El Guerrouj 2k WR - Incredible 3:49 Mile pace

High-Octane Dopers wrote:

how does that work? wrote:

No poster in the entire history of letsrun.com has produced a single scrap of evidence that El Gerrouj doped.

I think that's very telling don't you?

In terms of a doping positive or admission...no. However, I think there's circumstantial evidence that makes him highly suspicion, IMO. For example, he holds the WR that's been standing for over 20 yrs, he ran most of his career where the EPO test hadn't been implemented and he ran for a nation that has a very high prevalence of doping. Plus 4 out of 7 fastest Moroccan 1500 men have been busted for doping including El G's training partner & pace setter:

3:26:00 El G

3:28.79 Iguider 

3:29.14 Ramzi (CERA/2008)

3:29.46 Aouita

3:29.53 Laâlou (Furosemide/2012 & EPO/2016)

3:31.10 Kaouch (EPO/2007)

3:31.34 Mikhou (ABP/2019)

So Jon, what's your take on this? That the four guys that got caught were the only ones doping? And the other three are clean because they haven't tested positive or been implicated in any doping? And if the only four dopers were the ones that got caught - wouldn't that be a 100% detection rate for this group?

Also, you might want read up on the doping prevalence & problems with Morocco:

https://lawm.sportschau.de/doha2019/nachrichten/Morocco-A-paradise-for-sports-cheats,lawmdoha1138.html

gotem wrote:

In this case however we have three (rekrunner, casual observer, armstronglivs) registered accounts. This means that these are three actual people, that have the same debate on a weekly if not daily basis. They use the same points every time. All three are stuck in their own thinking and there is less than a 1% chance that any of them change their mind. It annoys me that they are constantly debating this very niche topic in a very niche sport on a very niche website and end of clogging conversation with "they're doping" or "they aren't doping". Throw Coevett in there too, he does the same thing. I think that its highly likely that a lot of the top athletes are doping. But I don't bring it up in every conversation because it doesn't do anything. It's just annoying and needs to be toned done a bit.

You don't need to respond to every single post that disagrees with your viewpoint.

High-Octane Dopers wrote:

how does that work? wrote:

No poster in the entire history of letsrun.com has produced a single scrap of evidence that El Gerrouj doped.

I think that's very telling don't you?

In terms of a doping positive or admission...no. However, I think there's circumstantial evidence that makes him highly suspicion, IMO. For example, he holds the WR that's been standing for over 20 yrs, he ran most of his career where the EPO test hadn't been implemented and he ran for a nation that has a very high prevalence of doping. Plus 4 out of 7 fastest Moroccan 1500 men have been busted for doping including El G's training partner & pace setter:

3:26:00 El G

3:28.79 Iguider 

3:29.14 Ramzi (CERA/2008)

3:29.46 Aouita

3:29.53 Laâlou (Furosemide/2012 & EPO/2016)

3:31.10 Kaouch (EPO/2007)

3:31.34 Mikhou (ABP/2019)

So Jon, what's your take on this? That the four guys that got caught were the only ones doping? And the other three are clean because they haven't tested positive or been implicated in any doping? And if the only four dopers were the ones that got caught - wouldn't that be a 100% detection rate for this group?

Also, you might want read up on the doping prevalence & problems with Morocco:

https://lawm.sportschau.de/doha2019/nachrichten/Morocco-A-paradise-for-sports-cheats,lawmdoha1138.html

rekrunner wrote:

gotem wrote:

In this case however we have three (rekrunner, casual observer, armstronglivs) registered accounts. This means that these are three actual people, that have the same debate on a weekly if not daily basis. They use the same points every time. All three are stuck in their own thinking and there is less than a 1% chance that any of them change their mind. It annoys me that they are constantly debating this very niche topic in a very niche sport on a very niche website and end of clogging conversation with "they're doping" or "they aren't doping". Throw Coevett in there too, he does the same thing. I think that its highly likely that a lot of the top athletes are doping. But I don't bring it up in every conversation because it doesn't do anything. It's just annoying and needs to be toned done a bit.

You don't need to respond to every single post that disagrees with your viewpoint.

To answer your first question -- I do not get tired.

To be fair to casual obsever, he has not engaged in this thread, and has been avoiding these ping-pong discussions for some time now, about a year or so.

In this thread, it was a tag team effort of Armstronglivs, Shopping Hour, and recently Tom Cochrane feeling some insecure psychological need to call me stupid and naive, for not sharing their faith, rather than stick to the merits.

I would prefer to talk about El G's performances, but as you see, the thread was quickly hijacked on the very first page by a baseless comment about the connection of breathing with the powerful effect of EPO. I simply and repeatedly asked for like-minded opinions from experts in the field, and everyone can see the resulting merry-go-round resulting in the endless downward spiral. The request remains unfulfilled.

Like you, I do sometimes get annoyed when potentially great threads about performance, like this one, get derailed and turn into baseless accusations of doping. I don't call it out everytime, and I don't draw first blood.

As a service to everyone, I only post with my registered handle, rather than go underground with various anonymous handles, leaving it up to every reader whether they wish to skip over, or be enriched by, my reason and logic.

Armstronglivs wrote:

Rekrunner claims that his arguments are guided by rationality. But he fails that test. He assumes - baselessly - that thousands of athletes are not guided by the same principle of rationality that guides him, when it comes to their doping, because he does not accept the overwhelming consensus in the sport that doping provides advantage - and significant advantage. Yet these are the same athletes who are surely guided by rationality when it is applied to coaching, training, equipment and nutrition - in fact everything they would depend on in order to succeed in their chosen sport.

So why would rationality depart them when it comes to using performance enhancing drugs (but presumably not medical drugs, such as for combating injuries?) We know that doping has a long history in sport, that it has become even more widespread in recent years and more sophisticated through the skills of pharmaceutical experts providing designer drugs that are harder to detect, that it is now big business on the black market and is viewed very seriously by antidoping bodies.

None of this would occur unless it was guided by one rational principle: doping delivers results. To not accept that is to accept the necessary inference that thousands of athletes and their teams - not to mention antidoping bodies - are impelled to believe something that is no more founded in reality than a Q'Anon conspiracy; in fact their "faith" and the "belief" that drugs work, if this isn't grounded in fact, is its own form of conspiracy and one that has lasted for generations of athletes in all sports and all countries. There is no evidence for that. It is a theory without plausibility.

Our understanding of most issues in the world around us is based on probabilities rather than certainties; how probable is it that so many athletes over so many years are not rational in one part of what they do while remaining rational in all others? This paradoxical anomaly is the reasoning and factual flaw at the heart of rekrunner's arguments.

What he fails to acknowledge is that a clandestine activity, which is what doping is, is not accessible to definitive analysis, because its subjects are not accessible to research. Laboratory studies are very limited in what they are able to tell us. In view of those limitations the only rational response, taking into account the estimated incidence of doping, is to accept that doping confers advantage but the exact extent of that for individual athletes is not so far fully known or measurable - and indeed will likely vary amongst athletes. It is neither rational, nor required by "logic" or "reason", to conclude that there is no proof or even evidence that doping delivers results, simply because the studies of the "experts" do not have definitive data that tells us that it does (or how much it does) because they are not able to study the myriad number of athletes who are actually doping.

In a nutshell, rekrunner draws conclusions about doping based on what he does not know - his ignorance, if you like - while discounting the rational basis that has driven athletes to dope for decades. That is a logic fail; an argument that also does not take account of crucial facts that aren't available to it cannot come to a sound conclusion. It is rekrunner's absurd grandiosity that leads him to believe that he is motivated by rationality while thousands of athletes and their enablers (and those fighting their doping) aren't - but only in one area, which is another unresolved contradiction in his arguments.

how does that work? wrote:

Armstronglivs wrote:

Rekrunner claims that his arguments are guided by rationality. But he fails that test. He assumes - baselessly - that thousands of athletes are not guided by the same principle of rationality that guides him, when it comes to their doping, because he does not accept the overwhelming consensus in the sport that doping provides advantage - and significant advantage. Yet these are the same athletes who are surely guided by rationality when it is applied to coaching, training, equipment and nutrition - in fact everything they would depend on in order to succeed in their chosen sport.

So why would rationality depart them when it comes to using performance enhancing drugs (but presumably not medical drugs, such as for combating injuries?) We know that doping has a long history in sport, that it has become even more widespread in recent years and more sophisticated through the skills of pharmaceutical experts providing designer drugs that are harder to detect, that it is now big business on the black market and is viewed very seriously by antidoping bodies.

None of this would occur unless it was guided by one rational principle: doping delivers results. To not accept that is to accept the necessary inference that thousands of athletes and their teams - not to mention antidoping bodies - are impelled to believe something that is no more founded in reality than a Q'Anon conspiracy; in fact their "faith" and the "belief" that drugs work, if this isn't grounded in fact, is its own form of conspiracy and one that has lasted for generations of athletes in all sports and all countries. There is no evidence for that. It is a theory without plausibility.

Our understanding of most issues in the world around us is based on probabilities rather than certainties; how probable is it that so many athletes over so many years are not rational in one part of what they do while remaining rational in all others? This paradoxical anomaly is the reasoning and factual flaw at the heart of rekrunner's arguments.

What he fails to acknowledge is that a clandestine activity, which is what doping is, is not accessible to definitive analysis, because its subjects are not accessible to research. Laboratory studies are very limited in what they are able to tell us. In view of those limitations the only rational response, taking into account the estimated incidence of doping, is to accept that doping confers advantage but the exact extent of that for individual athletes is not so far fully known or measurable - and indeed will likely vary amongst athletes. It is neither rational, nor required by "logic" or "reason", to conclude that there is no proof or even evidence that doping delivers results, simply because the studies of the "experts" do not have definitive data that tells us that it does (or how much it does) because they are not able to study the myriad number of athletes who are actually doping.

In a nutshell, rekrunner draws conclusions about doping based on what he does not know - his ignorance, if you like - while discounting the rational basis that has driven athletes to dope for decades. That is a logic fail; an argument that also does not take account of crucial facts that aren't available to it cannot come to a sound conclusion. It is rekrunner's absurd grandiosity that leads him to believe that he is motivated by rationality while thousands of athletes and their enablers (and those fighting their doping) aren't - but only in one area, which is another unresolved contradiction in his arguments.

You still haven't explained how EPO circumvents thermoregulation. This is the crucial question.

$10,000 if you can. You don't even need to write a post as long as that ^

rekrunner wrote:

One point to note is that Ramzi's doping happened after he switch national allegiance to Bahrain -- a move frequently demonstrated as a move to doping.

rekrunner wrote:

Another thing to note is how quickly the times get slow, indicating a lack of depth at the very top, with only 4 Moroccan runners breaking 3:30 in the era of EPO.

For comparison, 4 runners broke 3:30 in the years of 1985-1989 - 1 Moroccan, 2 Brits, and 1 South African/American.

rekrunner wrote:

You are posting 3:31 performances, more than 5 seconds slower than the El G's WR, and 1.5 seconds slower than Cram/Coe as relevant.

Seems like, if "scientific" estimates of a 3 second benefit for 1500m are close to accurate, given Morocco's known prevalence of EPO doping, we should have more Moroccans crowding the ranks of sub-3:30.