EPO Does Work on Kenyans! Surprise!

wtfunny wrote:

Except, of course, that the conjecture surrounding your 2nd question, 'who takes', would reasonably include the idea that if EPO doesn't offer anything more than negligible benefit to a certain subset of athletes, it's highly unlikely that many of those people take it. Hence the discussion.

That is not necessarily true and I would suggest that there is a fair amount of evidence that it is false. Athletes of all kinds take all sorts of substances which do not seem to have much basis for an effect and no demonstrated benefit. This ranges from Testoboost and similar products to EPOBoost to Deer Antler spray. Taken by local gym rats up to professional athletes. They will do anything to try to get an edge and evidence is not necessary in many cases.

None of the presents a mechanism either

Mr. Obvious wrote:

wtfunny wrote:

Except, of course, that the conjecture surrounding your 2nd question, 'who takes', would reasonably include the idea that if EPO doesn't offer anything more than negligible benefit to a certain subset of athletes, it's highly unlikely that many of those people take it. Hence the discussion.

That is not necessarily true and I would suggest that there is a fair amount of evidence that it is false. Athletes of all kinds take all sorts of substances which do not seem to have much basis for an effect and no demonstrated benefit. This ranges from Testoboost and similar products to EPOBoost to Deer Antler spray. Taken by local gym rats up to professional athletes. They will do anything to try to get an edge and evidence is not necessary in many cases.

Fair comment. But at the same time, most of the (inane) conjecture on this site about everyone using EPO points to the awesome performances of the top guys/gals. So there should be, imo, reasonable discussion over whether or not EPO really benefits the top athletes in this way. It could be, for example, that El G was just a beast.

The times seem to be very far from elite. Plus due to ethics considerations, I'm speculating it's not blind (the administrators have to disclose that they're giving them epo).

Anyone have a link to the Abstract?

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From Magness:

http://www.scienceofrunning.com/2013/05/research-galore-summary-of-2013-acsm.html

-Interesting study gave 19 Caucasian runners and 20 Kenyan runners and gave them EPO for 4 weeks. In Caucasians, Hematocrit went from 41.9 to 49.2 with EPO, performance improved from 11:08 to 10:30. Then performance was still at 10:46 after being off the drug for 4 weeks. In Kenyans, Hematocrit went from 46.0 to 49.9, while performance went from 9:20 to 8:55, and was still at 9:02 after 4 weeks off drug. ( Blood Parameters and Running Performance of Kenyan and Caucasian Endurance Trained Males After rHuEpo Administration)

Sprintgeezer wrote:

Canova entirely failed to respond to the scientifically demonstrated effect of neuroprotection, and to my suggested effect of psychoaction, in this thread:

In fact, Canova has completely disappeared from this board since my post on that subject.

Renato Canova isn't some douchebag who scans the message boards all day long like you. He is an infrequent visitor and I don't expect him to respond to a troll. He actually has more important things to do.

i expect he's trying to get some angry kenyans

26'20 - 26'50 today

hope wind won't kill 'em...

EPO will provoke elements of fitness in fairly fit athletes that it will not in a supremely fit athlete - who have used training methods that already provoked those elements of fitness. So, a highly fit athlete will not benefit to the same extent as would a marginally fit athlete.

Nevertheless, it would be foolish to think that EPO will bring no benefits to even the fittest and fastest athlete. The benefit will be smaller, no doubt, but any benefit gained when at the top of the sport is of far greater competitive significance, affecting which among the top end performers win the medals or the money.

smell the coffee wrote:

EPO will provoke elements of fitness in fairly fit athletes that it will not in a supremely fit athlete - who have used training methods that already provoked those elements of fitness. So, a highly fit athlete will not benefit to the same extent as would a marginally fit athlete.

Nevertheless, it would be foolish to think that EPO will bring no benefits to even the fittest and fastest athlete. The benefit will be smaller, no doubt, but any benefit gained when at the top of the sport is of far greater competitive significance, affecting which among the top end performers win the medals or the money.

Once again. It´s proved that EPO and other drugs do oxygen boost and oxygen carry. If it works or doesn´t, is not the main question. If carry and boost oxygen shall be illegal and unauthorised. If do exists did exist or will got the chance that will exist someone that benefits from that usage shall be illegal. Even if a mediocre runner will benefit eventually shalln´t be admitted.

Renato Canova or anyone else that trusts that EPO doesn´t work it´s not plausible reason to admit it in our sport. If he or anyone else dislikes the anti doping rule don´t participate, but simply each one that is engaged in run competitions shall follows the code norms.

António Cabral wrote:

It´s proved that EPO and other drugs do oxygen boost and oxygen carry. If it works or doesn´t, is not the main question. If carry and boost oxygen shall be illegal and unauthorised.

It used to be "proved" that bloodletting prevented illnesses and cured diseases. Maybe some athletes practiced bloodletting prior to their important competitions.

The current hysteria about epo and other drugs is the same.

wtfunny wrote:

Fair comment. But at the same time, most of the (inane) conjecture on this site about everyone using EPO points to the awesome performances of the top guys/gals. So there should be, imo, reasonable discussion over whether or not EPO really benefits the top athletes in this way. It could be, for example, that El G was just a beast.

It could be. I think it's very fair to ask just how much raw performance enhancement the very top runners could ask for. As far as I know, nobody's ever done this sort of study on elite athletes (what professional would agree to throw away his career for science?). Of course, we do have the example of Ramzi dismantling a field that included Kiprop, who was at least a 3:28 guy -- though IMO Ramzi was probably on some anabolic steroids in addition to EPO.

On the other hand, one of the benefits of EPO is that you can run race after race without worrying about eroding your aerobic base. The top guys back in the EPO glory days were notable for running what seems like a crazy number of all out races in Europe, Daniel Komen being an especially egregious case of this. That seems to have disappeared these days. Whether guys are scared of anti-doping measures, or that recovery period isn't possible, we don't see people doing all kinds of WR attempts with just a day or two of rest any more.

Or you just made up every single one of those numbers and base your assumptions on random times. 13:10? Why 13:10? Your entire reasoning is based on pure speculation because you used zero hard data.

dafssdfdsafsdaf wrote:

Or you just made up every single one of those numbers and base your assumptions on random times. 13:10? Why 13:10? Your entire reasoning is based on pure speculation because you used zero hard data.

I didn't use "zero hard data", you fvcking cretin, I chose a time that a reasonable human being would agree is achievable by a clean runner, then applied the HARD DATA (5% improvement) to that figure. What part do you take issue with? Do you think that 13:10 is too fast for a clean runner? Then say so! The faster that "clean" figure, the more absurd a 5% improvement becomes.

Feel free to read my whole post, engage your brain, and respond in a logical manner. Make some kind of point.

after the obvious fact is certified herewith, the next step is:

establish a real good working doping control system in east africa to end the ridiculous situation that world class runners can disappear for months somewhere in the copse without any insight.

it´s perfectly clear for what reason this research study has been conducted and for what reason mr canova´s thesis is mentioned by runnersworld.

Look at this list.

Clearly, a gentleman's agreement was made, that no one would run fast from 2006 on...

Drugs dont work on the world's best runners, nothing to see here guys!

does that include antibiotics too? are you against vaccinations+

I am with you on this one. A superb analysis as usual.

Don't go to hard on those who do not appreciate your

knowledge:)

J.R. wrote:

That's not exactly true, because the ONLY REASON drugs are promoted & banned as they are is for the first reason, TO PROMOTE THEM and sell more of them.

The drug companies know that as long as they can blast everyone with nonsensical cr/p about drugs, that all the mindless people will believe they are good, helpful, and necessary for even their basic bodily functions.

This is exactly the reason, and exactly what's happening.

There were 12.7 million new cancer diagnoses in 2008, and this number is expected to rise to 21 million by 2030. The bottom line profits for manufacturers of EPO aren't likely to miss a few hundred cheating athletes across various sports.

But perhaps you can show us the promotional campaigns where the drug manufacturers are promoting EPO to healthy people?

So if we accept that 5% is the improvement and if we assume that the distance world record times are doped (how could the record holder overcome a 5% disadvantage?), then hopefully we can now all agree that no sub 13 or sub 27 time can be clean.

I'm not disappeared. The fact is my profession sometimes brings me in some place where it's difficult to have internet, and my priority is not to answer to a lot of BS.

At the moment, I'm in Suzhou for Chinese Championships, because of a collaboration with the Chinese Federation (I will be in China till 15th of June), and today it's the first day I can use internet (and my interest was to see the results of Eugene, not to read some post in Letsrun).

However, since I decided to go to the forum, I could see the original post "EPO works for Kenyan runners".

If we speak about a scientific research, I have to say that the WADA research doesn't have any value. The athletes taking EPO had an average of 9'10" in 3000m, that means 550" against 440" of the WR : the difference of 110" is exactly 25% of the WR, and this is enough for saying that this research was only smoke for idiots believing physiology can have a "mathematic trend", that means the behavior can follow a linear approach, being the same from normal people to elite people.

I repeat for the thousandth time : I'm ABSOLUTELY SURE of what clean athletes can do, and this is, in some case, WR (for example, Shaheen in steeple). Athletes like him NEVER took any supplement and/or vitamin, ALSO LEGAL.

I know his WR was not his hypotetical top. In 2006, his shape was very much better, and he didn't better his WR only because a bad pacing and terrible climatic conditions. This means that his real value could be, at that time, about 7'50", and 5% of improvement from this time means 23"5, so somebody can really think Shaheen under EPO could run steeple in 7'27" ?

Because a research on EPO for top runners can be accepted, we need to consider two fundamental points :

1) Why a top top top runner is at the top top top of the World ? Of sure, not only for his training, BUT BECAUSE HE HAS QUALITIES COMPLETELY DIFFERENT FROM THE AVERAGE OF NORMAL PEOPLE. The best coach in the World, with the strongest EPO program possible, CAN'T MAKE A DONKEY BECOMING A RACING HORSE (and a Kenyan running 9'10" in 3000m, or is not trained at all, or is a donkey).

2) The training they have, before and after taking EPO. Was their training the same before and after ? Or, because of the assumption of EPO, they increased their training ?

In the first case, the investigation MUST be done with the specific subject. IN ALL THE OTHER CASES, THE RESEARCH CAN BE WONDERFUL, BUT THE ANIMAL IS WRONG.

In the second case, THE IMPROVEMENT DEPENDS ON THE INCREASE OF TRAINING, not on the assumption of EPO. May be the increase of training depends on the assumption of EPO, but in this case is the PLACEBO EFFECT acting, because in many cases athletes don't try to have hard training because they think not possible to recover and/or to sustain it, if clean, BUT FINALLY TRY TO TRAIN MORE IF THEY HAVE THE SUPPORT OF SOME DRUG, because in their mind finally they think possible to do it recovering without problems. But try to read well my words : BEFORE THEY REFUSED TO TRY. So, also in this case, we can't quantify the percentage of improvement (that of course exists) due to the DIRECT EFFECT of EPO assumption, and the percent due to the increase of training (that was possible ALSO WITHOUT EPO, but the athletes didn't try).

At the end of everything, I confirm my theory : with the absolute best in the World, BLOOD DOPING DOESN'T WORK.

A scientific research is something different from the tests of WADA, only smoke for showing that there is the attempt to reach some result, WITHOUT ANY SCIENTIFIC APPROACH.

About Springeezer, how you can see I don't hide myself. If I didn't answer to you in real time, is because I don't want and don't need to waste my time with "cervellotiche elucubrazioni" (go to translate from Italian, because I don't have the English words for explaining what I mean) about neuroprotection and other pseudo-scientific speculations, only good for confusing people and with no practical consistencies.

And now, how every time I touch this argument, I wait again a lot of answer, insults and whatever.

I wait the first TOP Kenyan od Ethiopian banned for the biological passport (not for a normal doping control : some kenyan of good level, such as Mathew Kisorio and Erupe, can also take EPO, that's not the point, FOR REACHING THE TOP, that is not in their possibility - and don't forget Kisorio started running SLOWER after taking EPO....), that it means he used in systematic way blood doping. If, and when, this can happen, I can start to think EPO can work also for the extrastrong athletes of Endurance.