What track athletes did Michele Ferrari work with?

He worked for the Italian version of USATF in the late 70s. But once he became the in-demand doping guy why would he bother with track and field? There's millions in cycling.

According to this thread:

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=4575000&page=8

he worked with Canova for certain in 2000 when Ferrari's daughter was being coached by Canova for the Olympic team. Beyond that I can't confirm.

Pietro Mennea set the WR in the 200 in 1979, and that record stood for 17 years. Carlo Vittori was his coach and coached some other notable athletes, including Marcello Fiasconaro, who held the WR in the 800.

Anybody know if there was a connection at that time? I have no idea.

Wait, I figured out the connection, they are all Italian. As a big time D1 coach, I have insider information.

The Man Who Knows Too Much by Chris Harrison has some relevant info.

It's very funny to see how people don't knowing about some argument "for certain" look at something completely wrong.

1. Michele Ferrari NEVER worked for Italian Federation (FIDAL). In the period 1980-1985, the Italian researcher who was his chief (Conconi) had a contract with Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) for testing and supporting athletes preparing top competitions. Michele Ferrari was one of his followers. Both lived in the town of Ferrara, and their studies on the blood were very appreciated also outside of the sport (Conconi had a nomination for Nobel Prize about his researches for Mediterranean Anaemia).

The link between Conconi and CONI terminated at the end of 1985. Some of the Italian athletes of middle and long distance used "autotrasfusione" (transfusion of their own blood) till when the system was officially banned, at the end of 1985. Some other athletes, instead, always refused to have any kind of treatment, in spite of the reccomandation from Olympic Committee (in this group, the Olympic Marathon Champion 1988 Gelindo Bordin, the World Champion 1987 of steeple Francesco Panetta and the European Champion of 10000m in 1986, Stefano Mei).

2. I never worked with Michele Ferrari, but I knew him from long time, already from 1968, since he was an athlete with good results in middle distances, especially when was in the school (1000m about 2'30" when 18).

But, of course, when I was responsible of the long distance for Italian Federation, and his daughter Sara was one of the best young Italian runners, I had the opportunity to meet him and to speak with him, about his daughter and, more generally, about methodology.

How I explained in my post, the experiances I had with all my athletes, Italian, Ukrainan, Kenyan, Ugandan and Ethiopian, are totally different from the experiences Ferrari had in cycling. I have data about one reality, who works in cycling data about another situation.

3. I confirm completely what I wrote last time. The two sports require different attitudes, and I continue to believe that EPO doesn't work with top athletes having a very hard, and correct, type of training.

I don't know if it's possible to have the same top results

completely clean in cycling, because athletics can be measured with times and exact distances, cycling is something different. But what I think is that, in cycling, the mentality was that ONLY with using of a lot of supports it was possible to be competitive (and the first part of Lance's interview confirms this idea : taking some PED was like filling a bottle for drinking or putting air in the tyres, because was a normal and general behavior). And, of course, NOBODY in the ambience had the interest in trying some experience WITHOUT doping, because with doping a lot of people can have economical advantages.

4. There is no ONE official research about the advantages of taking EPO, in a scientific way, with top runners in athleteics. Few athletes were caught, and people give merit to their doping for their results, BUT NOBODY KNOWS WHAT THEY COULD RUN WITH DIFFERENT TRAINING WITHOUT DOPING.

On the other side, I know very well where a top runner can arrive WITHOUT ANY DOPING, but I don't have proof of what they could do taking some PED.

What I know, is that I had 8 athletes between 26'30" and 26'55" in 10000m, the WR holder of steeple, 2 marathon runners under 2:04 and a lot under 2:07 men, and about 10 athletes between 2:18:47 and 2:22:00 in the marathon for women, reaching these results without any aid : and that's the reason because I don't believe in the effects of PED for this type of athletes.

5. At the end, I'm sure somebody goes to speak about the 3 kenyan marathon runners last year banned. Among them, only one (Mathew Kisorio) was a top class athlete, and he was caught for steroids, not for EPO. And, from when he started to take PED, he started also to run very much slower than before, so......

Lots of evil white people in cycling, while distance running is dominated by nice Africans.

EPO both doesn't work on Africans, and even if it did, they are genetically incapable of wrong-doing.

Renato says so.

I would stop denying it so hard, you've made a lot of money from the sport, you wouldn't want to end up on Oprah.

Renato Canova wrote:

BUT NOBODY KNOWS WHAT THEY COULD RUN WITH DIFFERENT TRAINING WITHOUT DOPING.

That is your argument? Seriously?

VoR wrote:

Renato Canova wrote:

BUT NOBODY KNOWS WHAT THEY COULD RUN WITH DIFFERENT TRAINING WITHOUT DOPING.

That is your argument? Seriously?

He also points out Mathew Kisorio who tested positive for steroids as an example. Failing to point out Kisorio admitted to using EPO and blood transfusions as well for an extended period of time.

Renato Canova has got to be my favorite LetsRun poster.

Renato, I respect you a lot, but some of these things you say are strange. Would you mind answering these questions?

1. First, the "attitude" doesn't really matter if the doping effects your body. Secondly, the mentality part you are talking about is simply wrong. There have been SCIENTIFIC tests of young great riders using PEDs as EPO to test the effect, do you know what the results were of that research?

Do you know who Mads Kaggestad is? Former professional clean rider from Credit Agricole. He tested it as part of research in his younger cycling days and reported back a great effect. He said it was like being in top shape every day, he recovered amazingly fast and improved a lot over the few months he tested it.

What is your comment to that?

2. "There is no ONE official research about the advantages of taking EPO, in a scientific way, with top runners in athleteics."

Like I tell you above, there are official research about the advantages of taking EPO, maybe not in running, but in other endurance athletes. Why on earth would they work on cyclist but not runners? They have the same body, they just use their legs differently. If it helps a cyclist improve, its incredibly strange to suggest it doesn't improve a runner.

What is your thoughts on that?

3. You mention Mathew Kisorio, but fails to mention that he admittet to using EPO, why?

Really Renato? His own damn website says that he was a consultant for FIDAL. Am I to believe you or him?

Synthetic EPO increases red blood cell count. How does having more red blood cells than normal increase oxygen delivery to the muscles when it thickens the blood and lowers heart rate?

You raise questions he has already answered.

The question isn't if EPO affects the body, but how many seconds improvement will result.

A cycling study on young cyclists measuring time to exhaustion, and power, will not help answer, how many seconds a top running athlete will improve in a race.

A running study on medium trained university volunteers will also not answer the question for top athletes at their peak.

No study has looked if training clean can bring the same improvement as EPO did.

If Mads Kaggestad trains for 10 years to run a 10K, how much will EPO improve his result?

If Kisorio took steroids, he cannot dissprove that EPO doesn't work. This is true regardless if he took EPO.

What Renato says is that nobody knows (including himself BTW) by how many seconds EPO will improve a highly trained top athlete. If one study says 40 seconds, for medium trained university volunteers, this might be 5 seconds for elite Kenyans at their peak. If the study says 40, and Renato says 0, who is closer to being right?

rekrunner wrote:

What Renato says is that nobody knows (including himself BTW) by how many seconds EPO will improve a highly trained top athlete. If one study says 40 seconds, for medium trained university volunteers, this might be 5 seconds for elite Kenyans at their peak. If the study says 40, and Renato says 0, who is closer to being right?

The smart money says the proper scientific study is closer to being right.

You're also ignoring the massive experiment that's taken place annualy in France over the last 20 years where hundreds of highly trained top athletes have been using EPO with great success.

Simply suggesting that maybe EPO works for everyone except highly trained top athletes who happen to be distance runners is laughable.

Their is no place to put your smart money, because the proper scientific study hasn't been conducted yet. That's the point.

I'm not ignoring anything. I'm dismissing it because there are too many uncontrolled variables.

If you want an accurate estimate of how many seconds top athletes improve, you need accurate data, in controlled environment. No one has done that yet.

The only question is the number. The study could severely overestimate any positive effect if the studied subjects are not sufficiently representative of the population in question.

hgjh wrote:

The study is closer to being right because the numbers don't matter nearly as much as the general question of whether or not EPO has any positive effect.

Poking around the wikis of Conconi, Ferrari and Cecchini it is apparent that Conconi introduced EPO to the peloton, and Ferrari perfected it's use. LMAO that Ferrari, like Renato, gives the line of "EPO has no fundamental effect on performance" in 1994, nothing to get excited over, yet he risked the careers of Lance and many other top cyclists with it's administration. Strange? Not if you realize what the word "smokescreen" means.

Anyone having contact with these Italian "doctors" is highly in suspicion.

rekrunner wrote:

If you want an accurate estimate of how many seconds top athletes improve

But I don't want that. All I need to know is that there is a benefit.

We can discuss all our life, but nobody can reasonably telling me that, if I gave EPO to my athletes, they could run (may be 8 of them) under the WR of Bekele.

Facts are facts, and nobody has any proof about the advantages an athlete can have taking EPO, because no one ofthe top athletes tried to have hard and effective training WITH and WITHOUT EPO, and we can't put together in the same file different people. We know many cheaters were able to improve, I know many clean athletes are at the top at the World, nobody know what these clean athletes could do becoming cheaters, but also nobody can know what cheaters could do having right training, with a right mentality, while clean.

About Kisorio, I want to give some FACT, because a lot of people can offer opinions only.

Supposing we believe in wehat Kisorio said in his interview, and also in a second time, HE STARTED TO TAKE EPO AND STEROIDS TOGETHER FROM SEPTEMBER 2011, AFTER THE END OF THE SEASON, IN ORDER TO QUALIFY FOR OLYMPIC GAMES IN 10000m.

The career of Kisorio is as follows :

PB in 3000m : 7:34.69 6 Sep 2009 (clean)

PB in 5000m : 12:57.83 4 Jun 2010 (clean)

PB in 10000m : 26:54.25 3 Jun 2011 (clean)

PB in HM : 58:46 18 Sep 2011 (clean)

PB in MAR : 2:10:58 6 Nov 2011 (EPO)

PB 10000m in altitude :

27:28.13 in Nairobi 26 Jun 2010 (Clean)

With EPO :

Marathon : 2:18:15 (10) Boston 16 Apr 2012

10000m in altitude : 28:23.1 Nairobi 17 May 2012

28:05.60 Nairobi 14 Jun 2012

(when he was caught doped)

These are FACTS, not opinion.

Now I want somebody explaining me which type of advantage Kisorio had from the assumption of EPO.