More Kenyan Doping

wakeupbuddy wrote:

so epo makes horses, rats, mice, and white people a hell of a lot faster, but not east africans that can run some arbitrarily fast time? what a load of crap.

i love your training principles and am very thankful for you having shared them with us, but really, what you are proposing about epo goes against a mountain of scientific evidence of how the body processes oxygen. if what you say is true, we should be able to remove a liter of blood from any top east african and it will not slow them down one bit.

He's saying the people like Shaheen are like particles traveling nearly at the speed of light. There really isn't much room for them to improve. You could put a huge amount of energy onto making him go faster, but he's already near the absolute physical limit, so all the energy won't do much for him, while it will provide a much bigger boost to a slower particle.

We can agree there are limits. The trouble is in drawing the line in the sand.

It has been shown many times that the 'optimal' levels are NOT obtainable via natural living/training.

Also, this doesn't account for the benefits of anabolic agents that improve strength, decrease body fat %, and improve recovery to allow for enhanced training intensity.

This discussion is really abstract. There have been 5 kenyans busted in the past ~6weeks with more coming from the IAAF. This - combined with the ethio busts from this past fall and kisorio (a top athlete by ANY standard) should put to rest the theory that 'east africans don't dope because it isn't in their nature'. That theory is blown up. The only question now is the extent.

The incredible financial benefits of winning, combined with the demonstrated VERY easy access to drugs, suggests that if there doping isn't rampant then these guys are truly saintly.

Given that Kenyans don't need much provocation to start murdering their neighbors with machetes and arrows, I am not betting the farm on it.

What about that Irish guy who took EPO and ran damn near the Irish 10K record. He was slightly sub 30 before using?

Someday the myth of kenyan running will be recognized as the great myth that it is! FALSE. Africa is so underdeveloped that it allows them to dope and cheat as much as thehy want without testing. THAT is the reason for the outrageous times

And the great TRUTH will be uncovered. That four white Americans can run sub 13 within a span of two years off of pure genetic advantage and unmatched dedication.

I'd have to look around to find it, but a few years ago a guy from Outside Magazine did something like this. He wanted to test exactly how his performances could change if he suddenly started doping.

This was in response to agip's idea that it would be interesting to see a known clean runner load up and turn in some times for comparison.

yeah - I saw that - my interest would be to make the IAAF etc take drugs more seriously - I mean 6 months ago no one thought there was any ped use in Kenya and now look - it's a bloody avalanche.

A 'name' athlete doing this as a stunt to bring attention to the problem would be weird, sick and ethically challenged, but it shine a very bright light. Maybe policing would toughen up.

I agree, that would be really awesome and eye-opening.

agip wrote:

yeah - I saw that - my interest would be to make the IAAF etc take drugs more seriously - I mean 6 months ago no one thought there was any ped use in Kenya and now look - it's a bloody avalanche.

A 'name' athlete doing this as a stunt to bring attention to the problem would be weird, sick and ethically challenged, but it shine a very bright light. Maybe policing would toughen up.

Haha, nobody?

if you had white guys 25 years ago capable of 2-07 2-08 before epo

no reason why some top east africans aren't capable of 2-04 2-05 now

if that's the case you might expect a performance around 2-00

with the benefit of epo

yet it hasn't happened

just something to throw out there

could be bs

just to add

if the top guys are capable of 2-04 2-05 clean

how come there's been nothing around 2-00 with epo

maybe RC has a point

Another bunch of B/C-tiers. It's easy to find that type of sacrificial lambs.

Call me when IAAF ban a sub 2:05 Kenyan.

¿And how is that we are doubting only about the Kenyans, but nobody is doubting about Haile G. for example?

Since IAAF implanted blood pasport (mid 2009), he couldn't break 2:06 in a marathon (with a lot of DNF's and DNS) or 1:00 in a half.

Oh, coincidentally, he aged in 2009! but hey! it's just a coincidence.

just wonderin wrote:

if you had white guys 25 years ago capable of 2-07 2-08 before epo

no reason why some top east africans aren't capable of 2-04 2-05 now

if that's the case you might expect a performance around 2-00

with the benefit of epo

yet it hasn't happened

just something to throw out there

could be bs

1) You're assuming East Africans are not using PEDs.

2) You're also assuming the white guys 25 years ago were not using anabolic steroids and blood transfusions.

Here's something I don't get at all.

Why try to convince people that EPO somehow, magically,

doesn't provide any benefit for east africans who are faster than some arbitrary limit? What difference does it make?

If those runners aren't using illegal PEDs surely it doesn't matter if they would have been able to obtain any benefit from using them - so why wast time arguing that they wouldn't?

And if they are using illegal PEDs then they're breaking the rules no matter if it helps them or not.

I suppose having a "the drugs don't work" argument would eventually allow you to say: "Yes, xxx and yyy did take EPO, but they would have been just as fast without using any."

But that's not what Canova is arguing. So why even start to go down that road? It makes no sense to me at all.

In the decision on Lance Armstrong, the USADA Report (p. 137) contains the following:

This seems to imply that not only is there scientific validity to taking EPO at altitude, but doing so at altitude may allow it to be used and not detected. And lets make it clear that this would apply to Salazar using altitude chambers for Rupp and Farah just as it would apply to East Africans living at altitude.

Any comment?

But if you already have high EPO due to altitude there are diminishing returns of adding more with drugs. This is RC's point.

Let's Contemplate wrote:

But if you already have high EPO due to altitude there are diminishing returns of adding more with drugs. This is RC's point.

But there are returns. Even if they diminish to an advantage of one half of one percent, that's a difference of over 30 seconds in a marathon. And that's the difference between 1st and 5th in some races, between 200 grand and 20. It's difference enough.