When I give more arguments, my posts are too long.Careful. I said "blood dope", not "dope". By "blood doping", I only mean transfusions or EPO, designed to increase RBC.The immediate goal of blood doping is increasing RBC in order to increase O2 delivery, believing this will ultimately improve performance. (NB: In marathons, at sub-V02max and sub-LT pace, O2 delivery doesn't seem to me a likely limiting factor -- therefore my scepticism about EPO working for anyone in the marathon, unless there is another mechanism, like a protective mechanism, or as clerk suggests, some interaction with other doping).Since RBC directly contributes to the Off-Hr score, I would be surprised if "blood doping" could produce a score of 70.As a side note, there is a valid point about the limits I did not dwell on much before. 110 is a normalised "population limit" not a personal limit (as currently used by the ABP). It's theoretically possible that a score of 100 might be suspicious for one athlete, while a score of 120 could be normal for another.What I meant (and what I said) is that the relatively low scores around 110-115 looks like she is more guilty of altitude training, than doping, something we know she did regularly, and in 2003, 2005, and 2012, and many other years.If she was blood doping enough to allow her to set a world record by 3 minutes, I would expect to see higher RBC values, therefore higher off scores. Yet we see scores (possibly biased by post-race hemo-concentration) around the altitude "let's take a closer look" threshold.You might think she was gaming the system, and micro-dosing to the limit, until you realize in 2003, there was no Off-Hr limit, and in 2005, there was a limit, but it was 122. (And BTW micro-dosing also means micro-benefit -- for someone who is a world record holder, allegedly due to the benefit of EPO/blood doping in excess of what the rest of the history of women were able to do.)Altitude and post-race hemo-concentration can only bias the RBC and off scores in one direction.I think it's completely unfair, if not dishonest, to pretend that these biases will add up to 0.I don't know about the "vast majority of elite distance runners", but the Off-hr model developed two sets of thresholds for consideration: sea-level and altitude. (Also separate limits for male/female). These are not "mitigating circumstances", but an integral part of the Off-Hr model developed in 2003. If you want to learn the definition, I suggest reading Ashenden's 2003 paper where the "new" Off-hr model was developed and evaluated.
cleans wrote:
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).
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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.