A closer look at EPO-era performances

+1

Self-explanatory really. In 1999 Morocco had 6 men under 13:13. In 2004, five years later, they had five men under 13:15 and each of those five not in that 1999 list, so in just two seasons selected at random from the EPO years - 1999 and 2004 they had 11 different men under 13:15 and six different men under 13:06. Last year their fastest 5000 runner was Soufiyan BOUQANTAR in 13:14. The population of Morocco has increased by 25% since 1999.

top 6 Moroccan 5000m 1999

12:52.53 Salah HISSOU

12:59.09 Brahim LAHLAFI

13:01.41 Brahim JABBOUR

13:03.69 Ismaïl SGHYR

13:10.10 Mohamed Saïd EL WARDI

13:12.23 El Hassan LAHSSINI

top 5 Moroccan 5000m 2004

12:59.04 Abderrahim GOURMI

13:05.78 Hicham BELLANI

13:10.18 Mohamed AMYN

13:11.80 Salah EL GHAZI

13:14.39 Hicham EL GUERROUJ

top 5 Moroccan 5000m runners 2017

13:14.06 Soufiyan BOUQANTAR

13:16.98 Brahim KAAZOUZI

13:18.00 El Mahjoub DAZZA

13:21.93 Youssef NASIR

13:27.64 Younés ESSALHI

why are you replying to me? dont you know this is now a thread for just me and my man crush gary rekrunner?

he is so smart and handsome...and has the courage to tell the truth...EPO and PEDs DONT WORK!!!!!

#rekisright!

+1

The average Premier Leage football player salary in 1992 was £23,000. In 2014 it was £1,700,000 and today it is £2,600,000

Coevett wrote:

Self-explanatory really. In 1999 Morocco had 6 men under 13:13. In 2004, five years later, they had five men under 13:15 and each of those five not in that 1999 list, so in just two seasons selected at random from the EPO years - 1999 and 2004 they had 11 different men under 13:15 and six different men under 13:06. Last year their fastest 5000 runner was Soufiyan BOUQANTAR in 13:14. The population of Morocco has increased by 25% since 1999.

top 6 Moroccan 5000m 1999

12:52.53 Salah HISSOU

12:59.09 Brahim LAHLAFI

13:01.41 Brahim JABBOUR

13:03.69 Ismaïl SGHYR

13:10.10 Mohamed Saïd EL WARDI

13:12.23 El Hassan LAHSSINI

Moroccan born Mohammed Mourhit was also sub 13 in 1999.

Definitely don't forget Mourhit! - that guy had some wheels!

3000 m – 7:26.62 (7th all-time)

5000 m – 12:49.71 (15th all-time)

10000 m – 26:52.30 (32nd all-time)

2xWorld XC Champion. WC 5000 bronze

I don't know if he didn't get the memo that an EPO test was developed in 2000 or simply didn't care as he, like his comrade Boulami, tested hot in 02. ?

Don't forget Mourhit wrote:

Coevett wrote:

Self-explanatory really. In 1999 Morocco had 6 men under 13:13. In 2004, five years later, they had five men under 13:15 and each of those five not in that 1999 list, so in just two seasons selected at random from the EPO years - 1999 and 2004 they had 11 different men under 13:15 and six different men under 13:06. Last year their fastest 5000 runner was Soufiyan BOUQANTAR in 13:14. The population of Morocco has increased by 25% since 1999.

top 6 Moroccan 5000m 1999

12:52.53 Salah HISSOU

12:59.09 Brahim LAHLAFI

13:01.41 Brahim JABBOUR

13:03.69 Ismaïl SGHYR

13:10.10 Mohamed Saïd EL WARDI

13:12.23 El Hassan LAHSSINI

Moroccan born Mohammed Mourhit was also sub 13 in 1999.

12:58.45 in Rome and 12:58.8 in Seville.

I don't want to crush your spirit, but I think you and me would not work. I wouldn't respect your mind in the morning.

m!ndweak wrote:

i love you rekrunner, will you be my undercover man crush? i know its 2018 and i shouldnt be afraid...just as you are not afraid to tell the truth.....EPO DOESNT WORK

In the post above yours, we are asked to consider external forces that led to a general decline in North America and Europe, as the better athletes have more incentive to play other sports. For context, what else is going on in Morocco?

Coevett wrote:

Self-explanatory really. In 1999 Morocco had 6 men under 13:13. In 2004, five years later, they had five men under 13:15 and each of those five not in that 1999 list, so in just two seasons selected at random from the EPO years - 1999 and 2004 they had 11 different men under 13:15 and six different men under 13:06. Last year their fastest 5000 runner was Soufiyan BOUQANTAR in 13:14. The population of Morocco has increased by 25% since 1999.

I agree we cannot ignore external factors. It's not just about EPO. It makes sense that as the incentives declined, so would performances. The same reasoning can be used for track times today, as the incentives have shifted to the road, and the talent followed.

Why don't we compare like with like?

Mens 800m:

Pre-1990 (Top 5): 1:42.25

Post-1990 (Top 5): 1:41.45 (Coe & Cruz counted in both)

= 0.78%

Mens 1500m:

Pre-1990 (Top 5): 3:29.84

Post-1990 (Top 5): 3:26.81

= 1.44%

Mens 3000m:

Pre-1990 (Top 5): 7:32.54

Post-1990 (Top 5): 7:23.88

= 1.87%

Mens 5000m:

Pre-1990 (Top 5): 13:02.08

Post-1990 (Top 5): 12:41.96

= 2.57%

Mens 10000m:

Pre-1990 (Top 5): 27:14.77

Post-1990 (Top 5): 26.25.85

= 3.0%

Marathon:

Pre-1990 (Top 5): 2:07:11

Post-1990 (Top 5): 2:03:06

= 3.21%

In short the longer the event the more there is to be gained from EPO use. The myth that EPO helps high Vo2Max events (1500m-5000m) but not longer events, is just that, a myth. It is most likely best for marathon runners.

It is quite interesting how vastly more effective EPO (plus potentially HGH/Androgel/Hormonal Peptides/SARMs) are compared with the Blood Doping +Steroid + Stimulants era that preceded it.

Are you blaming ISIS for the decline in Moroccan distance running.

rekrunner wrote:

I don't want to crush your spirit, but I think you and me would not work. I wouldn't respect your mind in the morning.

Gary...you're becoming quite a funny guy.

Then it's not a "closer look". Splitting the improvements in smaller sub-groups highlights the regional nature of large improvements, contrasted with a near global nature of insignificant improvements, for the purpose of asking why the massive effect of a global drug was so selective. A better "like for like" comparison could be splitting up the pre-1990 references in the same groups -- something I didn't think would bring much added value, and will leave as an exercise for the readers. Why do you say "gained from EPO use"? When I compiled the numbers, I had no way of knowing which of the times were doped, outside a very small percentage of doping busts.

Mr Methodology wrote:

Why don't we compare like with like?

...

In short the longer the event the more there is to be gained from EPO use. The myth that EPO helps high Vo2Max events (1500m-5000m) but not longer events, is just that, a myth. It is most likely best for marathon runners.

It is quite interesting how vastly more effective EPO (plus potentially HGH/Androgel/Hormonal Peptides/SARMs) are compared with the Blood Doping +Steroid + Stimulants era that preceded it.

I wasn't specifically thinking about ISIS or terrorism. Wars can have a negative impact though. There can be a hundred reasons for shifts in trends.

Are you hinting at terrorism wrote:

Are you blaming ISIS for the decline in Moroccan distance running.

rekrunner wrote:

I wasn't specifically thinking about ISIS or terrorism. Wars can have a negative impact though.

There can be a hundred reasons for shifts in trends.

Are you hinting at terrorism wrote:

Are you blaming ISIS for the decline in Moroccan distance running.

What wars?

Any and all of them. I don't have a specific one in mind, but it was a general comment regarding potential effect of any kind of national or political instability.

Subway Surfers Addiction wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

I wasn't specifically thinking about ISIS or terrorism. Wars can have a negative impact though.

There can be a hundred reasons for shifts in trends.

What wars?

rekrunner,

thanks for the interesting analysis. Word of caution about interpreting statistics (which you've done a very nice job of compiling and explaining)... it's easy to see patterns that aren't real, and assume that the strength of your dataset is adequate to defend your interpretation.

Interesting story (if perhaps only to me), a colleague recently shared with me a neat paper about linkages between lunar cycles and large earthquakes, which drew the (evidently well-defended) conclusion that very large (M8+) earthquakes show no relationship with lunar cycles (which correspond to small cyclical changes in gravitational pull, thus small changes in crustal stresses...). The paper got me wild-eyed interested in the topic so I did my own exploration, and grabbed about 14000 "almost random" earthquakes (M2.5+) from available records (USGS) to see if I could detect an underlying lunar signal. Those data DID suggest a relatively higher frequency of earthquakes around the new moon relative to the full moon (with a lot of scatter), so I explored further, grabbing over 50,000 earthquakes. This larger dataset seemed to confirm and strengthen the initial hypothesis, so I got really excited and shared the finding with some colleagues. One smart colleague asked me if the interpreted pattern was statistically significant, a fair question; so, working a little more methodically to choose more earthquakes randomly, I increased the dataset to 104,000 earthquakes. At this point, the evident pattern completely disappeared.

The lesson that I (re)learned in this exercise is that it's easy to fall in love with conclusions you've drawn from statistical datasets, but the reality of (particularly complex, chaotic) natural phenomena is that they like to defy probabilistic description in sometimes unexpected ways. And interpreting the presence or absence of a doping effect from a small number of performances is a risky thing to do. Or at least one that ought to be done without a high degree of confidence expressed in the outcome.

Nice work though. Cheers

rekrunner wrote:

Splitting the improvements in smaller sub-groups highlights the regional nature of large improvements

It also worsens the statistics. A lot. And potentially skews them when the person who wants to make a point chooses the sub-groups, like you did here.

Also, you need to be more consequent. This here is a good start:

rekrunner wrote:

If these claims are accurate, we should be able to observe the large effect from EPO on the best performances, pre-1990, versus post-1990.

But if you consider that the best performances post-1990 are EPO-aided, then you need to consider that the pre-1990 performances are also enhanced by the then basically undetectable (legal and illegal) methods.

Otherwise you'd postulate that the sport was clean pre-1990. We know better.

The question then becomes: how much - possibly gender- and distance-specific - helps (at first unlimited) EPO and controlled but more powerful steroids vs. unlimited blood transfusions and basically unlimited but primitive steroids. And yet, each time somebody brings this up, you argue against it.

On the other hand, if you were to think that runners are too honest to cheat even without noticeable risk of detection (and not even use blood transfusions while allowed), then this method were absolutely pointless. Then we can only look at the athletes with positive tests, and whose doping history was proven by admissions and witnesses. At the top, those are 0, as nobody talks, and everyone pretends they only doped once.

Finally, let's look at the numbers above. Why would the longer distances benefit more? Ok, the marathon was underdeveloped in the 80s, and now there is more money, so we can't really compare that.

But do 5000 m runners earn more than 800 m runners? Doubt it. More likely, the benefit from the steroids decreases with increasing distance, while blood doping methods become more important.