People called me ridiculous for saying doping is very common in colllege

forest for the tree wrote:

The strength of the incentive doesn’t peak at the bottom of the sport, it usually gets bigger as you move up. A 15:00 5k guy who dopes to run 14:00 might get more local status, some bragging rights, maybe a small deal. Nice, but not life changing. A 13:30 guy who dopes to go under 13:00 is suddenly in the mix for Olympic teams, global finals, big contracts, appearance fees, and long term financial security. The same rough performance gain has a completely different payoff depending on where you sit.

That is why it never makes sense to talk as if incentive mostly belongs to weaker athletes. The payoff curve gets steeper near the top. A tiny improvement at that level can move someone from “very good” to “career defining.” So sure, you can find dopers at every tier, from hobby jogger to world class. That is not in conflict with the basic point, which is that incentive does not live only at the bottom. It is present almost everywhere the result matters, and it is often most intense exactly where the stakes and rewards are highest.

forest for the tree wrote:

You keep saying you’d be persuaded that doping actually boosts performance beyond placebo if there were “reliable data from real performances” instead of hopeful rationalization. The problem is your bar for “real” is basically set at “impossible.”

We already have double blind, placebo controlled EPO studies in trained runners and cyclists. They measure real stuff that matters: hemoglobin mass, VO2max, time to exhaustion, and actual time trials. The EPO group usually improves time trial performance by around 3–6 percent over a few weeks. Both groups get injections, both think they might be on the real thing, only one group is. That is literally how you remove placebo from the equation. The extra gain in the EPO group is not just people “hoping” to be faster.

What we do not have, and never will, is “let’s randomize Olympic finalists into EPO vs saline and see who medals.” If that is your minimum standard for “reliable data,” then you have built yourself a position where no evidence can ever satisfy you. That is not scientific caution, that is just moving the goalposts off the field.

If you want a real world example on top of the lab data, look at Cathal Lombard. His 5k went from 13:58 to 13:19 in the period that overlaps his admitted EPO use. That is roughly a 4–5 percent improvement, which is right in the same ballpark as those controlled EPO studies over 3k time trials. His 10k went from 30:35 to 27:33, more than three minutes off and over a 10 percent jump, in an event where he had clearly been underperforming relative to his 5k. He starts using EPO, focuses on 10k, and suddenly he is running an Irish record and making championships.

No one sane is saying 100 percent of that is the drug and 0 percent is training, race setup, or luck. But pretending it is “no better than placebo” is just as delusional in the opposite direction. His 5k progression looks exactly like the kind of gain you would expect from EPO plus sharpened training. His 10k progression looks like what happens when you put that same combo into an event where there was a huge amount of time left on the table.

rekrunner wrote:

forest for the tree wrote:

You keep saying you’d be persuaded that doping actually boosts performance beyond placebo if there were “reliable data from real performances” instead of hopeful rationalization. The problem is your bar for “real” is basically set at “impossible.”

We already have double blind, placebo controlled EPO studies in trained runners and cyclists. They measure real stuff that matters: hemoglobin mass, VO2max, time to exhaustion, and actual time trials. The EPO group usually improves time trial performance by around 3–6 percent over a few weeks. Both groups get injections, both think they might be on the real thing, only one group is. That is literally how you remove placebo from the equation. The extra gain in the EPO group is not just people “hoping” to be faster.

What we do not have, and never will, is “let’s randomize Olympic finalists into EPO vs saline and see who medals.” If that is your minimum standard for “reliable data,” then you have built yourself a position where no evidence can ever satisfy you. That is not scientific caution, that is just moving the goalposts off the field.

If you want a real world example on top of the lab data, look at Cathal Lombard. His 5k went from 13:58 to 13:19 in the period that overlaps his admitted EPO use. That is roughly a 4–5 percent improvement, which is right in the same ballpark as those controlled EPO studies over 3k time trials. His 10k went from 30:35 to 27:33, more than three minutes off and over a 10 percent jump, in an event where he had clearly been underperforming relative to his 5k. He starts using EPO, focuses on 10k, and suddenly he is running an Irish record and making championships.

No one sane is saying 100 percent of that is the drug and 0 percent is training, race setup, or luck. But pretending it is “no better than placebo” is just as delusional in the opposite direction. His 5k progression looks exactly like the kind of gain you would expect from EPO plus sharpened training. His 10k progression looks like what happens when you put that same combo into an event where there was a huge amount of time left on the table.

Regarding studies, I did not set the height of the bar, or build or move any goalposts, but adopted the ones we have used for centuries, since the Age of Enlightment, if not millenia, since the time of the Ancient Greek philosopers.

The difficulty in clearing the bar, or making the goal, does not make arguments that fail stronger. It is correct to conclude that such arguments are weak, because they lack objective data and controlled observations.

I disagree that "hemoglobin mass, VO2max, time to exhaustion" are "real stuff that matters". These are proxy substitutes for the "real stuff". You can also add "peak power".

In a lab setting, a running time trial is most relevant to running, but only when the design and execution mimics what an athlete does in both training and racing. This should last at least one cycle of off-season build-up to in season training to the end of season peak. Even better would be several annual follow-ups. This may be difficult or impossible, but would provide the most meaningful data.

I'm wholly unaware of any "double blind, placebo controlled EPO studies in trained runners" that show improved "time trial performance by around 3–6 percent over a few weeks", unless you can provide me with a few specific examples. In any case, a short term study lasting a few weeks culminating in a time-trial with no incentive to win, is not representative of how athletes train to peak for a race. And comparing the final time trial to an initial time trial is not interesting. The comparison should be between final time trials of the doped group and the control group. A bonus would be a comparison with a third altitude trained group.

Cathal Lombard also made several changes in his training, reducing volume and increasing intensity, and changing his coach. These changes confound any conclusion about EPO, minus any non-blinded placebo effect. His performance improvements can be compared to "wejo"'s performance improvements, after competing 5 years at university, and then making drastic changes in his training. See his "Why I sucked in College" essay linked on the homepage.

But even if we accept that EPO significantly helped Lombard, this cannot be generalized to all athletes who have experienced breakthroughs.

While I am skeptical of studies with many limitations, I do not require data to only come from studies.

Besides double-blind controlled studies and cherry-picked anecdotes, one set of data I would find persuasive is an indication of the existence of a correlation between known or suspected doping of a population and better performances. For example, comparing the best Russian (or Soviet for Coevett) performances with the best Japanese performances. This was my motivation for reviewing a list of all-time performances, and looking for any significant signs of better performance among groups known or suspected to dope. Outside of women known or suspected to be doping with steroids, I found no obvious indications, but did get a lot of rationalizations why I shouldn't expect to find them the way I looked.

forest for the tree wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

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.

You keep saying you’d be persuaded that doping actually boosts performance beyond placebo if there were “reliable data from real performances” instead of hopeful rationalization. The problem is your bar for “real” is basically set at “impossible.”

We already have double blind, placebo controlled EPO studies in trained runners and cyclists. They measure real stuff that matters: hemoglobin mass, VO2max, time to exhaustion, and actual time trials. The EPO group usually improves time trial performance by around 3–6 percent over a few weeks. Both groups get injections, both think they might be on the real thing, only one group is. That is literally how you remove placebo from the equation. The extra gain in the EPO group is not just people “hoping” to be faster.

What we do not have, and never will, is “let’s randomize Olympic finalists into EPO vs saline and see who medals.” If that is your minimum standard for “reliable data,” then you have built yourself a position where no evidence can ever satisfy you. That is not scientific caution, that is just moving the goalposts off the field.

If you want a real world example on top of the lab data, look at Cathal Lombard. His 5k went from 13:58 to 13:19 in the period that overlaps his admitted EPO use. That is roughly a 4–5 percent improvement, which is right in the same ballpark as those controlled EPO studies over 3k time trials. His 10k went from 30:35 to 27:33, more than three minutes off and over a 10 percent jump, in an event where he had clearly been underperforming relative to his 5k. He starts using EPO, focuses on 10k, and suddenly he is running an Irish record and making championships.

No one sane is saying 100 percent of that is the drug and 0 percent is training, race setup, or luck. But pretending it is “no better than placebo” is just as delusional in the opposite direction. His 5k progression looks exactly like the kind of gain you would expect from EPO plus sharpened training. His 10k progression looks like what happens when you put that same combo into an event where there was a huge amount of time left on the table.

rekrunner wrote:

forest for the tree wrote:

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.

forest for the tree wrote:

The strength of the incentive doesn’t peak at the bottom of the sport, it usually gets bigger as you move up. A 15:00 5k guy who dopes to run 14:00 might get more local status, some bragging rights, maybe a small deal. Nice, but not life changing. A 13:30 guy who dopes to go under 13:00 is suddenly in the mix for Olympic teams, global finals, big contracts, appearance fees, and long term financial security. The same rough performance gain has a completely different payoff depending on where you sit.

That is why it never makes sense to talk as if incentive mostly belongs to weaker athletes. The payoff curve gets steeper near the top. A tiny improvement at that level can move someone from “very good” to “career defining.” So sure, you can find dopers at every tier, from hobby jogger to world class. That is not in conflict with the basic point, which is that incentive does not live only at the bottom. It is present almost everywhere the result matters, and it is often most intense exactly where the stakes and rewards are highest.