Sunday Mail Has More Details on Paula's Blood Values and Off Scores + News She'll Put up £1m for an MRI lie detector

cleans wrote:

If an RBC score of 18 is more suspicious score that 15, and a 130-150+ off-score is more suspicious than 110-115, then it follows logically that Paula's scores are more suspicious than lower scores held by other athletes. There is either a sliding scale of suspicion or there isn't.

So, in sum, she is not guilty but her scores are suspicious.

I don't think you have set out to prove that Paula is clean.

You're right, he can't prove she's clean with suspicious scores like those, because on the "sliding scale" she's well in to the top half.

You are correct that there is a lot of hyperbole. I see your point about money. Obviously they would maximize the amount of prize money and appearance fees that they can take back to Kenya. However, one can imagine that the money for the top performances and competition among 500 runners training can lead to the temptation to cheat. And it has in a few instances. I understand that your experience is that runners who you know have not cheated but can you name other major marathon /

Half marathon top finishers caught with EPO or steroids outside of Jeptoo, Shonukhova and some Morrrocans.

The issue then is, if one or two countries want to dominate the sport then they need to do their part to ensure the integrity of the sport. Arguing that drugs don't work on Kenyans and that everyone else should do years of research for Kenya may not be terribly helpful when you try to inspire confidence. As you said, there is a lot of money in the sport for Kenyan runners, they can figure out a good, transparent process. It's not for other countries to figure out their logisitical challenges for them.

Of course other countries other than the US have fallen off. In part, potential runners may be discouraged by the number of Africans who come and compete at various levels of races.

The fact is that Europeans on EPO couldnt compete with Africans on EPO. People are prepared to cheat if it can get them success both financial and professional. However if you are taking EPO which I have no doubt the Spanish, Italian, Portugese and Moroccans were doing but still can't be competitive then what's the point??

The reason Europeans have not continued to improve is that I think the best clean Europeans, Steve Jones, Charlie Spedding, Jon Brown, John Treacy, Paul Evans, Richsrd Neurekar etc were getting close to the limits of what is possible. I'm not sure Caucasian men can go much quicker than 2.06.

Take a look at the Japanese, the marathon is massive in Japan, the national sport, huge numbers of elite participation. There has been some improvement over the last 2-3 decades but top performances are still relative to what they were 20-30 years ago and depth although very good has not moved on massively in terms of times. This is only happening in Africa.

EPO was a relatively new drug in the early 90's, it was initially expensive and less widely available. As time goes by it becomes cheaper, more widely available and cheaper derivatives of the drug come on the market, so it takes a while to get to Africa and become affordable.

The blood testing is irrelevant, it's been none existent in Africa. It us only now that the whispers about doping in Africa are becoming a shout.

This response is a cop out. Look, I know there is a lot of hyperbole and some heated argument. I just ask that you not selectively quote, as you have here. Some people just have a sincere interest in the topic and what the dispute is. Statement like the one I flagged or others by you implying WADA weighed in on Paula are not accurate.

I screwed up the formatting of my previous post. Here it is again without wierd quotes:

rekrunner wrote:

The altitude threshold of suspicion is around 110. Paula regularly trained at altitude, and only some of her worst scores hovered around this threshold (two below, and only one above).

...

On the contrary, for me, these values are confirmation that Paula did NOT blood dope. Blood doping looks like what the Russians did -- RBC values of 18, and off-scores of 130-150, not the altitude values of 15-16 and 110.

Normally, you present good arguments. But how can these values be confirmation that Paula did NOT dope? An off-score of around 110 is not proof that an athlete never doped. Just as an off-score of 70 is not proof that an athlete never doped.

And, as a lesser point, isn't it the case that the vast majority of the elite distance runners in the world train at altitude? If that is the norm rather than the exception, then altitude training by definition is not a mitigating circumstance for scores which stand out from the pack.

For him, 'Winning' the thread has become more important than being accurate, correct or informative

The fact the most part of top runners go training in altitude is because there are acclarated advantages (of course with a proper interpretation of training) under the side of the increase of aerobic power.

However, it's absolutely not possible to compare data of athletes GOING to train in altitude, but normally living and training at sea level, with data of athletes ALWAYS LIVING AND TRAINING in altitude.

In the first case, there is a physiological REACTION to the new stimulus of altitude, and (not Always) one of the effects is the increase in the number of eritrocytes.

In the second case, there is ADAPTATION, and the situation is totally different.

The aerobic level of the best Kenyans and Ethiopians is very higher than the aerobic level of sea level athletes because the adaptation they during all their life. Particularly, their affinity between Hb and O2 is very much higher, and this can also explain the difference, among sea level athletes, of increasing in their performances, between RESPONDERS and not responders to altitude training.

The RESPONDERS don't show any significant change in their values. Before Asian Games 2014, I was with 20 Chinese athletes in a camp in Duoba (2400m) where there is a good lab, and I had blood tests with everybody every week. At the end, the athletes improving dramatically in Asian Games (Zha Jing, from 2'07" to 1'59"48 in 800m, Ding Changqin, from 15'55" in 5000 to 31'53" in 10000 and 15'12" in 5000, Li Zhenzhu, from 9'53" to 9'35" in 3000 steeple) competed with values of Hb and Hct LOWER than before going in altitude, while I had athletes with increased values who were not able to improve their performances.

Why a top Kenyan athlete, if not in training for 4 months, can be able to recruit 90% of his best shape with one month only of training (something NO ATHLETES OF SEA LEVEL CAN DO) ? Because his aerobic level Always remains very high, after several years of physiological building up in that direction, and the difference is that, in one month of training, his total volume of blood can increase of 20%.

For having a similar increase, sea level athletes need to stay in altitude several months, and their improvements are very much slower.

But, if you go to have a blood test of the top African athletes after a long period of not activity (due for injuries, or for personal choices), you can see a very great difference among these data, and the data they have when in full shape.

I repeat, the behavior of the body of top runners in that specific situation must be studied in specific way, and this NEVER happened.

So, we can't say the physiology works in the same way with amateurs, top athletes at sea level and top athletes of altitude. The principles, obviouslly, are the same, but the different levels of the aerobic system cannot be influenced at the same way in these different subjects by external interventions, like blood doping.

And, about the scores : I saw some day ago all the scores regarding the official blood tests of Arne Gabius (everybody in whereabouts program can go in his ADAMS, can use a personal password and can have access to his data, secret for any other people). In the ADAMS, there are not only the "off-score", but also the basic data, such as Hb and Hct.

So, it's very intersting to see that Arne didn't have any fluctuation, being, from 2010 till 2015, his values of Hct Always between 41.5 and 42.5, and his Hb Always between 14.2 and 14.6. But what is interesting is that these values, Always the same, don't change when he had some OOC test, but also when he was able to compete very well, or to compete very bad.

So, what I want to say, THESE VALUES ARE NOT CORRELATED WITH THE LEVEL OF PERFORMANCES, and this is something all people looking at blood doping as reason of beg improvements, and at the values (that are EFFECTS of training) as CAUSE of the performances, need to start to think.

"5.5 Sample 1 (collected in Vilamoura, Portugal on 4 October 2003.....

5.5.3 In relation to the relatively low RET% value of 0.47, two points need to be made. First, research has shown that endurance athletes display significantly lower RET% than normal during the competitive season.104 Second, Ms Radcliffe came down from a period of high altitude (at Fort Romeu: 1800-2100m) three weeks before the race in Portugal. Research has shown that athletes who train at altitude and then come down to sea-level can experience a drop in RET% for up to 3-4 weeks, so artificially increasing the athlete’s OFF-score."

A question that no-one has cleared up - the IAAF report (see above) had the following statement (above). This has shown to be incorrect by posters on this thread and others (she had not been at altitude for at least 5-6 weeks. The question is though - did the IAAF screw up in what they wrote. Or were they writing this based on what Paula wrote on her drug test form in October 2003?

I think we should be told.

Thanks Renato, that makes sense and is better context for the fluctuations.

A couple of questions here, if I may:

1) who pays for such tests, is it the athletes themselves?

2) what is the primary purpose of such tests?

Surely the purpose is obvious - these are professional athletes and coaches trying to legitimately understand every aspect of physiology to maximise performance?

No-one bats an eyelid at athletes wearing heart rate monitor or running treadmill sessions and recording respiration, oxygen uptake etc. Blood values are just another component of that which it so happens is associated with a needle, an invasive process and happens to have the same mechanism as ped delivery so it is treated with suspicion for no particularly logical reason.

I'd be amazed if there were substantial elite athletes who didn't have regular blood tests conducted by their coaching teams. I could be wrong of course...

larkimm wrote:

Surely the purpose is obvious - these are professional athletes and coaches trying to legitimately understand every aspect of physiology to maximise performance?

I asked what the *primary* purpose was. Renato is running these tests, and engaging with us here. This is a great opportunity for many of us to understand how these values are used, and - importantly - responded to, in order to improve athletes.

As you might have noticed, this thread is full of broad generalisations; it's nice to get some specifics once in a while.

Cleans, China had for the national team a good budget for medical situations.

Since fortunately we didn't have any reason to use part of this budget for injuries or sicknesses, I asked to have tests every week, for investigating not the values BEFORE and AFTER altitude training, as normally it's possible to do, but for following the development of the variations altitude can induce in individuals belonging to a big training Group.

I already published all the data in Letsrun, about one year ago.

So, this was a research involving more than 20 athletes, for 8 weeks, but the data I have regard 10 weeks, since was praxis (when I was in China) to have blood tests every week, for evalueting the conditions of the athletes.

Nothing to do with antidoping controls. These were very frequent (about once evry two weeks), and you need to think that Chinese Antidoping Agency had, for the athletics only, 5249 tests in 2014 (so we can really say today China is the most clean Country in the world...).

Of course, never in China some chinese athletes goes to pay something himself. They are paid by their Province, and are as militaries in other Countries, so everything they do is under the organization of their Province or the Central Federation (in China it's not possible to compete as individual if you are not officially "employed" by a Province).

So, who paid these tests was, of course, the Central Government of Sport (Chinese Athletic Association is part of it).

During these tests I found one athlete with doubtful values, at the first week in altitude, coming from her Province. I informed the antidoping of the situation, they came with a normal control with urine, and found EPO. The athlete was banned for 2 years (you can see the name in the list of banned athletes from IAAF), and of course I cancelled her from Asian Games (she was one of the two steeple runners previously selected).

I have a question regarding Kenyan elite's, here in the UK we have many Kenyan athletes who come over and pick up reasonable prize money, they are not world class but they are good athletes, often they have British or Irish agents.

It seems that the Kenyans with overseas agents, perform much better. A few of these athletes have gone back to Kenya, changed coach/agent and gone from being good to being extraordinary. Take Patrick Makau, he came over to the UK about 9-10 years ago, he was good, but he certainly wasn't someone you would see as a potential world record holder, he was winning relatively low key 10k's and halves (63.38 Bristol half 2006) here. He then goes back to Kenya, get's a new coach/agent and suddenly runs 58.56 for a half and goes on to break the world record. Extraordinary.

Kenyan athletes going to stay long time in UK, or in any other Country, are not elite athletes. They stay long period abroad because can produce good money not because the quality of their performances, but because of the QUANTITY, and this doesn't work under technical point of view.

This happens especially with small managers : many kenyans are Young as career, don't have still good times, and look around for trying to find somebody assisting them with some small competition. Their training is not very good, they have a local coach with little knowledge, and their performances are of medium level.

They go back Kenya after the season (normally their first season), and in Kenya find another manager, of different level, who has his own organization with training camp and coach in the Country. So, they change not only manager or coach, but they change their training conditions, and their life.

In many cases, in Europe we have athletes who in Kenya could eat only once per day because didn't have money enough for two meals. In a training camp, there is no more the same problem, and sometime the real "dope" of the athletes is that, finally, they have food to eat !

In UK, nobody changed, for example, from the management of Ricky Simms, and the services, and the assistance, that big managers can offer the athletes is not the same if they are with a small manager or with a big management.

The specific case of Patrick Makau is exactly this one : he didn't have any manager at the beginning of 2006, and was discovered in local competitions. 2006 was his first year of competition, after a period of training not very long. His small manager entered him in the 25 km of Berlin, and he immediately won with 1:14'08" (7th May). One week later, he ran in Czek Republic on track (5000m in 13'42"84), and after went UK where he had problems in his training. He competed frequently with very little training, living in a situation not comfortable for himself. His competitions were in Norwich (18th June, 5 km in 13'56"), in Swansea (24th September, 10 km in 28'55"), in the World Championships of 20 km in Debrecen (8th October, when he represented Kenya with his 26th position in 59'54"), and finally in Portsmouth (22nd October, 10 Miles in 47'55").

After going home, he finally changed manager, joining Zane Branson, who organized for him the best situation in Ngong, and finally he could use his talent with a good training system and physiotherapic assistance.

..who else has blood values like Radcliffe that trained at elevation..? Of course there are values recorded from others that also trained at elevation..? If not guilty; if so not guilty or ..? Personally I believe she was doped to her eyelids.

But I think we don't know the values of Paula Radcliffe. We know the off-score, that can be questionable because there are a lot of components influencing it.

The investigation I had for Chinese regarded several parameters :

WBC, RBC, Hb, Hct, MCV, MCH, MCHC, RDW, PLT Always, and sometime Ferritin, Urea, CK, Testosterone and Cortisol.

About Paula, I liked to see these values : I don't care too much about off-scores, so we can't compare the values of Chinese with the unknown values of Paula.

Also, we must understand that blood values are an INDIVIDUAL factor, and it's not possible to have a generalization.

For instance, among the Italian athletes of the past, while Gelindo Bordin won OG in Marathon (1988) with Hct of 39.7 and Hb of 12.8 (if I well remember), Genny Di Napoli, National Record Holder of 1500m, had normally 51/52, and 18.5, and when he had 17.5 had symptoms of anaemia.

So, it's not true that higher values are the reason of top performances, since we must see the influence of several factors on the performances, and normally, when there is some data over the average of best athletes, there is as compensation some other limiting factor that who has lower values doesn't have.

Anyway, if you have interest, I can go to see in my computer the values of Chinese athletes (which already I published time ago), and I can put in one post.

That's pure nonsense. I didn't say WADA weighed in on Paula. I said WADA weighed in on the IAAF. I said the ARD and the Sunday Times got the "leaked blood" samples completely wrong. They embellished and misrepresented to make it a bigger story than it was. These are all accurate statements and conclusions.My statement no. 3 was not about Ashenden/Parisotto -- it was about sensationalising the data by the reporters.

I'm not sure I agree with how you worded it -- if there is no statistically significant performance improvement, then surely this puts an upper limit on drugs as a possible factor at improving performance.I wasn't going to make any "EPO doesn't work in cycling either" comments here, but your myth busting gives one good argument for that.I'm inclined to Tyler Hamilton (?) when he says that EPO doesn't give any performance improvement (i.e. it wouldn't help in one day efforts), but rather, reduces the physical cost of big efforts, so you can make them again the next day, for 3 weeks.I'm not sure what you mean by "some are more detectable than others". The value of the ABP looking at RBC and RET%, is that RBC and RET% changes slowly, and the window of detection is weeks, regardless of the agent (detectable or not) causing the change.I admit I am naive enough to think that the CIRC was independent enough from the UCI in their analysis of their previous organisation and behaviour. (And similarly that the IAAF Ethics Commission is independent from the IAAF).It's not science, but see section 1.2.4 here, page 25, what the CIRC was told:http://www.uci.ch/mm/Document/News/CleanSport/16/87/99/CIRCReport2015_Neutral.pdfHere's another interesting graph that shows the effect of the introduction of the EPO/Urine test and the ABP to RET% in cycling (scroll down to "an interesting graph"):http://sportsscientists.com/2011/03/biological-passport-effective-fight-or-futile-failure/Regardless of performance effects, there was a significant adjustment (deterrent) from the athletes as a response to these two policy changes.