How Kenyans get EPO

At first, Canova spoke about his personal experience with training "top" East African athletes who were born and raised and living and training at altitude, not wanting to speak for athletes outside of his personal experience.

Over time, especially after training Sondre Moen to a 2:05:48 marathon, based on this new experience, Canova relaxed and expanded his claim to also include sea-level athletes training for an extended time at altitude (in Moen's case, it was for 8 months continuously).

I look at this in two possible ways. If EPO can bring significant benefits -- especially during training in the off-season, then training at altitude, which stimulates EPO continuously, can provide much, if not all, of the desired benefit. If EPO does not provide a significant benefit, then altitude training simply benefits in other ways, e.g. dedicated training in a calm remote environment with good weather and a good diet and few distractions.

We can't talk too much about studies and scientific evidence. To do so is disingenuous.

I'm not seeing evidence that the top East Africans cant win clean

So for me canova may be correct (and he hasn't been linked to doping)

He was definitely fooling around talking of epo as he must have known what was going on back in the day when only one 2-06 marathoner had been busted at that stage

The anecdotal evidence is that athletes were going to altitude to evade testing and take epo

Flagstaff Hellybuck and Kenya etc.

Now there may well be some benefit from the official training camps at altitude

I believe the performance gains from the latter are probably less than the former

One thing that is undisputed is that epo works for some

Ramzi Lombard selsouli and loads more are evidence of that

The jury is still out on whether top Africans can run 2-01 clean

For now I'm inclined to believe they can

Fine. But I'm still going to believe the majority of people who have studied what EPO does and what they think it does while conceding that they may be wrong. And I still will believe that the only way Canova can know who EPO does and doesn't work for is if he's worked with people using it.

Its very easy to get epo guys, you have to be kidding me .

For sure. Just a curious appeal to authority from rekrunner, specifically to an "authority" who like rekrunner neither understands the science nor like rekrunner has any experience with EPO (or so he says).

On the other hand, when Canova explained that steroids improve the marathon time of the elite but 2 minutes or more, rekrunner brushed that off as irrelevant because of Canova's alleged lack of experience with steroids.

The only question is whether rekrunner is serious about any of his nonsense, or whether it's nonstop trolling to generate clicks for letsrun.

Again, the fact that the verb in both of your statements is "believe" confirms my point that we are still firmly in the camp of mythology and religion.

You are always looking for which person to follow.

I don't like to appeal to the opinions of people -- even Canova. Opinions are not facts or data. I would rather appeal to performance data, and to any other tangible evidence, and to any other bases that leads to these opinions.

Understanding the science means interpreting the data. It cannot even begin until we have real data.

I am also not appealing to Canova so much as appealing to the general hypothesis that no relation exists until it is proven. This means that regardless of what Canova has said, or even if Canova had never said anything, under this hypothesis, no data would be required to say EPO cannot improve an athlete's best marathon peformances, but conclusive data would be required to say EPO, or steroids, can improve an athlete's best marathon performances, and that these improvements are not fullly explained by other factors.

I suppose it is undisputed that EPO would work for the anemic.

All of these anecdotal performances can be confounded by other factors. Because the doping is not blinded, we could just be looking at placebo effect, combined with any changes in training, coaching, nutrition, shoes and clothing, environment, etc.

Didn't German TV Journalist Hajo Seppelt (ARD) answer the questions years ago?

Nairobi Airport Hilton pharmacy.

Case closed.

Everybody talks about the Africans, but wont talk about the europeans! smh. I guess the womens 400, 800 records are " clean" runners lol

I disagree strongly. Sometimes in life you make decisions and take actions based on degrees of probability. but you aren't going to change your mind, what you believe doesn't really matter, and I'm not going to bang my head into a wall discussing this endlessly.

Yes, and it’s still a fact it can be bought OTC at more than a few locations. Basically Kenyans and other EAs get EPO any way they can. This of course includes getting EPO via friendly folks like the Rosas, Claudio Berardelli, etc.

Good afternoon Armstrong

I’d like to hear what exactly is rekrunners position on EPO .

Ridiculo. Pointing out your highly hypocritical appeal to authority fallacy results in a lame and predictable childish "I know you are but what am I?". Can you even cite three instances that show that I am "aways looking for which person to follow"?

No? That's what I thought. Maybe two? Or one?

Crickets, or a new distraction? I am predicting the latter: nonstop trolling to generate clicks for letsrun.

But you can't even form a degree of probability without applicable performance data. Your belief in their belief doesn't provide this data.

You say you are "going to believe the majority of people who have studied what EPO does and what they think it does", but the ones who have looked at it often caution against projecting what they've seen at onto elite performances.

You also speak as if I have made up my mind already and formed final conclusions. I can't do that yet without better performance data, and if new data comes along, I am open to accepting it and revising my statements.

Part of it is asking the right questions. It's not interesting to me to ask if 4 weeks of EPO administration "works" on untrained athletes, or produces higher VO2max on a treadmill or longer time-to-exhaustion on a stationary bicycle. Better would be to ask if it "works" better than "hi-lo" altitude training. Or if EPO "works" in addition to altitude training. And then, by how much? How much more would one athlete's PR be after EPO administration, compared to training with purely WADA legal methods?

Give me a list of all the anonymous and registered handles you have posted under, and I will look for three examples.

You are plain wrong to accuse me of appealing to authority. My stated doubts about blood doping are based on the lack of data and evidence. Similarly, my doubts about steroids for Moses Mosop in the marathon are based on the lack of data and evidence. This is consistency, not hypocrisy.

Appealing to exercise physiologists for their opinions on how to create elite performance, without providing the data, is the textbook definition of appealing to authority. It's better to appeal to someone having experience and results in the domain of elite performance for their opinions on now to create elite performance, but they are still opinions. Coaches, even great coaches, may know what works, but may not always know why.

Regarding Canova's statements about EPO and blood doping -- he often says this is his personal belief without proof, based on his experience. That makes it an informed belief, but still a belief. We are in the same place of forming beliefs about the power of a drug or method, in the broader domain of mythology. The only path out is to provide better performance data that both proves a relation, and disproves the null hypothesis.

I don't focus on the names of the persons or their titles, but on what data they have produced, or rely on, to support claims of a potential relation between two variables. Unfortunately, four+ decades of blood doping research, combined with alleged "success stories" have been unable to provide conclusive data that EPO is a factor that can produce results that clean training cannot.

So you knew of 0 instances, yet accused me of *always* doing that. WOW. So much for your "logic". No wonder you "think" EPO "might" not work, while constantly arguing that it *does* not work.

And I was right: you went for a new distraction about other handles (you start!), because you could neither admit you made that up, nor prove your point LOL, nor stay quiet LOLOLOL.

Ok that trolling of yours was really easy to predict.