That isn't the assumption. It is that a world record of the kind achieved by a runner aged nearly 40 who was declining ten years ago is likely doped. But nor can you say that it is "absurd" to question all great performances when it is possible doping played a part.
That isn't the assumption. It is that a world record of the kind achieved by a runner aged nearly 40 who was declining ten years ago is likely doped. But nor can you say that it is "absurd" to question all great performances when it is possible doping played a part.
Kipchoge is 37, the same age as Carlos Lopes when he won the marathon gold and set the OR in LA. So great marathon performances at that age are hardly unprecedented (your "nearly 40" is a dishonest exaggeration).
And yes, it is absurd to suggest that it's "possible" Bob Beamon was a doper. There has to be a reason for thinking something is possible. There is no reason whatsoever to think Beamon was a doper (or Moorcroft or Kipchoge).
Given your definition of what's possible, one could claim ANYTHING is possible. It's possible that Donald Trump was born female and his birth name was Donna Trump. Unlikely. But possible in your loony universe. After all, sex change, like doping, has long been a thing, right?
That isn't the assumption. It is that a world record of the kind achieved by a runner aged nearly 40 who was declining ten years ago is likely doped. But nor can you say that it is "absurd" to question all great performances when it is possible doping played a part.
Kipchoge is 37, the same age as Carlos Lopes when he won the marathon gold and set the OR in LA. So great marathon performances at that age are hardly unprecedented (your "nearly 40" is a dishonest exaggeration).
And yes, it is absurd to suggest that it's "possible" Bob Beamon was a doper. There has to be a reason for thinking something is possible. There is no reason whatsoever to think Beamon was a doper (or Moorcroft or Kipchoge).
Given your definition of what's possible, one could claim ANYTHING is possible. It's possible that Donald Trump was born female and his birth name was Donna Trump. Unlikely. But possible in your loony universe. After all, sex change, like doping, has long been a thing, right?
Lol no point arguing with the guy. ArmstrongLivs literally lives for trolling and harassing people on here. You could prove something to him black and white leaving no room for error and he would still never admit he was wrong. Best just to laugh at the guy and never respond to him.
Since you choose to disregard a comment attributed to Richard Pound, try this from Charles Yesalis, a professor of kinesiology at Pennsylvania State University and leading authority on sports enhancement drugs:
“Drug use has been epidemic in Olympic sports since the 1960s. It will be epidemic in Sydney. And only stupid and careless people get caught no matter how often they’re tested,” says Yesalis.
You may know a bit about track but you know little about doping - because you don't want to. It may surprise you to know that Pound and WADA have relied upon the advice of experts like Yesalis, and will have used his comments like those above as authoritative observations.
It is quite obvious that tests catch few when only 1-2% of tests return a positive and yet the prevalence in some sports exceeds an estimated 80%. Confidential athlete surveys by the IAAF puts the numbers doping in athletics at far higher than those caught. David Howman has conceded that antidoping is less sophisticated than doping, and so they cannot catch most dopers. All they can do is hope to deter some or limit its incidence.
It is a fairly forlorn hope. Since Marion Jones was busted for doping nearly twenty years ago we have known that athletes could use drugs which were masked or for which there was not a test. Those athletes who have failed whereabouts procedures were likely unsure that what they were taking would escape detection, as WADA does not tell them if it has effective tests for each and every drug.
You scoff at doping comments here because you have invested too much in your dream, that the best are not part of the doping circus. They are the centre ring. So we see a 2.01 marathon by a 38 year-old runner who gets better with age. Barnum and Bailey couldn't do better to entertain.
Armstronglivs Spin Zone: I was caught misquoting a decades-old comment, so now I will pretend like that's not what obviously happened.
Yes, there is doping and not every doper is caught — especially immediately. Using 20-year-old quotes is not a good argument. In 20 years, anti-doping has progressed immensely between ABP, greater OOC testing, and better tests. You still can't account for athletes, in your estimation, skipping tests to avoid positive tests and dopers being way ahead of testers. Ultimately, you are on the far pole of this argument suggesting nearly everyone is doping, and it's as ludicrous a position as nobody is doping on the other hand. Sensible people are in the middle, having skepticism for athletes with shady ties, unnatural progressions, out-of-nowhere emergence and so on. Once athletes are properly in the system getting blood-tested OOC with their ABP established, sure you can speculate but the system is busting plenty of people.
There is no money in the 10000. The list of guys with fast 5ks and slow 10ks is pretty long...
There is a long history of guys running fast marathons around 35-38. They all drop off by 40. Granted kipchoge dropping off is going to be running a 2:05....
Marathon is sort of unique in that it isn't all about aerobic power like the 5000-hm. Ability to not run out of fuel or have the legs not break down matter a lot. If you have 27min 10k speed and your are a natural marathoner, you are running down around 2:03. See all the Japanese guys who are 28min guys and running 2:08s... Just not a lot of guys who are both fast and marathoners...
From what I've read, the marathon is most definitely about aerobic capacity and running economy. The 5k in particular has a strong VO2 max component and that is what drops away quite precipitously when you reach your thirties. Aerobic capacity can continue to improve into your late-30s and maybe beyond. It's why you see so many amateur guys in their 50s/60s who can run 3:10 for the marathon but only 21/22 minutes for 5k.
Nobody runs a marathon at 7:15 pace and a 5 k at 7:05(22min) pace. Running 6:45 pace for 5k and 7:15 is only slightly better than what we are talking about.
If the marathon was all about aerobic power the 58min hm guy would always be running a faster marathon than the 60min guy. they aren't. Because as I said the marathon isn't all about aerobic power. It is necessary to be competitive but it isn't enough.
I'm having Lance Armstrong flashbacks watching Kipchoge motor along, then bounce through the line gleeful and hugging everyone. Hardly the look of someone running the fastest-ever marathon, a time completely unimaginable 10 years ago.
"Incremental gains," they said about Lance, when the reality was a pharmacy in his hotel room nightly.
And as someone said, say Kipchoge gets even more fantastic shoes, and does go sub-2 in a real event, at 38, 39, 40 years of age. Really?
That isn't the assumption. It is that a world record of the kind achieved by a runner aged nearly 40 who was declining ten years ago is likely doped. But nor can you say that it is "absurd" to question all great performances when it is possible doping played a part.
Kipchoge is 37, the same age as Carlos Lopes when he won the marathon gold and set the OR in LA. So great marathon performances at that age are hardly unprecedented (your "nearly 40" is a dishonest exaggeration).
And yes, it is absurd to suggest that it's "possible" Bob Beamon was a doper. There has to be a reason for thinking something is possible. There is no reason whatsoever to think Beamon was a doper (or Moorcroft or Kipchoge).
Given your definition of what's possible, one could claim ANYTHING is possible. It's possible that Donald Trump was born female and his birth name was Donna Trump. Unlikely. But possible in your loony universe. After all, sex change, like doping, has long been a thing, right?
Kipchoge is a month off 38. That isn't close to forty?
What any other athlete has achieved - such as Lopes - offers no evidence one way or the other as to whether any other athlete is clean or doped. Do we know for sure that Lopes was clean?
Beamon could have used steroids in the late 60's and Moorcroft could have possibly blood-doped or used testosterone. We wouldn't know - but it can't be ruled out. But performances up to half a century ago suggest nothing about whether an athlete today is doping. The practice has certainly dramatically increased over the decades and become way more sophisticated.
Doping is more than merely "possible" today - it permeates all sport at the top level. To use your Trump analogy, it's as likely a top athlete is doping today that Trump sought to overthrow the result of the last election.
Kipchoge is 37, the same age as Carlos Lopes when he won the marathon gold and set the OR in LA. So great marathon performances at that age are hardly unprecedented (your "nearly 40" is a dishonest exaggeration).
And yes, it is absurd to suggest that it's "possible" Bob Beamon was a doper. There has to be a reason for thinking something is possible. There is no reason whatsoever to think Beamon was a doper (or Moorcroft or Kipchoge).
Given your definition of what's possible, one could claim ANYTHING is possible. It's possible that Donald Trump was born female and his birth name was Donna Trump. Unlikely. But possible in your loony universe. After all, sex change, like doping, has long been a thing, right?
Lol no point arguing with the guy. ArmstrongLivs literally lives for trolling and harassing people on here. You could prove something to him black and white leaving no room for error and he would still never admit he was wrong. Best just to laugh at the guy and never respond to him.
Somehow I'm not surprised that's the best you can come up with on the question of whether Kipchoge dopes.
Even Masters events are populated with dopers. Professional Sportsmen stand to gain MILLION$$$$$$$$ - why not dope? In France, dopers risk jailtime and STILL dope to make the team!
Elite athletes are going to cheat and their Doctors help them to avoid testing positive. Add to that a crack legal team to get you off the hook (should you ever get caught) and issue gagging orders to the media.
The blood bags pictured in this article were provided to elite cyclists - household names and champions.
Doping is an industry as old as sport itself despite best efforts to thwart it. The World's most successful cycling "Team Sky" were caught red-handed drug trafficking across borders and nothing came of it; when Testogel was delivered to their headquarters, nothing came of it; when their doping doctor (Leinders) was banned for life for uncovered doping practices, the team carried on oblivious - continuing to turn rubbish track cyclists and GT also-rans in to Tour winners (Froome, Wiggins, Thomas, Hart).
The BALCO scandal was a scandal involving the use of banned, performance-enhancing substances by professional athletes. The Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (BALCO) was a San Francisco Bay Area business which supplied anaboli...
Let's be honest: Kipchoge runs a PR at 37, is the most consistent runter ever and some people scream doping.
Of course this might be. But very interesting that for some of those folks Meb doing the same thing After years and years of injury problems in Boston 2014 is no Problem at all.
Do I believe Meb was a doper? No.
Do I believe Kipchoge is in an other world performance wise vs Meb? Yes.
At least it'd be fair to give the benefit of the doubt.
Since you choose to disregard a comment attributed to Richard Pound, try this from Charles Yesalis, a professor of kinesiology at Pennsylvania State University and leading authority on sports enhancement drugs:
“Drug use has been epidemic in Olympic sports since the 1960s. It will be epidemic in Sydney. And only stupid and careless people get caught no matter how often they’re tested,” says Yesalis.
You may know a bit about track but you know little about doping - because you don't want to. It may surprise you to know that Pound and WADA have relied upon the advice of experts like Yesalis, and will have used his comments like those above as authoritative observations.
It is quite obvious that tests catch few when only 1-2% of tests return a positive and yet the prevalence in some sports exceeds an estimated 80%. Confidential athlete surveys by the IAAF puts the numbers doping in athletics at far higher than those caught. David Howman has conceded that antidoping is less sophisticated than doping, and so they cannot catch most dopers. All they can do is hope to deter some or limit its incidence.
It is a fairly forlorn hope. Since Marion Jones was busted for doping nearly twenty years ago we have known that athletes could use drugs which were masked or for which there was not a test. Those athletes who have failed whereabouts procedures were likely unsure that what they were taking would escape detection, as WADA does not tell them if it has effective tests for each and every drug.
You scoff at doping comments here because you have invested too much in your dream, that the best are not part of the doping circus. They are the centre ring. So we see a 2.01 marathon by a 38 year-old runner who gets better with age. Barnum and Bailey couldn't do better to entertain.
Armstronglivs Spin Zone: I was caught misquoting a decades-old comment, so now I will pretend like that's not what obviously happened.
Yes, there is doping and not every doper is caught — especially immediately. Using 20-year-old quotes is not a good argument. In 20 years, anti-doping has progressed immensely between ABP, greater OOC testing, and better tests. You still can't account for athletes, in your estimation, skipping tests to avoid positive tests and dopers being way ahead of testers. Ultimately, you are on the far pole of this argument suggesting nearly everyone is doping, and it's as ludicrous a position as nobody is doping on the other hand. Sensible people are in the middle, having skepticism for athletes with shady ties, unnatural progressions, out-of-nowhere emergence and so on. Once athletes are properly in the system getting blood-tested OOC with their ABP established, sure you can speculate but the system is busting plenty of people.
I have read comments from Pound making the same point as Yesalis above - and yet you duck the substantive point they were making over the red herring of comment attribution, and further suggesting that the observation no longer applies today, because you think antidoping has so improved. Howman has said even this year that doping continues to be ahead of antidoping - as it always has - which reinforces the claim that it is typically still only the dumb and the careless who get caught.
You avoid the known enormous discrepancy between the number of positive tests and estimates of actual doping in sports. Clearly, few dopers are caught.
You also fail to grasp why WADA treats a series of whereabouts failures as doping violations. With three failures, "innocent" explanations don't cut it. Dopers duck tests because they can't always be sure that there isn't a test for the drugs they are taking, and they may not have a team of doctors and trainers to make sure they don't get caught.
You are apparently unaware that athletes are able to beat the biopassport, through micro-dosing or taking drugs for which there is no test. It is estimated that at any one time there are a hundred substances out there for which there is no effective test.
Doping is a more than a billion dollar industry on the black market, that frequently involves organized crime. The practice makes use of science that continues to develop. It hasn't gone backwards in twenty years. Antidoping is always trying to play catch-up. As Howman acknowledges, antidoping cannot eradicate doping; it only hopes to try to minimise it. It is a vain hope, when few are caught and the rewards for success in sports today are fame, prestige and sometimes enormous wealth.
Like many fans you cling to the quaint notion that athletes today will not avail themselves of whatever advantage they can obtain to succeed. For many, their sport is their life. If dopers are driven to succeed how do you imagine clean athletes have any less ambition, and why would they be prepared to lose to doped competitors? We gained a snapshot of that in the women's 1500 at London 2012, when it emerged that most of the final were doping. The tip of an enormous iceberg.
I'm having Lance Armstrong flashbacks watching Kipchoge motor along, then bounce through the line gleeful and hugging everyone. Hardly the look of someone running the fastest-ever marathon, a time completely unimaginable 10 years ago.
"Incremental gains," they said about Lance, when the reality was a pharmacy in his hotel room nightly.
And as someone said, say Kipchoge gets even more fantastic shoes, and does go sub-2 in a real event, at 38, 39, 40 years of age. Really?
At the finish he looked like he had run around the block. But that is much of pro sport today; fatigue no longer exists.
Armstronglivs Spin Zone: I was caught misquoting a decades-old comment, so now I will pretend like that's not what obviously happened.
Yes, there is doping and not every doper is caught — especially immediately. Using 20-year-old quotes is not a good argument. In 20 years, anti-doping has progressed immensely between ABP, greater OOC testing, and better tests. You still can't account for athletes, in your estimation, skipping tests to avoid positive tests and dopers being way ahead of testers. Ultimately, you are on the far pole of this argument suggesting nearly everyone is doping, and it's as ludicrous a position as nobody is doping on the other hand. Sensible people are in the middle, having skepticism for athletes with shady ties, unnatural progressions, out-of-nowhere emergence and so on. Once athletes are properly in the system getting blood-tested OOC with their ABP established, sure you can speculate but the system is busting plenty of people.
I have read comments from Pound making the same point as Yesalis above - and yet you duck the substantive point they were making over the red herring of comment attribution, and further suggesting that the observation no longer applies today, because you think antidoping has so improved. Howman has said even this year that doping continues to be ahead of antidoping - as it always has - which reinforces the claim that it is typically still only the dumb and the careless who get caught.
You avoid the known enormous discrepancy between the number of positive tests and estimates of actual doping in sports. Clearly, few dopers are caught.
You also fail to grasp why WADA treats a series of whereabouts failures as doping violations. With three failures, "innocent" explanations don't cut it. Dopers duck tests because they can't always be sure that there isn't a test for the drugs they are taking, and they may not have a team of doctors and trainers to make sure they don't get caught.
You are apparently unaware that athletes are able to beat the biopassport, through micro-dosing or taking drugs for which there is no test. It is estimated that at any one time there are a hundred substances out there for which there is no effective test.
Doping is a more than a billion dollar industry on the black market, that frequently involves organized crime. The practice makes use of science that continues to develop. It hasn't gone backwards in twenty years. Antidoping is always trying to play catch-up. As Howman acknowledges, antidoping cannot eradicate doping; it only hopes to try to minimise it. It is a vain hope, when few are caught and the rewards for success in sports today are fame, prestige and sometimes enormous wealth.
Like many fans you cling to the quaint notion that athletes today will not avail themselves of whatever advantage they can obtain to succeed. For many, their sport is their life. If dopers are driven to succeed how do you imagine clean athletes have any less ambition, and why would they be prepared to lose to doped competitors? We gained a snapshot of that in the women's 1500 at London 2012, when it emerged that most of the final were doping. The tip of an enormous iceberg.
My g-d, six pages now of philosophical rants and circular arguments. Seems like everybody has a hardened position. We have the cynics and nihilists on the one hand and the stoics and faithful on the other and then some realists in the middle. Nobody is changing anybody’s mind.
Personally, I find beauty in human achievement and prefer to inhabit a world where Kipchoge is revered and lauded until there is hard, cold evidence that he is not what he appears to be. Others think this is naive and setting oneself up for repeated disappointments. I find this crowd to be generally angry and lacking in the marvelous emotion of awe. I feel sorry for them a little because it’s nice to have heroes and to be amazed, but I’m done trying to convince anybody my view is the correct one.
I have read comments from Pound making the same point as Yesalis above - and yet you duck the substantive point they were making over the red herring of comment attribution, and further suggesting that the observation no longer applies today, because you think antidoping has so improved. Howman has said even this year that doping continues to be ahead of antidoping - as it always has - which reinforces the claim that it is typically still only the dumb and the careless who get caught.
You avoid the known enormous discrepancy between the number of positive tests and estimates of actual doping in sports. Clearly, few dopers are caught.
You also fail to grasp why WADA treats a series of whereabouts failures as doping violations. With three failures, "innocent" explanations don't cut it. Dopers duck tests because they can't always be sure that there isn't a test for the drugs they are taking, and they may not have a team of doctors and trainers to make sure they don't get caught.
You are apparently unaware that athletes are able to beat the biopassport, through micro-dosing or taking drugs for which there is no test. It is estimated that at any one time there are a hundred substances out there for which there is no effective test.
Doping is a more than a billion dollar industry on the black market, that frequently involves organized crime. The practice makes use of science that continues to develop. It hasn't gone backwards in twenty years. Antidoping is always trying to play catch-up. As Howman acknowledges, antidoping cannot eradicate doping; it only hopes to try to minimise it. It is a vain hope, when few are caught and the rewards for success in sports today are fame, prestige and sometimes enormous wealth.
Like many fans you cling to the quaint notion that athletes today will not avail themselves of whatever advantage they can obtain to succeed. For many, their sport is their life. If dopers are driven to succeed how do you imagine clean athletes have any less ambition, and why would they be prepared to lose to doped competitors? We gained a snapshot of that in the women's 1500 at London 2012, when it emerged that most of the final were doping. The tip of an enormous iceberg.
My g-d, six pages now of philosophical rants and circular arguments. Seems like everybody has a hardened position. We have the cynics and nihilists on the one hand and the stoics and faithful on the other and then some realists in the middle. Nobody is changing anybody’s mind.
Personally, I find beauty in human achievement and prefer to inhabit a world where Kipchoge is revered and lauded until there is hard, cold evidence that he is not what he appears to be. Others think this is naive and setting oneself up for repeated disappointments. I find this crowd to be generally angry and lacking in the marvelous emotion of awe. I feel sorry for them a little because it’s nice to have heroes and to be amazed, but I’m done trying to convince anybody my view is the correct one.
I am just wired much differently than you. Why would I “revere” Kipchoge or have him as a “hero?” I cannot even begin to relate to this notion. I suppose it is my huge ego which prevents it but I look at Kipchoge as an enormously talented runner, winning the WC 5000m against 2 legends as a teenager, who then eventually stagnated as a long distance track racer, and then almost miraculously became the best marathoner who ever lived. No I am not buying it, and he is no hero of mine, BUT even if he is doping (which seems very likely) I can admire the discipline he has, because doping is not enough to make someone a 2:01 marathoner. The shoes and doping are crucial but he is also a rare talent and a rare person to be that disciplined and tenacious. Nobody wants to bust Kipchoge anymore than they want to bust Tom Brady because those running these sports know that they are your heroes and they need heroes to keep fans like you.
I am just wired much differently than you. Why would I “revere” Kipchoge or have him as a “hero?” I cannot even begin to relate to this notion. I suppose it is my huge ego which prevents it but I look at Kipchoge as an enormously talented runner, winning the WC 5000m against 2 legends as a teenager, who then eventually stagnated as a long distance track racer, and then almost miraculously became the best marathoner who ever lived. No I am not buying it, and he is no hero of mine, BUT even if he is doping (which seems very likely) I can admire the discipline he has, because doping is not enough to make someone a 2:01 marathoner. The shoes and doping are crucial but he is also a rare talent and a rare person to be that disciplined and tenacious. Nobody wants to bust Kipchoge anymore than they want to bust Tom Brady because those running these sports know that they are your heroes and they need heroes to keep fans like you.
Exactly my point. This is not about facts, it’s about worldview. BTW, when I say “hero” I mean in the narrow sense of an athletic hero, but in that vein, absolutely to me.
There's really no facts, it's just a bunch of suppositions, assumptions and mildly contradictory statements.
I understand fully why WADA treats whereabouts failures as doping violations. No, you still haven't explained why dopers would dodge tests unless they don't have resources, which an athlete like Kipchoge would have if he wanted. They ditch because they can't be sure if there's a test? Great, they can't keep taking the substance then, and they pile up missed tests, which attract more tests. In Russia they didn't run their doping programme with undetectable drugs, they just falsified tests. You know why? The tests are pretty good against most drugs.
I am fully aware of microdosing and beating the ABP. But it takes doping from major, full-blown doses to on-the-margins cheating, which yes I'm sure has an effect but not nearly what it would be if there was no testing at all.
I guess you can uncover the secret physician's room in Kaptagat where Kipchoge is teaming up with his group of doctors to microdose in sophisticated fashion all while making sure his ABP values stay 100% consistent. Or he's just gotten "lucky" with the timing of his tests, or a new wonder-drug we don't know about that athletes should be taking instead of EPO. Whatever protects your world-view.
Certainly, I could never be sure he or anyone else is cheating in some way, but to be sure they all are based on your logic is equally ridiculous.
Let's be honest: Kipchoge runs a PR at 37, is the most consistent runter ever and some people scream doping.
Of course this might be. But very interesting that for some of those folks Meb doing the same thing After years and years of injury problems in Boston 2014 is no Problem at all.
Do I believe Meb was a doper? No.
Do I believe Kipchoge is in an other world performance wise vs Meb? Yes.
At least it'd be fair to give the benefit of the doubt.
10 years ago at age 27 Eliud ran a 27:11 to finish as the 7th Kenyan at the Kenya Olympic Trials 10000m at Hayward Field. Now at age 37 (almost 38) Eliud can open a marathon in 28:23 as if it is a walk in the park. What could Eliud have run Sunday for a road 10000m? Maybe 26:50? Amazing is what it is.
Eliud could no longer break 27 minutes a decade ago. What the hell happened to completely transform him into the best long distance runner who ever lived?
Why do you think many people who use PED's leave the USA to get them?
Because you can go into many country's pharmacy and get steroids, EPO, etc. over the counter.