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

EPO is obviously hitting the roads

casual obsever wrote:

Try harder times, or Canova will tell you that those aren't elite.

How about sub-

1:43

3:30

13:00

27:00

60:00

2:06

and then 1990 / 1995 / 2000 / 2005 / 2010 / 2015 (/ 2018).

For Kenyans + Ethiopians.

The problem with listing numbers such as sub 1:43 is they're so much smaller a sample size, RekRunner and the like will then say they are meaningless, and down to Rudisha (effectively) retiring etc.

Since Kiprop, only really Tim and George are running under 3:30, both with the same coach. We don't know whether David Ouma is simply a genius, or it's a case of that training group (which was VERY close to Kiprop) have been doping themselves silly. We'll get a much clearer picture next year now that a WADA lab is 10 km away from their training camp, and Tim and the Manangois will have to have at least 3 random tests in the 10 months before Doha. Maybe I have too much faith in the new anti-doping system, but if their success was due to simply being able to go near full throttle EPO, then they'll either slow down next year or one or two of them will get busted.

Can we please ban m!ndweak from these boards?

Can we pull his IP address and figure out who he is for a public shaming?

afk wrote:

Can we please ban m!ndweak from these boards?

Can we pull his IP address and figure out who he is for a public shaming?

Since he has already identified himself you could try.

As some of you are shaming the study authors (and exercise physiologists in general), consider this. The authors of the paper made a distinction between sub-elite and truly elite athletes. They cautioned about making inferential leaps from one population to another that wasn't part of the study. They did state that the results" would almost certainly translate into a worthwhile enhancement in elite performance", but that is not a statement of absolutism, or even a statement of demonstration within the 95% confidence limit. They are allowed to make that statement, albeit polarizing and dangerously close to unsubstantiated claims, and they did follow that up with the obligatory "more research is needed" phrasing. However journalists interpret results is out of the authors hands, and that has been the bane of scientists' integrity for many years.

Many times journalists will read only the abstract of a paper. In this abstract, the authors stated they used well-trained Kenyan endurance runners living and training at altitude, and EPO administration increased VO2max and time trial performance. There is nothing irresponsible or inaccurate in any of that statement from what they did in the study. They did not say "elite" runners. That Alex Hutchison then chose to call out Renato Canova that "EPO works in Kenyan athletes" is irresponsible, because Canova always said he didn't think it would work for ELITE runners. But, Canova's response attacking physiologists was irresponsible because the authors characterized them as "well-trained", never "elite". I think this whole dust-up is just another example of improper reporting of science, something that is out of the scientists' hands.

afk wrote:

Can we please ban m!ndweak from these boards?

Can we pull his IP address and figure out who he is for a public shaming?

Yeah, don't forget to do it for me too. Just imagine the reactions of our friends, family, and employers when we're exposed as being passionately against Kenyan doping by a handful of nutcases on the bubble of unreality that is a hardcore section of LetsRun.com? It will effectively be game over for us, our life in ruins, ostracized from society for ever more.

The only reason I would baulk a little at not remaining anonymous is that one or two of the unhinged people here do seem so invested in perpetuating East African doping that it's prudent to take seriously the possibility of one of them turning up one day jumping out of the bushes with a knife or something.

There is certainly nothing I've ever said here in this forum that would be problematic for anybody in my life. If my name turned up in Google results with 'racist' next to it, it would be a small matter to explain to anyone who cared that I'd been labelled racist on a running forum for claiming that there was an endemic doping problem in Kenya and East Africa and that this was likely the reason why Kenya had been dominating distance running for the last 2 or 3 decades. A claim that is being proven true to the general public with virtually every passing week.

As far as MindWeak's 'threat to shoot' Canova, I can't comment on that. Obviously it would be a serious matter if it happened, but I didn't see any such comment, and MindWeak says he didn't post such a threat. Surely if he had somebody would have screencapped it? Funny how nobody took the numerous violent threats against me seriously, even when I linked to the posts in question, yet people are in agreement that MindWeak is a loon who threatened to shoot Canova, with no evidence that such a threat was made.

I'm not going to say too much about 800m, since times were so strong by 1990, with guys like Coe (1981) and Cruz (1984) still ranked in the top 6 of all time, I'll pretty much dismiss any EPO connection you want to make regardless. As you can see from my list above, the problem wasn't only the benchmark, but also your selection of just two years, 2010, and 2018, as representative of two different eras, not to mention that 2018 is still not over. Even large samples from a single year will be meaningless, given that many factors can change from year to year, and between 8 years.

It's amusing that among the EPO-faithful, there is such a broad, if not contradictory, range of what is obvious. The flaw is pretending that EPO and EPO testing are the only variables impacting performance, and forming every conclusion as if the goal was how to explain all performances with doping, unless we talk about the poor quantity and poor quality of non-African performances.

Subway Surfers wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

... here is my annual Kenyan count, since 1990...

EPO is obviously hitting the roads

rekrunner wrote:

It's amusing that among the EPO-faithful, there is such a broad, if not contradictory, range of what is obvious.

The flaw is pretending that EPO and EPO testing are the only variables impacting performance, and forming every conclusion as if the goal was how to explain all performances with doping, unless we talk about the poor quantity and poor quality of non-African performances.

Subway Surfers wrote:

EPO is obviously hitting the roads

From now on you will be known as an "epo denier."

rekrunner wrote:

It's amusing that among the EPO- apologists l, there is such a broad, if not contradictory, range of what is obvious.

Or...

I could partly agree with an opinion, that Alex Hutchinson as a journalist, was irresponsible, except that this was just his tweet, and not a researched article. He responded to another tweet, from Jordan Santos-Concejero, who has a PhD in Exercise Physiology, who in my opinion, bears two counts of irresponsibility (except again, it was just a tweet): 1) He repeats a phrase often attributed to Renato, that Renato never said: "EPO doesn't work on Kenyans", joining the club of mis-quotations like "Beam me up Scotty", or "Play it again, Sam", or "Why don't you come up and see me sometime?" 2) As a PhD in Exercise Physiology, he endorses a study, at least among his Twitter followers, that, as we have seen, has some pretty severe limitations, as admitted by the study authors. Putting all those issues aside, the main invalidating issue I see is that, according to the PBs of the Kenyan athletes, they essentially tempo'd the 3000m time trials, at 85-90% of their predicted clean potential. This is confirmed by the low RPEs recorded in the study, compared to the Scots. But this does not excuse the irresponsibility of those who decided to publish the time trial results as a study. The primary purpose of the Scot and Kenyan study was something completely different, connected to finding genetic markers as a result of EPO injections. One can only guess, what was the point of including time trial performances, that lacked a laundry list of flaws noted by the study authors, if not for producing headlines about the powerful 5% effectiveness of EPO, common to both sea-level Scots (half with a running history, half not), and borderline elite Kenyans who tempo'd the 3000m time trials. Even moreso, because the 2018 study just looks like another chance to repeat the headlines from 2013, based on the same time trial data, drawing the same conclusions that the Kenyans were similar to the Scots, as if they needed to renew the headlines.

Woah, what? I thought we were talking about fast performances hypothetically being caused by EPO -- and now you bring some mythical EPO-apologists into the conversation. I don't see the link. Who said it was OK to dope with EPO? And what exactly is this broad, if not contradictory, range of what is obvious among these mythical EPO-apologists?

physics defiant wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

It's amusing that among the EPO- apologists l, there is such a broad, if not contradictory, range of what is obvious.

Or...

So do you agree with Coevett's most obvious conclusion, that Kenyans are taking less EPO in 2018, than in 2010? If not, why not?

Subway Surfers wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

It's amusing that among the EPO-faithful, there is such a broad, if not contradictory, range of what is obvious.

The flaw is pretending that EPO and EPO testing are the only variables impacting performance, and forming every conclusion as if the goal was how to explain all performances with doping, unless we talk about the poor quantity and poor quality of non-African performances.

From now on you will be known as an "epo denier."

rekrunner wrote:

Woah, what? I thought we were talking about fast performances hypothetically being caused by EPO -- and now you bring some mythical EPO-apologists into the conversation. I don't see the link. Who said it was OK to dope with EPO? And what exactly is this broad, if not contradictory, range of what is obvious among these mythical EPO-apologists?

physics defiant wrote:

Or...

Mythical? You guys are right here on the daily.

rekrunner wrote:

Woah, what? I thought we were talking about fast performances hypothetically being caused by EPO -- and now you bring some mythical EPO-apologists into the conversation. I don't see the link. Who said it was OK to dope with EPO? And what exactly is this broad, if not contradictory, range of what is obvious among these mythical EPO-apologists?

C'mon rekrunner, why don't you switch gears for once and quit to trying show the what you believe to be the ineffectiveness of EPO and acknowledge there's a major PED problem in athletics. It goes beyond EPO - there's been recent positives for steroids, GH, GW1516, and even a recent positive for morphine!

The whole situation is a total joke when you have the IAAF going to reinstate Russia when there has been TWO recent DOPING POSITIVES with a Russian mid-d runner & racewalker! And FFS, as the Kenyans are testing positive left & right, all you seem to do is rant how EPO isn't effective with elites. Is EPO banned or not rekrunner? Please answer yes or no? And if you don't think it shouldn't be banned then go rant to WADA with your thesis and all that stuff.

I propose the IAAF institute a lifetime ban for all doping positives & ABP violations and annulment of all medals, titles & times from the previous three years! This crap is got to stop with dopers polluting this sport.

I never hear you take a hard stance on doping, but just rant & rant about how ineffective EPO, or most PEDs are in elite sport, how these busted athletes would have performed just the same without dope (that BS "correlation isn't causation" or something like that you keep repeating ad nauseam), or that drug culture nations don't really exist (e.g., Morrocco).

Wake up and smell the coffee there in Monaco rekrunner - there's a freaking doping problem right now in athletics! ?

When did the big money leave track? Could just be fewer people training for the listed events.

rekrunner wrote:

But this does not excuse the irresponsibility of those who decided to publish the time trial results as a study.

You are back to full troll mode - cool. Didn't you just advise me to not judge people? And here you go, condemning a group of international scientists, along with their peer reviewers and the editor, for publishing a study that you dislike. The nerves...

Off-topicish, but here is a quotation for your increased training load associated with rHuEPO from Jonathan Vaughters, teammate of Armstrong and an insider:

“What I have anecdotally noticed is that while people are taking erythropoietin — while I was taking erythropoietin — there is certainly an increased training load possibility".

Strange that other rHuEPO users, his trainers or team doctors didn't tell him about this mechanism clearly not considering it relevant. And who would believe JV anyway as he has stated publicly that it is totally possible that Armstrong might've been clean during his 2009 comeback.

Well, I am sure you have heard that before.

Yet we still don't know how or why EPO may enhance training load/recovery.

This here from your Danish buddies (doi: 10.1113/expphysiol.2014.080606

) is a few years old, but seems to indicate no special effect on muscle fibers (like training though, Renato).

As for JV, did he really say that about Armstrong? That would make him, hmmm what would rekrunner allow me to say, either a naive romantic or a liar.