Athletics, when doping is the default

rekrunner wrote:

WADA only concerns itself with a subjective assessment that a substance or method has the "potential" to benefit performance.

WADA makes a single assessment across all Olympic sports, and does not wish to complicate enforcement by proving effect for each event or for each athlete on a case-by-case basis.

Whatever WADA decides cannot help us understand the effect of doping on IAAF endurance events like the marathon.

Similarly what athletes believe about doping is not a demonstration that such a belief is realistic or has been fully realized for the reasons he/she believes.

Again, the fundamental question is what physical observations in the real world form the basis for your belief about doping benefit in elite men's marathon? How can you conclude performance improvements from doping have ever occurred without talking about performance in any fashion? What should I reconsider in order to consider doping as a significant factor in the men's elite marathon performances?

Let's attack this from another angle, to demonstrate the extent of current knowledge with respect to the men's marathon:

1) How many doping, or altitude, studies have looked at performance in the marathon, or alternatively, used a design approximating marathon intensities for marathon durations?

2) Of the top 100 fastest performing men in the marathon, how many have been busted for doping?

3) Of the top 100 fastest male marathon performances, how many have been annulled due to doping?

4) In the Sunday Times reporting of 12 years of leaked IAAF blood values, what percentage of marathon medals (men and women) won were "suspicious"? How did that compare to other events?

5) While the marathon is undoubtedly an endurance event, besides oxygen delivery and utilization, what are 3 other factors that limit marathon performance?

Is easier and obvious and "across the board" necessarily accurate and reflective of the reality in men's elite marathon performances?

With respect to the men's marathon, roughly how many is a preponderance? 10%? 30%? 44%? 50%? How do we know?

One logical scenario is that the best athletes generally don't dope when they are running their best, but the second and third best dope to try to be the best. If effectiveness is low, a question that has not been settled for the men's elite marathon, the logical conclusion can very much be that the best performances (e.g Kipchoge, Bekele, Kipsang) are better than the doped ones (Erupe, Goumri).

When thinking about what highly trained athletes are capable of, what factors should be considered? Do the best East Africans have the same base capability as the best non-East Africans?

Besides advances in doping, what are other factors to consider when understanding changes in the marathon from your baseline of what has previously been typical?

Armstronglivs wrote:

For your purposes, since you require at least performance data, you can't acquire that without such data being supplied by doped athletes (who have admitted they were doped) as well as their performance data when/if they competed clean, in order to measure the gain they may have had from their doping. Let me know when anyone obliges.

An easier, if more obvious route, is to note the increase in endurance amongst sportsmen across the board who have taken drugs that boost stamina, such as EPO, and to thereby infer that any sport which requires a measure of endurance will benefit from drugs that boost those physiological features that contribute to endurance. There are no exceptions to this - human physiology being what it is - otherwise WADA, the IAAF and anti-doping generally would have accepted the argument that marathon runners uniquely don't benefit from doping, and ought to be exempt from doping control. No one credibly argues that. We must accept they do benefit. The preponderance of athletes today, that includes marathon runners, who turn to doping to gain advantage, further indicates the same. It defies both logic and an understanding of what doping does to suggest that the best clean performances can be better than the best doped performances, so it is likely that the best performances now are doped.

The difference between a doped and a clean performance won't be conveniently determined by performance data of the kind you seek but from a detailed understanding of what highly-trained athletes may be capable of, against the background of what has been previously typical in the sport. It can therefore only be an educated guess, if we are forming a view about doping based on an individual performance.

you are a doping apologist wrote:

Armstronglivs wrote:

An internationally leading coach of world-beating athletes has just been busted for doping. A succinct commentary on the state of the sport.

And yet you continue to deny that almost everyone dopes. Now we have a top coach from a country without a "culture of doping" (and without the numerous failed tests that you believe are an accurate indicator of a country's cleanliness in sport) being suspended for drug violations. If you continue to argue that countries like Kenya and Russia are more likely to have dirty athletes because they have had more busts, it proves you are nothing more than an intellectually dishonest hack. Get your head out of the sand and stop preaching to people about the doping crisis that you yourself continue to minimize and downplay. EVERYONE at the top level is doped to the gills. Skin color and country of origin mean nothing.

Armstronglivs wrote:

you are a doping apologist wrote:

And yet you continue to deny that almost everyone dopes. Now we have a top coach from a country without a "culture of doping" (and without the numerous failed tests that you believe are an accurate indicator of a country's cleanliness in sport) being suspended for drug violations. If you continue to argue that countries like Kenya and Russia are more likely to have dirty athletes because they have had more busts, it proves you are nothing more than an intellectually dishonest hack. Get your head out of the sand and stop preaching to people about the doping crisis that you yourself continue to minimize and downplay. EVERYONE at the top level is doped to the gills. Skin color and country of origin mean nothing.

I have never said what you claim. You should try screwing your head back on. I have said doping is a problem everywhere and in all sports. Salazar's denouement reinforces that.

rekrunner wrote:

WADA only concerns itself with a subjective assessment that a substance or method has the "potential" to benefit performance.

WADA makes a single assessment across all Olympic sports, and does not wish to complicate enforcement by proving effect for each event or for each athlete on a case-by-case basis.

Whatever WADA decides cannot help us understand the effect of doping on IAAF endurance events like the marathon.

Similarly what athletes believe about doping is not a demonstration that such a belief is realistic or has been fully realized for the reasons he/she believes.

Again, the fundamental question is what physical observations in the real world form the basis for your belief about doping benefit in elite men's marathon? How can you conclude performance improvements from doping have ever occurred without talking about performance in any fashion? What should I reconsider in order to consider doping as a significant factor in the men's elite marathon performances?

Let's attack this from another angle, to demonstrate the extent of current knowledge with respect to the men's marathon:

1) How many doping, or altitude, studies have looked at performance in the marathon, or alternatively, used a design approximating marathon intensities for marathon durations?

2) Of the top 100 fastest performing men in the marathon, how many have been busted for doping?

3) Of the top 100 fastest male marathon performances, how many have been annulled due to doping?

4) In the Sunday Times reporting of 12 years of leaked IAAF blood values, what percentage of marathon medals (men and women) won were "suspicious"? How did that compare to other events?

5) While the marathon is undoubtedly an endurance event, besides oxygen delivery and utilization, what are 3 other factors that limit marathon performance?

Armstronglivs wrote:

Since I have no desire to write a book on this subject in response to your points, I'll just address one, which is your view that WADA bans substances that have the "potential" to enhance performance - and therefore may not be performance enhancing in some circumstances. I trust we are not talking about EPO and other forms of blood-doping, so favoured by distance athletes for decades?

Coffee is a stimulant, and so are chocolate bars - they don't have the "potential" to boost performance - they do, albeit not in a way that is deemed significant enough to be banned. When WADA refers to the "potential" of a substance to be performance-enhancing they are throwing a broad net over substances that can be used other than for the purpose they were intended - which is usually to correct a medical issue - and can act as a significant stimulant to a healthy individual (and obviously way better than coffee). This is so WADA doesn't have to show the actual and measurable benefit derived from taking the substance in deciding that it is likely to act as a stimulant or performance booster. It is similar to the position the IAAF has maintained on testosterone levels for DSD male athletes in women's competition; high levels of testosterone are a given that they will boost performance even without measuring the exact extent it will do so for the athletes in question. That inexactitude of outcome is the nature of most doping - it doesn't act in exactly the same way for every individual. But the general picture will be consistently similar. We don't need to know the size of a cloud to know we will get wet when it rains.

Through its list WADA is trying to stay ahead of the dopers - although with clearly limited success. But none of the drugs that are used by distance athletes and marathoners in particular are substances that have the "potential" to boost performance; there is no "potential" about it - they are established as performance-enhancing, and the bottom-line is that not WADA nor anyone else in anti-doping claims there should be exemption for marathoners because they don't benefit from these substances. Yet that is what your argument would require.

rekrunner wrote:

I don't ask you to write a book, but provide me with "any" performance data to support your as yet unsupported beliefs. You criticize me for not including doping as a factor, but seem unable to give me any reasons or data in order for me to reconsider.

As you can see by the nature and length of my previous post, it is possible to talk about performances and doping, without athlete doping confessions, for example, even as you indicated, by looking at trends in populations and establishing correlations.

Using WADA as affirmative proof of significant effect for men's elite marathon performances falls far short because WADA does not show, or rely on anything that shows, that EPO would be significantly effective for the men's elite marathon performances in all circumstances.

One of the criteria clearly listed on WADA's website is "potential" to enhance performance. They don't talk about the size of clouds, but the chance of cloudiness.

Armstronglivs wrote:

Since I have no desire to write a book on this subject in response to your points, I'll just address one, which is your view that WADA bans substances that have the "potential" to enhance performance - and therefore may not be performance enhancing in some circumstances. I trust we are not talking about EPO and other forms of blood-doping, so favoured by distance athletes for decades?

Coffee is a stimulant, and so are chocolate bars - they don't have the "potential" to boost performance - they do, albeit not in a way that is deemed significant enough to be banned. When WADA refers to the "potential" of a substance to be performance-enhancing they are throwing a broad net over substances that can be used other than for the purpose they were intended - which is usually to correct a medical issue - and can act as a significant stimulant to a healthy individual (and obviously way better than coffee). This is so WADA doesn't have to show the actual and measurable benefit derived from taking the substance in deciding that it is likely to act as a stimulant or performance booster. It is similar to the position the IAAF has maintained on testosterone levels for DSD male athletes in women's competition; high levels of testosterone are a given that they will boost performance even without measuring the exact extent it will do so for the athletes in question. That inexactitude of outcome is the nature of most doping - it doesn't act in exactly the same way for every individual. But the general picture will be consistently similar. We don't need to know the size of a cloud to know we will get wet when it rains.

Through its list WADA is trying to stay ahead of the dopers - although with clearly limited success. But none of the drugs that are used by distance athletes and marathoners in particular are substances that have the "potential" to boost performance; there is no "potential" about it - they are established as performance-enhancing, and the bottom-line is that not WADA nor anyone else in anti-doping claims there should be exemption for marathoners because they don't benefit from these substances. Yet that is what your argument would require.