Several former stars have been caught; such as Kiprop, Ramzi, Katir, Tyson Gay, Marion Jones, too many more to name.
In a thread alleging doped half-marathon and marathon performances, you picked some pretty irrelevant examples, in two sprinters and three milers.
I don't generally express doubts about the effect of steroids for sprinters, especially women. But this doesn't mean that faster runners are doping with steroids.
I'm not sure that Katir doped. He was busted for whereabouts failures, and tampering with evidence.
The circumstances surrounding Kiprop's "positive" test are bizarre to say the least, given 5 days notice for a urine test that would clear overnight for a seasoned doper. But assuming he doped, the relevant question is when did he start. After running his PB in 2015, his performances slowed down in 2016 and then again in 2017 -- he was getting slower for two years before he was charged.
Ramzi did dope -- this seems highly linked to his move to Bahrain. Now the question, which requires performance data, is how much did his doping help him. Even then, this doesn't mean that faster runners, e.g. world record holder El G, doped. Ramzi's best was marginally faster than '80s stars like Coe, Cram, and Ovett.
You would have done better to name athletes like Mathew Kisorio, Abraham Kiptum, Rita Jeptoo, and Jemima Sumgong.
Jeptoo's and Sumgong's best times are 2:18:57 and 2:20:41 in Boston, at a time when the world record was Paula's 2:15:25. These were not particularly fast all time performances, and do not suggest that faster times (like Paula's or Ndereba's) were doped, even if we throw in Shobukhova (2:18:20) as a bonus.
Kisorio was busted for steroids, and he's not really sure what else he was given. The time period when he says he was doping, he ran some relatively poor performances. Subsequently, he has produced some decent marathons, but not record level performances.
So this leaves Abraham Kiptum as the best (only?) example. Now, the challenge with every example is reliably estimating how much faster he performed with doping, than he would have without. But this doesn't mean that the next record holder, Kamworor doped.
The next best examples seem to be sub-elite athletes like Cathal Lombard, and Eddy Hellebuyck, and Christian Hesch.
All this talk about prodigious evidence and mountains of evidence and compelling, but unconclusive, facts, are just talk.
Remember only USA is clean and there WRs should be celebrated but clearly to the gills, if you are a person of colour or a women, it’s fair game
There’s a difference between taking fractions of a second off a relatively recent 3000m record or breaking a 5000m record that is now old enough to drink, and what just happened with Kiplimo breaking his 10k PR en route to shattering 1.3% off an already strong record, or Ruth coming out of nowhere to take minutes off the marathon record.
....
You obviously don't follow the sport or you just like to bathe in your own rhetoric. Anyone who recently gave won 2 World X Country titles have went on to become one of the best ever or currently fulfilling their potential: Kenenisa Bekele, Faith Kipyegon, Joshua Cheptegei, Letesenbet Giday etc.
Kiplimo has excelled on grass and roads but have unperformed on the track. So it's no shocker he ran such a time on the roads.
As far as Ruth she didn't come out of nowhere, I fact she had at least 2 other marathons in which she went out 2:11 to 2:09 pace couldn't hold on. It was just a matter of adjusting training and a little luck it all came together in her WR.
Coming out of nowhere for Ruth might be a tad strong. Although it was a massive jump in performance.
I don't think a woman splitting 2:10 pace on two seperate occasions half way through a marathon, before finally running 2:10 for the whole marathon is exactly coming out of nowhere. Everyone just thought her 65 half marathon splits in past races were tactically bad pacing.
Ruth took no more time off the record than Paula Radcliffe. Did Paula "come out of nowhere" as well. I think you might say she did, and fair enough if you think that. She took 2 minutes off of her PB and the previous record with male pacing (Ruth had had some male pacing in the past, but nowhere near anything like what she had in her record run). Ruth wasn't the record holder at the time, but based on her splits at past races its pretty clear she was in at worst 2:13 shape back then.
Remember that when Paula ran her insane 2:15:25, the mens record was 2:05:38. So Paula's time was like a woman today running sub 2:10:30, which isn't too far off what Ruth ran.
I'm not saying Ruth or Kiplimo are clean, but to say Ruth just came out of nowhere is a bit of an overstatement. It was a massive jump in performance, evenmore so than Kiplimo, but in retrospect you can see the hints that there was something special there.
More of a statement about Radcliffe than Ruth. 🍸
Fair enough, and Radcliffe did get some accusations, but no where near as much as Ruth is getting now. Ruth's and Radcliffe's performances were fairly equivalent for the time compared to what the men were running. And compared to what the women of their day were running Radcliffe's time was even more rediculous (took 3 min and 22 seconds off the next best runners time, compared to only 1 min and 56 seconds for Ruth). Yet for some reason Radcliffe gets less accusations, maybe we are just more cynical/realistic than we used to be.
At the highest level in the half to marathon most of the very top guys are doping. especially the Africans. If you want to find out, just go there. it’s rife. it’s a joke. They know how to beat the system. they take so many drugs to tolerate the training and increased blood volume. this plus shoes. you get a shift in performance where people are pointing to bi carb for long distance events where it has probably negative effect. if it looks like a duck…
The research papers and WADA documents show how to dope and pass the tests. It's easier to explain with graphs, but it looks like I can't post images here.
The research papers and WADA documents show how to dope and pass the tests. It's easier to explain with graphs, but it looks like I can't post images here.
Does this also cover irregularities in ABP? They don't need to be linked to a failed test.
Its obvious and undeniable that cheats often clear tests which is why WADA do repeat tests in unpredictable time cycles.
Is Kiplimo really so much more fit than Kejelcha? Kejelcha went for a 10k road world record and Kiplimo almost split that pace in the middle of a half marathon. Something just seems questionable that Kiplimo is leaps and bounds ahead of Kejelcha
I don’t think most people automatically accuse a world record run as that person must have cheated. It was a fantastic run whether legal or not. However, looking at a magnitude of different factors myself and many would hesitate to think it was a legal run.
Bear in mind that you're replying to someone who would concede the point that many athletes have tested positive, but counter with claims that: 1. Some of them weren't actually doping and were railroaded by the system (e.g. Shelby H.); or 2. Were not actually receiving a performance boost from the drugs they were taking.
The fact that athletes and their agents clearly want to continue using these drugs, believing that they can improve performance, counts for nothing according to him. They are willing to risk everything to use these drugs (02 vector drug in particular), but he thinks they, like the rest of us, are all wrong about their benefits. For him, the existence of overwhelming circumstantial evidence of illicit performance-boosting-- such as preposterous one-time improvements in already super fast world records-- counts for nothing.
You will never win this argument with him. He's a tendentious pettifogger who only accepts arguments that operate within the framework of assumptions he adduces. For him, 02 vector doping shouldn't work, based on the available science, so it therefore doesn't work. For him, the ongoing fact that athletes and agents continue to risk everything in order to use these drugs is NOT evidence that they probably DO work, despite what the existing science might say. The possibility that the science has not caught up with the reality does not exist for him, which is pretty insane when one considers the entire history of doping in sport. Doping always starts with trial and error by athletes and coaches, based on their rough hypotheses about what certain compounds might do in the body, with the more effective techniques being adopted and the less effective ones going by the wayside. Lab-based science only ever discovers what works, and how it actually works, after the fact, if at all (e.g. the first lab experiments on anabolics concluded that there were not effective in building strength
According to WADA reports, some 30% or more of positive tests do not result in ADRVs. Positive tests alone don't mean "doping".
I have no doubt athletes and agents "believe they can improve performance" using trial and error. The second part of "trial and error" is "error". We cannot be sure of the results of their "trials" and how much appetite they have for "error", given the low chance of being caught with proper risk management.
You refer to the example of "O2 vector drugs", and you wrongly suggest I argue that they cannot work. I do not argue that they cannot work, but ask if they did work. I also ask for performance data, and/or the best examples, suggesting that O2 vector doping "worked". I looked at nearly 30 years of EPO-era performances, wondering why it didn't seem to "work" so well for non-Africans, e.g. Russians and Spaniards, compared to East Africans and North Africans, with very few non-Africans from 5-continents outperforming the best performances of the '80s. I did not base my ideas on the science (although the collective doping-performance science is bad), or the lack thereof, but on the relative lack of better real-world performances -- i.e. the "reality" you suggest doesn't exist for me. Since then, in the last 7 years, performances have significantly improved, compared to the previous 28 years.
You curiously link a report on "androgens" -- I have expressed no doubts about steroids giving increased muscular strength, especially for women, in sprinting and throwing and jumping events, and more generally, events that require such muscular strength.
This is a little evidence that you don't really bother to read other posts, let alone register their content if they don't approach the problem from exactly the angle you demand that they must-- the empirical evidence of scientific research or comparative long term performance data.
This is simply old fashioned logical positivism (i.e. wherein there are only "facts and values"-- that which is not a measurable fact is simply an expression of someone's values).
In your world, there is no room for other hypotheses, based on other, non-empirical observations, the most compelling of which is that, whatever you happen to think, people with with actual skin in the game appear to be utterly convinced that O2 vector doping works. Until we can hear honestly and directly from them (and we likely never will), there is no way to know what evidence has convinced them of this. And your hypothesis that they are all simply operating on "faith" is highly unconvincing, just as any hypothesis that is based on the assumption of long term, widespread mass stupidity is bound to be faulty.
You may find your own comparative performance statistics convincing, but lots of statistical models turn out to misapprehend reality is fundamental ways. I give you for instance: The "science" of economics.
Anyway, my point in linking that study was to show that it was possible to deny, with recourse to objective facts (research data) that a technique that athletes know full well improves performance, was actually effective. I'm sure those scientists would have said "show me the data" or you're wrong, right before they had to admit that practical reality (i.e. massive increases in the weightlifting world records) had proven them wrong. And, sorry, it would not have been necessary to show that everyone who used anabolics, at all times and in all places, got the same results in order to show that they were driving average performance through the roof.
This post was edited 45 seconds after it was posted.
Which debate do you refer to? How can anyone win a debate without raising any valid arguments or providing any relevant data/evidence?
With your head perpetually buried in the sand any kind of debate is irrelevant to you. But you don't debate. You are simply a fanatic doping apologist and denier. Meanwhile every second thread on a running site raises doping in the sport.
Every performance now raises the same questions. The debate is over. Nothing in the sport can now be trusted.
Do you mean questions like these:
Why is the faith in doping so strong in so many "fans", who are unable to provide any data or evidence?
What is the new drug alleged to exist that is bringing about all these record breaking performances in the "super shoe era"?
Do baseless allegations help, or hurt, the sport?
You don't need to use as many words to prove your idiocy. Performances that routinely give rise to accusations of doping in this clearly dirty sport show no achievement can now be trusted. Only someone wearing a blindfold won't see that. And that is you.
This post was edited 2 minutes after it was posted.
Why is the faith in doping so strong in so many "fans", who are unable to provide any data or evidence?
What is the new drug alleged to exist that is bringing about all these record breaking performances in the "super shoe era"?
Do baseless allegations help, or hurt, the sport?
You don't need to use as many words to prove your idiocy. Performances that routinely give rise to accusations of doping in this clearly dirty sport show no achievement can now be trusted. Only someone wearing a blindfold won't see that. And that is you.
Every performance now raises the same questions. The debate is over. Nothing in the sport can now be trusted.
i never trusted the times after Viren's reindeer juice jkass escapade. There was no even playing field for that one, he was the only one in the field in seventy two, and the top performers from new zealand and foster had no idea to blood dope. Europeans caught on around seventy six, and the bronze medal 76 5K guy may have had access to the Finns protocol
I was also taught way back in the day, and this was matter of fact statement from an Olympic team coach, that all throwers were on steroids, plain and simple, same era, player said most every college gave steroids in the two he played for, the coaches handed steroids out like candy. the athletes talked freely about it, just like Aouita did when he went to Australia, except, he had zero clue that the public there had zero idea, nada
Also, the same coach, with the "wisdom" of the day though steroids had no use in middle and long distance due to the bulking up factor. I never bought into that idea for a second. I was reflex thinking, steroids would be good for injury or illness... and speed,
Fast forward to today, in the press, public, and on the boards, we;re talking a huge ensemble, access and sophistication. Much of this stuff is over the counter in 3rd world, know first hand this year.
so we're talking a sucker born every minute, the ongoing naive posts demonstrate ridiculous baseline of non info . and this naivety goes all the way to the top here.
Brojo can go on EPO and test and do a three month cycle and come back. knowing at least the first very basics of the topic they spend an inordinate amount of time on
This is a little evidence that you don't really bother to read other posts, let alone register their content if they don't approach the problem from exactly the angle you demand that they must-- the empirical evidence of scientific research or comparative long term performance data.
This is simply old fashioned logical positivism (i.e. wherein there are only "facts and values"-- that which is not a measurable fact is simply an expression of someone's values).
In your world, there is no room for other hypotheses, based on other, non-empirical observations, the most compelling of which is that, whatever you happen to think, people with with actual skin in the game appear to be utterly convinced that O2 vector doping works. Until we can hear honestly and directly from them (and we likely never will), there is no way to know what evidence has convinced them of this. And your hypothesis that they are all simply operating on "faith" is highly unconvincing, just as any hypothesis that is based on the assumption of long term, widespread mass stupidity is bound to be faulty.
You may find your own comparative performance statistics convincing, but lots of statistical models turn out to misapprehend reality is fundamental ways. I give you for instance: The "science" of economics.
Anyway, my point in linking that study was to show that it was possible to deny, with recourse to objective facts (research data) that a technique that athletes know full well improves performance, was actually effective. I'm sure those scientists would have said "show me the data" or you're wrong, right before they had to admit that practical reality (i.e. massive increases in the weightlifting world records) had proven them wrong. And, sorry, it would not have been necessary to show that everyone who used anabolics, at all times and in all places, got the same results in order to show that they were driving average performance through the roof.
I do read most all the posts, although I did not read your anabolic steroids report past the title, and you did not really explain what it was supposed to say. The problem is that I raise very specific doubts, and none of the posts really address those doubts.
If you are offended calling it faith, we can call it hypothesis. Sure there is room for hypothesis, but we must understand that this is hypothesis waiting to be confirmed by facts and evidence and empirical observations, rather than taking it for granted that hypothesis has evolved to conclusion by popular vote, skipping these necessary elements. Lacking that, we could consider what we "hear honestly and directly from them", but then you say "we likely never will". So the current status is "hypothesis" or "hypothetical conclusion".
I have no doubt that "people with with actual skin in the game appear to be utterly convinced that O2 vector doping works". (To me, they appear to have faith, and you appear to have faith in them.) The next step for me is accumulating facts and evidence and empirical and controlled observations. You called it earlier "trial and error", but you act like it is really "trial and success". I know too well the role of confounders and placebos which may lead one to falsely confirm their hypothesis, especially if they are not controlling any of the variables and confounders.
But even then, if O2 vector doping really worked the way you conclude, we could see it, as you say "driving average performance through the roof" -- something easily empirically observed in running to anyone with a stopwatch. This was my motivation to see what happened "in the real world", rather than in the lab. We should also see it making the fastest performances faster (the underlying premise of this thread is that smashing this world record is only possible through doping -- yet it is still hypothesis that doping is even a potential candidate). Yet for most of the world -- the 5 non-African contintents -- from 1988 through 2017, before the era of supershoes, we saw very little progress at the top, both in the number of fast athletes, and the magnitude of progress. We could hypothesize that for these 5-continents, doping in the EPO-era was not much better than doping in the 1980s, but even this new hypothesis doesn't really answer which doping, and whether it worked in the 1980s, and how much it worked, and how it worked, and for whom.
The research papers and WADA documents show how to dope and pass the tests. It's easier to explain with graphs, but it looks like I can't post images here.
This doesn't really interest me so much. More interesting would be research papers and WADA documents showing how doping impacts elite performance -- after all the premise of threads like these is not only that doping can, through cause and effect, produce such elite performances, but that only doping can.
Which debate do you refer to? How can anyone win a debate without raising any valid arguments or providing any relevant data/evidence?
With your head perpetually buried in the sand any kind of debate is irrelevant to you. But you don't debate. You are simply a fanatic doping apologist and denier. Meanwhile every second thread on a running site raises doping in the sport.
Your point is moot if there was never any substantial debate -- the kind with evidence based arguments, rather than empty rhetoric.
While the question of doping is often raised by those without any relevant knowledge, it is rarely answered in a way that allows us to confirm the role of doping in contributing to elite performances.