Another 8 Kenyans busted

+1

Plus, no blood testing capacities in Kenya or Ethiopia.

"Destroying" is a generous description, but sure, I don't doubt you can make a compelling case for doping for Russian women in these shorter middle distance events -- an exception I point out rather frequently.

For the longer event, the Russian woman marathon runner appears to be a lone exception. When we look deeper at the nation, to just top-3 or top-5 all-time, we find that Russia was not better than Japan, as a nation.

It's also tricky to compare the women, given the late entry of Kenyan women to the sport, and late entry of women in general, but still the Russians were not as fast as pre-Russian bust runners like Edith Masai, Vivian Cheruiyot, and Florence Kiplagat. In the marathon, Shobukhova did edge out Ndereba, but then there were six more Kenyan women faster than Russia's #2, Bogomalova, all before Russia was busted.

What I find most anomalous though is, notwithstanding the moderate success of the Russian women, where were all the Russian men "destroying" the Kenyans in any distance running event, from 800m to the marathon? I counted ZERO Russian men performing faster than a pre-EPO era benchmark between 1990-2018. The Russian men were slower than Europeans and Americans. This is most surprising from a nation (including the Soviet Union for Coevett) that has been reportedly doping their men and women as far back as the 1970s.

Look up climate deniers, and then stop with your stupid semantics. Climate deniers don't deny climate, like doping apologists don't apologize for doping. You and Thoughtsleader enjoy - for whatever reason - to pretend the doping problem is tiny, and very few top athletes dope, not even Kenyan top athletes. You sometimes even go into all troll mode and pretend that the various well established doping effects are all a myth. All evidence to the contrary gets either ignored or challenged.

Literally everybody except for letsrun trolls knows that "athletes are doping because it works". They trust their coaches and doctors because of their positive experiences with doping, and their peers because of their positive experiences with doping.

On the contrary, I frequently point out the success of Russian and East German and Eastern Bloc women. And it was never relevant, but the point stands for both Russia and the Soviet Union, (not to mention non-African Europeans, North and South Americans, Asians, and Oceanians). Their women were fast in the shorter distances, but the men were never "destroying" anyone at any distance. This is consistent with women being high responders to testosterone, steroids and male hormones giving them superior muscular strength.

Where can I find more information on how and why and when Russian distance men were excluded from the Soviet/Russian doping programs? Or is that something you just made up to accuse me of ignoring? Where can I find more information about Kenyan doping before, say 2012? I suppose what likely happened is that the Soviets/Russians invested in state-sponsored doping research, and doped where their research suggested it "worked" -- women in short distances, men in walking shoes, and men/women in the field. Or they brute-force doped all their athletes, and the ones that won, won.

Again -- the unanswered question is who are these "like it works for everyone else" athletes that EPO was supposed to have worked for, just like it worked for East Africans?

Erm... that was you.

Lacking any references, this looks like part of evolving mythology. Lamine Diack made a "late in his career" deal with the Russians, and some Turkish runners.

Given the nature of "off-scores", the in-competition (and pre-competition) blood doping data would be sufficient to form blood-doping suspicion. Indeed, that was the entire basis of "suspicion" of the Australian scientists hired by the Sunday Times. Between 2001-2008, there was no OOC blood testing anywhere by any country. The IAAF was collecting "in", "pre" and "out-of-competition", including "About 5% of the athletes had been tested at an altitude higher than 2000 m. Most of these tests were performed out-of-competition, while the athletes were living or training on the high plateaus of East Africa." They did not mention that East Africans were uniquely excluded from these out-of-competition tests on these high plateaus of East Africa.

My first google hit was "Climate change denial" -- this makes my point. If you chose phrases that don't say what you mean, it is dishonest doublespeak. I would prefer if you (collectively) would try to make your points choosing honesty and integrity. Doping is abhorrent enough on its own without having to embellish its effects and prevalence beyond what has been well established.

Contrary to ignoring evidence, I have given due consideration to all the evidence I have requested and seen, including any "contrary" evidence, duly tempered by any stated (or unstated) limitations and confounders.

I don't "pretend the problem is tiny". In fact, I pretend that it is bigger than it deserves to be because its rumored doping effects are vastly greater than its "established doping effects". The belief in its rumored effects is widespread, broad, deep, and goes to the top. How wide and how deep? I put myself in the camp of peer-reviewed researchers who wrote: "No reliable estimate of the prevalence of doping in elite sports has been published."

Regarding well established effects of EPO, here is what one research team (Heuberger et al) wrote about EPO use in cycling: "Imagine a medicine that is expected to have very limited effects based upon knowledge of its pharmacology and (patho)physiology and that is studied in the wrong population, with low-quality studies that use a surrogate end-point that relates to the clinical end-point in a partial manner at most." "A qualitative systematic review of the available literature was performed to examine the evidence for the ergogenic properties of this drug, .... The results of this literature search show that there is no scientific basis from which to conclude that rHuEPO has performance-enhancing properties in elite cyclists."

Another researcher (Hein F. M. Lodewijkx) has taken a look at Tour de France during the EPO-era, questioning the boost in performances during the EPO-era, and the decline subsequently, finding inverse results, even daring to suggest "Speculatively, findings suggest that the use of epo doping might have blocked riders’ performances." (see "No Faster Performances in the ‘Epo Years’ in Classic One–Day Cycle Races and World Championships" and "Disproving the CIRC-report: Cyclists’ Time Trial Performances in the Tour de France Flattened in the Epo Era and Improved in the 2010s").

I was initially prepared to leave "EPO works for cycling" as an unchallenged assumption, only questioning if it translates to elite distance running, but now I ask, what do we really have to go on? A lot of bad science, and the words of cheaters and pathological liars.

"Literally everybody knows"? That sounds like a literal lie for most any topic. In any case, scientific inquiry is not decided by what the population "knows". I assume that nobody knows more than has been established by controlled observation, especially among letsrun forum dwellers acting as spokesmen.

Not at all. Would never say the doping problem is "tiny." It's just mischaracterized by many to fit their biases. The AIU releases stats, and we have a decent picture of testing, who gets busted and so on. You could break down the numbers of the last 5 years to exact levels, but it's something like this:

~20% - relatively prominent/prominent 10K road runners up to marathon men/women (Cherono/Rhonex biggest names, but Belet, Kipyokei, some others)
~5% - fringe-elite track runners (Brenda Chebet, Kumari Taki, Michael Saruni)
40% - obscure road runners (these are the 61/2:10 type half marathoners, or 2:25 women marathoners, a lot of in-competition busts here which indicates remedial doping)
35% - sub-elite track runners (picked up in spot testing at AK meets etc.)

We also know the characteristics of testing:
-AIU tests top roughly 115 Kenyan road/track runners via the RTP
-To compete in Global Champs Kenyan track runners need at least 3 OOC tests in 10 months
-Kenyans' average in-competition testing is highest in the World
-The average Kenyan in Budapest had 11 tests (7 OOC/4 IC)

- I think as Salvatore Stitchmo has said the main conclusion is either you think the athletes at the top are on advanced doping programs (micro-dosing) which allow them to test clean OR the Kenyan doping problem is most acute for athletes who are fringe in terms of making money and willing to take great risks to do so. Considering many busts are for substances only banned in-competition or very obscure substances, it seems there is at least some of that. I would never rule out of hand that there is sophisticated doping going on pretty much anywhere, including Kenya, but I'm most concerned with an even playing field from a fairness standpoint and hope they target those who think they are running those programs.