"There is no way for Howman to estimate how many elite pinnacle dopers are getting away with it."
That is an absurdity. If your claim were true - it isn't - he has absolutely no grounds for arguing for increased testing, improving antidoping science and requiring more funds for antidoping. Without a problem that has been identified there is nothing that requires rectification. His statement that "dopers are getting away with it" is effectively saying antidoping is losing.
Sometimes the truth is absurd. If he could estimate how many are getting away with it, he would. But he can't, because he simply doesn't have the data.
He gives us his grounds in statements like "We are not effective enough nowadays in catching cheats" and "One step is to ensure Anti -Doping Organisations (ADOs) are supported with the best investigative and scientific tools ..."
These failings are true whether ADOs are catching 5% or 50% of the elite pinnacle dopers.
That's as dumb a question as you could ask. If I could name them then so could WADA. But antidoping has admitted there are substances being used they can't as yet identify. That is why they can't catch athletes using them. That is also why antidoping holds blood samples for up to 8 years, in the hope that improved testing over time may retroactively identify these drugs.
Could you please reveal the cost and time required to engineer a new drug that is both impossible to detect via today’s methods and also yields measurable gains in performance?
Yes Armstronglivs counters any argument with boogeyman drugs/masking agents that supposedly make testing completely ineffective. Yet, at the very same time he'll say everyone IS dirty because testing does uncover doping. So which one is it?
He'll tout experts' comments very selectively. Clothier himself has said that they are getting more effective at catching cheats, but the limitations of frequency/targeting of testing are roadblocks that means it can take time.
There's also the ABP, which could play a role in uncovering mystery drugs/masking agents.
In this case, we are presented with an athlete who is evening the playing field for testing. No one can know for certain if he is still doping OR if the playing field is truly fully even. But we can say that Armstronglivs' thinly-backed statements that Sawe MUST be using some undetectable drug, and that testing is completely ineffective etc etc are just reflections of his worldview.
He cites athletes who did have trouble with positive tests or skipping tests. He cites broad comments about athletes being tested once a month (at most), not 3-4 times a week, and he brings up cases from 20 years ago. This is all to say, nothing is going to move him from his position.
This post was edited 2 minutes after it was posted.
Howman hasn't said doping will be 10% of elite sports. He has said it could be as low as 10% but it could also be up to 40%. In 2012 when some were suggesting that doping at the London Olympics could be as high as 90% while others were suggesting maybe 10% Howman said it will be "somewhere in between". That would easily match estimates from athlete surveys that suggest 1 in 2 championship athletes are likely doping.
Doping is an advanced science. It continues to develop because enormous amounts of money world wide are involved. Since 2012 Howman has spoken pessimistically of how doping remains ahead of antidoping and his comments this year about how dopers "are still getting away with it" is an admission that antidoping is losing the battle.
T and F is up there with the most likely suspects, as it has been lumped by WADA with bodybuilding, weightlifting and cycling (you know - Lance Armstrong's sport) with risk of doping. Ambitious athletes will use everything available to them to succeed - equipment, technique, training methods, nutrition and supplements. It is naive beyond belief to think they won't use drugs that they know will give them an advantage - and that they know their competitors are using.
Much of this looks like your own gospel, trying to dumbsplain what Howman says.
Howman estimated "over 10%" for cycling. Can we say it is similar for athletics, because they are in your top-4? If not, how many then? How many for distance athletes, excluding sprints, jumps, throws, and walking?
Speculating that it could be between 10%-40%, or 10%-90%, is just another way of saying even Howman doesn't really have a clue "how many". Every non-expert can safely say it is somewhere between 10%-90%. Not a whole lot we can conclude from that.
Yes Armstronglivs counters any argument with boogeyman drugs/masking agents that supposedly make testing completely ineffective. Yet, at the very same time he'll say everyone IS dirty because testing does uncover doping. So which one is it?
He'll tout experts' comments very selectively. Clothier himself has said that they are getting more effective at catching cheats, but the limitations of frequency/targeting of testing are roadblocks that means it can take time.
There's also the ABP, which could play a role in uncovering mystery drugs/masking agents.
In this case, we are presented with an athlete who is evening the playing field for testing. No one can know for certain if he is still doping OR if the playing field is truly fully even. But we can say that Armstronglivs' thinly-backed statements that Sawe MUST be using some undetectable drug, and that testing is completely ineffective etc etc are just reflections of his worldview.
He cites athletes who did have trouble with positive tests or skipping tests. He cites broad comments about athletes being tested once a month (at most), not 3-4 times a week, and he brings up cases from 20 years ago. This is all to say, nothing is going to move him from his position.
It seems that much of what he argues falls in one of many categories of things we don't know or can't know.
Athletes use undetectable drugs but we don't know how many because they are undetectable.
Athletes use drugs, but we don't know how many because they are masking them.
Athletes use drugs, but we don't know how many because they aren't tested, or aren't glowing during testing.
Athletes use drugs, but we don't know how many because they don't tell us.
Even whereabouts failures essentially contributes to what we don't know, as knowledge comes from testing, not missing tests.
To jump from positive test figures like 1%-2% to estimates of 40%-90% is really just estimating how much we don't know, but yet somehow we are still able to estimate the magnitude.
i think the abp is part of the problem and was supported by doping athletes as a way to help them avoid getting caught.
if you tell people exactly what you are going to measure, how often and how you are going to interpret it, then, as a cheat, you have just been told exactly what to avoid and when.
at its simplest you just set harder parameters for yourself in your abp, at its most complicated, we know dopers are always ahead of testers, so why should this be any different for abp?
the only thing that might start me beleiving it is if blood samples were kept indefinitely and doping applied restrospectively years later.
Has Sawe volunteered for his samples to be kept forever? of course not, because he knows that sooner or later, today's doping will be detectable.
Athletes have found ways to get around the passport.
That's as dumb a question as you could ask. If I could name them then so could WADA. But antidoping has admitted there are substances being used they can't as yet identify. That is why they can't catch athletes using them. That is also why antidoping holds blood samples for up to 8 years, in the hope that improved testing over time may retroactively identify these drugs.
Could you please reveal the cost and time required to engineer a new drug that is both impossible to detect via today’s methods and also yields measurable gains in performance?
If I was in the back market for producing these drugs then I probably could. However what I go on is the claim made by antidoping experts in an Al Jazeera investigation on doping that up to a hundred substances used to dope athletes could be available at any one time that antidoping can't detect. This conforms with Howman's statement that doping is more sophisticated than antidoping and is always ahead.
You naively and somewhat stupidly seem to think that a practice that is clandestine is nonetheless published for all to see on the Internet. If that were so it would not be clandestine and WADA would have dealt to it long ago.
"There is no way for Howman to estimate how many elite pinnacle dopers are getting away with it."
That is an absurdity. If your claim were true - it isn't - he has absolutely no grounds for arguing for increased testing, improving antidoping science and requiring more funds for antidoping. Without a problem that has been identified there is nothing that requires rectification. His statement that "dopers are getting away with it" is effectively saying antidoping is losing.
Sometimes the truth is absurd. If he could estimate how many are getting away with it, he would. But he can't, because he simply doesn't have the data.
He gives us his grounds in statements like "We are not effective enough nowadays in catching cheats" and "One step is to ensure Anti -Doping Organisations (ADOs) are supported with the best investigative and scientific tools ..."
These failings are true whether ADOs are catching 5% or 50% of the elite pinnacle dopers.
If he can claim that athletes are getting away with their doping he will have had information that shows that. That has been his career for the better part of a couple of decades. There is no way he is going to be making dire warnings today about doping if it is an insignificant problem - and if it isn't worse than it was. He isn't talking about improvements in catching dopers. It is accepted by antidoping experts that they are only catching a small fraction of those who are doping. As the practice is similar to white collar crime and other forms of corruption it does not require (even if it were possible - it isn't) that every case or instance of it be identified to know that it is a significant issue. Not everyone is as ignorant as you are of the practice.
"Yes Armstronglivs counters any argument with boogeyman drugs/masking agents that supposedly make testing completely ineffective. Yet, at the very same time he'll say everyone IS dirty because testing does uncover doping. So which one is it?"
That isnt what I say. Antidoping experts such as Howman have acknowledged masking agents make it very hard to detect dopers. That is why it is a doping offence to use masking agents. You apparently don't know that.
Testing does reveal doping but typically amongst only a fraction of those who are doping. As antidoping experts have said, "only the dumb and the careless are caught". Only 1% of tests are positive. Since prevalence is estimated to be far greater than that figure it matches Howman's statement that dopers "are getting away with their doping".
I haven't said ALL athletes are doping - your usual straw man - but that the estimated prevalence by experts is so high that no one now can confidently be assumed to be clean at the higher levels in the sport. That is a nuance beyond you.
This post was edited 1 minute after it was posted.
Howman hasn't said doping will be 10% of elite sports. He has said it could be as low as 10% but it could also be up to 40%. In 2012 when some were suggesting that doping at the London Olympics could be as high as 90% while others were suggesting maybe 10% Howman said it will be "somewhere in between". That would easily match estimates from athlete surveys that suggest 1 in 2 championship athletes are likely doping.
Doping is an advanced science. It continues to develop because enormous amounts of money world wide are involved. Since 2012 Howman has spoken pessimistically of how doping remains ahead of antidoping and his comments this year about how dopers "are still getting away with it" is an admission that antidoping is losing the battle.
T and F is up there with the most likely suspects, as it has been lumped by WADA with bodybuilding, weightlifting and cycling (you know - Lance Armstrong's sport) with risk of doping. Ambitious athletes will use everything available to them to succeed - equipment, technique, training methods, nutrition and supplements. It is naive beyond belief to think they won't use drugs that they know will give them an advantage - and that they know their competitors are using.
Much of this looks like your own gospel, trying to dumbsplain what Howman says.
Howman estimated "over 10%" for cycling. Can we say it is similar for athletics, because they are in your top-4? If not, how many then? How many for distance athletes, excluding sprints, jumps, throws, and walking?
Speculating that it could be between 10%-40%, or 10%-90%, is just another way of saying even Howman doesn't really have a clue "how many". Every non-expert can safely say it is somewhere between 10%-90%. Not a whole lot we can conclude from that.
I haven't "dumbsplained"anyone. I have referred to what Howman and other antidoping experts have said. But you won't be familiar with this because you live in a mythical world where doping scarcely occurs and certainly doesn't aid athletes.
Howman does "have a clue" about how many are doping because he is confidently claiming that dopers are getting away with it - he doesn't qualify that and say "only a few" - and it is damaging the brand of clean sport.
This post was edited 9 minutes after it was posted.
Yes Armstronglivs counters any argument with boogeyman drugs/masking agents that supposedly make testing completely ineffective. Yet, at the very same time he'll say everyone IS dirty because testing does uncover doping. So which one is it?
He'll tout experts' comments very selectively. Clothier himself has said that they are getting more effective at catching cheats, but the limitations of frequency/targeting of testing are roadblocks that means it can take time.
There's also the ABP, which could play a role in uncovering mystery drugs/masking agents.
In this case, we are presented with an athlete who is evening the playing field for testing. No one can know for certain if he is still doping OR if the playing field is truly fully even. But we can say that Armstronglivs' thinly-backed statements that Sawe MUST be using some undetectable drug, and that testing is completely ineffective etc etc are just reflections of his worldview.
He cites athletes who did have trouble with positive tests or skipping tests. He cites broad comments about athletes being tested once a month (at most), not 3-4 times a week, and he brings up cases from 20 years ago. This is all to say, nothing is going to move him from his position.
It seems that much of what he argues falls in one of many categories of things we don't know or can't know.
Athletes use undetectable drugs but we don't know how many because they are undetectable.
Athletes use drugs, but we don't know how many because they are masking them.
Athletes use drugs, but we don't know how many because they aren't tested, or aren't glowing during testing.
Athletes use drugs, but we don't know how many because they don't tell us.
Even whereabouts failures essentially contributes to what we don't know, as knowledge comes from testing, not missing tests.
To jump from positive test figures like 1%-2% to estimates of 40%-90% is really just estimating how much we don't know, but yet somehow we are still able to estimate the magnitude.
You could apply those "arguments" to a lack of data about any kind of clandestine practice and yet it doesn't stop experts from being able to estimate the likely extent of the black market in illicit drugs - heroin, cocaine, methamphetamines etc - or in white collar crime, or corruption generally. So the same applies to performance enhancing drugs used in sports. The black market is known to be at the level of over a billion dollars annually. Only a complete ignoramus would think that was 1% or so of top athletes.
What Howman actually said but that you apparently didn't read.
"Let’s be honest and pragmatic … intentional dopers at elite level are evading detection,” Howman told the Wada’s World Conference on Doping in Sport in South Korea. “We are not effective enough nowadays in catching cheats. We have great education programmes which help but they don’t impact the intentional rule-breakers in elite sport."
“Our ineffectiveness in dealing with those who are beating the rules is hurting the anti-doping movement’s credibility, with the resulting risk that our clean-sport message falls on deaf ears.”
So the constant refrain in that message is the "ineffectiveness" of antidoping in catching the cheats.
This post was edited 1 minute after it was posted.
If he can claim that athletes are getting away with their doping he will have had information that shows that. That has been his career for the better part of a couple of decades. There is no way he is going to be making dire warnings today about doping if it is an insignificant problem - and if it isn't worse than it was. He isn't talking about improvements in catching dopers. It is accepted by antidoping experts that they are only catching a small fraction of those who are doping. As the practice is similar to white collar crime and other forms of corruption it does not require (even if it were possible - it isn't) that every case or instance of it be identified to know that it is a significant issue. Not everyone is as ignorant as you are of the practice.
I'm familiar with the practice, and also the limitations, as is David Howman. But these are all your words -- how you interpreted what David Howman says he knows he doesn't know.
How small a fraction? 1/2 is a small fraction, as well as 1/20. Howman doesn't even attempt to give us any fraction, because he has no way to estimate whether it is 5% or 50% they are catching.
He does tell us what he knows: Anti-doping does have some significant problems. It is ineffective in part because their science, their intelligence, and their investigations all need to be improved.
Some of his decades of experience was with WADA, an organization which concerns itself with many sports, and not just running. Now as AIU head, he seems to indicate they are doing more of the strategic intelligence and investigations, and urges other sports to follow their example.
What Howman actually said but that you apparently didn't read.
"Let’s be honest and pragmatic … intentional dopers at elite level are evading detection,” Howman told the Wada’s World Conference on Doping in Sport in South Korea. “We are not effective enough nowadays in catching cheats. We have great education programmes which help but they don’t impact the intentional rule-breakers in elite sport."
“Our ineffectiveness in dealing with those who are beating the rules is hurting the anti-doping movement’s credibility, with the resulting risk that our clean-sport message falls on deaf ears.”
So the constant refrain in that message is the "ineffectiveness" of antidoping in catching the cheats.
I read all that and I said that anti-doping was ineffective -- we are all in agreement there.
Also "there is no way for Howman to estimate how many elite pinnacle dopers are getting away with it."
I haven't "dumbsplained"anyone. I have referred to what Howman and other antidoping experts have said. But you won't be familiar with this because you live in a mythical world where doping scarcely occurs and certainly doesn't aid athletes.
Howman does "have a clue" about how many are doping because he is confidently claiming that dopers are getting away with it - he doesn't qualify that and say "only a few" - and it is damaging the brand of clean sport.
You haven't, but you keep trying.
He is just confidently claiming their effectiveness is not 100%. But he can't say whether it is 50% or 5%.
You could apply those "arguments" to a lack of data about any kind of clandestine practice and yet it doesn't stop experts from being able to estimate the likely extent of the black market in illicit drugs - heroin, cocaine, methamphetamines etc - or in white collar crime, or corruption generally. So the same applies to performance enhancing drugs used in sports. The black market is known to be at the level of over a billion dollars annually. Only a complete ignoramus would think that was 1% or so of top athletes.
Whoever said "1% or so of top athletes"?
What is the market for just the WADA banned drugs among the pinnacle of elite distance runners?
Armstrong retired finally in 2011, not 2005. And as ChatGPT writes correctly, UCI and the French tested during the TdF, sure, but USADA was reported to have tested Armstrong about 50 times on American soil. 9 times between 2009 and 2011. ChatGPT told me that. Why so little, especially during his comeback? Ask Tygart.
OK. Is it fair to blame usada for not catching Lance Armstrong before 2012?
Answer:
It’s tempting to say yes, but pinning the blame squarely on USADA still misses how the situation actually worked.
By the time Lance Armstrong retired (2005, briefly returned 2009–2011), USADA did have authority over him as a U.S. athlete. But even then, a few constraints mattered:
1. Limited hard evidence until insiders spoke For years, Armstrong never tested positive. The anti-doping system relied heavily on tests, and his program was designed to beat them. What changed before 2012 was a wave of teammate testimony—riders like Tyler Hamilton and Floyd Landis finally provided detailed, consistent accounts. Without that kind of corroboration, USADA would have struggled to win a case legally.
2. Jurisdictional overlap and politics International cycling wasn’t controlled solely by USADA. The Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) and other bodies were deeply involved, and there have been long-standing accusations that parts of the system were resistant to aggressively pursuing top stars. That diluted how quickly cases moved forward.
3. Legal threshold is high USADA couldn’t just act on suspicion or rumors. To strip titles and impose a lifetime ban, they needed a case that would hold up under arbitration. Building that kind of case—especially against someone as powerful and well-defended as Armstrong—takes time.
4. The breakthrough came from investigation, not testing The 2012 case wasn’t the result of a failed test; it was a non-analytical investigation built on testimony, financial records, and team practices. That kind of approach became more common later but wasn’t as developed or prioritized earlier.
So is it fair to blame them?
Partly, in the sense that anti-doping overall was slow to adapt and relied too much on testing.
But not entirely, because USADA ultimately did what others hadn’t: they assembled a case strong enough to sanction him decisively.
A more accurate takeaway is that the system evolved. Armstrong wasn’t caught earlier not because no one cared, but because the tools, incentives, and cooperation needed to prove it just weren’t fully in place yet.
If he can claim that athletes are getting away with their doping he will have had information that shows that. That has been his career for the better part of a couple of decades. There is no way he is going to be making dire warnings today about doping if it is an insignificant problem - and if it isn't worse than it was. He isn't talking about improvements in catching dopers. It is accepted by antidoping experts that they are only catching a small fraction of those who are doping. As the practice is similar to white collar crime and other forms of corruption it does not require (even if it were possible - it isn't) that every case or instance of it be identified to know that it is a significant issue. Not everyone is as ignorant as you are of the practice.
I'm familiar with the practice, and also the limitations, as is David Howman. But these are all your words -- how you interpreted what David Howman says he knows he doesn't know.
How small a fraction? 1/2 is a small fraction, as well as 1/20. Howman doesn't even attempt to give us any fraction, because he has no way to estimate whether it is 5% or 50% they are catching.
He does tell us what he knows: Anti-doping does have some significant problems. It is ineffective in part because their science, their intelligence, and their investigations all need to be improved.
Some of his decades of experience was with WADA, an organization which concerns itself with many sports, and not just running. Now as AIU head, he seems to indicate they are doing more of the strategic intelligence and investigations, and urges other sports to follow their example.
I in 2 athletes is 50%, bright spark. It means you can flip a coin and you will have likely found a doper.
Whatever you think are the causes of the "ineffectiveness" of antidoping it remains ineffective. That is what Howman is saying.
What Howman actually said but that you apparently didn't read.
"Let’s be honest and pragmatic … intentional dopers at elite level are evading detection,” Howman told the Wada’s World Conference on Doping in Sport in South Korea. “We are not effective enough nowadays in catching cheats. We have great education programmes which help but they don’t impact the intentional rule-breakers in elite sport."
“Our ineffectiveness in dealing with those who are beating the rules is hurting the anti-doping movement’s credibility, with the resulting risk that our clean-sport message falls on deaf ears.”
So the constant refrain in that message is the "ineffectiveness" of antidoping in catching the cheats.
I read all that and I said that anti-doping was ineffective -- we are all in agreement there.
Also "there is no way for Howman to estimate how many elite pinnacle dopers are getting away with it."
It doesn't have to be an exact figure for him to conclude the cheats are getting away with their doping. The captain of the Titanic didn't need to measure the iceberg to know what he had struck.