian state sponsored, you have jamaica free for all till 2012, about the same time the lid was coming off of kenya, you have americans and the tainted beef, gatlin running faster than he did when he was on the "clear", Gay got busted, claimed he would snitch, didnt snitch but still only had to do a small ban. you got the brojos who have a perverted vendetta against al sal and NOP yet NEVER once get cocky towards rosa or renato.

i will tell this story again, back when i was in hs, there were rumors that lance was on the sauce, that summer i went to a cross country camp and there was 5 or so collegiate runners there, most were from Minnesota mankato or whatever its called, i think the top guy was marty rosenthal or something, and one guy from CU, aaron blondaeu. one of those nights they were telling stories of college, what mileage they did in hs, and how much they did the summer before college etc, and then someone mentioned EPO, some mumbling and how it was how all the kenyans were so dominate. back then i was like the deniers, how could komen and geb not be heros? well you grow up and stop being a noob and naive, you see that lagat wasnt leaps and bounds better than goucher, but then BOOM.

you have david kimani never running then smashing, then dying, then you have KBs fiance dying, you have lance getting busted, you have BALCO go down and conte saying the cocktail for almost everyone included EPO, you come to realize that the sport is a farce on so many levels and people dont want to accept the truth. USA dopes, russia dopes, but this idea that only kenya is clean and pure is whats annoying. admit it, admit it yes that kenya will have more depth than everywhere else but no 100s that are HEADS and SHOULDERS better than EVERYONE ELSE EVER. thats the farce, thats the lies.

nepalese sherpas have lived at HIGH altitude longer than the kenyan runners have been at 8,000ft. sherpas have more depth of great mountaineers than the rest of the world, but they dont have 100s HEADS and SHOULDERS better than everyone else.

spanish rock climbers, they have more depth of rock climbers at the top, but they are not HEADS AND SHOULDERS than the rest of the world.

you have Indians or Pakis that have huge depth in physics and advanced mathamatics, but they are not HEADS and SHOULDERS better than the rest of the world

in each one of these there are other people from other places of the world at the top, yet in running, kenyans are so far ahead of everyone (except paula mind you) that it is impossible to be reality. according to science which renato and rek hate until they try and use it against us, is that homo sapiens are so genetically similar that the idea of "races" of people is foolish, yet when it comes to distance running we are told that kenyans are so genetically different from everyone else on the planet that they are SUPER HUMAN, and a wonder drug wont work on them. yeah ok, and im told im a fool.

and it comes back to bullsh*t lies, repeat them so often people believe them with strong conviction. case in point there are people i know who didnt do sports in high school, ignorantly tell me "yeah but black people have like an extra tendon, or muscle in their calfs, thats why they are so much better than whites in sports"

really? wow thats amazing, that people who have black skin have and extra muscle huh? makes sense! i heard that sh*t since i was in 4th grade, who started it? dont act like you didnt or havent heard that before either.

now in distance its "kenyans are just made to run, look at how tall and skinny they are" but what about geb and KB? pretty short, and only thing related is high altitude.

and lastly for the deniers....when the sport is saturated with dopers who are given immunity because "well EPO dont work on them, and they have an extra muscle anyways" and they win all the marathons, and no other country can compete how enjoyable will it be? NBA has been losing fans for the last 15yrs and i would bet it has to do with the fact that white people dont have anyone to root for, and if it loses paying fans and has empty arenas then what? think about that, kenyans have to go to europe to run to get paid, if europe loses interest because its predictable and no way in hell any of their own can place in the top 3, they will not just give up participating, they will stop watching all together...if there is no money in it from the locals and sponsors, who will pay the kenyans to run?

in the end i guess what does it matter? renato is worshipped on here, he defends rosa, who is also self proclaimed greatest distance coach in the world. get ride of corruption, wipe all the records starting NOW, and making it a 5 yr prison sentence for first doping offence...then i would guarantee the times would in fact slow down

I would like to see what Chad has to say about this. His estimation for elites is in the neighborhood of 4% or so (and elites would have a higher VO2max).

A few more-or-less quick points. 1) I don't personally hold the position that "EPO is not effective with elites" and I've referred to elites breaking WR's after blood reinfusion etc. in some of my posts. I have barely referred ever to the 2017 study where there was no improvement in the Mt. Ventoux time trial speed and was skeptical about the study from the beginning. It is still telling that 62 % of the rHuEPO doped subjects thought they were getting only placebo noticing no notable increase in day-to-day training performance. 2) This chart isn't material in isolation. As far as I know, there has been only one attempt to measure how similar blood doping regimen (double-blind, cryopreserved 900ml autotransfusions) affect performance with subjects with different initial fitness level - a review from 1987 - where exercise physiologist and blood doping Michael N. Sawka and his coauthors had this to say about the subject:

The magnitude of the increase in maximal oxygen uptake was related to the subject's initial fitness level. Individuals with an initial aerobic power between 50 and 65 ml/kg/min appear to have the greatest response to erythrocyte infusion... These moderately fit individuals were probably sufficiently trained to have a greater potential to increase both oxygen delivery and extraction to increase their maximal oxygen uptake optimally after erythrocyte reinfusion...

Whereas these moderately fit increase in many studies their Vo2Max by 10-11 %, Sawka and his coauthors concluded that the subjects with the highest initial values increased their Vo2Max only by half of that (5 %), the data coming from the 1980 study by Buick et al. There was also another study by Canadian researchers from 1986 that wasn't included in that analysis (non-blinded, no placebo) in which reinfusion 900 ml of crypreserved blood increased Vo2Max of subjects only from 78.1 to 81.2 ml/kg/min, which is low while not insignificant 3.9 % (which was statistically non-significant though). There was even no control group, so there could've been some training effect involved, but the point is that the results came up similar or even worse than in the 1980 study.

3) Based on their public statements, it is evidently clear that Mike Ashenden, Randy Eichner, Ross Tucker, Jim Stray-Gundersen and possible many other experts are very skeptical how much the research from even relatively fit athletes can be extrapolated to elites.

Mindweak, I understand your "letting off steam" with the professional world of sport, but in doing this, you lost the right measure.

At first, be sure that you and me want the same thing : a clean sport, at every level.

So, don't call me "apologist of doping", because I'm the first thinking that doped athletes MUST be banned for long time (maybe also longer than 4 years), and have to see CANCELLED all the results of their career, from the beginning. So, my position is very much more tough than the official position.

And I already explained many times that I think steroids can give big advantages in both the directions (increase of muscle strength and increase of recovery), following the evidence of the performances is all the events where the muscle strength is one of the most important qualities.

If the WR of throwing, men and women, never were bettered after 1988 ; if the WR of all the women's events (except middle and long distances, and 100m hs) are dated before 1988 ; and if many top performances in 800m - 1500m and 3000m for women were achieved in the pre-EPO era, at level today not reachable by almost anybody (Jarmila Kratochvilova still WR with 1'53"28 in 1983 and Nadezhda Olizarenko 1'53"43 in 1980 for 800m, Tatyana Kazankina 3'52"47 in 1980 and Olga Dvirna 3'54"23 in 1982 for 1500m, again Kazankina 8'22"62 in 1984, Svetlana Ulmasova 8'26"78 in 1982 and Lyudmila Bragina 8'27"12 even in 1976 for 3000m), it means that the effects of these substances on the performances are clearly effective.

So, we know those athletes were not OFFICIALLY doped. But, at the same time, we know from the documents of STASI regarding East Germany, and from many "unofficial whistelblowers" working at that time with the Federations connected with Soviet Union, we know they did a large use of steroids, in the case of East Germany from very young age.

But when we go in the field of endurance, we don't have the same level of "supposed cheaters".

While in the other events is arguable that IT'S NOT POSSIBLE TO BETTER A WR WITHOUT USING STEROIDS OR SOMETHING SIMILAR (look at how far are the current performances of throwers from the performances of 30 years ago), in the endurance events, in spite of more antidoping controls, the percentage of athletes "officially" positive is very little, and the athletes continue to improve their performances, in the events able to produce good economical advantages (marathon at the top of this list).

It's true that some of many athletes, especially African (and Kenyans in particular), were caught for doping.

It's also probable that other athletes, not still caught, can use doping in thopse events.

It's also true that some of the athletes positive are big champions, at the top of the world lists (Asbel Kiprop, Rita Jeptoo, Jemima Sumgong, Ruth Jebet, now Kipyegon Bett and Viola Jepchumba...).

But it's also true that, till 2011, NEVER Kenyan athletes asked for some chemical aid, and doping was not part of the African culture.

And it's also true that the current WR belong to athletes using training only (I'm sure of this, specifically in the case of 800m (Rudisha), 5000 and 10000m (Bekele), 3000 steeple (Shaheen), Marathon (Kipchoge), 3000 steeple women (Chepkoech), Marathon only women (Keitany)).

And I'm sure because I know them, their training, their coach, their management.

The list I wrote of CLEAN athletes coached by myself, Patrick Sang and Brother Colm, is a list at 99% correct. In Kenya, we can have some doubt about some specific group, but we know the training group that refuse any doping, believing in discipline, hard work and ethic only (and, believe me, the mental strength of athletes who want to reach their natural limit with their forces only is very much higher than the mental strength of athletes lookinf at doping for increasing thdir performances).

Many think doping can allow athletes to train more, recovering in shorter time. This is correct when we speak about steroids (the athletes of Soviet Union and East Germany trained for 6-8 hours every day), but is not true when we speak about EPO.

Instead, it's true that many athletes decide that can't train really very hard because not able to recovery, and only after taking EPO they accept the idea to increase their training in both volume and intensity. These athletes, taking EPO, improve their performances BECAUSE OF THEIR INCREASE OF TRAINING, not because of EPO.

When we are able to start athletes off hard and proper training, WITHOUT ANY DOPING, their final performances are the same, because depend on their training, not on the REASON of their training.

How always I tell to the athletes, "don't let your mind to decide if the proposed training is possible or not, let your body to decide, and the most part of times you can discover that your body is able to do what you before considered not possible".

Mindweak, don't ask me opinions about Rosa, or managements, or other coaches : I speak only about what I know, and to throw accusations against other people without proves is not my preferred sport (in this I'm different from the most part of posters here, you included).

Sometimes you say I insult you, but don't you think that saying I'm a coach giving EPO who tries to hide this fact, that I coach for money only, that I abuse the athletes, and, at the end of everything, that I'm not honest, is a level of insult and defamation very much higher than calling somebody "moron" or "idiot" ?

And every time you want to distort what I write (many times in VOLUNTARY way), putting in my mouth some word I never said, you are not honest, and are obfuscated by your spite against me.

I can accept you are honest in your fight against doping, and you really believe in what you write (also if for me is totally wrong), also if your behavior is not very kindly.

You have to accept that I'm honest when I describe the training of the athletes, their results, and my OPINIONS about the fact EPO doesn't help them to reach results, that they achieve in clean way.

And, because I know where athletes can arrive in clean way FOR DIRECT EXPERIENCE, I can't accept absurd percentage (like 4%) of improvement of the performances using EPO, as generalization.

I don't consider myself as the best coach in the world, but one who dedicated 60 years of his life to athletics for 15 hours per day, who had the opportunity to CHOSE a lot of experiences with thousands of athletes of different age, different level , different nationality and different ethnic groups, having good and bad results, doing something very advanced but also many mistakes, knowing different mentalities and different organization.

For those reasons, I like to speak with coaches training the top in the world, in order to discuss our experiences without secrets or envies. I like to speak with Patrick, I like to speak with Brother Colm, I like to speak with Joe Vigil when I have the fortune to meet him.

But I don't feel great motivation to speak with posters of LR without any experience of this level, who owe to some book all their preparation, without ever having a practical experience in training.

So, why am I frequently posting here ? Because I try to teach advanced training methodologies sharing what REALLY the top athletes do (this is also one of my tasks as IAAF lecturer), AND I TRY TO FIGHT AGAINST DOPING USING THE OPPOSITE STRATEGY OF THE MOST PART OF POSTERS : explaining that the advantages taking EPO are very little, at higher level practically don't exist, and for that reason who uses EPO is a double idiot, because risks his career without any real advantage (and for that reason MUST be banned for long time).

I already explained several times : if you give the message that with EPO is possible to improve of 30" in 5 km, of 1 minute in 10000m and of 4' in Marathon, HOW MANY ATHLETES (NOT STRONG), AMATEURS, SCHOOLBOYS, who well know NEVER can have an antidoping control, YOU PUSH TO TRY TO DOPE, not for winning big competitions, but local races, or the challenge with the teammate in the same office, or in the same school ?

I'm against the current "pharmacological" world, where also in TV there are a lot of spot pushing for any kind of pharmac/supplement, putting in the mind of everybody that, without external supports, we can't be in good health, and we are not able to produce any results (not only in sport, but in every type of job).

1

Doesn't appear that I claimed that he had doubts, but that I referred to his assessment on the 2007 Thomsen et al study:

These subjects were fit, but clearly not elite. It’s likely that in the elite, the improvement would be smaller. For example, you could hardly take an Alberto Contador, who might have a Peak Power Output of 500W and bump it up to 565 (13% increase, see graph above) in 4 weeks! Having said that, if you could take this figure and get it to 515W, that would be a very significant increase at the elite level. Similarly, if you could help an elite cyclist improve his average power output by only 5%, that would represent a major step forward. Whether or not EPO would do this is debatable, but given this study, it would seem that 5% is a pretty conservative guess for how much EPO would improve performance…

If anyone who read those paragraphs got the impression that there exists a huge body of peer-reviewed time-trial studies against the Mont Ventoux time trial experiment published by Lancet last year (Heuberger et al), this isn't the case. The Durussel PhD with the Kenyan and Scottish runners published also in two research papers has been the only academically published attempt to test how rHuEPO affects running performance.

So the limitations with the studies measuring how rHuEPO affects actual running/cycling speed is that there almost isn't one, and if one has the impression that "limitations of these studies" showing improvement are nonexistent, he/she should read what the researchers themselves write about their findings in their papers:

(the 2013 paper with the Scotts)

(the 2018 paper with the Kenyans)

The data is scarce, but here is one interesting item on the "no research with elites" claim, which originates from the 1980 and 1986 blood reinfusion research papers in which national level athletes ("Three of the athletes held national records in endurance running events", as the Spriet et al paper from 1986 states) underwent a 900 ml reinfusion of frozen blood.

I'd be more than happy to have access to more data, because as far as I can tell, these six subjects are the only blood doped subjects whose baseline value was is in excess of 80 ml/kg/min in which any data has been published. Spriet et al provides the data on all of them in their original paper, whereas the 1980 data can be calculated from the chart provided by Sawka and his coauthors in their 1987 review.

I can provide the data for anyone to replicate the calculation, but as far as I can tell the mean improvement in Vo2MAX of these six subjects is only 3.7 % which is significantly less than what has been seen in many studies (10-12 %) with similar type of protocol or even with less blood reinfused when the subjects have been non-elites. Total hemoglobin was increased in the 1980 and 1986 papers by 13.1 % and 10.6 % correspondingly after reinfusion (calculated from resting Hb x BV), so on average the subjects of the studies had significantly more RBCs even when it is not certain how much THb was elevated in these six specific athletes.

3.7 % is obviously more than nothing (even when data from two of the six originate from a non-controlled study), but all this is surprisingly in line with the idea of scientists who warn against extrapolating directly the findings from recreational participants to elites.

Rekrunner is a liar wrote:

http://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/juoksufoorumi/monthly_2018_09/KenScottEPO.jpg.175eed7ba0526c863e99da096e976e3b.jpg

Individual differences in Hb level/total Hb aren't taken into account and total Hb wasn't even measured from the Kenyans. When the data from Kenyans and from Scotts are plotted in isolation, the downward trend still exists even when in the case of Kenyans it barely exists. The variation in Kenyans was almost ridiculous with one subject increasing his Vo2Max by 15 % whereas it fell by 6 % in another subject after rHuEPO.

.

I counted 33 with 3 failing to benefit (9%), with 2 of them going backwards. The range obvious shows high responders and low/no responders and there is clearly diminishing returns. People should remember though all those with a Vo2Max above 70 saw improvement (it would be great if there were more participants around this level), though 65 looks like a weak spot (probably an in between point were hobbyists become elite). In short most benefit.

The correlations and r squared values are pathetic and one should be very careful when concluding too much from the chart even when there is a certain tendency there. Interestingly if one splits the data from Kenyans and Scotts to two and compares from both groups how the "fit" half improved versus the "non-fit" half after rHuEPO, the half with initially high Vo2Max improved less in both groups.

(mean + SD)

FIT-KEN (4.7 % +/- 3.5 %)

NONFIT-KEN (7.3 % +/- 6.9 %)

FIT-SCO (6.9 % +/- 5.4 %)

NONFIT-SCO (11.6 % +/-4.2 %)

Because I've been complaining for the last 15 pages the absense of a control group, it should also be taken into account that at least intuitively the non-fit group could be more prone to training effect in both groups and improving because of that.

What is argument for discussion about physiologists, is a very clear behavior for coaches working with top level athletes : of course the improvement in VO2 max (that is not fundamental for the performance) is higher in who is weaker, BECAUSE TRAINING AND BLOOD DOPING PRODUCE HAVE THE SAME GOAL : to increase the quantity of Oxygen arriving to the muscle fibers.

This goal has achieved following two different roads : in the case of doping (EPO or homologus transfusion) increasing the number of RBC, and at the same time decreasing the velocity of the circulation because of the higher viscosity, in the second case (training) increasing the total volume of blood with a higher percentage of plasma, that doesn't increase the viscosity and doesn't affect the velocity of the circulation.

I never become tired to repeat that, in ALL THESE STUDIES, never there was a proposed training similar, for volume and intensity, to what the top athletes really do.

I'm not sure that also with not strong athletes EPO can give big advantages, if they try to increase the level of their training in both the directions (volume and intensity). The real problem is that amateurs don't have any motivation (and any final goal) for dedicating every day almost at training only, so their level of training is always very low.

This is the condition, in any sport, where every kind of doping can give more advantages, BECAUSE REPLACE THE TRAINING NOT CARRIED OUT.

For example, with a person not doing any physical activity, sessions of electrostimulation can produce big improvement in the maximal strength ; with persons in medium training, electrostimulation is good for maintaining the level they have ; for top weight lifter or throwers, there is no effect, because the action of the electrostimulation doesn't give any stimulus to muscles already OVER the limits the electrostimulation can produce.

I agree with some poster who posted before : why WADA or IAAF, instead wasting money for stupid researches like the one with Kenyan and Scottish boys, doesn't try to have a research on TRAINING only, sending an equipe of physiologists to study WHAT training is, and its effects when pushed at the higher limit ?

Remember that physiology can only to study what really happens, and is not an "inductive" science, like mathematics.

Too many time there is confusion between the two different type of science, and the "deductive" becomes "inductive", giving proposals of behavior mutuated from one type of subjects to another type of completely different subjects, with arbitrary conclusions not correct.

Okay coach...lets get to the bottom of this: Elite runners are genetically gifted, all elites whether Kenyan, Ethiopian, Spanish, Slavic, etc., That's what separates them from the rest of us (i.e., the "haves and have nots"). And if it wasn't superior genetics, then every HS runner in America who is committed & dedicated to hard training would go onto D-1 and elite status, but it doesn't happen - only a very small percentage move on to the big time.

So, if these elites are so gentically gifted with superb aerobic machines - then why in the heck are so many using EPO? There have been almost 200 EPO doping positives since the test was first implemented in 2000, there have been dozens of ABP sanctions for hematological anomalies since the ABP was put into play in 2009, and now there's a rash of EPO positives/ABP violations involving not only Kenyans, but Russians, Morrocans, Ukrainians, etc.

Why are these elites, with their genetically gifted aerobic engines & biomechanics, using EPO when they wouldn't need to improve on their already high-performance aerobic system.

Aragon displayed the chart from Kenyan EPO experimental study showing the higher, perhaps near elite level VO2max's (70+) improving very little with EPO (2 under 10% & another 2 under 5%). Most elites would have a much higher VO2max than 70 and therefore, following this trend, wouldn't improve at all, or marginally. Now I could see why sub-elites & amateurs would use EPO boosting their much lower VO2max and trying to move up to a higher level of competition. But elites? It doesn't make any sense that many have an addiction for EPO when they already have the genetics for fast running. There must be another part to this equation.

In the world of elites & PEDs, I can why many have used steroids, HGH, corticosteroids, etc. in an effort to speed up recovery from brutal workouts & over training, slow the aging process down for the older athletes, and for injury rehab (Though I never understood why elites with their supurb genetics would develope chronic injuries in the first place, except with the aging athlete where degenerative musculoskeletal changes start occuring).

So, the $64,000 question: Why would genetically gifted elite endurance athletes chronically use a pharmaceutical that wouldn't/shouldn't be of any benefit to them? A pharmaceutical that appears to be of so little benefit to a high-performance aerobic system vs the insane number of doping positives/ABP sanctions over 3 decades in athletics.

This is the paradox. ?

Your question, that is also the question of the most part of people, is : "If EPO doesn't work, why so many athletes, also among the best in the world, decide to dope using it ?".

There are several reasons, that now I try to explain.

1) The fact that EPO can or can't produce big advantage is something still not clear to the researchers, that (also if the most part of them think can work, but their experiences were with not elite athletes) don't agree, between them, about the quantification of the effect of the assumption.

Behind the 98% of the African athletes "officially" doped, there are not scientists, or sophisticated analysis, or individual investigations, like in the case of cyclists. One top team of Cycling has budget about 25 millions dollards, Postal had a budget also bigger than this. One INDIVIDUAL african runner, sometimes doesn't have any budget, an HOPES, using EPO, to have a jump of quality in order to win some competition with good money.

So, the first reason because they take EPO is because they THINK and HOPE possible to improve their level, following an emotional trend. You ask "if EPO doesn't work, why many take it ?". And they ask the same, they don't ask for some scientific explanation. If many athletes take EPO is because it works, and if it works I want to have the same advantages, so I take EPO too.

This behavior has nothing of scientific, but is emotional, and all endurance top athletes taking EPO don't know a real, physiological reason, but follow a "fashion" which becomes more important every time there is some article speaking about the big percentage of improvement due to this kind of doping.

For that reason, I think real good coaches, and top managements, are not involved in the African doping, that remains an individual choice, in the most part due to ignorance of the effects of the pharma, by the athletes themselves and by the local doctors. Otherwise, how to explain the incredible variety of illegal substances that bring to a ban for Kenyan athletes ?

2) The fact that the effects of EPO are overrated, and the best personal performances of every doped athlete are considered achieved with doping regime.

Instead, the reality is very different. There are no young athletes of top level using EPO, and if there is some exception (like Kipyegon Bett), is with some athlete living in an ambience without any education, having a very small brain. Kipyegon Bett asked the support of his management for finding credible excuses for his 3 missed tests in the season, and after 10 days from the last missed test took EPO, and for that reason was caught !

Which is the identikit of top athletes ? They are of course very talented, have big stimuli and consequentely big motivation in training, are a little bit "presumptuos" and "arrogant" (in the right way), and have a very great ego. They want to show to the full world that can reach the top using their strength only, because want to be the NUMBER ONE. They look only at the future, with great goals, and the fact they can earn very good money is only the EFFECT of the results they want achieve, that is the REAL target of their choices.

But, when you (already at the top) start to have problems, or after many years the body is no more able to train at the same level of volume and intensity, or you have some injury, in some of the athletes the FRIGHT not to be able to repeat the same results reduces the self confidence, and some of them becomes mentally weak, deciding to look at some external help (also illegal) hoping can contribute to maintain the same level of the past, also with less and not continue training.

This is, for example, the situation of Asbel. There is no doubt he took EPO, because it's possible to take it with injections only and is not possible that is in some medicine taken in oral way.

The real question is : "From when did Asbel start to take EPO ?", and the answer is "From when he discover that his body was no more able to produce results like before, with the same type of training".

We can say this period started in 2016, and I am sure that all his best times were achieved in clean way.

If we look at the forgoing PERFORMANCES, immediately before the test showing EPO, or immediately after (sometimes there is time between the test and the analysis of the sample, so the athlete has still the opportunity to run, like in the case of Rita Jeptoo who could run and win Chicago, in spite to have the sample with EPO taken some week before), we can see that the most part of times those performances are FAR from the PB of the athlete.

But the general belief is that these athletes were doped when they ran their best, and this supposition gives strength to the idea that with EPO is possible to have big advantages.

For Rita Chicago (also if she won) was one of the worst marathon of the career. For Asbel the last two years were the worst of his career. For Mathew Kisorio (test after National Championships of 10000m) it was the worst 10000 of his career, and he bettered of several minutes his PB in Marathon coming back after the ban. The same with Wilson Erupe, few days before the test he ran the worst HM of his life, and his PB in Marathon was coming back after the ban.

I ask some of you to go to control the competitions of the banned athletes, around the period of ban.

Boulami was doping right at his best.

However wrote:

Boulami was doping right at his best.

No F kidding! Freaking WR while going full throttle doping (the time still stands some 16 yrs later!).

Same for Ramzi at Beijing!

(plus Ramzi recorded off-scores of 157.8 & 148 when he won double-gold at Helsinki including running his PB in the 800)

Mariem Selsouli was doped when she ran the fastest Morrocan 1500 @ 3:56.15, and 20th fastest female of all-time!

Recent doping ring broken up with a Morrocan branch involved (who would have thought ?)

Morocco falls in the first category of THINK and HOPE.

Morrocan Magic wrote:

However wrote:

Boulami was doping right at his best.

No F kidding! Freaking WR while going full throttle doping (the time still stands some 16 yrs later!).

Same for Ramzi at Beijing!

(plus Ramzi recorded off-scores of 157.8 & 148 when he won double-gold at Helsinki including running his PB in the 800)

Mariem Selsouli was doped when she ran the fastest Morrocan 1500 @ 3:56.15, and 20th fastest female of all-time!

Recent doping ring broken up with a Morrocan branch involved (who would have thought ?)

So back in 2001 at the Edmonton WCs Boulami was comfortably sitting just behind the Kenyans with about one lap to go, then suddenly they dropped him over the last lap as he faded, finishing badly in 10th. This was on the 8/8/01 (coincidentally Roger Federer's 20th birthday). Then miraculously 9 days later he stunned everyone in Zürich, I was like "WTF is this this guy, these Moroccans certainly know how to make runners,"

PLACE DISCIPLINE MARK WIND PLACE DATE

1. 3000 Metres Steeplechase 7:58.50 Zürich (SUI) 17 AUG 2001

A week later he was even better,

PLACE DISCIPLINE MARK WIND PLACE DATE

1. 3000 Metres Steeplechase 7:55.28 Bruxelles (BEL) 24 AUG 2001

Now I can't remember if it was Zürich or Brussels but I always recall Steve Ovett saying (as Boulami celebrated) something like "he had problems in Edmonton but whatever they injected into his leg, certainty did the trick." Somebody needs to do their homework and find this comment. Nonetheless the word inject stuck with me (probably because I recorded it and rewatched it several times and within a year or so he was busted).

It can't emphasized too much that there is no universal blood doping regime, and every data I've provided is more-or-less accurate only to the specific regimen, perhaps the only lesson from that data is that there are diminishing returns with elites. If reinfusion of 900 ml of blood increases total hemoglobin of elites (>80 ml/kg/min) on average by 11-12 % and Vo2Max by 3.7 %, it is likely that each similar consecutive HbMass increase gives at least somewhat similar response even when there are factors why elites can't fully ulitilize the extra RBCs (otherwise their Vo2Max increase would similar as that of recreational athletes). In addition, the range is very high even in that 3.7 % figure (0.6-7.9 %), so the limiting factor in oxygen delivery chain/utilization chain can be different with different people.

There must exists more data on elites in vaults of their trainers/doctors and there is anecdotal evidence where elites have increased Vo2Max values significantly after blood doping, for instance here is what David Walsh wrote in his August 5, 2001 essay shortly after Lance Armstrong had won his third tour.: