Why is altitude training acceptable but EPO isn't?

The constant threat of lawsuits is a new one for Jon. I guess he's finally trying some new things.

We've got defamation instead of thermoregulation. Should be good for the next 19 years.

Everyone's an expert. wrote:

There is no reason for anyone with healthy hematology to inject EPO. So why glorify it?

That's why I ask the question "what is the optimal number of red blood cells?"

Nobody on this thread is capable of discussing this in a non sensational way. So all this moralizing is phoney and an abuse of young peoples' educational needs.

Did you see my response earlier, with the details of the hi-lo study at 4 different altitudes, and a link to the study itself?

If someone had answered a 7% increase from a sea-level is optimal, you can now point them to that hi-lo altitude study and show them that a 7% increase in RBC count, and a 2-5% increase in VO2max, resulted in no significant improvement in a 3000m time trial, for 2 out of 4 groups, and we have to look beyond red blood cells and oxygen, for other mechanisms, or other variables, to explain the different performances.

But the fact is that 2 groups did improve -- what are your non-sensational thoughts on the different outcomes between the 4 groups, as a function of elevation?

I've never heard of anyone having to sleep with a heartrate monitor linked up to an alarm because of altitude training. The same cannot be said for EPO.

People forget that it's not just the performance enhancing properties of a drug that get it put on the banned list.

The OP's question is dumb. The subsequent thread, which I didn't even read, has about a 100 percent chance of being dumb.

Without going to much into the phisiological differences between artificial Epo hormon and the natural production of Epo living and training at high altitude (2000-2600) the reason is very logic. If I live and train in altitude I m doing a natural thing. And I will have sure a boost in my performance if I train in that high altitude but I know that the benefit is the same for everybody training there. Some runners sure will have better results than others with altitude training.

Now if I take artificial Epo everything is out of control. Imagine that EPO is legal. Lets go back to years early 90's till 1996. Well, EPO in that period of time was basically free, there were no limit to his use, except the advice of some "doctors". In those years , we know now, some professional cyclist have HTC high as 60% !!!!! While a marathoner or a Tour de France cyclist without Epo has HTC in the low 40's,% We know that we hard training HTC will go down. To me even a 47%/48% value in a endurance athlete is very very suspicious ! People that 2 years before had trouble to keep the pace on any given hill , then suddenly won Tour de France. Some hill climbing record (like Mortirolo) are still from 1996. Of course without any rule , the risk is high at 60% the blood is very very thick and no way natural. So is not even possible to compare Epo with altitude training. First is artificial and no matter how with few injection will make your blood red cell increase also living at sea level. The second is a natural process of adaptation of the body living to a higher altitude , all over the world there are people that live at high altitude since centuries Rift Valley, Nepal , Colombia , Bolivia , Mexico ecc.. so is something natural and no way dangerous, while Epo is artificial, greater benefit for the performance, also greater risk for the health

stan the corgi wrote:

The one tiny little glitch not mentioned here re EPO is that if it is not closely monitored, the viscosity of the blood may become too thick resulting in death.

+1

HRE wrote:

Do you have a link to the exact quote where Ron said EPO was fine? I recall that he said he thought there should be ways for athletes not from altitude to even out the playing field but do not recall any specifics about how that would be done. I do not recall any comment about EPO being fine. But I could have missed it and if he said such a thing it is not consistent with that particular e-mail. I do recall a later statement where he said people had misinterpreted his comment about aiding low altitude athletes but can't recall how or if he clarified it. If you've got something I'd be interested. Maybe he did say such a thing and then changed his mind.

Former middle-distance runner

Ron Clarke, one of Australia’s

most revered sporting figures, has

launched an unexpected defence of

drug use in sport.

Clarke told the Australian

Associated Press (AAP) on

Wednesday that athletes should

be permitted to use performanceenhancing drugs, including steroids

and EPO, as long as they did not

harm their health.

‘If it’s not dangerous, no (it

should not be banned), it just

levels the playing field,’ Clarke was

quoted as saying.

‘As soon as something comes

along like EPO … they’ll say it’s

a drug and you can’t use it (but)

it’s the only thing that levels the

playing field.’

Clarke, a former multiple

world record holder who retired in

1970, said athletes born at sea level

should be allowed to use drugs to

give them a fairer chance against

competitors raised at altitude.

‘There are two competitions in

the world, the altitude runners and

the others,’ he said.

‘I’m not advocating drugs, I’m

saying until there is a drug, there

won’t be any parity in any future

competition.

‘We’ll never break another

world record by our sea level

athletes from 1,500m or above for

another century.’

Clarke broke numerous world

records during his glittering career

but never won the Olympic gold

medal.

BBC Sport online, 3 July 2002

Yup. More gaslighting. You "stand by both statements" because "they say the same thing". Surely one of them is therefore redundant? You are effectively saying they are simply the same statement but repeated in a different guise. (They aren't. Your second statement is an attempted evasion from the claim you cannot substantiate in the first. This is what liars do). If this is yet another demonstration of your "intellect", I am relieved that you don't include me as your peer. But I knew that anyway. I'm not sure if you are anybody's. And there are some very dull instruments here.

Armstronglivs wrote:

Yup. More gaslighting. You "stand by both statements" because "they say the same thing". Surely one of them is therefore redundant? You are effectively saying they are simply the same statement but repeated in a different guise. (They aren't. Your second statement is an attempted evasion from the claim you cannot substantiate in the first. This is what liars do). If this is yet another demonstration of your "intellect", I am relieved that you don't include me as your peer. But I knew that anyway. I'm not sure if you are anybody's. And there are some very dull instruments here.

You are playing a childish game -- which speaks for itself.

You explicitly asked me for my opinion. If you genuinely want to know what my opinion is, then you must accept my answer, and not yours. It is not a topic up for debate.

As it is clearly an opinion, I feel no obligation to substantiate it, and therefore, no motivation exists to evade substantiating it.

This lack of obligation should be even more obvious as you asked me to answer a question where there is no data to substantiate any response.

The only opinion you ever offer is to say - at great length - that you have given an opinion. There is never an answer in that "opinion". A fart contains more substance.

I would add that whenever you make a statement about doping you are demonstrably wrong - which is why you have to keep changing your statement when your falsehood is kindly pointed out.

Renato ‘Bluesky’ Canova

Armstronglivs wrote:

The only opinion you ever offer is to say - at great length - that you have given an opinion. There is never an answer in that "opinion". A fart contains more substance.

I remind you that you asked a question where there is no substance to support any response.

My original statement was very short.

Armstronglivs wrote:

I would add that whenever you make a statement about doping you are demonstrably wrong - which is why you have to keep changing your statement when your falsehood is kindly pointed out.

Wait what? Statement about doping? I made a statement about "legal hi-lo altitude training". Are you switching goalposts?

It's long past time to put up or shut up.

Nothing would make me happier if you could ever demonstrate a contradiction -- of my own words.

How often have I asked you for "facts and real world observations", only to leave that discussion with nothing more illuminating than childlike quips like "A fart contains more substance."

A reminder, my original words included "can be achieved" -- indicating a possibility.

I added words "possibly among many potential equals" -- again, indicating a possibility.

I indicate them as possibilities, rather than certainties, because there is uncertainty where there is no data.

Your manipulations falsely excluded possibilities that I did not.

You created the lie, when you altered my words, and drew conclusions from your alterations.

Now you insist these possibilities explicitly stated in my opinions are demonstrably wrong.

If my opinions are indeed falsehoods and demonstrably wrong, does that mean that you, or someone else, can show that one or both of these possibilities are, in fact, impossible?

I eagerly await these demonstrations of impossibility, or any other demonstrations of alleged wrongness.

Like every scientist, the true goal of science is to actively seek demonstrations of contradictions, because that is when true learning happens.

I have a theory that you reveal yourself every time you accuse me of something, or call me names.

It's like the pot calling the kettle black, except that on planet Earth, I am stainless steel.

For example, when you accuse me of gaslighting, it is itself an instance of you gaslighting.

To hide the fact that you are the liar, you call me a liar.

To hide the fact that you constantly construct false goalposts, you accuse me of moving goalposts.

You have spent 6 pages arguing with me that you know my opinion better than I do.

This follows a long standing pattern of speaking with a false authority on topics you truly know nothing about.

"In my opinion, the maximum performance benefit can be achieved with legal hi-lo altitude training, not only for elites, but for amateurs too".[/quote]

Those were your words, in response to a question about the benefits of EPO. There was no ambiguity in your answer. Your opinion is unequivocal - the maximum performance benefit is achievable through altitude-training, which necessarily means that doping cannot achieve that maximum.

When asked, you could not substantiate that claim. Nor could you identify what you say is the maximum obtainable level of benefit. That has not deterred you from spending the rest of the thread trying to say you were saying something else. That of course is a lie. Gaslighting at its finest.

Thanks. How did you find that? If you take the meaning literally he said "something like EPO,"

not "EPO." And he says things like that should be allowed as long as they don't harm people's health. The main reason PEDs are outlawed is because of their potential to harm people's health. So I'd read the comment as saying EPO and steroids should be outlawed because of their potential to harm someone's health, but if someone were to create something that does what they do with no potential health hazards it should be okay. If you want to use this comment as advocating legalization for things like EPO and steroids you need to navigate around the bit where he says "I'm not advocating drugs."

Armstronglivs wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

"In my opinion, the maximum performance benefit can be achieved with legal hi-lo altitude training, not only for elites, but for amateurs too".

Those were your words, in response to a question about the benefits of EPO. There was no ambiguity in your answer. Your opinion is unequivocal - the maximum performance benefit is achievable through altitude-training, which necessarily means that doping cannot achieve that maximum.

When asked, you could not substantiate that claim. Nor could you identify what you say is the maximum obtainable level of benefit. That has not deterred you from spending the rest of the thread trying to say you were saying something else. That of course is a lie. Gaslighting at its finest.

The first paragraph is mine. It is not ambiguous.

The modifications and logic in the second paragraph are yours.

I cannot vouch for yours as they introduce errors not present in my original statement.

You responded as if I wrote "can only be achieved".

The resulting misunderstandings, errors, and flawed logic are entirely yours.

But something has changed -- this is the first time you used the word "achievable" in your modified claims.

This more closely matches my opinion, but then your logic completely fails.

Why did you need to revise and dilute your previous claim?

How many more infinite variations are you going to produce, as you keep shifting the goalposts?

Maximum: "as high as possible".

Seriously, when I subscribed to these forums I had great hope to see beautiful things and Tracks and Fields for me was more like a dream of champions.

But I was quickly disillusioned.

The discussion in these transformed in a nightmare of reciprocal accusation of doping.

Almost no runner in the world was spared from accusation and bad reputation.

One thing which I find really bad it that some countries are attacked more than others. Especially East Africa and North Africa.

I will tell you something. Most African that dope do it in Europe.

You know why, because of the economic and social system that encourage it.

The more there is material and social difference in a system, the more the behavior of persons become evil.

You've taken to talking in your sleep.

HRE wrote:

Thanks. How did you find that? If you take the meaning literally he said "something like EPO,"

not "EPO." And he says things like that should be allowed as long as they don't harm people's health. The main reason PEDs are outlawed is because of their potential to harm people's health. So I'd read the comment as saying EPO and steroids should be outlawed because of their potential to harm someone's health, but if someone were to create something that does what they do with no potential health hazards it should be okay. If you want to use this comment as advocating legalization for things like EPO and steroids you need to navigate around the bit where he says "I'm not advocating drugs."

I used what is known as Google.

You're twisting into knots to avoid the truth of what Clarke said. He walked it back to avoid backlash.