5000m World Record Splits: A Progression

rekrunner wrote:

When you can guarantee that the top Chinese female marathoners did not take steroids, testosterone, or any other male hormones, only then will I take the case of any of them. Otherwise, I don't know if we are looking at the effects of EPO, or the effects of these other proven drugs. Then tell me about her training situation from 2007-2012, any injuries, the race conditions, tactics, drafting, etc.

So, for non-african males, you include everybody whether we have any indication at all that they took EPO, or any other drug.

For North African males who have tested positive for EPO, we exclude them categorically for consideration although we can see that many of them improved and ran fast at the same time they tested positive.

For Chinese females you exclude them for consideration unless somebody can guarantee that they didn't take male hormones.

You claim to be looking for objective truth, but pick and choose your totally subjective criteria to rule in or out certain populations. It is why nobody should take your arguments seriously.

These chinese women probably have very little in common with top altitude dwelling East African athletes. I guess the most value of this data is to get a better understanding of how altitude affects blood parameters, how it affects performance, and what is the relation, or correlation, if any. Because EPO is thought to work like that -- more red blood cells leads to better performance. Do these blood values support this? Is it really as simple as increasing Hgb and Hct? If I recall from previous discussions about the Chinese women: - Some were high responders to altitude, when it comes to measuring blood parameters, but low responders, no responders, or possibly negative responders, when measuring changes in performance. - The ones that improved the most at altitude were not the ones whose blood changed the most. So here are things you can look at: - Is there a correlation between changes in blood, and changes in performance? Can you calculate the correlation? Is it strong? Is it positive? Is it negative? Is it 0? Can you predict the expected change in performance, from the changes in blood? - Do all athletes respond to altitude? How? Blood? Performance? Both? Neither? How is the response to altitude distributed?

Mr. Obvious wrote:

I have seen Renato use different standards for the cutoff of the Best athlete, sometimes using top 100. I guess my question is which athletes in the sample he has sent me are relevant to his argument about the effectiveness of EPO?

rekrunner wrote:

These chinese women probably have very little in common with top altitude dwelling East African athletes.

I am not interested in your thoughts. You have already dismissed the Chinese women as being of any importance and are not willing to look at evidence objectively.

rekrunner wrote:

EPO is not the only drug, and not even the most effective drug there is for women.

So what is more effective?

You seem to be smart, yet you constantly mix up contexts only to say they are mixed up. Yes I say different things at different times in different contexts to make different points. - For non-African males, a rather large majority of the population, in mature distance running events, unlike East Africans and North Africans, and their non-African cyclist compatriots, it is plainly observable to all who look, that the best performances have not changed much since the '80s. This is true whether they were clean, took EPO, or were the lucky high responders to the synergistic effect of O2-vector drugs mixed in steroid and HGH cocktails. I could exclude the clean ones, and count just the doped ones, but the resulting observation, that best times have not changed much, would be the same. So making that determination of who doped and who didn't is simply not necessary, not to mention such a determination is not easy. I've repeatedly told you why I began to look at "everyone else". I did not create that context. - I excluded North African males from counting as European (Mourhit) or American (Khannouchi) records. I similarly excluded East African males (Farah, Meb, Abdirahman, Lagat, Kipketer, ...) from setting non-African "top" performances. - I excluded both North Africans and East Africans as examples of improvement, when the question was "why didn't non-Africans improve?" - I excluded North Africans and East Africans and women as examples, when the question was "why didn't non-African males improve?" - Let's INCLUDE North African examples, like rocket fuel Ramzi, or steeple record setting Boulami, busted for EPO. Can we say "EPO caused most or all of Ramzi's 10 second improvement"? Maybe EPO, plus the change of citizenship, plus the change in training, plus the change in coach, plus the natural evolution that would have occurred clean, plus any other drug cocktails, plus drafting in a fast race, plus his genetic potential, etc., caused his 10 second improvement. Do all these other things add up to zero? Similarly for Boulami, Russian women, Sumgong (9 minutes), Jeptoo (4 minutes), etc., how do we measure the effect of the rest? The thing is everyone improves in their career, and at different times and different rates for different reasons. With anecdotes, specific details matter on a case by case basis. And, I don't need to tell this forum, that the belief in EPO is popular and wide-spread, even for some "at the top". So, what can this tiny intersection of athletes who improved, with athletes busted for EPO, tell us about EPO effectiveness? Usually, in these kinds of contexts, to get a better sense of effectiveness correlated to EPO, we need a representative (i.e. larger) sample size, and/or some control, where some of these other long list of confounding effects can be cancelled out or will diminish on the average. Anecdotes can show the existence of exceptions, but in small numbers, do not show the general rule, trends, correlation, or causation. - For all women, steroids, testosterone, male hormones are proven highly effective, at turning female performances into male performances, and therefore are important confounders which have to be ruled out, before concluding EPO is the cause of the effect. These are not ridiculous goal-post moving subjective criteria, but plainly obvious barriers to any cause and effect discussion, that I'm surprised I have to plainly spell out to you. Quite simply, if you want to show EPO effectiveness, you have to show the effect, and ultimately that EPO reasonably caused a significant part of that effect.

Mr. Obvious wrote:

So, for non-african males, you include everybody whether we have any indication at all that they took EPO, or any other drug.

For North African males who have tested positive for EPO, we exclude them categorically for consideration although we can see that many of them improved and ran fast at the same time they tested positive.

For Chinese females you exclude them for consideration unless somebody can guarantee that they didn't take male hormones.

You claim to be looking for objective truth, but pick and choose your totally subjective criteria to rule in or out certain populations. It is why nobody should take your arguments seriously.

And yet you posed the question, and invited us to help you. I did not dismiss the Chinese women as unimportant, but said I will consider the effects of EPO only once I know I'm not considering the proven effects of steroids, testosterone, or other male hormones, disguised as EPO.

Mr. Obvious wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

These chinese women probably have very little in common with top altitude dwelling East African athletes.

I am not interested in your thoughts. You have already dismissed the Chinese women as being of any importance and are not willing to look at evidence objectively.

Drugs that turn women into men.

Subway Surfers Addiction wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

EPO is not the only drug, and not even the most effective drug there is for women.

So what is more effective?

Quite likely that the organizers were pleased with this decision. But it wasn't these organizers, and it wasn't the IAAF either, it was CAS, who DQ'ed Rita in Boston because of a (multiple/second or third) "anti-doping rule violation" (you yourself quoted the applied rule 40.8 here in this thread).

This rule says nothing about "the behavior of the athlete" - why do you keep saying this?

Are you seriously claiming that "the organizers of the Major Marathon" successfully bribed CAS (1) to DQ Rita in Boston although she was clean, and (2) to just pretend that she was doped there though she was clean?

They would also have to have bribed the IAAF who requested and supported that decision.

Oh boy. This might get interesting.

rekrunner wrote:

And yet you posed the question, and invited us to help you.

I did not dismiss the Chinese women as unimportant, but said I will consider the effects of EPO only once I know I'm not considering the proven effects of steroids, testosterone, or other male hormones, disguised as EPO.

I did not. It was purely a question for Renato. He has a particular theory about EPOs effectiveness and I would like to understand how the data fits into his theory. I have posted my understanding of his theory and how I believe the data he has supplied fit into that so that he might correct any misunderstandings I might have or supply additional insight.

You have been clear in that you will reject information based on Chinese women (or women at all, or race walkers, or North Africans). So these data are not responsive to your argument at all. Your theory of EPO's effectiveness is that it is not effective for those at the top. So since none of these women are at the top, the data are of no relevance to your argument. It is clear that you are a doping denialist along with Jon Orange, J.R. and Ghost so you are impervious to data.

rekrunner wrote:

- For all women, steroids, testosterone, male hormones are proven highly effective, at turning female performances into male performances, and therefore are important confounders which have to be ruled out, before concluding EPO is the cause of the effect.

It might the synergistic effects of both androgens & O2-vector doping during training, i.e., O2-vector for the higher training volume & endurance component, and androgens for better recovery. Recall Yulyia Zaripova, the 3000m gold medalist from London, who had her medal stripped for doping. Initially, she was sanctioned for hematological anomalies but was also later found to be glowing with turinabol on an IC retest from London. If androgens were so highly effective with women in mid-d & distance events, why did Zaripova go high-octane with blood doping in addition to the turinabol? ?

rekrunner wrote:

Drugs that turn women into men.

Not all women using androgens turn out be beast modes. Savinova, Poistagova & Zaripova all used androgens as part of their program and all three look pretty feminine to me. ?

High-Octane Dopers wrote:

It might the synergistic effects of both androgens & O2-vector doping during training, i.e., O2-vector for the higher training volume & endurance component, and androgens for better recovery. Recall Yulyia Zaripova, the 3000m gold medalist from London, who had her medal stripped for doping. Initially, she was sanctioned for hematological anomalies but was also later found to be glowing with turinabol on an IC retest from London. If androgens were so highly effective with women in mid-d & distance events, why did Zaripova go high-octane with blood doping in addition to the turinabol? ?

Yes, why oh why? Various groups from different places of the world have optimized the doping mixtures over a couple of decades, and today steroids and EPO are still part of the mix, no matter whether one looks at sprinters or distance runners. Looking at male and female, shortest and longest Olympic distances (100 m M/W; 50 km walk M; marathon W), we find that these cocktails normally include EPO.

So we have two possibilities: these athletes/coaches are all idiots, too stupid to find out which cocktails work, since decades, or steroids and EPO work across the board.

It would be interesting to see Jeptoo's OFF scores around this time.

casual obsever wrote:

Yes, why oh why? Various groups from different places of the world have optimized the doping mixtures over a couple of decades, and today steroids and EPO are still part of the mix, no matter whether one looks at sprinters or distance runners. Looking at male and female, shortest and longest Olympic distances (100 m M/W; 50 km walk M; marathon W), we find that these cocktails normally include EPO.

So we have two possibilities: these athletes/coaches are all idiots, too stupid to find out which cocktails work, since decades, or steroids and EPO work across the board.

Well they either work or they are incredibly stupid as you say. Probability indicates that they obviously do work.

I will venture an unusual other possibility, and that is that running is more secretive than cycling and doping is more individualistic and runners just take whatever they can get off the black market. They just assume large risks when only old school steroids are available to them and just hope "passionate kissing" and "tainted steak" excuses prevail. Still given what we know, the cocktail hypothesis is still more likely but food for thought nonetheless.

Subway Surfers Addiction wrote:

It would be interesting to see Jeptoo's OFF scores around this time.

Yes. But thanks to Coe's successful fight against more transparency, it won't happen.

How did you put it again? These thresholds are so generous that one can drive a bus through it, or something like that?

Back in the beginning, the argument for these huge thresholds was to avoid false positives, but then violating them now just draws IAAF's attention, and is unfortunately not treated as a positive test. So really, one should either treat such a violation as a positive test, and/or make the thresholds tighter.

For example, one could say:

- off score or HCT jump by over 10%, and we investigate

and

- off score or HCT jump by over 25%, and you are banned for four years.

That would really reduce doping, so it won't happen under the current leadership.

Zaripova is one of those rare cases where an athlete "tests" positive for both O2-vector doping & the use of a steriod, i.e. a "double whammy" (in this case it was a sanction for blood doping and the later retest IC positive for turinabol). Usually, it's one or other for a positive test result. I also think the Zaripova cases illustrates the power of PEDs with a high responder: 2 WC golds (09/11), Olympic gold (12), and 23rd all time fastest ran at Stockholm right after the Olympics (9:05.02). ? She also has a hugh one-year performance jump noted on her IAAF profile progression data.

And at London she destroys a world class field comprised of Galkina (WR holder at one time), all-world & doper Marta Dominguez (DQ at London also), Cheywa & Coburn. Of course, when rekrunner makes his daily rounds he will postulate that the steeplechase is more of a "technical" event and Zaripova got a new coach or something and just improved her technique, and that none of other competitors at London brought their "A" game, or Russia was experimenting on some high-tech aerodynamic bun huggers for their women. ?

You said "I welcome corrections and additions". I'm sorry if I mis-intepreted "I welcome additions", as an invitation to feel free to participate in your investigation. Just as you felt you were free to post your "understanding of his theory and how I believe the data ...", I felt free, in an open forum that encourages the exchange of ideas, to provide you with my understanding. I don't doubt I have been very clear. Yet despite my clarity, you still seem to possess basic misunderstandings of what I wrote. Maybe this is a direct result of your lack of interest in my thoughts. If you want to argue that EPO is effective for women, it is simply incorrect to argue with women who have taken steroids as examples. This includes Chinese women, like "the case of one of the top Chinese marathoners, Wang Jiali". If you don't remove the uncertainty of steroids, then the uncertainty in your argument remains. If you don't agree, please explain why it is correct to assume the benefits of steroids could be interpreted as also the benefits of EPO. If you want to argue that EPO is effective for distance running, then it is incorrect to present examples from race-walking and cycling. While these sports possess many similarities, they also have significant differences. Assuming EPO is highly effective, there should be no shortage of running examples, making race-walking and cycling examples, besides incorrect, superfluous and unnecessary. You should able to make your arguments about running using running examples. I've already told you I'm prepared to consider North Africans, specifically on your request. How do busted athletes like Ramzi, Mourhit, and Boulami help us understand the magnitude of effect of EPO for these top runners? I'm prepared to listen. Now if you want to argue that EPO caused a 10 second improvement for rocket-fuel Ramzi, I'm also prepared to see the analysis that concludes all the other sources of improvements are worth 0 seconds. I don't deny doping -- doping happens, happens at the top, happens in Kenya. My argument is that the performance data for decades during the EPO-era doesn't support EPO providing a large advantage for distance running athletes at the top, particularly when "best times haven't changed much since the '80s" for a large majority of the world's population. The effect, if any, is not 3-4% or more, but significantly less than 1%. Any observed 3-4% or more of effect, comes from other significant sources. That is my argument. One difference between J.O. and JR with me, is that I think steroids are proven highly effective for women. I don't have a problem with data, but reject the logical fallacies and the mythology invoked to fill in the missing data.

It might be. It might not. Zaripova went high-octane blood doping based on belief -- this answer is always the same.

So you haven't ruled out "these athletes/coaches are all idiots, too stupid to find out which cocktails work, since decades". We do know for many populations that best times haven't changed much for decades, despite the introduction of EPO.

I would say, we can't tell because of steroids. This isn't that hard. Zaripova would be a great example of a slightly different discussion about doping effectiveness, rather than EPO effectiveness.

Subway Surfers Addiction wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

EPO is not the only drug, and not even the most effective drug there is for women.

So what is more effective?

Uranus.