Aras Kaya, "turkish" x-kenyan gets 3 years for EPO.

"Pain, sacrifice, and psychological trauma are normal constituents in the elite athlete’s routine; risk and health problems are part of the game. The threat of sanction, however severe, pales against a cost-benefit algorithm where failure is just as unpalatable as victory is compelling [27]. And that is before any economic incentives add impetus. To compound matters, elite athletes use prohibited performance-enhancing substances to bolster training and recovery as much as to supplement in- competition performance, leaving only out-of-season testing to sidestep. Studies have also revealed that it is possible for athletes to successfully use micro-dosing strategies in order to pass tests [28]."

"Doping prevalence may be even higher in serious recreational and fitness sports [7], while usage by adolescents appears to be growing [8]. The use of medications by elite athletes has also been shown to reach higher levels than the non-sporting public [9]."

Not sure where you want to go with this and all the quotes.

Much of it confirms what I already said:

- That the scope and scale of doping is "unclear", i.e. even the knowledge of experts like Howman is limited.

- I already accepted your/Howman's figures of 10x and 10% without any dispute.

- Some "club level" and "mid-level performers" who fell short of using drugs themselves, believe doping is essential to get to national or international level? That is not the testimony of "thousands of athletes" who doped.

What is missing in all of these proofs of existence and belief, is the evidence that shows the link between doping and higher performance than is possible without doping.

It is reassuring that you understood virtually nothing of what the article said.

The title of the article was "Why the War on Drugs Will Never Be Won". As it makes clear, doping is so engrained in sport it can't be eradicated. And you still think there is no link between drugs and elite performance. I guess you don't see any connection between having a meal and going to the 'can' some hours later.

The article is mainly about "Harm Reduction" for the "Harm Reduction Journal" as a superior alternative to "Zero Tolerance" for defining anti-doping policies, placing the welfare and well-being of athletes above. I agree "Zero Tolerance" is a terrible policy for any problem, dolling out full punishments for lower quality offenses, or obvious non-offenses.

The question isn't what the article said, but what you want to say with the article. Do you know what you want to say? I think everyone unanimously agrees that doping exists, that doping is a problem, and that testing doesn't catch all the dopers, for a whole host of reasons.

Some of your quotes say doping is worse among non-elites and up-and-coming athletes and in other "recreational and fitness sports".

Nothing you quoted resolves any question that anyone is asking. Notably, neither the article, nor your quotes, says anything supporting your presumptions about doping and elite distance running performance.

Since you are prone to appeal to expert authorities, what is the anti-doping and elite sport background and experience of the authors Aaron C. T. Smith & Bob Stewart?

What I still think is that you cannot establish your myths with peer reviewed publications that have not looked at elite performance. Weird analogies and obsessions with the "can" only confirm that.

Don't shoot the messenger.

Lads at least half the athletes are doping testing is a sham you only get caught for making a mistake in your "calendar" the testing is vastly different from country to country even Wada have their favourites if you deep it and accept it it makes the sport more enjoyable

The study quotes expert estimates that doping will be anything from 14-39% of tested athletes. As I said, there are billions living on this planet. A tiny fraction of that number will be competitive athletes - so that means they will at least be more than a million world-wide. If 14-39% of those who are tested are likely doping then they will be in the thousands - because there will be more than two and a half thousand tested athletes on the planet. Many more. Then we go back over time and count the numbers of competitive athletes over the last fifty or so years and we will easily find amongst them that thousands have likely doped, since doping has been consistently present over that time.

Since elite and championship athletes dope we will know they are a significant part of that pool. Since we also know that most people make decisions on a rational - a reasoned - basis we can infer they doped because it worked for them. Without such results it would have been discontinued and doping in sport would largely cease to exist. So athletes continue to dope because they are rational while you say they gain no benefit from it because you are not.

The main point of the article is that doping is such a widespread social and sporting problem that it cannot be stopped now by a punitive approach. In popular parlance, the horse has long bolted and yet you continue to fatuously ask for the "evidence" that it has.

They need to see WADA and national doping officials undercover to Kenya and EPOpia and whatever other doping hot zones there are and monitor these elite runners. Could easily bust them that way, otherwise you won't catch them at all.

According to World Athletics, in any given week there are more than 70,000 athletes, ranging from elite to club level from all four corners of the world, who have a valid ranking score across the 46 athletics event groups. Applying the officially accepted estimates of doping it would appear that at least 7000 to 28,000 are possibly doping. That is just in any given week. And yet there are those here who ask for evidence of the link between doping and elite performance, as though 28,000 doped athletes each week proves nothing about what doping does for them.

These assumptions and inferences look like yours, not those of any "expert" in any study.

Furthermore, we can infer nothing about the performances of many more thousands of clean athletes from these thousands of dopers' decisions and assumed or inferred experiences.

Indeed this leaves two questions unanswered 1) how many of these 70,000 athletes are capable of producing elite performances, and 2) how many of those performances are better because they are doped?

You can't solve the gaps in the causes of performance of elites by padding the numbers with sub-elites, and club runners, across 46 athletics events (sprints, jumps, throws, and distance).

It doesn't leave those questions unanswered. The best athletes amongst them will have produced elite performances, as doping is not confined to the mediocre. We also know those performances will be better through doping because doping has been in the sport for decades. It isn't an experimental novelty that began last week. It wouldn't have endured let alone become widespread if it didn't produce results for those who use it.

Those assumptions are indeed mine but they follow unless you attempt to argue that thousands of athletes over decades are non-rational and persistently trust in something with no tangible or proven results. That cannot fit with their dedication to training methods, nutrition and technology - which are all highly rational. The only conspicuous lack of rationality is yours in arguing athletes engage in something of no benefit to themselves and at great risk to their careers, health and reputation.

Well then, if the questions have answers, what are they:

1) How many of these 70,000 are capable of producing elite performances?

2) How many of those performances are better because they are doped?

Sure, some of the best performances are doped, as are many more of the worst performances.

Religion is widespread, and has endured for thousands of years, despite the lack of concrete real-world evidence and feedback.

But they don't follow, and I do attempt to argue that thousands of athletes, if not hundreds of thousands, want to believe in a mythology more suited for comic books. Characters from Popeye to Asterix to Underdog are nothing more than cartoons. To the extent we can say it is rational, the decisions of athletes to dope are based on hope and faith and rumors mingled in with incomplete information.

In any case, applying your own standard to yourself, your assumptions and inferences must be dismissed, as having never been published for review by experts.

The pool of 70,000 will include that percentage that is typically identifiable as elite. If 28,000 of that pool have doped, as official estimates have indicated is possible, and doping will be found amongst the elites, then the usual proportion of athletes who are elite will be found amongst the 28,000 who are doping.

Of the 28,000 who were doping we cannot say definitively how many will have experienced an definitive improvement in performance or how much. The latter will likely vary. However, everything - from the history of doping, to the studies of its effects, the estimation by experts on how peds work and the anecdotes of athletes - indicates that some benefit in performance will be more likely than not.

To say as you do, that "some of the best and the worst performances are doping" is, firstly, a mere and unproven assertion on your part, and is, secondly, simply another way of saying doping doesn't affect or enhance performance - in popular parlance, "it doesn't work". That is consistent with being a doping denier. It is also pure nonsense.

Doping is not like religion, where faith is placed in that which cannot be factually proven; it is a science and can be measured empirically - by results - and especially by the athletes who engage in it. You have absolutely no basis for assuming coaches and athletes who follow the science of the sport with regard to training, nutrition and technique are suddenly naive and gullible mystics when it comes to pharmaceuticals.

As I have said above, your arguments that athletes really have no idea what they are doing when they are doping is based on your own fictional and quite unsubstantiated view of the practice. Elite and professional athletes are very serious about what they do - as are the coaches trainers, physios and doctors who work with them. They are guided by the science of their sport in the direction that most likely will favour success. This applies to training, technique, equipment and nutrition. The same will apply to the use of pharmaceuticals that they may take to improve performance. They don't suddenly become like children who believe in fairy stories. But it appears you have constructed your own such stories.

Unlike you, I base my views on doping on what most experts in the area indicate about the practice. Since you largely reject that consensus the obligation falls on you to offer some credible validation beyond your own eccentric inclinations.