Three more Kenyan runners busted

I really don't follow you here but if we start having dozens of busts either for whereabouts or actual failed samples I'd think there's a problem. Mostly it's always the lower tier athletes in any sport who get busted. It makes it look like the people running the sport are doing something to clean it up.

Again you are conspiracy guy with both the AIU and Kenya involved. Obviously it’s bad if whereabouts failures pile up especially If it happens for guys who are running a lot. If it’s guys who are retired/not competing, I’m sorry I don’t care/draw anything from it.

The problem I raised with your previous post wasn't "EPO" vs. "CERA" vs. "blood doping", but all the rest of it. Let's just say "EPO" and the points still stand.

You had all this information way back in 2012, but despite its clarity back then of what he thinks and why he thinks it, apparently it still baffles you.

Renato said "top African athletes", while you said "East Africans", over-looking the selective qualifier "top". Many people have struggled with this distinction, so he has clarified that on many occasions -- the key is an extended period of living and a high volume of fast training at high altitude. And even later still, he has extended these thoughts on top-East Africans to include top-non Africans like Sondre Moen.

You asked Renato how he "knows", when he expressly told you "I think" and "I have no proof".

If you want to interpret "I think" as "just his own hypothesis", that is not a great leap in thought, so OK, why not?

You said you were well-informed, yet these are the rookie mistakes of the uninformed. I expect many "fans" here at letsrun to make such a mistake, either intentionally or non-intentionally, but it's disappointing to see someone who aspires to be a well-informed writer for more than a decade still not understanding his own interview from 2012.

His opinion is one that is based on the personal experience of training many top athletes, and one of living many years in Kenya, among the Kenyan people, and of a life long of involvement in athletics at a national and world level.

I'm all for open discussion, but not every opinion weighs the same. You suggest he is in denial about doping, but I wonder -- who in this open discussion in this thread do you think is qualified to give a weighted opinion about doping and top East African performance? Outside of this thread, who in "science" can give their weighted opinion about doping and the performance of top African athletes living and training at altitude? Who in "science" or in "coaching" supports your many hypotheses about doping and Kenyan culture and top performance? Do you know anything about Kenyan culture, or are you projecting your own Canadian values on a culture you know little about?

It seems the only ones "open discussing" against Renato are uninformed/under-informed/mis-informed fans and journalists spreading their hypotheses about Kenyan culture and Kenyan doping and Kenyan performance as if they had comparable weight.

You said it before earlier. No one has doped more than Russia -- by far. Russia has been systematically doping their athletes with steroids and EPO (and blood transfusions) continuously, as far back as the '70s. Yet the Russian men were never competitive, even just among non-Africans, in distance running. And only about a dozen Russian women surpassed 1990 benchmarks (not particularly strong among women, above the mile) across 5 distance events ranging from the 1500m to the marathon. In the marathon, the Russian women have not outperformed Japanese women - a nation with near-zero, if not 0%, doping prevalence.

If doping has historically worked so poorly for the Russians for four decades in distance running -- the country that has doped by far the most -- just among non-Africans, why does anyone realistically think the East Africans can dominate unchecked and unchallenged for those same decades, because of something universal like doping, while no one else can come close to replicating these performances, and non-Africans worldwide, for decades, struggle to beat the marks of just the British legends named Steve (Ovett, Cram, and Jones)?

I spoke of EPO because the documentary of Seppelt spoke of EPO only, and your question was connected with Seppelt's (fake) investigation.

Everybody who continues to say "according to Renato, EPO doesn't work with Kenyan" is clearly acting in bad faith (or, in alternance, is an idiot) because I never said something like this. The subject is not a Kenyan person, neither a Kenyan athlete, but is "top athletes living and training in altitude with proper training". In mathematic, there is the "common denominator", and every person in bona fide, with a normal IQ, understands which is in this case the subject of my belief.

After 10 years, in spite of a growing number of banned athletes, I didn't change my idea, because no new scientific proves came from researchers for clarifying the real intervention of EPO in the general improvement regarding the times of performances in long distances.

Can't be a proof the fact that "If several athletes dope with EPO or similar, why do this, if doesn't work ?", because I can reply "If several athletes who are at the top of the World are able to do their performances in clean way, how much can be the real influence of doping on the performance, when there is very advanced training ?".

You can say there is no proof that athletes at the top, never officially caught for doping, are really clean, and this is true. I say that athletes REALLY clean (and I know many of them) are currently WR holders, and this also is true.

The big difference is that you have already in your mind the "stereotype" that top African athletes MUST BE DOPED, also without any evidence, and refuse the idea that is possible running son fast in clean way, creating a category (all african top runner) that doesn't exist and giving for that category general parameters, like everybody is exactly the clone of the others.

This happens when somebody speaks, in general way, of big and wide categories, trying to homologate the individuals : "Black people", because the common denominator is the color of their skin ; "Islamics" or "Christians" because of their religion ; "Fascists od Communists" for their social phylosophy.

Do you know somebody who wants to buy a car, and goes to the salesman asking "I want a red car", and when the salesman asks him "which type of car : with 7 seats, with 5 or with 2, very fast of with medium speed, petrol or diesel, 4 wheels drive or 2, a medium powered car of big powered, etc...", the answer is "I don't care, the only factor I want is the car must be red" ? I think that person doesn't exist, because everybody look at what the car can do according to their need, and the color is the last important particular. Everybody looks at what there is "under the hood" (called ENGINE), not only at the external picture.

People speaking about wide categories, instead of individuals, have the same behavior, and this can be called RACISM, because there is the refusal to know the individuals, everybody with his own problems and his own history.

There are - buy the run to school twice a day bullsh£t all you want. There is a lot of cheating in Kenya and Ethiopia - the financial carrot is too much

Fascinating, how cases involving some Kenyan also-rans provokes such debate on these threads about what we already know, that the country has - and still has, it appears - chronic doping issues.

Fascinating how your post added nothing to the conversation.

Thank you for your post and patience, Renato.

LOL I don't know in what world all the doping-deniers live. I am almost sure that doping was responsible for Kenyan success even before 1995 (note the fantastic "return" of Kenyans in Seoul 1988), but after 1995, when EPO began to dominate distance running and times in the 1500 m improved by nearly 3 sec. within three years, it was impossible for clean athletes to compete with cheats. THE WHOLE GLOBAL ELITE WAS ON DRUGS THEN!
Logically, all Kenyan and Ethiopian world class runners were on drugs, too. There can be no sane debate about it. You can read the list of doping cheats from the annual lists: Morceli, Nyongabo, El Guerrouj, and of course, the brigade of Kenyan genetic marvels.

People, who still want to deny it, live in Alice's wonderland.

Nigeria and Kenya are two different opposite country. In Kenya we have the Rift Valley and are people born , grow and live in altitude that have a strong genetical attitude for long distance running. I dont know any long distance runners coming from place like Mombasa or Malindi or born in Kenya at sea level..... Nigeria is the greatest country in the world for sprinters , all Giamaicans people have their origins in west africa from place like Nigeria or Ghana. Some distance runners in Nigeria come from North where there is Jos plateau with altitude like 1300 m . When they do Lagos Marathon in terrible heat and humidity conditions some Nigerian guys run about 2:30 . They even say they want to be put in a camp like Kenyans so that they can train properly and compete against East Africans that of course always win the race. Anyway the altitude is the main factor , Kenya , Uganda , Ethiopia, Tanzania, Burundi, Rhuanda all these country are at altitude. The talent of nigerians Youth is incredibe when it comes to sprint or Jump the big problem is that most of them they dont even have any chance or opportunity to do any kind of sport.

You are a renowned charlatan and I wonder that anybody can take you seriously. It was proven nearly 30 years ago that elite Kenyans do not have elevated hemoglobin levels and hence they can nicely benefit from blood doping. If there is any physiological adaptation present in people from East Africa, it's the high, nearly unchanged saturation of red blood cells with oxygen at whatever altitude, which can bring no practical benefit at sea level.

The talent is not incredible. With the mean height of ca. 170 cm, Nigerians are midgets by the current European standards and they do not have any particular athletic potential on the per capita basis - apart from the shortest sprints, which is due to physiological factors. Of course, when you have a population of 200+ million people, you will always find an "incredible" number of talents for most sports.

There is the obvious example of Salwa Eid Naser (Ebelechukwu Agbapuonwu) of who young Nigerian can do if they have the expensive techniques and training for sprint distances.

Kenyan and East African have the advantage of being born and living in altitude.

But there were years where they used others methods to enhance the difference between them and other nations.

Where's Renato "Kenyans don't dope, doping doesn't benefit Kenyans, doping doesn't benefit the top Kenyans runners" Canova? Hopefully this money stealing and lying crook and the other agents/pimps like him get kicked out of the sport. Good riddance. Evil humans.

You think to know what don't know, and for that reason are a "not renowed" charlatan. And I don't wonder that anybody can't take you seriously.

How I pointed out several times, the competition of who has the higher hb and hct doesn't exist, what exists is the competition of who runs fastest, and this is not connected with the level of hb and hct, otherwise it was not possible for Gelindo Bordin to win OG in marathon (Seoul 1988) with 39.7 (Hct) and 12.7 (hb), or for Christopher Koskei, elder brother of Shaheen, to win (the only kenyan winning Gold) steeple in WCh 1999 with Hct under 40 (I wrote about his training and all his blood data in Atletica Studi n. 2 of 1999, analyzing his training and giving data of blood tests carried out in Torino University, on 16.03 when in medium shape, on 8.07 already in good shape, and on 2.08 soon before winning WCh).

I write here his data again :

16.03------------8.07 (9 days) 2.08 (4 days at sea level)

(after 12 days at sea level)

WBC 4.98------------ 5.50------------5.44

RBC 4.45------------ 3.96------------3.86

HGB 13.4------------12.3------------11.6

HCT 42.8------------40.6----------- 38.8

MCV 96.2------------102.4----------100.6

MCH 34.5------------32.0-----------31.4

PLT 366------------388------------328

So, Christopher won WCh in steeple with 38.8 Hct and 11.6 Hb, and Shaheen too never had Hct higher than 42.5.

It's clear that, for athletes at international level, who are able to win or to better WR with low Hct, there is some other value compensating, because the body needs to have a balance between the various values.

One of the data is the total volume of blood, that normally is not considered by the researchers looking mainly at Hb and Hct. Athletes able to compete at max level, with low Hct, are able to increase of 25% the total volume of blood from when are not trained, and this is one of the factor characterizing the talent of this kind of athletes.

Another factor showing the superficiality of people looking at the level of Hct as most important factor : Hct is a number representing a percentage, not an absolute objective data, and is made with the multiplication of the number of RBC per their MCV (Mean Corpuscular Volume). Therefore, you can have Hct 40 because of 4,000 RBC with MCV = 100, or because 5,000 RBC with MCV = 80. Do you think athletes with the same Hct, but so different data regarding the number of Erytrocytes and the average volume, can have the same "way" of using their data ?

In all this analysis, I repeat again : NEVER there is some analysis for understanding the role of proper training, and the limit of proper training. I'm sure there is a limit in the physiological changes that is possible to reach with training, and that can't be further implemented using any type of blood manipulation, that can work only if the training is far from the physiological possible limit.

Same can be said for many countries.

The main reason we know none of this is true, is because Russians, the country that doped by far the most, hasn't dominated in running since their middle distance women in the '70s.

Doping is universal. If doping can do all these magical things, there is no rational explanation why the doped Americans, Europeans, Asians, Oceanians could not challenge the East Africans for decades.