WADA's process isn't "highly subjective". It is based on expert advice about what the banned substances do. What else should they rely on? Your advice?
If WADA's judgment about a substance is either incorrect or unfair, and this was demonstrated by other experts, like athletes, we would see WADA remove a substance from the banned list. Remind me of when this has happened, and which experts and which athletes have said EPO shouldn't be on the banned list?
Your argument about relying on experts is bizarre.
The experts agree that bicarbonate is a potent ergogenic aid to middle distance performance. It's not controversial. It's been established for 50 years. But you don't believe those experts. Instead, you want to believe in some fictional experts who exist in your head. According to you, there are a bunch of experts at WADA who must have decided that bicarb doesn't work. You don't know who these experts are. They've never said anything about bicarb. Yet your confidence that they exist and that they agree with you is somehow a reason to conclude that a longstanding scientific consensus supported by studies going back decades is wrong.
No one until the last year or so has talked about the benefits of bicarb in the sport despite it being used, as you said, for decades. When the antidoping process was set up to try to prevent athletes obtaining advantage from substances they use why would they give bicarb a pass unless WADA considered its benefits to be unconvincing or insignificant? That of course is quite apart from the fact that although bicarb has been used for 50 years the times run then by the world's best were schoolboy level today. Some ped. (And, yes, athletes trained in the 70s, 80s and 90s till today. So, on to the "shoes" - yawn.)
I have never denied doping is present in the sport. I do seriously doubt that a new drug(s) pervaded every level of the sport, thousands of athletes deep from middle and high schoolers all the way to top pros in the span of 2 years. Especially when there was a technology introduced at that time that has been shown in multiple studies to improve performance on par with the changes we are seeing.
Do you really believe that middle/high schoolers suddenly got a hold of the latest performance drugs en masse?
For comparison, it is clear now that EPO dramatically changed the record books in the 90s. But high school and college race times barely changed. A lot of world class athletes saw it happening, but did not know the drug (LeMond, Kennedy, etc).
Yet you are claiming that EVERYONE in the sport knows some new drug cocktail and is using it while WADA, whom you believe know all regarding performance enhancement, are completely clueless and could not be expected to to know anything.
So which thing seems more plausible: A known technology that is easily accessible and known performance enhancer that came out when the race times dropped is the root cause. No athlete use the old technology now. OR There is an open secret drug cocktail that nobody has leaked outside of the 100s of thousands of users who adopted it in the span of 2 years.
Gosh, when I say it like that, you sound like a total conspiracy theory crackpot.
I have never denied doping is present in the sport. I do seriously doubt that a new drug(s) pervaded every level of the sport, thousands of athletes deep from middle and high schoolers all the way to top pros in the span of 2 years. Especially when there was a technology introduced at that time that has been shown in multiple studies to improve performance on par with the changes we are seeing.
Do you really believe that middle/high schoolers suddenly got a hold of the latest performance drugs en masse?
For comparison, it is clear now that EPO dramatically changed the record books in the 90s. But high school and college race times barely changed. A lot of world class athletes saw it happening, but did not know the drug (LeMond, Kennedy, etc).
Yet you are claiming that EVERYONE in the sport knows some new drug cocktail and is using it while WADA, whom you believe know all regarding performance enhancement, are completely clueless and could not be expected to to know anything.
So which thing seems more plausible: A known technology that is easily accessible and known performance enhancer that came out when the race times dropped is the root cause. No athlete use the old technology now. OR There is an open secret drug cocktail that nobody has leaked outside of the 100s of thousands of users who adopted it in the span of 2 years.
Gosh, when I say it like that, you sound like a total conspiracy theory crackpot.
FYI, Doping existed before and after the shoes. Unless there was a NEW drug or cocktail, there is no drug explanation for the obvious performance increases.
I have never denied doping is present in the sport. I do seriously doubt that a new drug(s) pervaded every level of the sport, thousands of athletes deep from middle and high schoolers all the way to top pros in the span of 2 years. Especially when there was a technology introduced at that time that has been shown in multiple studies to improve performance on par with the changes we are seeing.
Do you really believe that middle/high schoolers suddenly got a hold of the latest performance drugs en masse?
For comparison, it is clear now that EPO dramatically changed the record books in the 90s. But high school and college race times barely changed. A lot of world class athletes saw it happening, but did not know the drug (LeMond, Kennedy, etc).
Yet you are claiming that EVERYONE in the sport knows some new drug cocktail and is using it while WADA, whom you believe know all regarding performance enhancement, are completely clueless and could not be expected to to know anything.
So which thing seems more plausible: A known technology that is easily accessible and known performance enhancer that came out when the race times dropped is the root cause. No athlete use the old technology now. OR There is an open secret drug cocktail that nobody has leaked outside of the 100s of thousands of users who adopted it in the span of 2 years.
Gosh, when I say it like that, you sound like a total conspiracy theory crackpot.
FYI, Doping existed before and after the shoes. Unless there was a NEW drug or cocktail, there is no drug explanation for the obvious performance increases.
Drugs are being developed continuously. That is why WADA can't keep up with the dopers.
None of any of this supports the claim that the shoes are worth 5 seconds a mile. That is pure speculation. The absurdity of it is that it would mean El G's records convert to 3:21 for the 1500 and 3:38 for the mile if run in these shoes. Impossible. 5 seconds for a mile would also mean that the shoes are probably more potent performance enhancers than any drug. In which case doping would have been supplanted by the shoes. It hasn't. It is as prolific as ever, as Howman has pointed out.
None of any of this supports the claim that the shoes are worth 5 seconds a mile. That is pure speculation. The absurdity of it is that it would mean El G's records convert to 3:21 for the 1500 and 3:38 for the mile if run in these shoes. Impossible. 5 seconds for a mile would also mean that the shoes are probably more potent performance enhancers than any drug. In which case doping would have been supplanted by the shoes. It hasn't. It is as prolific as ever, as Howman has pointed out.
Only to someone who doesn't realize that you can't talk about what it was like to compete in conditions you never experienced.
Then you can't talk about doping, nor can you talk about running on synthetic tracks or in supershoes. You also can't talk about elite runners.
Yes, it was a stupid comment.
Well, that means you can't talk about anything at all if personal experience is necessary. You should take that advice and stay silent. However the point you missed was that it isn't credible to claim to know what it was like to run in conditions athletes today never experienced. I wasn't making any such claim, and nor do I claim to know what it is like to dope. But it is possible to observe the effects of doping. Something you've obviously never done.
None of any of this supports the claim that the shoes are worth 5 seconds a mile. That is pure speculation. The absurdity of it is that it would mean El G's records convert to 3:21 for the 1500 and 3:38 for the mile if run in these shoes. Impossible. 5 seconds for a mile would also mean that the shoes are probably more potent performance enhancers than any drug. In which case doping would have been supplanted by the shoes. It hasn't. It is as prolific as ever, as Howman has pointed out.
I have never denied doping is present in the sport. I do seriously doubt that a new drug(s) pervaded every level of the sport, thousands of athletes deep from middle and high schoolers all the way to top pros in the span of 2 years. Especially when there was a technology introduced at that time that has been shown in multiple studies to improve performance on par with the changes we are seeing.
Do you really believe that middle/high schoolers suddenly got a hold of the latest performance drugs en masse?
For comparison, it is clear now that EPO dramatically changed the record books in the 90s. But high school and college race times barely changed. A lot of world class athletes saw it happening, but did not know the drug (LeMond, Kennedy, etc).
Yet you are claiming that EVERYONE in the sport knows some new drug cocktail and is using it while WADA, whom you believe know all regarding performance enhancement, are completely clueless and could not be expected to to know anything.
So which thing seems more plausible: A known technology that is easily accessible and known performance enhancer that came out when the race times dropped is the root cause. No athlete use the old technology now. OR There is an open secret drug cocktail that nobody has leaked outside of the 100s of thousands of users who adopted it in the span of 2 years.
Gosh, when I say it like that, you sound like a total conspiracy theory crackpot.
In its report on doping Al Jazeera claimed that at any given time there are at least a hundred substances that athletes can use to enhance performances that WADA can't test for. This was from antidoping experts. It means athletes are obtaining drugs that can't be tested. WADA acknowledges this. Howman has said doping is always ahead of antidoping. He has added that athletes today are clearly getting away with it. So it doesn't have to be one particular drug that is aiding performances. The practice is so widespread that athletes have a basketful to choose from. If it wasn't so the practice would be easily controlled. But it isn't. The dopers easily remain ahead in the game. They have also long been able to mask their doping. This means that improvements in recent years cannot be attributed to the shoes because athletes are using drugs that are also continuously being developed. The shoes might aid performance but you can't separate that from the likelihood of drugs that are known to be present if not detected.