How come "epo time" marathon times were weak?

[quote]rekwalker wrote:

Yes. Race walking. I'll copy this at "letswalk.com/forum"

I think the Russian scandal gives us a clear indication of where drugs worked -- women's events and race walking.Even racehorses are in on the act! Time for the biological passport for horses. 😅

https://www.horsetalk.co.nz/2016/06/04/top-placed-endurance-horses-epo/#axzz4rkJiJAbn

Interestingly, the chart/diagram shows on Cofidis only four names, which only two are in red (presumably those caught). This team was doing horrendous drug cocktails and largely getting away with it (likely because others were better).

Indeed there are significant differences to athletics.Note repeat offenders like Armstrong and Ulrich are only counted once in the statistics, so don't abnormally skew percentages like 38% of athletes and 65% of athletes by double counting them.This is unlike Sunday Times statistics that counted percentages of medals won or London Marathon winners, which would inflate the percentages by multiple-booking the same athlete.In distance running events, unlike cycling, athletics has nothing close to 38% "confirmed dopers".The marathon (subject of this thread) have, for men, 0 in the top 10 (actually top 40) and 2 in the top 50 for men, and for women, 2 in the top 10, and 3 in the top 50.Women's shorter distance events like 1500m do have comparable percentage of "suspected dopers", but then the relevant question for this thread is, did the women run fast due to EPO (subject of this thread), or male hormones (confounder), or both?The Sunday Times analysis of "Seppelt's" data misleadingly lumped "highly likely" together with "at the very least abnormal" values. (Ashenden and Parisotto marked the values red "likely to be doping" and yellow "suspicious requiring further investigation" respectively). I'm not sure how well "at the very least abnormal" compares to "clear link" or "strongly suspected". But we have seen that altitude training (very common among top distance runners, especially East Africans), and improper collection and analysis of blood (before 2009) can make "abnormal" false positives.In the TDF in the Armstrong years, only 9 out of 70 (13%) "unblemished" riders could break into the top 10. Compare this to Sunday Times statistic that 89% of world championship or Olympic marathon medals were won by athletes who were never "at the very least abnormal".Of course, there are a lot of apples to oranges to bananas comparisons here, so take these differences for what they are worth:- The TDF statistics looks only at men, only at endurance -- specifically a grand tour lasting 3 weeks, and includes all doping- The "leaked blood" data looks at men and women, looked only at blood levels, which may or may not be doping- The Tuebingen (alt-129 doesn't work on my Macbook) questionnaires asked men and women, from all events presumably including sprints, fields, and race-walking, about ADRVs, which can include doping, as well as banned methods, failure to get a TUE with a genuine medical need, whereabouts failures, association with banned personnel, and recreational drug use like marijuana.

Strock's lawsuit was real. But you said "Armstrong was a drug-fueled athlete since Carmichael..." and we were talking about when Armstrong started using EPO specifically, and not drugs generally.I don't doubt Armstrong doped under Carmichael, but the article you asked me to read about Strock's lawsuit did not talk about Armstrong's doping.Here are some fun facts speaking to UCI's and IAAF's "sole authority":- USADA has complete authority to determine (and deny) the eligibility of US athletes, subject to WADA's code, to compete- USADA banned Lance for life, retroactively from 1998- UCI, as a WADA signatory, had no authority to overturn, modify, or ignore the ban- Their only alternative was to appeal the ban -- then CAS has the authority to overturn or modify the ban- Armstrong's lifelong ban applies to all "WADA" sports, even those not controlled by the UCI (apparently even extending in spirit to triathlons not covered by WADA)- In the IAAF/Russian scandal, the delays in Russian sanctions were caused by the ARAF not banning their athletes- The IAAF did not ban athletes like Shobukhova, but forwarded their results to, and instructed ARAF, to ban themWhy isn't that common knowledge?

pop_pop!_v2.2.1 wrote:

Strock's lawsuit wasn't "rumors." Armstrong was on the same team, same uncontrolled human experiments run by Carmichael and Wenzel. They were making kids sick with their experiments.

Accepting facts as truth is apparently a much more difficult skill than I ever imagined.

rekrunner wrote:

In the Armstrong years (1999-2005) the percentage rises to an astonishing 87% -- 61 out of 70 athletes with only 9 (13%) unblemished by doping (yet).

That's even higher than the results of the recently published Tubingen surveys.

^There you double count. 7 years of top 10 finishes does not give 70 athletes, as Armstrong, Ullrich, Vino, Basso, Gonzales, Leipheimer, Virenque etc. all show up multiple times.

As for the percentages. Since 44% admit to "doping", most people would think that those are indeed confirmed dopers, instead of referring to statistics that less than 1% got caught...

And again, that was among all participants, not just the top 10.

The real difference between UCI and IAAF is that the former finally started acting, triggered by the Armstrong case. That case in turn only got going because of the federal investigation, as USADA was toothless for all the years from 2000 - 2009.

Such a wake up call is still missing for the IAAF, which simply kicked their president to the curb and replaced him with a long standing vice president instead of at least trying to clean up.

rekwalker wrote:

Yes. Race walking. I'll copy this at "letswalk.com/forum"

I think the Russian scandal gives us a clear indication of where drugs worked -- women's events and race walking.

Yes...indeed with racewalkers. And since this thread is about EPO & marathoner runners, there's also several male marathoners listed on Fancy Bear's hacked WADA's suspicious/likely doping list with notes to aggressively test for an ESA. So, if marathoners weren't seeing some kind of benefit with EPO, I don't think they'd be pushing the envelope and consequently tripping their ABP's.

Whoops. You are right. 87% counts places and double-counts athletes. (But 38% and 65% don't).

casual obsever wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

In the Armstrong years (1999-2005) the percentage rises to an astonishing 87% -- 61 out of 70 athletes with only 9 (13%) unblemished by doping (yet).

That's even higher than the results of the recently published Tubingen surveys.

^There you double count. 7 years of top 10 finishes does not give 70 athletes, as Armstrong, Ullrich, Vino, Basso, Gonzales, Leipheimer, Virenque etc. all show up multiple times.

lol...more rbcs does result in a rise in oxygen content in the arteries. get a physio book and read it.

also, your 2) is all I needed to know you have no clue.

I think its partly because the benefits of supershoes are most evident in the marathon. The other reason is that the likes of Kipchoge and Bekele were smashing it on the track. Kipchoge reached his athletic peak when he was around 20 (official age), then declined (though that was likely due to a large part to better EPO testing on the track). Imagine if him and Bekele went straight to the marathon at their peak like Kiptum? Even with old shoes, we probably would have seen sub 2 hours.

I think steroids dont help much in Marathon.

They make you gain weight, even if its all muscle it will still be a hinderance.

For a marathon you need to be a skinny man with strong mind and strong lungs to carry you.

Even in animal kingdom, only small animals can traverse long distances.

If you use moderate to larger doses of anabolic steroids or testosterone, work out like a madman in the weight room, eat a high-calorie diet with a ton of protein - you gain weight & muscle (nothing new there).

Since marathon running is catabolic raising cortisol levels consequently suppressing testosterone levels, some marathon runners use very low doses of steroids or test to counteract this.