Reasons why Jakob Ingebrigtsen is drug-free

This question seems to be a toss up...the good arguments for him doping are strictly related to the performances themselves in the face of historic and probably current doping, particularly from East Africans who are presumably the most talented distance runner on the planet. The good arguments for him being clean are age group dominance, advanced training from a young age (thus matching or exceeding those of the africans), incredible talent, and superior discipline and mindset.

We really will never know unless he fails a drug test. People saying with certainty that he MUST be doping as if its a mathematical certainty are just plain wrong. We don't know for a fact that even Komen was doping, so using that as a perfect reference point is faulty. Furthermore, we don't know even in an age of rampant doping, the margin of performance gain relative to talent of each individual athlete. And we don't know the talent differential among the elite athletes. Without these gaps filled in, we can never say with any scientific certainty who is and who is not doping.

It was not in Norway either. They were caught in Austria.

Norway has been a dominant nation in cross country skiing for generations and only 2 skiers on the national team has ever been suspended for doping.

Johaug for the use of clostebol, a steroid, and the explanation that it was from a cream used on lip sores is plausible. She got suspended 18 months. It was an out of competition test months before the start of the season.

Johnsrud Sundby got 2 months for the use of salbutamol, an asthma medication, for not having a medical exemption.

So the blood doping program must be very good since nobody has been caught.

For Henrik, see here for example: https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=12028067

For 5 (faster than all known dopers): that is a lot more precise than your "faster than other suspected dopers".

Cheers!

Actually we do have some numbers. For example here about the lead up to Eugene 2023:

Sorting by average OOC test per athlete, Norway (2.1) is far behind the US (3.7). Leader is Ethiopia with 8.0.

You can also see that the AIU does not test much in Norway either.

If you sort by average OOC of top 8 which is the segment JI is in the result is quite different. 6,75 OOC tests. Now Norway only had 4 athletes finishing with a top 8 result so not much to brag about, but I think it shows that JI is probably tested quite a lot.

If you look at the annual report of USADA you'll find that thier testing pool is around 3000 athletes and they took 7773 tests in 2023.

Also nations with good anti doping programs have their athletes tested less at such major events than countries with weaker anti doping programs and bigger doping problems.

This thread is funny.

"He was successful from a young age! He is from a wealthy country! He races all the time! He is open to tons of media attention! He is an arrogant ahole and someone would have spilled the beans on him by now if they could!"

Wow! Sounds just like.... Lance Armstrong!!!

NOBODY is above suspicion. Willful naivety and hopeful thinking changes nothing. That's just the way it is in this sport.

I love this article used as proof of Norwegian xc skiers doping (been done before). But no Norwegians are mentioned here! -So let me site /copy one central sentence from the article:

“One Kazakh, two Estonian and two Austrian athletes were detained.” -Is this your proof against Norwegians..?

Exactly this. Anyone that thinks you can run 7:17 off of good ‘ol fashioned hard work is fooling themselves. What’s funny are those insisting wonderboy is clean, have no problem calling out Komen.

If you grow up in a house that is absolutely full of people. seven kids and friends of those children, a tv-team and parents. How would you ever get away with cheating? anyone of those people would get their story published instantly if they found out that something shady was going on.

So you wouldnt be able to keep anything in the house/or ever take illegal stuff in the house. You wouldnt even be able to order EPO/ gw1516/clostebol online, because the people delivering the packages knows who you are and would become suspicious.

Also, Jakob was tested from a young age by some of norway’s best doctors. His test values would obviously change drastically if he started doping and it would be quite obvious to a lot of people that wouldnt keep quiet.

JI and Komen are nowhere similar in terms of career and comparability. Someone like Geb is a better comparison and I would contend the overwhelming majority think Geb was clean.

You're making a great argument that Gjert is innocent.

I took a look on the progression of the WR in the 800, 1500, 3000 and 5000m -quite interesting:

WRs in the 20 th. and 21 st. century are as expected gradually beaten by a few seconds now and then, and therefore we cringe by huge improvement, especially by one single athlete. And yes, we certainly spot Mr Gebrselassie as an outlier here; he almost singlehanded bettered the 5000m record with 16 seconds in quite a short span. And this was in the EPO period, without testing…

But interesting enough, the 5000m progression has one more outlier period: 1965 / 1966 -Ron Clarke’s bettering of the WR down to 13.16 (18 seconds!). So was Clarke doping? We know blood doping started in the late sixties (but not mid) and was legal… Question: If Clarke’s improvement (18 sec) was undoped (which experts think it was) couldn’t Haile’s (16 sec) also be (at least theoretically) judged as likely clean..?

I watched Clarke’s 13.16 in Oslo, at the TV screen (because I live in the same county as Jakob far from the capital) but Coe’s 1.42.33 the same place I watched from the tribune. -He smashed Juantorena’s 1,43.44 out of the blue; we were all in shock. And the year after he did 1.41.73! And some of my training buddies remarked that Coe’s thighs that year looked massive on such a lean and little guy -anabolic steroids were their theory. But what if lifting and specific strength training could do the same..? And 1.7 sec WR improvement is of course huge, but Snell cut 1.4 sec, and nobody accuses him…

The 1500m: Yes, Morceli cut more than average on the WR, and El Guerrouj too, but I have a hard time thinking that their improvement since Elliott is unreasonable. On the contrary…

Conclusion: Theory 1. Doping may be and have been a minor thing among the top elite - we got the busted ones + an uncovered minority (since we know there are athletes not busted that have admitted to doping after retiring).

Theory 2. Doping is, and has been a major factor, especially in the top elite. Nobody above a certain level can be clean, and the doping prevalence is rampant also further below..

Theory 3. The truth is somewhere between theory 1 and 2.

All these theories have their support among experts and researchers, meaning no consensus. But a lot of these expert conclude as I do: We have no clue which theory to choose.
But as a Jakob fan I am of course bias towards him, and think all good about him…

A couple of errors here: Clarke’s 13.16 was in Stockholm, but his 10000 WR in Oslo. And Coe ran his 1.41.73 two years after his 1.42.33. And I also need to add that the research in the doping field still seems to have a long way to go -therefore the lack of consensus and diverse views and speculations, as I see it…

Exactly what one would expect from a self-delusional fraud. You and your ilk never vary lol.

Yeah, he’s the same at TAFNews as well. He’s as bad as Hubermann from the Rogan podcast. Same bunch.

I would listen to my parents and 2 older brothers who have extensive experience in avoiding getting caught… I mean take your example. Obviously it would be dumb to order the packages with your real name and deliver it to your house. Your mentor can tell you to use a fake name and a PO Box….

we can do the same logic you are using about everyone. No one has squealed on OP, BTC, any of the sprint group, morticians, Algerians, Ethiopians, or Kenyans. Groups must all be clean with just the occasional bad actor right?

I would listen to my parents and 2 older brothers who have extensive experience in avoiding getting caught… I mean take your example. Obviously it would be dumb to order the packages with your real name and deliver it to your house. Your mentor can tell you to use a fake name and a PO Box….

we can do the same logic you are using about everyone. No one has squealed on OP, BTC, any of the sprint group, morticians, Algerians, Ethiopians, or Kenyans. Groups must all be clean with just the occasional bad actor right?

Andreas Almgren from Sweden started out as an 800m runner and has spent his entire career being injured. Once he started talking to the Ingebrigtsen brothers and got input from them about training a few seasons ago, he runs 59:23 in the half marathon and 26:52 in the 10k in his debut in both events, got a 12:50 PB in the 5k and is right now the only person in history to run 1:45 or faster in the 800m and sub 27 in the 10k

So there's clearly something going on with the Ingebrigtsens training models, and when you can get those kinds of results in an athlete who has been constantly injured and has only won national gold medals, then you can just imagine what someone who has been training like that since before puberty can achieve.

The problem with your argument is that doping was virtually non existent in distance running in Clarke's era, it was developing in Coe's era (pre EPO) but it had accelerated by the '90's with less testing than there is today. That is why we still see records standing from that period, like El G's 1500 and mile. Antidoping improved in the early 2000's, so we didn't see the same kind of performance gains that were observable in the previous two decades. Doping had to be more subtle to avoid detection. But since the pandemic there have been records tumbling, and performances matching the best of the doping heyday of the 90's. Jakob's latest is one of them. He has demolished a record that defies credulity that it wasn't achieved through doping at a time when EPO couldn't be effectively tested for. No matter how immensely talented, no clean runner today can be faster than another immensely talented athlete who was doped.