How come "epo time" marathon times were weak?

zxcvxzcvxc wrote:

No, the top talents stayed on the track until doping tests for EPO were developed and used widely on the track. They then turned their attention to the marathon, where doping tests were not used in most cases and dropped the times markedly.

Nonsense. There was no effective testing for epo anywhere. The track stars that went up to marathon in early 2000's did well because they had been prepared by their 10,000 careers and ran efficiently.

In the past few years, they have tested more at the World Marathon majors and drops ended.

Everyone's been on the ABP since 2009, that's 8 years, and no, the drops have not ended. As I already pointed out, EVERY major men's road record from 10k to marathon was set after ABP was implemented.

blather about microdosing and whatever, but let's not pretend the ABP doesn't put a severe buzzkill on what EPO can achieve, compared with unrestricted out-of-competition use. And yet all those road records from the unrestricted era are gone, in a very active progression likely to continue.

Do you mean just me, or everyone? This thread started out wondering why, if track records from the '90s and '00s are untouchable, why did marathon times not start dropping until Tergat and Gebrselassie started trying. Invariably, lacking examples of world record times fueled by EPO, the discussion turns to the effect of EPO on slower runners.The issue with examples of Ramzi and Mourhit is giving a proper accounting of other factors that also led to improvements. In an intellectually honest and unbiased discussion, some effort needs to be made to account for other significant factors, BEFORE we can accept that the "massive improvements" were only made possible with EPO.In the other thread, we learned that Ramzi changed his training from 5 times a week to 13 times a week, and that Mourhit's training (and times) were irregular because his training was often interrupted due to injuries caused by one leg being shorter than the other.I note here that when Ramzi was finally busted for CERA, the doped 1500m times annulled were 4 seconds slower than his PB. Perhaps at least 4 seconds are due to other non-doping factors.

talent prevails wrote:

OK, drop the suspected WRs set on epo and just go by the massive improvement made by guys like Ramzi and Mourhit.

Bad Wigins wrote:

Everyone's been on the ABP since 2009, that's 8 years, and no, the drops have not ended. As I already pointed out, EVERY major men's road record from 10k to marathon was set after ABP was implemented.

blather about microdosing and whatever, but let's not pretend the ABP doesn't put a severe buzzkill on what EPO can achieve, compared with unrestricted out-of-competition use. And yet all those road records from the unrestricted era are gone, in a very active progression likely to continue.

Do they? That remains to be seen, but the 10 km road and the half marathon records are from 2010, and the marathon record from 2014.

Also, "microdosing" is a strange euphemism, as the ABP allows for Hct increases of 10-20%, depending on the individual, before triggering an investigation. And that investigation mostly ends with in dubio pro reo - Radcliffe, Savinova, Jager, Farah, Rupp, Centro, etc. etc. come to mind. As I am sure you know, Savinova was banned anyways after she was caught on tape.

Plus, the case of Poistogova proves how easy it was to remain inconspicuous as an EPO user (and no, she didn't just "microdose").

As just published, 43.6% admitted to doping in 2011 (Daegu study), i.e. two years after the full implementation of the ABP, but only 1% tested positive, and 14% triggered the ABP (again, mostly without getting banned).

13 busts in 20 years or so doesn't sound like enough to say "It blatantly does given the number of marathoners busted ...".

How many of these busts were from the top 100 performers? I counted 5 (3 females and 2 males).

The Sunday Times counted 8 out of 9 medal winners at Olympics and World Championships never recorded a suspicious test result (regardless of EPO, blood transfusion, or false positives due to legal altitude training), not just at that Olympics or World Championship, but in their entire professional career.

The correlation between high blood values, either artificial or legal, and winning marathons has not been established, and does not seem to be a very strong one.

Technically, in this thread, I was proposing that the evidence of EPO producing faster world record times in the EPO era is not enough to establish a strong correlation. I can accept that EPO helps slower runners who have both physical and psychological weaknesses that are addressed by the assumption of EPO. These runners would also be helped by improved training, and in part, probably were.

You think I'm under-thinking this? I'm paying attention to the evidence and, to a lesser extent, the non-expert conclusions from cherry-picked anecdotes. Speaking of fine research, with all the scientific studies on EPO and blood transfusions, and even including legal altitude training, what does science say about marathon improvements for any runner?

Kid running after kipchoge wrote:

Many people here claim that track distance runners of today don't get close to WR because back then they used epo and now they can't. Well how this argument fits with the very fast marathon times of today? Athletes can't break WR in 1500m-10k on the track, yet breaking records and having many many marathon runners that go well beyond the records of the so called "epo era". The fast marathon times of today contradict and crash the epo era argument. I say the reason for not breaking WR times or even getting closer is because today's track athletes are weaker. The major talents go straight to the marathon as Bekele said.

Marathon race organizers have likely not been testing properly or sweeping "positive" results under the carpet (Radcliffe etc ..):

"The London Marathon was won seven times in 12 years by athletes who have recorded suspicious blood scores, according to the Sunday Times.

The tally represents nearly 30% of winners in the 24 men's and women's races."

You're just obfuscating again like you did when this was discussed in the Sumgong thread. It depends what the significant factors are with each athlete. Each situation is different. In Ramzi's case he had a dramatic improvement in a relatively short period of time that aroused suspicion:

Yep...at about the same time he (Ramzi) started training with Boulami. 😁

Again discussed in detail in the Sumgong thread: When he won double gold at Helsinki his Off-scores recorded during the competition were 157.8 & 148. That same summer he ran his mile PB of 3:51, and the following year he ran PBs in both the 8 & 15.

"The Sunday Times noted that blood samples collected from Ramzi on 10 and 14

August 2005 had OFF-scores of 157.8 and 148 respectively. In accordance with the

IAAF regulations then in force, in each case those abnormal values triggered the

immediate collection by the IAAF of a urine sample from the athlete on the same day,

but no rEPO was found in either urine sample. The IAAF also collected two blood

samples from Ramzi in Helsinki and had them tested for evidence of blood

transfusions, but again with negative results." (page #4).

Seppelt fan wrote:

"The London Marathon was won seven times in 12 years by athletes who have recorded suspicious blood scores, according to the Sunday Times.

The tally represents nearly 30% of winners in the 24 men's and women's races."

30%? Interesting in comparison to the 14% overall getting flagged by the ABP = having suspicious blood scores. That would imply that London marathon winners are more suspicious than the average of all elite runners.

Even rekrunner's chosen stat (5 caught out of the top 100 marathoners = 2.5%) points towards above-average dirty top marathoners, as overall only 1 - 2% get caught.

With thanks to Ho Hum's link to Guardian in the 30% thread:

"The research, based on anonymous surveys carried out at two elite athletics competitions in 2011, found that up to 57% of competitors admitted doping in the previous 12 months, a figure far surpassing the 1-2% identified by blood and urine tests carried out by the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada), and higher even than the 14% prevalence estimated from the athlete biological passport."

You say I'm obfuscating, but then basically repeat exactly what I said. "It depends what the significant factors are with each athlete. Each situation is different."Ramzi's doping and blood values have been discussed in great detail, and the fact that he doped is not in doubt. This is only one significant factor.Focusing on only one significant factor as the only, or primary, source of massive improvements, is biased, incomplete, and dishonest.Ramzi, 25th best of all time, is being held up as a good example of the great power of EPO to produce massive improvements, in a discussion that neglects to analyze other significant factors.

RWA wrote:

You're just obfuscating again like you did when this was discussed in the Sumgong thread. It depends what the significant factors are with each athlete. Each situation is different.

We have already seen the chilling effect of the ABP in cycling. The CIRC reported estimates from inside stakeholders of a decrease of a 10-15% improvement pre-ABP to 3-5% post-ABP. But you already know this.Ross Tucker gave us some nice graphs that showed a significant drop in blood values thanks to the ABP, even if detection rates remain low.The ABP software uses multiple, complex and adaptive scores to flag suspicious results for human interpretation. Suggesting that increases of 10-20% Hct go unnoticed is a bit simplistic, not to mention misleading. But you already know this.The ABP is not perfect, and not instantaneous, because individual human variation is normal.

casual obsever wrote:

Do they? That remains to be seen, but the 10 km road and the half marathon records are from 2010, and the marathon record from 2014.

Also, "microdosing" is a strange euphemism, as the ABP allows for Hct increases of 10-20%, depending on the individual, before triggering an investigation.

Check 2.6.1 ⬆it pretty much says that you can boast your off-score to stratospheric levels so long as no rEPO is found. That is the trick. Or perhaps Pop_pop is correct after all, perhaps he paid the bribe in 2005 but the fee went up in 2008?

Subway Surfers Addiction wrote:

Check 2.6.1 ⬆it pretty much says that you can boast your off-score to stratospheric levels so long as no rEPO is found. That is the trick. Or perhaps Pop_pop is correct after all, perhaps he paid the bribe in 2005 but the fee went up in 2008?

Rekrunner has never seen a doping positive he cannot explain away...

Subway Surfers Addiction wrote:

Check 2.6.1 ⬆it pretty much says that you can boast your off-score to stratospheric levels so long as no rEPO is found. That is the trick. Or perhaps Pop_pop is correct after all, perhaps he paid the bribe in 2005 but the fee went up in 2008?

It's a mystery with him on this case. "2.6.2" says they target tested him no less than "21 times" from the 05 WCs up to Beijing with negative results. And "2.6.3" says in 2012, with better EPO detection technology, they retested the 05 samples also with negative results (strange). But yet the retested Beijing sample done in 2009 popped him for CERA (with the help of the drug manufacturer). So, it couldn't be CERA that he using in 05, if it was even available at that time.

Where the report says that the "IAAF also collected two blood samples from Ramzi in Helsinki and had them tested for evidence of blood transfusions, but again with negative results"....am I correct in assuming that very high Hct was seen without suppressed reticulocytes? (i.e., if it's not blood doping, [high Hct/low retics], I would imagine to reach an Off-score of 157.8 you would need a very high Hct and correspondingly high retics over baseline?).

So, he either had one heck of a doping doctor that was able to achieve those high Off-scores and avoid detection, or the corruption factor was at play here as pointed out. Either way a perplexing mystery that with WADA breathing down his back he was able to dodge the bullet for so long until CERA finally did him in. 🤔

Your Tubingen study (presumably where your "1-2% get caught" statistic comes from):- looks at both winners and losers- looks at all distance, sprints, and field events- asked about all anti-doping rule violations in the last 12 months (e.g. cannibas also counts)The London marathon winners' statistics:- looked at winners- at the marathon- at "suspicious" blood values over the careers of the athletesIt's hard to meaningfully compare any statistics between the two groups:- Doping testing is biased towards winners, not losers, and not equally or randomly distributed like the Tubingen surveys.- The 14% ABP prevalence is 14% of samples, not 14% of athletes. Doping testing is biased towards suspicious athletes, with targeted testing strategies collecting more samples from athletes deemed suspicious. The prevalence of athletes flagged by the ABP is likely lower than 14%.- Blood values crossing the threshold of "suspicion" can come from legal altitude training, or, before 2009, the improper collection, storage, and analysis of the blood. The 14% prevalence is an over-estimate of ABP samples that are flagged as suspicious that truly indicate doping.- I also wonder how multiple London Marathon winners were counted, considering that Paula won three out of the 12 women's races. It would be clearer to count how many athletes, as a ratio of suspicious/total, and not how many races, to avoid inflating the statistic by double counting the same athlete.- We've seen from the Sunday Times breakdown of the "suspicious" blood values by event, that, at 11%, the marathon was by far the least "suspicious" event, compared to the 1500 (54%), 20km walk (52%) and 50km walk (48%). Note these figures also use the same flawed method of double-counting multiple medal winners.

casual obsever wrote:

Seppelt fan wrote:

"The London Marathon was won seven times in 12 years by athletes who have recorded suspicious blood scores, according to the Sunday Times.

The tally represents nearly 30% of winners in the 24 men's and women's races."

30%? Interesting in comparison to the 14% overall getting flagged by the ABP = having suspicious blood scores. That would imply that London marathon winners are more suspicious than the average of all elite runners.

Even rekrunner's chosen stat (5 caught out of the top 100 marathoners = 2.5%) points towards above-average dirty top marathoners, as overall only 1 - 2% get caught.

casual obsever wrote:

Also, "microdosing" is a strange euphemism, as the ABP allows for Hct increases of 10-20%, depending on the individual, before triggering an investigation.

And maybe an athlete can go beyond a 20% increase and receive a 5-star "likely doping" rating that just fades away into obscrurity. 😄

In 2005, you could. There was no ABP in effect, and therefore no need to bribe.Due to the weaknesses of EPO detection, and blood transfusion detection, the IAAF helped develop the ABP to look for doping from longer term markers (extra red blood cells, and low RET%).In 2005, we know from the same IAAF report, that the "suspicion" threshold was even higher, see 5.6.1 "...123 for females", likely due the higher incidence of false positives coming from variabilities due to the process itself.Part of the IAAF contribution was rule changes to allow the data to be reliable enough to avoid false positives due to improper collection, storage, and analysis.

Subway Surfers Addiction wrote:

Check 2.6.1 ⬆it pretty much says that you can boast your off-score to stratospheric levels so long as no rEPO is found. That is the trick. Or perhaps Pop_pop is correct after all, perhaps he paid the bribe in 2005 but the fee went up in 2008?

You seem to be honest in other contexts, looking for evidence and raw data much the same way as I do.I don't deny doping positives, although Ramzi's 2005 "stratospheric off scores" was not a doping positive.My discussions always surround the alleged performance benefits "at the top" attributed to EPO and blood transfusions, in distance running, and the lack of ability to create an accurate model, or show a strong blood doping to performance benefit correlation, from the real world observations.

Mr. Obvious wrote:

Subway Surfers Addiction wrote:

Check 2.6.1 ⬆it pretty much says that you can boast your off-score to stratospheric levels so long as no rEPO is found. That is the trick. Or perhaps Pop_pop is correct after all, perhaps he paid the bribe in 2005 but the fee went up in 2008?

Rekrunner has never seen a doping positive he cannot explain away...

While the blood manipulation after the introduction of the ABP became more technical and sophisticated, the magnitude of the effect is significantly lower as many parameters must be monitored and kept in tandem. Even if we assume that it is possible to elevate hematocrit/hemoglobin by 10-20 % without undetected, just by considering the following anecdotes, it remains significantly lower when compared to what took place in the 1990s:

1) Here is a longish quote from Matt Rendell's Pantani biography about the infamous dblad.wbd - file recovered from the Ferrara laboratory about the hematocrits of cyclists:

In addition to possible different equipment, there is always some natural fluctuation both at the low (hemodilution, anemia) and at the high end of the figures (dehydration), so just contrasting the high vs. the low slightly overestimates the variance, but you get the story. Also according to a chart in the same book, someone of the Ferrara cyclists had his hematocrit at 63 %, reminding me what soigneur Jef D'hondt sais about Bjarne Riis's blood.

2) International Ski Federation (FIS) had collected blood samples from 1989 onwards more or less regularly and the highest conclusively recorded hemoglobin values in the 1990s for men and women were slightly below 200 g/l [hct equivalent 60 %). It is well documented that Italian cross country skier Manuela di Centa has some recorded high hemoglobin values, but at least some sources report that her hemoglobin value was in some tests as high as 220 g/l in the mid-1990s, which is some 40 percent above the upper normal limit for women and the hematocrit equivalent of being staggering 66 %! The Rendell's Pantani biography mentions also in passing a group of biathletes and xc-skiers also having huge hematocrit variations from off- to in-season.

Even when we do not know the baseline figures of the xc-skiers, the elevations should be significantly higher than 10-20 %. And these cases are only the tip of the iceberg, because we don't know what went on in cycling teams or countries of which we have do documentation whatsoever.

I see very little reason not to believe that there was something similar going in the long distance running during that decade. The fact that Ramzi didn't care one iota about his reticulocytes and OFF-scores even when they were monitored just illustrates the point, and I see zero reasons to think that athletes were more conservative in the 1990s when rEPO couldn't be detected and there was nobody in the world who even knew about your high hematocrits as the red precious bodily fluid wasn't even collected by the doping testers or by the researchers.

It is kinda funny that while I don't even agree with Bad Wigins, I do find his chronology quite still surprisingly consistent.

rekrunner wrote:

The issue with examples of Ramzi and Mourhit is giving a proper accounting of other factors that also led to improvements. In an intellectually honest and unbiased discussion, some effort needs to be made to account for other significant factors, BEFORE we can accept that the "massive improvements" were only made possible with EPO.

Like what other significant factors? The same old factors that dopers chalk-off to their improvements and rapid rise to the top? Things such as new, improved running shoes? Better nutrition? Filtered water? Smarter training? Yoga classes? Aerodynamic ultra-short running shorts? (or bun huggers for women). Dopers and their coaches are always creating illusions by rationalizing the athlete's improvements to silly, ridiculous things as previously mentioned. The fans eat it up and buy the apparel & books. Many of the impressible younsters will adapt the diet, training methods & apparel of the doper (e.g. "I'm eating, training, & dressing like so & so I can grow up to be fast like him/her" Lol).

Even the athlete's doping doctor will sometimes have a change of heart in order to save their skin. For example, Ferrari in 2013 said his prized pupil could have achieved all his results clean by just "altitude training". Imagine that; Armstrong pays Ferrari a million bucks to administer & oversee his doping program, goes on Oprah and tells the whole world that he couldn't have won anything without all the dope he used, and yet all the time he could have won 7 TdFs clean with just a little altitude training (who would have thought. Lol).

Don't fall for all the BS. Dopers are masters of illusion.😉