Mo Katir fires back against doping accusations

Salvitore Stitchmo wrote:

Look here is the reality with Katir - in a 3 year stretch from 2018-2020 he ran 3.40, 3.37 and 3.36 - ages 20,21,22. He then dropped 8 seconds in a season to 3.28. That's not the same 8 seconds dropping from 3.50 to 3.42 or even 3.44 to a borderline world class 3.36 - that's 8 seconds into rare air that guys like Coe, Willis, Cram, even Daniel Komen never got into.

And I understand the rebuttal here - "well he was still young - only 22, so he was just maturing and it's not that crazy to comprehend" but it kind of is. To have the requisite talent to run this fast, it's usually becoming evident at an earlier age. Case in point Jakob who right now is only 4 tenths of a second faster than Katir lifetime, ran 3.31 at 17, 3.30 at 18, 3.28 at 19. Willis ran 3.36 at age 20 (same as Katir), 3.32 at 21 and then had to grind out almost 10 years of low 3.30 running every season until he finally broke through the barrier. Coe followed a similar pattern having run 3.32 at age 22 and had to wait 7 years of obviously quality performances before he broke the 3.30 barrier.

So this progression of Katir isn't normal and is more in line with a guy like Rashid Ramzi who went from running 3.39 to 3.30 in a season - funnily enough from the age of 22 to 23, exactly the same ages that Katir experienced his seismic jump. I guess we don't need any briefing on how Ramiz achieved that do we?

Throw into the mix that this jump happened during a period of time where we know for a fact that athlete isolation was at an all-time high because the world thought humanity was coming to an end, and there is a lot of anecdotal and circumstantial evidence that points to a high level of suspicion.

Also the way the human mind processes and rationalizes past actions is very complex. Maybe Katir right now is clean as a whistle. Maybe he has been for the past 2 seasons? Maybe that's enough in his mind to be able to claim he's clean and everyone else can go f--- themselves, I don't know.

I personally find his jump/rise to prominence hard to believe but that's just me and I could be wrong. Either way I find him just as believable as many others out there so good for him I guess.

automorphic wrote:

Empty Fridge wrote:

Anyone dropping from 3:36 to 3:28 in a year is suspicious as hell. Sorry if this bursts the bubble of fans that like to pretend the top guys are clean.

I just don't get comments like this. Anyone with shady connections is suspicious as hell (does Katir have these; legitimate question?). Anyone with a positive test is of course more than suspicious (Katir doesn't have this). And maybe you're of the view that 3:28 is inherently a suspicious time.

But how do you expect that someone gets down to 3:28? It's basically impossible to become an elite runner without a year or two where you drop out of the sky. For instance, even 3:50 takes a lot of training and a tremendous amount of talent. Some runners hit that at age 16, but most don't, even most elites. Then you either have a massive drop to 3:36 or a massive drop from 3:36 to 3:28 (or sometimes both). Or you have a long progression of dropping time every year throughout your 20s, which is quite rare and some people also find suspicious.

Said another way, isn't Katir's drop from 3:52 to 3:40 in one (pre-pandemic year) also suspicious? It's a significantly bigger percentage drop than 3:36 to 3:28. Maybe he started doping in 2018, then had a large natural improvement a couple of years later. Maybe he started doping in 2018 and increased his regime in 2021, while also making unrelated improvements in those same years. Or maybe improvement curves are just a lousy way to tell what's going on since all elite athletes make massive drops at one point or another.

Actually, I'd love to see someone do a study on this. Take the top 100 or 500 1500m runners, and see if the ones caught doping have any patterns in their year-to-year progressions. I'd bet that there's actually very little there, but would be very interested to find out either way.

est un autre wrote:

Salvitore Stitchmo wrote:

Look here is the reality with Katir - in a 3 year stretch from 2018-2020 he ran 3.40, 3.37 and 3.36 - ages 20,21,22. He then dropped 8 seconds in a season to 3.28. That's not the same 8 seconds dropping from 3.50 to 3.42 or even 3.44 to a borderline world class 3.36 - that's 8 seconds into rare air that guys like Coe, Willis, Cram, even Daniel Komen never got into.

And I understand the rebuttal here - "well he was still young - only 22, so he was just maturing and it's not that crazy to comprehend" but it kind of is. To have the requisite talent to run this fast, it's usually becoming evident at an earlier age. Case in point Jakob who right now is only 4 tenths of a second faster than Katir lifetime, ran 3.31 at 17, 3.30 at 18, 3.28 at 19. Willis ran 3.36 at age 20 (same as Katir), 3.32 at 21 and then had to grind out almost 10 years of low 3.30 running every season until he finally broke through the barrier. Coe followed a similar pattern having run 3.32 at age 22 and had to wait 7 years of obviously quality performances before he broke the 3.30 barrier.

So this progression of Katir isn't normal and is more in line with a guy like Rashid Ramzi who went from running 3.39 to 3.30 in a season - funnily enough from the age of 22 to 23, exactly the same ages that Katir experienced his seismic jump. I guess we don't need any briefing on how Ramiz achieved that do we?

Throw into the mix that this jump happened during a period of time where we know for a fact that athlete isolation was at an all-time high because the world thought humanity was coming to an end, and there is a lot of anecdotal and circumstantial evidence that points to a high level of suspicion.

Also the way the human mind processes and rationalizes past actions is very complex. Maybe Katir right now is clean as a whistle. Maybe he has been for the past 2 seasons? Maybe that's enough in his mind to be able to claim he's clean and everyone else can go f--- themselves, I don't know.

I personally find his jump/rise to prominence hard to believe but that's just me and I could be wrong. Either way I find him just as believable as many others out there so good for him I guess.

You cannot use statistics / progression the way you do -there are a hundreds reasons why progression can be uneven….

And you mentioned Jakob Ingebrigtsen, but forgot that he progressed even more in a span of less than a year than Katir (from high 3.39 to low 3.31) -close to 9 sec. OK -Ingebrigtsen was far younger, but Katir’s small step from 3.37 to 3.36 (one year before the year he dropped 8 sec) can be seen as a year his potential wasn’t realised (everything came as a flood the next year)..

I believe in increasing the testing regime. Not in increasing the speculations….

war hagler wrote:

It's odd, I totally agree with your analysis in general SS; the associations (however vague) with known doping facilitators and the sudden emergence into the world top three are without doubt hard to swallow.

But I can't help feeling that Katir doesn't stink quite like Ramzi. Ramzi's build and running style were so at odds with his sudden imperviousness to fatigue that it was like he had a flashing BLOOD DOPER sign over his head. Katir may well have doped his way to the top, but he does at least look the part. His fitness jump occurring around COVID is also an ambivalent detail: testing may have been worse; but perhaps it was the best time in recent history to prepare and develop with fewest distractions and would it not also be a curious time to choose to invest in a doping regime - when there are no prizes on the horizon for improved fitness?

Just don't know. His progression makes him more suspicious to me than the other current 3:28/9 guys, but I'd also be unsurprised if he was clean.

Anyway, I'm bored of thinking about athletes with known doping associates who put out extra-terrestrial performances, off to watch some Sydney McLaughlin videos.

Salvitore Stitchmo wrote:

automorphic wrote:

I just don't get comments like this. Anyone with shady connections is suspicious as hell (does Katir have these; legitimate question?). Anyone with a positive test is of course more than suspicious (Katir doesn't have this). And maybe you're of the view that 3:28 is inherently a suspicious time.

But how do you expect that someone gets down to 3:28? It's basically impossible to become an elite runner without a year or two where you drop out of the sky. For instance, even 3:50 takes a lot of training and a tremendous amount of talent. Some runners hit that at age 16, but most don't, even most elites. Then you either have a massive drop to 3:36 or a massive drop from 3:36 to 3:28 (or sometimes both). Or you have a long progression of dropping time every year throughout your 20s, which is quite rare and some people also find suspicious.

Said another way, isn't Katir's drop from 3:52 to 3:40 in one (pre-pandemic year) also suspicious? It's a significantly bigger percentage drop than 3:36 to 3:28. Maybe he started doping in 2018, then had a large natural improvement a couple of years later. Maybe he started doping in 2018 and increased his regime in 2021, while also making unrelated improvements in those same years. Or maybe improvement curves are just a lousy way to tell what's going on since all elite athletes make massive drops at one point or another.

Actually, I'd love to see someone do a study on this. Take the top 100 or 500 1500m runners, and see if the ones caught doping have any patterns in their year-to-year progressions. I'd bet that there's actually very little there, but would be very interested to find out either way.

I hate to say this man, but this post exposes a lack of understanding about this sport and event. Sometimes I get the feeling that a lot of people posting here have followed the sport for like 3 years or something.

Does Katir have shady connections? Yes. His agent is Miguel Mostaza who was the agent of Cacho, Estevez (two guys that took so many drugs they lost their hair) and Sergio Sanchez who was actually caught in 2013 after running 7.32 indoors and winning an indoor world silver back in 2010. He's been and is the primary agent for the top Spanish MD runners that especially in the 90's became extremely prevalent on the circuit after Barcelona (mostly due to their systemic doping program they had going on there that was basically exposed during Operation Puerto).

As for "Anyone with a positive test is of course more than suspicious" - well thanks for stating the obvious but of course "suspicion" can only apply to someone who hasn't tested positive anyway so let's be clear on that.

Of the view that 3.28 is a suspicious time? Well any time that fast raises eyebrows for a number of reasons and it definitely does when it comes from a guy who improves his PR from 3.36 to it - and yes it's significantly less when it comes from someone sporting a previous PR of say 3.30 even 3.31. I don't think you quite understand just how quick and difficult it is to run 3.28.

You talk about these "fall out of the sky" moments or "massive drops" - do you have any examples of these? I gave one - Rashid Ramzi. If you don't know who he is, then I suggest you google him. You mention a drop from 3.36 to 3.28 - how many exactly of these athletes over the course of history are there? I would challenge you to name them but I know the answer already. Of the 37 men that have broken 3.30 there are only 3 that ever made jumps like Katir did. There is of course Katir (3.36 to 3.28) and then there is Abel Kipsang (3.35.43 to 3.29.56) and Ronald Kwemoi (3.45.39 to 3.28.81). If you are putting Katir in the same category with Kipsang and Kwemoi then I think you really have a problem.

Is a drop from 3.52 to 3.40 suspicious? Short answer no. It's not implausible at all for someone with talent but mediocre training to do that. Also 3.40 for 1500m is a time that puts you 2257th on the all-time humankind list. Running under 3.29 puts you in a club of 16. So 12 seconds from 3.52 to 3.40 is numerically more than 3.36 to 3.28 but not even close in terms of relative difficulty and this is maybe the worst argument you gave.

Your final point - you think that if we studied guys that doped in 1500 you would see very little difference from their non-doped ability to their doped ability one year to the next? I think this was an inadvertently clever situation you framed up here because obviously doping impacts athletes differently and you could then simply point as say "well if it's not 8 seconds like Katir or 9 like Ramzi then it could be plausibly just natural progression. That's honestly an absurd claim or hypothesis and even if doping helps someone half a second, it's half a second they didn't have when they were clean. The time value is irrelevant but it's ridiculous to think that doping would actually ever make someone worse - that's not the point of doping.

Sorry to do that to you I really am, but it was a bad post.