The only expert I have seen agree with your view that EPO doesn't help certain Kenyan athletes is a coach of Kenyan athletes. Well, he would say that - wouldn't he?
The only expert I have seen agree with your view that EPO doesn't help certain Kenyan athletes is a coach of Kenyan athletes. Well, he would say that - wouldn't he?
That would make it 1 to 0 in my favor.
Note this view is applicable to sea-level athletes too, for example Sondre Moen, or the Roberson twins, after training for an extended period at altitude.
This differs from the pure speculation of experts in other fields, with no real data or actual experience of creating elite performance or creating elite performance improvements, trying to estimate potential upper bounds of what could be based on direct or indirect observations of the wrong experiments on the wrong population.
This also differs from the beliefs of non-experts in this forum, also with no real data or experience.
From that list, Kenya has about 4 x as many in the testing pool as GB, and about 2/3 of that of the USA.
USA has 85, Kenya 70 and Ethiopia 65. Most of the rest are in single digits. A joke!
Kenya has 67 mid-distance and up runners on the list. For context, GB has 9 and USA has 15. Let's also note that a huge number of Kenyans compete in road races, which will typically have testing unlike obscure track meets (GB, USA etc. index more for decent 800 and 1500 runners in the 1:45/3:36 range than 1:00/2:10 marathoners). So that combined with AIU's (correct) targeting of Kenya (they are clearly casting a wide net as is Kenyan anti-doping) means I bet the average Kenyan racer is getting tested more frequently than say Colby Alexander or Woody Kincaid. There's a lot of sloppiness as far as doping as you can see with the busts for things that are literally not banned OOC.
The only expert I have seen agree with your view that EPO doesn't help certain Kenyan athletes is a coach of Kenyan athletes. Well, he would say that - wouldn't he?
Lol. The same coach who said that he had no experience with EPO?
The only expert I have seen agree with your view that EPO doesn't help certain Kenyan athletes is a coach of Kenyan athletes. Well, he would say that - wouldn't he?
That would make it 1 to 0 in my favor.
Note this view is applicable to sea-level athletes too, for example Sondre Moen, or the Roberson twins, after training for an extended period at altitude.
This differs from the pure speculation of experts in other fields, with no real data or actual experience of creating elite performance or creating elite performance improvements, trying to estimate potential upper bounds of what could be based on direct or indirect observations of the wrong experiments on the wrong population.
This also differs from the beliefs of non-experts in this forum, also with no real data or experience.
I'm sure you could also rely on a Russian coach to deny their athletes are doping. Such convincing "data".
The only expert I have seen agree with your view that EPO doesn't help certain Kenyan athletes is a coach of Kenyan athletes. Well, he would say that - wouldn't he?
Lol. The same coach who said that he had no experience with EPO?
It is interesting that a coach can definitively claim a given drug doesn't work when he has no experience with it (so he says).
Let's be fair. If some Africans cheat than all Africans cheat then that applies to the US as well. Houlihan was caught cheating and her coach says he never even heard of Nandrolone. All BTC athletes are suspect. Fisher sets huge PR's and runs 26:33 and 12:53 and he is clean?
Fisher should not be above suspicion, but if you want to be fair you need to point out the sheer number of Kenyan positives vs. American positives among distance runners, it's not even close. Yes, Shelby cheated and I'm 99% sure one of her teammates in particular cheated as well, but I don't think as a whole American distance runners are doping on a scale that comes close to Kenya at this point.
It would really suck if most American distance runners were doping and only produced the results that we have seen over the past few years.
Note this view is applicable to sea-level athletes too, for example Sondre Moen, or the Roberson twins, after training for an extended period at altitude.
This differs from the pure speculation of experts in other fields, with no real data or actual experience of creating elite performance or creating elite performance improvements, trying to estimate potential upper bounds of what could be based on direct or indirect observations of the wrong experiments on the wrong population.
This also differs from the beliefs of non-experts in this forum, also with no real data or experience.
I'm sure you could also rely on a Russian coach to deny their athletes are doping. Such convincing "data".
You are a curious sort, suggesting that arguments with no data is a strength, while resisting to classify it as speculation or faith.
Say focused. The discussion we are having is whether EPO helps the marathon, not whether athletes are doping.
On the contrary, my assumption, based on many reports, is that the elite Russian men are 100% doping.
The "data" tells me that the fastest Russian man in the marathon is Aleksey Sokolov with a 2:09:07 performance currently ranked at #2361 all time.
This 1) appears to confirm that EPO doesn't help Russian elite marathons, or 2) alternatively the 100% doping assumption is false, and the best Russian men are not doping in elite marathons (maybe because the knowledge and experience of Russian coaches/athletes is that EPO doesn't help run faster marathons).
I hear the cries "what about Liliya Shubokhova? Surely she is proof by example!" But this thread is about Kipchoge's pacer Marius Kipserem and the men's marathon. Nevertheless, in another thread, I compared the top all-time Russian women (assume 100% doping) with the all-time top Japanese women (assume 0% doping). The "data" showed me then that Russian women were not superior all-time, just looking at the top-3 or top-5, etc.
On the contrary, my assumption, based on many reports, is that the elite Russian men are 100% doping.
The "data" tells me that the fastest Russian man in the marathon is Aleksey Sokolov with a 2:09:07 performance currently ranked at #2361 all time.
They never want to hear the truth. Every analyst that study the data collected in the last 40 years will have similar conclusions.
Now coming back to the 13 runners busted in 2019, this lead me to the following interview of El Bakkali in 2019. He was talking about that. These groups that were spreading Drugs in 2019 have nothing about the federation. They were coming from the outside (particularly boosted by French agents) and they making videos in the town of Ifran to spread a bad image about the institute.
I'm sure you could also rely on a Russian coach to deny their athletes are doping. Such convincing "data".
You are a curious sort, suggesting that arguments with no data is a strength, while resisting to classify it as speculation or faith.
Say focused. The discussion we are having is whether EPO helps the marathon, not whether athletes are doping.
On the contrary, my assumption, based on many reports, is that the elite Russian men are 100% doping.
The "data" tells me that the fastest Russian man in the marathon is Aleksey Sokolov with a 2:09:07 performance currently ranked at #2361 all time.
This 1) appears to confirm that EPO doesn't help Russian elite marathons, or 2) alternatively the 100% doping assumption is false, and the best Russian men are not doping in elite marathons (maybe because the knowledge and experience of Russian coaches/athletes is that EPO doesn't help run faster marathons).
I hear the cries "what about Liliya Shubokhova? Surely she is proof by example!" But this thread is about Kipchoge's pacer Marius Kipserem and the men's marathon. Nevertheless, in another thread, I compared the top all-time Russian women (assume 100% doping) with the all-time top Japanese women (assume 0% doping). The "data" showed me then that Russian women were not superior all-time, just looking at the top-3 or top-5, etc.
You have the same problem as Canova; you are insistent that EPO will not aid altitude-trained endurance athletes, when neither of you have any experience of such athletes using EPO. You are both so sure of something you have never tested.
Yet the athletic and scientific consensus is that EPO aids endurance. That is why so many athletes use it. And marathon runners are endurance athletes. Furthermore, in the era before EPO those athletes that were only altitude-trained were slower than athletes in the later era when EPO became widely used - including by altitude-trained athletes. Thus, the inference must be that even with altitude-trained athletes EPO aids performance.
What I find particularly disturbing about that AW article isn't them asking event organisers to disinvite Kenyan athletes, but that they, like Coevett, the Brojos and much of the LRC appear to be pushing the idea that 'Kenyaness' itself is the problem. They're essentially suggesting that cheating, deceit and disregard for rules is part of Kenyan nature. They're recommending that individual accountability should be suspended for Kenyans alone and collective punishment be meted out on the basis of nationality.
This is such a dangerous trend in thought that I just can't abide because, in my mind, it mirrors Kanye West's recent anti-semitic rants. I have been a fan of Athletics Weekly for the longest time and remember scrimping lunch money as a child to buy the print copy. Needless to say, that chapter's in the past, now.
Well I’m glad to hear you are no longer a child and can afford a copy of AW without missing lunch.
You have the same problem as Canova; you are insistent that EPO will not aid altitude-trained endurance athletes, when neither of you have any experience of such athletes using EPO. You are both so sure of something you have never tested.
Yet the athletic and scientific consensus is that EPO aids endurance. That is why so many athletes use it. And marathon runners are endurance athletes. Furthermore, in the era before EPO those athletes that were only altitude-trained were slower than athletes in the later era when EPO became widely used - including by altitude-trained athletes. Thus, the inference must be that even with altitude-trained athletes EPO aids performance.
This is not my problem.
It is a proven fact that altitude naturally stimulates EPO production. There are plenty of altitude studies showing short term performance gains after a few weeks of training at altitude, comparable to short term gains from EPO studies. To the extent EPO helps endurance performance, living and training at altitude is like continuous micro-dosing 24x7. Who could ask for more? You get all the powerful benefits of EPO naturally, and you have a natural alibi.
The problem you have is that you, and the consensus forming athletes and scientists, have simply not shown the performance data to support your inferences and beliefs. Furthermore, if your inferences were correct, for elite marathon performances, we should have already seen that the best Russians (near 100% doping with multiple products since as far back as the '70s) are similarly as good as or better than Kenyans, rather than worse than the Japanese (0% suspicion), not to mention slower than Jake and Zane, and just marginally faster than Derek Clayton from 50+ years ago. That is just one of many reasons I reject your assumed conclusions.
How many Russians are trying to be elite marathoners? Can you understand when it's pointed out repeatedly to you that 90% of the Russian population live in areas in which running long distances is uncomfortable or impossible for half the year? The Nigerian national record is 2:16. So even if he took EPO (assuming he is/did not), and EPO made a difference of 7 minutes, it would still only be 2:09. You have no idea what Russians would be running without EPO. You can't even compare them to the Russian pre epo era because the Soviet Union was blood doping athletes. Your logic is comical.
This is what we do know for sure; that a truckload of runners use EPO whether it 'works' or not - some are caught in testing protocols. Most, we can assume, are not. Most of those caught are Kenyan. It is not legal under the rules of competition. So they are taking prize money and placings in sanctioned races under false and fraudulent pretences. They get suspended as a result. The notion that it is or isn't performance enhancing or merely a placebo is irrelevant. They just shouldn't be taking it full stop; be it EPO or any of the other pharmaceuticals that are currently swimming around in runner's bodies. And just as an aside; please ignore the poster rekrunner - an obvious troll.
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