Rita Jeptoo's B sample confirms positive doping test

Link wrote:

I'm starting to wonder if Canova is saying exactly the opposite of what's true about top Kenyans: That their superiority these last 20 years is due only to the fact that they get a bigger boost from EPO and other PEDs - kind of like Lance may have. All the riders were doped, but, before Lance started with EPO, he was an only slightly better than average TdF rider. Before the EPO era, Kenya had its share of distance running elites, but not 90 of the top 100 marathoners, or, whatever the heck it is right now. Maybe it was all a drug fueled illusion.

Oh yeah, before epo the Americans kicked a lot of African tail. Ever seen a picture of an African beating Frank Shorter? There are none, never happened.

If you were an agent/cardiologist/coach/whatever like Dr Rosa, would you rather work with fast runners with bad genetics (blood) or good genetics (blood)?

How can you be a fast runner with bad genetics? Is that a non ideal body type?

Testing? wrote:

So how many people reading this think there is widespread state of the art testing in Kenya??

What would you do if your floor was dirt and your family was starving?

The bottom line: Kenya is FAR from clean.....

Jeptoo is talented enough without drugs to make enough money at smaller races to feed her family and provide shelter.

Obviously, she could make more money with EPO (until she was caught), but at that point it's probably more about greed or the desire to win at any cost than feeding her family. Those qualities are universal.

I could see a somewhat less-talented, poor runner wanting to use EPO to win a bunch of small races and feed his family, something they could probably get away with with minimal testing, and race serially. I'd bet there are a lot of those.

xenonscreams wrote:

I could see a somewhat less-talented, poor runner wanting to use EPO to win a bunch of small races and feed his family, something they could probably get away with with minimal testing, and race serially. I'd bet there are a lot of those.

This is where a lot of the doping in East Africa is going on.

I could see a somewhat less-talented, poor runner wanting to use EPO to win a bunch of small races and feed his family, something they could probably get away with with minimal testing, and race serially. I'd bet there are a lot of those.

Happens in North America too:

Are there others?

At least I respect your effort to appeal to external information -- that alone seems quite rare. I agree these leads are something that should be investigated further to help determine:- If there is an iceberg, rather than opportunistic, sensationalist journalism- If the cause of recent Kenyan doping positives is simply a recent occurrence, based on some new "rogue" doctors/agent/coaches, or something dating back to the 90's or before.I find your characterisation of "20 Kenyans, including their stars" a little odd, in large part due to the great lack of the really big stars. Clearly Rita Jeptoo is the biggest name. Kisorio is a bigger name, but he's not one of the biggest stars. He seems comparable to Mo Trafeh, someone with some good results, but wasn't making the big headlines for the USA. Erupe is another "almost" big name. Many of the doping busts are women, who I tend to mentally separate from the men for two reasons: 1) women are higher responders than men, for drugs like steroids and testosterone; and 2) competition for the women is not as deep as the men. I also tend to discount those who received documented treatment for injuries (like Sumgong), or for things related to birth control, (or having babies), where it looks like a legitimate treatment for non-athletes. Of course violations are violations, but I just rate them on different scales, (and neither seems to be the case with Rita).I don't really put much weight on "what would be going on on these boards" as any true reflection of what goes on in the real world, but as you suggest, I'm trying to get my head around 20 American distance runners busted for PEDs. According to USADA, in Track and Field http://www.usada.org/testing/results/sanctions/, I count:- 13 positives in 2010- 8 in 2011- 4 in 2012- 7 in 2013- 9 in 2014I'm wondering if "what would be going on" would be that much different than "what already went on".Can I say doping in track and field is "rampant" and "widespread" in the USA? I would also say that for distance running, any numbers from Kenya would be skewed, due to the sheer depth of talent compared to any other country.Regarding your "highly suspicious" blood samples, I read in the "Telegraph" that they were collected mostly from 2006-2008, with some as early as 2001. How do we know the IAAF failed to act? After all, in the same article, “A member of the IAAF medical and anti-doping commission would not know whether follow-up tests would have been conducted or not.” “The blood data collected before 2009 were used for target purposes ...” “Abnormal results were duly followed up by the IAAF, whenever possible logistically.” “Approximately 30 of those athletes named in the documents have been either banned or have failed a drugs test at some stage.” “Several of those on the list were suspended at around the time the data on it was compiled, meaning the values recorded may ultimately have helped sanction them.”It seems premature to conclude that there was any negligence on the part of the IAAF.

She is great in bed

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Sorry, you lost me in those sentences. Besides, both are among the top runners in Kenya, they are not nobodies.

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Rita Jeptoo and other Kenyan women distance runners have tested positive for EPO, I have not heard that there is difference in response between men and women for this drug.

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It could be easily argued that this gives less incentive to dope so your separation of men from women (I assume based on susceptibility to doping) is not really coherent based on your points 1 and 2.

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I said positive tests within 2 years for distance runners, given the audience of these boards that sort of thing would provoke a certain level of interest and suspicion (rightly or wrongly) about what is going on in distance running in the US. You have listed positive tests over half a decade for American athletes from all of the track and field disciplines. The figures are not really comparible with those of Kenya.

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We know that for certain athletes who tested positive or who had suspicious biological passport values, the IAAF did not act for many years. See for eg, the case of Shobukhova (I do not know if her name is on the list as the IAAF do not want to release the names) whose failed tests were allowed to go unpunished for several years, thanks to the treasurer of the IAAF:

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Sorry you lost me again here: first you say the say the antidoping comission of the IAAF would not know whether follow up tests have been conducted then you say that abnormal results were duly followed up. Who knows this if the IAAF antidoping comission, according to you, does not know? Besides, see case of Shobukhova above for how some officials in the IAAF were dealing with positive tests.

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You know the names on the list?

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Many would say that right now the IAAF has got of a lot explaining to do in order justify that they were acting appropriately especially given the behavior of certain individuals within that organization.

Sorry if I don't quote you inline...

Look at all the posts and news stories who so desperately want to find that Kenyan doping is rampant, widespread, and the sole cause of domination since the 90's, and even before. All of my comments are in this context. Can we use Rita Jeptoo, or even Kisorio and Erupe, to condemn Paul Tergat or Sammy Wanjiru, let alone Wilson Kipsang or Dennis Kimetto?

Sometimes you are lost, because you think there is a clear answer, or that I'm giving a clear conclusion. My point is precisely that we don't have enough information to form the many certain conclusions being made in this thread and others.

You say 20 athletes in two years, but really there are only 1 or 2 who we could call "top". How would this board react to 1 or 2 US long distance somebodies, plus 18 US long distance nobodies?:

- The 1 or 2 somebodies would get a couple of long threads

- The other 18 would get very little discussion -- maybe 1 or 2 would get a "who the heck is ..." thread

- Some might link it to Salaszar and Nike

- No one would condemn the entire nation with vague, yet sweeping words like "rampant" and "widespread"

Regarding the difference between men and women -- think of it this way: there are physiological reasons why Chinese and East German women doping programs succeeded, but not the men. I put the women in a different category than men, because too many elements are not comparable.

Regarding the difference between EPO response between men and women, there are good reasons why you haven't heard about the differences:

- We don't really know the absolute EPO response for distance running for elites (neither men nor women)

- Athletes are taking EPO because they believe it will produce a response, not because we know the response

Your link says Shubokova bribed the Russian federation. The President of the Russian federation is also IAAF treasurer. Is the IAAF involved? Maybe. Could it be coincidence? Quite possibly. At this point, it seems more like journalistic sensationalism, rather than something "the IAAF has lots of 'splaining" to do.

Regarding the IAAF commission, and what they could know, I actually did not say anything. I quoted statements someone else said, that undermines allegations that "no action" was taken. The Telegraph was quite balanced, saying allegations were made, but not really supported by the documents seen. And don't confuse one whistleblower with the whole commission. One "member" with access to documents of names, dates, and blood values, could not know if nothing was done. That doesn't mean the whole commission could not know. Do I have names? No. Just like you, I only have numbers. When I say we don't have enough information, that includes me too. But the fact that some of the numbers were "busted" seems to undermine an allegation that nothing was done. The very same newspaper who saw the documents on 150 athletes, also tells me that 20% of the 150 were busted. How is that consistent with "no action"? The case for the IAAF doing nothing about 150 "abnormal values" hasn't been made yet. It is simply an allegation, with support only seen by a few eyes.

Once again -- I'm actually not interested in what "many" would say, especially now, when so little is known by the "many".

Jeff Wigand wrote:

xenonscreams wrote:

I could see a somewhat less-talented, poor runner wanting to use EPO to win a bunch of small races and feed his family, something they could probably get away with with minimal testing, and race serially. I'd bet there are a lot of those.

This is where a lot of the doping in East Africa is going on.

Hi Jeff

Anonymous Pseudonym wrote:

Doping is about a culture, not just availability. The average decent western 19-20-year old distance runner is likely from a relatively financially secure backround, and is embedded in the collegiate system which lacks the immediate pressure to perform for money, and does a decent job at discouraging drug use. Their Kenyan counterpart is involved with corrupt coaches and agents who are waving the prospect of being set for life financially within a few years if he/she complies with their "system", which includes methodolgy to administer drugs and avoid testing or detection.

In Kenya it is a black market system, yet is as effective (or more) than the state-compliant system in the Eastern bloc.

All the ingredients needed for this game can be found in Jamaica.

Haven't you heard? The BBC retracted the erroneous announcement, a mere 4 weeks later:http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/athletics/3156744.stm

BLAST FROM THE PAST wrote:

Jeff Wigand wrote:

This is where a lot of the doping in East Africa is going on.

Hi Jeff

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/athletics/3078642.stm

When a distance runner has a "false positive" it is for EPO, when a sprinter has one it is for steroids. Go figure.

Except...

Marion Jones had a false positive for EPO.

Who (sprinter or distance) has had a false positive for steroids?

rekrunner wrote:

Except...

Marion Jones had a false positive for EPO.

Who (sprinter or distance) has had a false positive for steroids?

Except Marion Jones false positive later turned out that she was using EPO for recovery the whole time

Ever heard of nandrolone

Around the late 90s a lot of power athletes started manufacturing it naturally... Allegedly

So, I guess you agree that it's not only distance runners that get false positives for EPO.Regarding Marion Jones, we don't really have any idea what her EPO schedule was, or if EPO was in the samples, where the A and B results did not match.I have heard of nandrolone. I have never heard that allegation until just now. I also don't see how it's relevant here.

just sayin wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

Except...

Marion Jones had a false positive for EPO.

Who (sprinter or distance) has had a false positive for steroids?

Except Marion Jones false positive later turned out that she was using EPO for recovery the whole time

Ever heard of nandrolone

Around the late 90s a lot of power athletes started manufacturing it naturally... Allegedly