Kelvin Kiptum - possible red flag?

Armstronglivs wrote:

he will not understand wrote:

You would, if that would be the subject.

It clearly demonstrates your level of "reasoning".

A: 1% of tests are positive
B: at least 20% of athletes dope ("expertly estimated")
C: most dopers will not be caught

For you, C is a direct conclusion from A and B. For sure that's nonsese. You were asked to explain the "logic" behind your reasoning. For sure you can't (it definitely was: 1 < 20, not more).

Yeah, I'm not bright enough to follow your "argument" (you didn't had any). Interesting that so many people are not bright enough to follow your unique way of thinking (the thinking of someone who after six decades of following athletics closely still hasn't underestood the format times are written in).

How often do you meet people who can follow your way of "thinking"? The quote must be little bit higher in some psychiatric clinic?

Still playing with yourself. You need to do something about that problem.

Armstronglivs wrote:

You again miss the point. WADA listing health as a concern does not show that adverse health consequences are a likely outcome of doping while improved performances remain only conjecture. It only shows that WADA is concerned about health consequences as well as unfair advantage. However, it is the long history of doping in sport and the widespread nature of the practice that enables an inference that doping aids performance, if we can accept athletes are rational actors (as you would no doubt claim to be), who calculate risk against reward.

Again, an obvious point: dopers will not admit to the practice if they can be identified and thereby be penalized but may do so if they are anonymous - as with the surveys being discussed. That they will anonymously admit to doping is because they do not feel the opprobrium that you and others might have of the practice. For them, doping is a necessary part of what they do - and even their living.

On your last observation about Kiptum - I don't see any basis for arguing he is doping because of who he might be related to. There are far more convincing reasons than that.

rekrunner wrote:

Coevett wrote:

Over fifty Kenyans busted it was announced today, Rekrunner.

So you are saying testing is actually catching athletes? Armstronglivs tells me that rich countries can afford to hide their doping, while in Kenya, doping is mostly not at that level of sophistication. Hence, more are caught.

Can you get together with Armstronglivs and come up with a consistent story, and a common set of assumptions?

Then help me reconcile that with these other considerations:

In July, the AIU announced that 440 Kenyan athletes would be in ADAK's (300) and AIU's (140) pools of registered athletes subject to whereabouts and OOC testing, with plans to ramp up to 5000 tests a year. I wonder how that compares with other countries, considering population size.

The AIU tells us "In Kenya, there is a huge pyramid of top-class athletes." "That pyramid is hundreds, or even thousands, of athletes." This means all the numbers will be proportionally high, all other things being equal.

At one point, when I counted "top male athletes" with faster than 1980s caliber performances, between 1990-Jan. 2018, I counted 226 Kenyans; 88 Ethiopians; 27 East Africans running for other countries; 30 North Africans; and 32 non-East/North Africans from the rest of the world.

For a baseline reference, if we hypothetically assumed all other things equal, i.e. uniform testing with a 2% detection rate, and average doping worldwide, we should expect 56% of this pool of athletes caught doping to be Kenyan.

But all things are not equal. If we give Armstronglivs some credibility, we know that Kenyans are not sophisticated, and not very good at hiding their doping, so we should expect an even higher percentage of unsophisticated Kenyans to be caught.

If we consider the AIU's statements, we know that testing has been ramped up, as far back as 2017, and significantly ramped up in 2023.

If we consider a 2018 report from WADA/AIU/ADAK, and also information from more recent busts, we know that a significant number of Kenyan busts are the result of athlete negligence when getting routine medical treatments; a significant number involve local pharmacists/doctors; and the report identified a lack of information and education as a problem.

Given all these official considerations, it is unsurprising to me that "over fifty Kenyans busted ... was announced today".

7777 wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

So you are saying testing is actually catching athletes? Armstronglivs tells me that rich countries can afford to hide their doping, while in Kenya, doping is mostly not at that level of sophistication. Hence, more are caught.

Can you get together with Armstronglivs and come up with a consistent story, and a common set of assumptions?

Then help me reconcile that with these other considerations:

In July, the AIU announced that 440 Kenyan athletes would be in ADAK's (300) and AIU's (140) pools of registered athletes subject to whereabouts and OOC testing, with plans to ramp up to 5000 tests a year. I wonder how that compares with other countries, considering population size.

The AIU tells us "In Kenya, there is a huge pyramid of top-class athletes." "That pyramid is hundreds, or even thousands, of athletes." This means all the numbers will be proportionally high, all other things being equal.

At one point, when I counted "top male athletes" with faster than 1980s caliber performances, between 1990-Jan. 2018, I counted 226 Kenyans; 88 Ethiopians; 27 East Africans running for other countries; 30 North Africans; and 32 non-East/North Africans from the rest of the world.

For a baseline reference, if we hypothetically assumed all other things equal, i.e. uniform testing with a 2% detection rate, and average doping worldwide, we should expect 56% of this pool of athletes caught doping to be Kenyan.

But all things are not equal. If we give Armstronglivs some credibility, we know that Kenyans are not sophisticated, and not very good at hiding their doping, so we should expect an even higher percentage of unsophisticated Kenyans to be caught.

If we consider the AIU's statements, we know that testing has been ramped up, as far back as 2017, and significantly ramped up in 2023.

If we consider a 2018 report from WADA/AIU/ADAK, and also information from more recent busts, we know that a significant number of Kenyan busts are the result of athlete negligence when getting routine medical treatments; a significant number involve local pharmacists/doctors; and the report identified a lack of information and education as a problem.

Given all these official considerations, it is unsurprising to me that "over fifty Kenyans busted ... was announced today".

Don't do that. Coevett and Armstronglivs don't like facts.

rekrunner wrote:

Coevett wrote:

Over fifty Kenyans busted it was announced today, Rekrunner.

So you are saying testing is actually catching athletes? Armstronglivs tells me that rich countries can afford to hide their doping, while in Kenya, doping is mostly not at that level of sophistication. Hence, more are caught.

Can you get together with Armstronglivs and come up with a consistent story, and a common set of assumptions?

Then help me reconcile that with these other considerations:

In July, the AIU announced that 440 Kenyan athletes would be in ADAK's (300) and AIU's (140) pools of registered athletes subject to whereabouts and OOC testing, with plans to ramp up to 5000 tests a year. I wonder how that compares with other countries, considering population size.

The AIU tells us "In Kenya, there is a huge pyramid of top-class athletes." "That pyramid is hundreds, or even thousands, of athletes." This means all the numbers will be proportionally high, all other things being equal.

At one point, when I counted "top male athletes" with faster than 1980s caliber performances, between 1990-Jan. 2018, I counted 226 Kenyans; 88 Ethiopians; 27 East Africans running for other countries; 30 North Africans; and 32 non-East/North Africans from the rest of the world.

For a baseline reference, if we hypothetically assumed all other things equal, i.e. uniform testing with a 2% detection rate, and average doping worldwide, we should expect 56% of this pool of athletes caught doping to be Kenyan.

But all things are not equal. If we give Armstronglivs some credibility, we know that Kenyans are not sophisticated, and not very good at hiding their doping, so we should expect an even higher percentage of unsophisticated Kenyans to be caught.

If we consider the AIU's statements, we know that testing has been ramped up, as far back as 2017, and significantly ramped up in 2023.

If we consider a 2018 report from WADA/AIU/ADAK, and also information from more recent busts, we know that a significant number of Kenyan busts are the result of athlete negligence when getting routine medical treatments; a significant number involve local pharmacists/doctors; and the report identified a lack of information and education as a problem.

Given all these official considerations, it is unsurprising to me that "over fifty Kenyans busted ... was announced today".

rekrunner wrote:

Armstronglivs wrote:

You again miss the point. WADA listing health as a concern does not show that adverse health consequences are a likely outcome of doping while improved performances remain only conjecture. It only shows that WADA is concerned about health consequences as well as unfair advantage. However, it is the long history of doping in sport and the widespread nature of the practice that enables an inference that doping aids performance, if we can accept athletes are rational actors (as you would no doubt claim to be), who calculate risk against reward.

Again, an obvious point: dopers will not admit to the practice if they can be identified and thereby be penalized but may do so if they are anonymous - as with the surveys being discussed. That they will anonymously admit to doping is because they do not feel the opprobrium that you and others might have of the practice. For them, doping is a necessary part of what they do - and even their living.

On your last observation about Kiptum - I don't see any basis for arguing he is doping because of who he might be related to. There are far more convincing reasons than that.

I don't miss your points, but just disagree with them because, even if we share all the facts, I don't share your initial set of assumptions/conclusions.

I don't agree that history of use enables an inference of elite distance running performance enhancement. Athletes can make rational and logical choices based on wrong information and assumptions. We learn this in Logic 101 -- logic can be consistent even if the "givens" are false, so long as you apply the rules correctly.

Contrary to your inference, the history and progression (or lack thereof) of all-time historical performances enables the opposite inference.

Sure, dopers will not admit to the practice, but their times speak for them, and curiously you also want to speak for them, assuming their knowledge and experience, without any qualifications to do so. You stand alone when you say many things that athletes/coaches/anti-doping officials do not.

(TLDR: survey anonymity doesn't guarantee survey compliance) While anonymous surveys may enable some to be honest about their doping, the main problem becomes subject apathy. They are not even lying, just clicking through the screens. Like everyone who simply clicks "I agree" without reading the Ts & Cs of license agreements, some respondents automatically click yes, to get in and out as quickly as possible. In the survey you keep referencing, the researchers measured response times, and *recommended* an exercise discarding the fastest 30% of responses, based on the empirical measure of response time, speculated to remove all the hasty and thoughtless "automatic yes" responses. This exercise indicated a 13%-point bias (from 44% to 31%) between the response, and 70% of the slowest responses. In the second survey on the same subjects, which can estimate non-compliance, they arrived at a more conservative estimate (21%), while also calculating a 30% non-compliance. With 30% non-compliance, these range of survey values (21%-44%) have limited value. Refinements in the methodology that reduce non-compliance will increase the reliability and accuracy of the prevalence estimate.

rekrunner wrote:

Armstronglivs wrote:

So much waffle again. I agree with Coevett that Kenyan doping is rife and has likely been so for decades. More of their dopers are being caught because doping is everywhere in their sport, it is often unsophisticated and antidoping is naturally focusing on them.

That isn't saying doping isn't a problem anywhere else. It is. But few countries presently match the scale of Kenyan doping - and other countries and their athletes are better at getting away with it.

When you are outmatched, inundated by so many facts, you resort to breakfast waffles.

The thing is, Coevett doesn't agree with you that the rest of the world is also doping.

But the bigger question is, do the facts agree with either of you?

Between 2000-2012, Ashenden/Parisotto analyzed a large database of 12000+ blood tests from 5000+ athletes, where Kenyan and Ethiopian blood doping suspicion was below the world average.

What is the reason the for East African success between 2000-2012, while the rest of the world stood still? Was it nandrolone, an easily detectable drug that was available since the 1950s?

Where are the facts saying Kenyans doped on such a large scale before 2012? or 2000?