When we find out what the new PED is?

Field events too...

SARMs, Peptides, and just a smarter application of the traditional PEDs + super shoes

In the grand scheme, even though detection has improved on EPO, EPO still remains the top drug. The improved testing doesn't take away from the fact that it clears in your system fast and if you're sophisticated about the times of day you take it and what you submit on your whereabouts forms (and even then you get 2 free missed test), it still outweights other PED's. I don't expect this to stop. If EPO regimens by athletes are improved, that can be just as effective as improved detection limits in testing.

Gene therapy is fairly sophisticated and limiting to wealthy nations. I had a strength coach convinced that a certain historic US swimmer had this down. The more sophisticated the less likely there will be a whistle blower. Elite sport is cut throat, thus, everyone should be pushing the envelope for the short term goal of getting the most out of their body.

I don’t know if I agree with you, but I’ll accept your premise for now. Let’s say the regimen is improved to the point where the detection limit is continually evaded and targeted. Presumably testing and research informs this - is there a way to key on that?

The problem is that doping is more sophisticated than antidoping - it continually loses that race. It is ahead in terms of the science, technology and money spent. That has been acknowledged by former WADA head, David Howman. It means doping cannot be beaten or eradicated from sport. A few may be caught - as we sometimes see, when the practice is 'amateur' - but that is all. Most won't.

Good question. There is no way to fight short glowing times, but of course, detection methods continue to improve - at least for the old drugs like Epo. And, maybe even more importantly, blood transfusions still can't be directly detected, only flagged if the cheat blatantly uses too much at once.

Which event(s) are you talking about?

I have a related question which has yet to be answered. When will we ever find out of the old PEDs are truly performance enhancing, for elite distance running events?

Reading through this thread, we see some of the same disciples reinforcing their own ideas about how human nature will drive athletes worldwide to do whatever it takes to achieve better results. Yet we have not seen the same "monster drops in times and performances that used to be extraordinary" follow the same patterns of known athlete drug usage. It's as if repeating these ideas to a large enough like-minded audience has become an acceptable way to turn thoughts into reality.

We also see that even the best experts, e.g former heads of WADA, readily admit they don't know who is doping, let alone achieving their best performances from doping.

As much as you all want to believe there must be a new undetectable super-PED explaining new East African records, or maybe also today's new superstars like Jakob and Jake, the only thing that has credibly improved performance, globally, for distance track and road running events, in the recent years, is new shoes.

In my experience, people who often say stupid things don't often feel stupid saying them. It was admittedly a stupid question.

You may not be stupid, but there is no denying you are dmb.

Regarding steroids for improving elite distance running performance, they are largely unproven, and furthermore not widely believed among endurance athletes as the best drug to enhance performance directly. (Although some believe "indirectly" that improved recovery allows more training which will hopefully bring superior performance as a way of rationalizing its use.)

Over the years, these threads have linked several studies consistently showing that low oral doses of steroids do not help endurance performance. See for example a more recent study comparing testosterone and nandrolone to a placebo, finding "Data from exercise testing on submaximal and maximal level did not reveal any performance differences between the three groups or their response to the treatment. In the present study, no effect of multiple oral doses of AAS on endurance performance or bioserum recovery markers was found."

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Effect of multiple oral doses of androgenic anabolic steroids on endurance performance and serum indices of physical stress in healthy male subjects - PubMed

Anabolic androgenic steroids (AAS) are doping agents that are mostly used for improvement of strength and muscle hypertrophy. In some sports, athletes reported that the intake of AAS is associated with a better recovery, a hi...

Open link

Have you talked to wejo about this?

It never ceases to amaze that you continue to assert that we don't really know if drugs are performance enhancing, because of our persistent inability to know who is doping based on our inability to catch most who dope - all of which confirms doping remains ahead of detection - and despite also that drugs have been pervasive in sports for at least the last half century or more. You also overlook that the drugs being used are not simply the same as those used by athletes in the distant past but are the result of the latest developments in medicine and pharmaceuticals, which is why WADA continues to update its list of banned substances. Your arguments for scepticism about doping are based on the fact that dopers are able to effectively conceal their use. You form conclusions on what you can't see. We mostly don't know which drugs are being used and by whom - but we do know that many are using them, and far more than are caught. Clearly, the athletes and those helping them know more than you or the researchers in the universities, who are unable to use dopers as part of their research.

I'm sure you have gone through life never ceasing to be amazed. Ignorance is truly bliss.

I have never doubted that old drugs exist and new drugs exist, and many athletes use drugs. Your beliefs always fail to link the use of drugs with the extraordinary performances of this alleged cause and effect relation. The whole premise for this thread is "monster drops in times and performances that used to be considered extraordinary". Looking through this thread, the strongest argument looks to be of the caliber that "20% of men cheat on their wives, therefore Kipchoge dopes too", or "Kipchoge wore prototype shoes, therefore he likely dopes too".

"What is incongruous" -- the source of my scepticism -- are faithful conclusions that doping is everywhere among all athletes of all nations from all sports, when juxtaposed against the plain historical observation -- something everyone can know -- that "monster drops in times and performances that used to be considered extraordinary" have not come from all athletes of all nations for all sports, regardless of their knowledge, or the knowledge of researchers, or the novelty of new drugs added to the WADA banned list.

As usual, you continue to misconstrue plain English - and the facts. That you continue to amaze me with your delusions is not because I am generally amazed but it is because I rarely see denial like yours practised to the same extent in others. Your denial should be in the Guinness Book of Records.

You suggest that in my case "ignorance is bliss" and yet the irony is that is precisely the basis on which you maintain your beliefs that doping is insignificant and mostly ineffective. You don't have the data for your views because such data isn't available. Doping is unable to be academically studied to any definitive degree because it is clandestine and its elite participants don't volunteer to take part in formal research. Instead, we have to rely in what we know athletes choose to do and what the experts in the field can tell us. What they tell us is the opposite of what you believe.

The premise of the thread is not your claim that doping is established by "monster drops in times". It is a suggestion that we have reason to believe doping continues unabated, because times/performances continue to dramatically improve - which wouldn't be the case if antidoping were effective.

There need not be a benchmark to establish the presence of doping; we know it exists in sport and is mostly undetected. The only reason we might believe that isn't so and doping been reduced or even eradicated is if sporting performances across the board went into decline. They haven't; they keep improving. Ergo, doping remains present. But then if you accept that you have to fall back on the absurdity that athletes have doped for generations without gaining advantage.

Among the facts we have is that we know that doping has long existed in sports; that it grows more technologically sophisticated and that it is largely unable to be detected - because those charged with eradicating it say so. Only a fool - or a doper - would seek to argue otherwise. So you would have to be one or the other.

Maybe in your case ignorance is not bliss.

I did not question doping "presence" or "exists" or "sophisticated" or "mostly undetected", or "continues unabated", and I do not "seek to argue otherwise". Like you, I take all of these things for granted without contest.

Virtually every elite athlete you see in T&F is using androgel, sadly. Entirely through the skin, never goes through the liver, making urine testing obsolete. Ecdysterone still isn't banned either.

Yes, and sprinters are just as big of users as distance runners. Except when they turn up at the Olympics and have to have it out of their system. Suddenly 19.5 every week is suddenly a strained 19.9 hint, hint.

You mostly argue that athletes merely have a "belief" that it aids them. Poor dumb athletes. Of course they dope (in their likely thousands over the years) and you don't - but what do they know.

Good question -- what do they know?

Be specific, and give me your best examples.

They know from experience that drugs help them or they wouldn't dope - which they have done for decades, and in their thousands. Nearly one in two championship athletes have doped. But you - who have never doped or known any professed dopers - know better than they. How - when you have none of their experience? (And neither do your favored "researchers").