I once said that it was a not well kept secret that a few people on my midmajor D1 team were doping, and I was ripped for it and called a liar, and that I was a poor sport who simply didn’t want it enough for speculating a lot more of my competition was also doping.
Why do people not think collegiates are doping? It used to be a big deal when even a collegiate athlete broke four in the mile, and now every good program has at least one sub four guy and it just about takes sub four to make the best teams. I promise you it ain’t just the spikes.
Common means it's regularly done by most people. It's not common. It's done but it's not common.
No it doesn’t. A disease/disorder with a 1-2% prevalence is common. I’d wager there’s a higher prevalence of doping in the NCAA than 1-2%.
As I said, you have no idea what he was talking about.
Or you don't.
I never doubted that middle of the pack college runners would be tempted to dope, hoping to get themselves to the next level, and that some follow through, and that others don't.
Help me understand the relevance to this thread or any of my posts, and how this anecdote of someone who didn't dope provides us any real data or any insight about doped performances.
Why would middle of the pack runners dope but better runners don't? All are doping for the same reason - to succeed. How do you also know that the "better" runners aren't doped to be better runners?
You lie frequently. I have read every study. Few athletes have said that doping goes uncovered. It is so frustrating to have you constantly post false information. Do you realize that it takes more time to type.your drivel than to post a link? You sure seem like someone who wastes a lot of time trying to sway people's opinions but then claim that you won't do research. That is the only honest thing you have posted.
I didn't say I don't do research, I said I don't do research for others - so you show in a stroke you can't follow a point being made, or you are a liar who deliberately misrepresents what someone else says.
You haven't read all the studies in the subject of doping or you wouldn't make the misleading claim that "few athletes say doping goes uncovered". Few athletes admit to doping or acknowledge its presence but that doesn't change the fact that 1% of tests are positive yet many more dope who aren't caught. This is shown by confidential athlete surveys and is confirmed by WADA and other experts on antidoping. But you won't read what you don't want to know.
I never doubted that middle of the pack college runners would be tempted to dope, hoping to get themselves to the next level, and that some follow through, and that others don't.
Help me understand the relevance to this thread or any of my posts, and how this anecdote of someone who didn't dope provides us any real data or any insight about doped performances.
Why would middle of the pack runners dope but better runners don't? All are doping for the same reason - to succeed. How do you also know that the "better" runners aren't doped to be better runners?
Why do you answer questions with questions? What ideas did "Sub 150" talk about that I missed?
To answer your questions:
Better runners have more success, so the motivation to dope is less than for the one who is always losing.
I can't know better runners were doped to be better runners without correlated doping/performance data. Without data, it cannot be knowledge, so remains speculative.
I didn't say I don't do research, I said I don't do research for others - so you show in a stroke you can't follow a point being made, or you are a liar who deliberately misrepresents what someone else says.
You haven't read all the studies in the subject of doping or you wouldn't make the misleading claim that "few athletes say doping goes uncovered". Few athletes admit to doping or acknowledge its presence but that doesn't change the fact that 1% of tests are positive yet many more dope who aren't caught. This is shown by confidential athlete surveys and is confirmed by WADA and other experts on antidoping. But you won't read what you don't want to know.
You don't have to say anything -- we can infer a great deal from the quality of your posts how well your claims are supported by research.
One major flaw in looking at positive test rates is that a 1% positive tests doesn't give us the percentage of tested athletes busted, nor the percentage of dopers caught. Simple but illustrative example: if 10 athletes are tested 10 times, and 1% of the tests are positive, they caught 1 out of 10 athletes, or 10% of the tested athletes, with the 1% positive test success rate. If we assume 20% prevalence, then 50% of the dopers were caught by the 1% positive test success rate.
Adding one layer of complexity, let's consider a second group of 10 athletes who are never tested, because they never win. If we still assume prevalence is 20%, the 1% positive test rate caught 50% of the dopers tested, and 25% of the total dopers, but the dopers that always lose will always get away with their doping.
The reality is more complicated, with intelligent targeted testing and prioritizing winners leading to non-uniform testing, as well as false positives and inadvertant doping, but we shouldn't be misled by something that the 1% figure isn't telling us.
The recent published athlete surveys studies provided us a range of estimates from 20% to 45%, and the researchers raised many questions they cannot answer, regarding whether the survey results should be considered reliably accurate. Empirically, anonymity doesn't guarantee survey honesty -- indeed a popular assumption is that survey estimates are still too low because of protective dishonest responses despite anonymity -- nor do they guarantee fully addressing survey apathy which often leads to automatic responding.
This post was edited 5 minutes after it was posted.
Why would middle of the pack runners dope but better runners don't? All are doping for the same reason - to succeed. How do you also know that the "better" runners aren't doped to be better runners?
Why do you answer questions with questions? What ideas did "Sub 150" talk about that I missed?
To answer your questions:
Better runners have more success, so the motivation to dope is less than for the one who is always losing.
I can't know better runners were doped to be better runners without correlated doping/performance data. Without data, it cannot be knowledge, so remains speculative.
Better runners also have to compete against better runners, so the motivation to dope remains.
Yes - you don't know whether "better" runners doped to be better. So you can't claim they didn't dope. They may have.
I didn't say I don't do research, I said I don't do research for others - so you show in a stroke you can't follow a point being made, or you are a liar who deliberately misrepresents what someone else says.
You haven't read all the studies in the subject of doping or you wouldn't make the misleading claim that "few athletes say doping goes uncovered". Few athletes admit to doping or acknowledge its presence but that doesn't change the fact that 1% of tests are positive yet many more dope who aren't caught. This is shown by confidential athlete surveys and is confirmed by WADA and other experts on antidoping. But you won't read what you don't want to know.
You don't have to say anything -- we can infer a great deal from the quality of your posts how well your claims are supported by research.
One major flaw in looking at positive test rates is that a 1% positive tests doesn't give us the percentage of tested athletes busted, nor the percentage of dopers caught. Simple but illustrative example: if 10 athletes are tested 10 times, and 1% of the tests are positive, they caught 1 out of 10 athletes, or 10% of the tested athletes, with the 1% positive test success rate. If we assume 20% prevalence, then 50% of the dopers were caught by the 1% positive test success rate.
Adding one layer of complexity, let's consider a second group of 10 athletes who are never tested, because they never win. If we still assume prevalence is 20%, the 1% positive test rate caught 50% of the dopers tested, and 25% of the total dopers, but the dopers that always lose will always get away with their doping.
The reality is more complicated, with intelligent targeted testing and prioritizing winners leading to non-uniform testing, as well as false positives and inadvertant doping, but we shouldn't be misled by something that the 1% figure isn't telling us.
The recent published athlete surveys studies provided us a range of estimates from 20% to 45%, and the researchers raised many questions they cannot answer, regarding whether the survey results should be considered reliably accurate. Empirically, anonymity doesn't guarantee survey honesty -- indeed a popular assumption is that survey estimates are still too low because of protective dishonest responses despite anonymity -- nor do they guarantee fully addressing survey apathy which often leads to automatic responding.
An impressive array of statistics with quite a bit of conjecture; it amounts to little more than speculation on your part - you know, the thing you accuse others of.
Why do you answer questions with questions? What ideas did "Sub 150" talk about that I missed?
To answer your questions:
Better runners have more success, so the motivation to dope is less than for the one who is always losing.
I can't know better runners were doped to be better runners without correlated doping/performance data. Without data, it cannot be knowledge, so remains speculative.
Better runners also have to compete against better runners, so the motivation to dope remains.
Yes - you don't know whether "better" runners doped to be better. So you can't claim they didn't dope. They may have.
But worse runners have higher motivation (see "Sub 150"'s story about his temptation), intuitively contradicting any notion that "most of the stupid and careless are at the top".
I never claimed better runners didn't dope. On the contrary, I often claim some fraction of all athletes dope, but we usually don't know who, regardless of their level.
I also claim you don't know that doping made them any better, with the possible exception of non-blinded placebo effect and the possible exception of women on steroids.
An impressive array of statistics with quite a bit of conjecture; it amounts to little more than speculation on your part - you know, the thing you accuse others of.
I know that too many numbers in even the simplest illustrative example overflows your buffers. This is intended for others who can understand the numbers in the context of a simple example chosen for easy calculations.
My illustrative example doesn't even rise to speculation, but cautions against a common pitfall. I have shown that you must be careful how to interpret "1%", and not compare apples with oranges and bananas while ignoring that pears are also relevant but weren't included. Percentages are a unitless fraction of something, which needs to be well understood the same way by all parties, and care needs to be taken that you are not comparing something with something else that is not comparable. 1% of something could be 50%, or 20%, of something else.
Confidential surveys have proven that nearly all doping is detected.
No, they haven't. "Detected" doesn't mean confidentially admitted; it means caught. It is the opposite of that - they aren't being caught. If it were otherwise there would have been no news and we could have all slept safely in our beds. But the surveys showed most dopers get away with it.
Better runners also have to compete against better runners, so the motivation to dope remains.
Yes - you don't know whether "better" runners doped to be better. So you can't claim they didn't dope. They may have.
But worse runners have higher motivation (see "Sub 150"'s story about his temptation), intuitively contradicting any notion that "most of the stupid and careless are at the top".
I never claimed better runners didn't dope. On the contrary, I often claim some fraction of all athletes dope, but we usually don't know who, regardless of their level.
I also claim you don't know that doping made them any better, with the possible exception of non-blinded placebo effect and the possible exception of women on steroids.
Wrong again. "Worse" runners don't have higher motivation, because their chances of beating better runners - who also dope - is less, whereas better runners who dope have a better chance of winning and thus can be more motivated. You will tie yourself in every kind of absurd knot to deny doping.
Your last comment is your oft-repeated absurdity, which is your refusal to accept that doping (and not placebos) actually enhances performance. If it didn't enhance performance doping wouldn't exist.
This post was edited 35 seconds after it was posted.
An impressive array of statistics with quite a bit of conjecture; it amounts to little more than speculation on your part - you know, the thing you accuse others of.
I know that too many numbers in even the simplest illustrative example overflows your buffers. This is intended for others who can understand the numbers in the context of a simple example chosen for easy calculations.
My illustrative example doesn't even rise to speculation, but cautions against a common pitfall. I have shown that you must be careful how to interpret "1%", and not compare apples with oranges and bananas while ignoring that pears are also relevant but weren't included. Percentages are a unitless fraction of something, which needs to be well understood the same way by all parties, and care needs to be taken that you are not comparing something with something else that is not comparable. 1% of something could be 50%, or 20%, of something else.
Here’s the uncomfortable truth a lot of people don’t want to sit with: in a zero-sum sport where the rewards come fast and the audits come late, doping isn’t a weird outlier. It is a predictable outcome of the way the system is built.
Forget the statistical minutiae wars for a minute. Think about incentives and basic human behavior. In college track, the payoff for a sudden jump in performance is massive. Scholarships, roster spots, NIL money, admissions leverage, pro interest, coach security. All of that is concentrated in a tiny window of time. Conference. Regionals. Nationals. One hot month can change an athlete’s entire trajectory.
Now think about the other side of the ledger. Testing in the NCAA is patchy compared to true year-round, out-of-competition Olympic-pool surveillance. Most athletes never see a dawn knock. Championships testing is predictable. When the chance of getting caught feels low and the penalty lands, if at all, after the big payoff has already hit, the “rational” move tilts toward risk.
The culture makes it easier. Recovery clinics, supplement stacks, fuzzy TUE norms, a million little “legal” edges that start to blur into something else. Once the line is blurry, it is easier to step over it. Teammates don’t turn on each other. Coaches lean on plausible deniability. Everyone tells themselves they are just keeping up.
The calendar pushes kids to the edge too. Heavy race loads, short turnarounds, travel, classes, and the pressure to PR on command. If you can recover faster, handle more quality, and show up fresher than the person in the next lane, you win. That is not a moral argument. It is just how competition works. Success compounds. One juiced breakthrough boosts recruiting and fundraising and buys time for a staff. The next class arrives inside a culture that equates “doing everything it takes” with being a pro. It becomes an arms race. If your rivals are willing to color outside the lines and you are not, you either accept losing or you adapt.
We do not need decimal-point debates to see where this goes. In any environment where the benefits of cutting corners arrive immediately, the odds of getting caught feel low, and the community quietly rewards outcomes more than methods, rule-breaking will be common. Sports are not exempt from that.
So is NCAA doping likely prevalent? If you model the incentives instead of the statistics, yes. Not because athletes are uniquely immoral, but because they are human, ambitious, and living inside structures that prize results today and accountability tomorrow. Change the incentives with real independent year-round testing, protection and rewards for whistleblowers, and program-level liability, and the behavior will change. Until then, arguing over statistical probabilities just distracts from the obvious. People respond to incentives, and the current stack all but invites shortcuts.
But worse runners have higher motivation (see "Sub 150"'s story about his temptation), intuitively contradicting any notion that "most of the stupid and careless are at the top".
I never claimed better runners didn't dope. On the contrary, I often claim some fraction of all athletes dope, but we usually don't know who, regardless of their level.
I also claim you don't know that doping made them any better, with the possible exception of non-blinded placebo effect and the possible exception of women on steroids.
Assume only worse runners have an incentive to dope. Take the athlete ranked number two. A small gain could flip silver to gold, a contract bonus triggers, a title cements a career. The expected payoff from even a tiny improvement is huge, so number two has an incentive. That already contradicts the premise.
Push it one step closer. Take the athlete ranked number one but without a world record. A small gain creates a record, adds legacy, and protects against the next challenger. That athlete also has an incentive. Another contradiction.
Keep climbing this ladder and you end up here. The only athlete who could have zero incentive is a runner who is both clean and already at a level where no improvement yields additional payoff, no rival can catch them, and variance cannot knock them off on the day. In other words, a theoretical clean world record holder who believes their mark is untouchable and their status is perfectly safe.
That is the logical endpoint. Everyone else, from national qualifier to medal favorite, faces nonzero upside from any edge that increases the chance of winning or insures against bad days. Which means the premise collapses. Incentive does not live only at the bottom. It exists everywhere except, in theory, at the vanishing point of a clean, untouchable WR.
I know that too many numbers in even the simplest illustrative example overflows your buffers. This is intended for others who can understand the numbers in the context of a simple example chosen for easy calculations.
My illustrative example doesn't even rise to speculation, but cautions against a common pitfall. I have shown that you must be careful how to interpret "1%", and not compare apples with oranges and bananas while ignoring that pears are also relevant but weren't included. Percentages are a unitless fraction of something, which needs to be well understood the same way by all parties, and care needs to be taken that you are not comparing something with something else that is not comparable. 1% of something could be 50%, or 20%, of something else.
Assume only worse runners have an incentive to dope. Take the athlete ranked number two. A small gain could flip silver to gold, a contract bonus triggers, a title cements a career. The expected payoff from even a tiny improvement is huge, so number two has an incentive. That already contradicts the premise.
Push it one step closer. Take the athlete ranked number one but without a world record. A small gain creates a record, adds legacy, and protects against the next challenger. That athlete also has an incentive. Another contradiction.
Keep climbing this ladder and you end up here. The only athlete who could have zero incentive is a runner who is both clean and already at a level where no improvement yields additional payoff, no rival can catch them, and variance cannot knock them off on the day. In other words, a theoretical clean world record holder who believes their mark is untouchable and their status is perfectly safe.
That is the logical endpoint. Everyone else, from national qualifier to medal favorite, faces nonzero upside from any edge that increases the chance of winning or insures against bad days. Which means the premise collapses. Incentive does not live only at the bottom. It exists everywhere except, in theory, at the vanishing point of a clean, untouchable WR.
I don't use exclusive words like "only" because it is a broad spectrum, dependent on human nature and not level of talent, and I tend to agree with what you describe here, which contradicts any notion that such stupid and careless dopers are mostly at the top, but rather can be found distributed throughout.
This post was edited 31 seconds after it was posted.
Wrong again. "Worse" runners don't have higher motivation, because their chances of beating better runners - who also dope - is less, whereas better runners who dope have a better chance of winning and thus can be more motivated. You will tie yourself in every kind of absurd knot to deny doping.
Your last comment is your oft-repeated absurdity, which is your refusal to accept that doping (and not placebos) actually enhances performance. If it didn't enhance performance doping wouldn't exist.
Better runners have a better chance of winning without doping.
I don't deny doping but affirm doping occurs at the top, middle, and bottom. Everyone can be tempted with the hope that doping is the thing they need to do better.
I could be persuaded that most dopers are at the top, if you had reliable doping data for the top, middle, and bottom to enable such a comparison. So far in this thread, you pointed to championship surveys, which, at best, only provides data for the top. I'm waiting for the rest of the data in order to make the comparison necessary to conclude "most".
I could be persuaded that doping actually enhances performance in addition to placebo effect, if you had reliable data for real performances, rather than some hopeful rationalization.
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