clerk wrote:
Tons of ways to look at the data. Since 2000, numbers of sub 2:07 performances:
2014- 37
2013- 34
2012- 51(!)
2011- 29
2010- 24
2009- 25
2008- 16
2007- 6
2006- 9
2005- 0
2004- 7
2003- 10
2002- 12
2001- 1
2000- 2
Or, we could look at the world record progression.
What could explain the jump from 2000-2007 (47 performances total) to 2008-2014 (217 performances)? Certainly coincides with the rise of CERA...:
Under the trade name Mircera, Roche Pharmaceuticals received approval from the U.S. FDA in January 2008 to market a continuous erythropoiesis receptor activator [CERA]
...
Methoxy polyethylene glycol-epoetin beta previously was approved by the European Commission in August 2007, and was made available in Europe at the start of 2008.
In terms of its structure, Mircera is similar to the previous synthetic EPO drugs, except that it is connected to a chemical called polyethylene glycol (PEG), which makes it last longer in the body. According to Roche, the product has the longest half-life of all FDA-approved erythropoiesis-stimulating agents (ESAs): up to 6 times longer than darbepoetin alfa and up to 20 times longer than epoetin. CERAs thus promise both lower dosing—significant owing to the high inherent cost of manufacturing recombinant protein drugs—and less frequent injections for patients. ESAs are administered via subcutaneous injections, often in doctor's offices for patients who lack the skill or dexterity to inject themselves, so the once- or twice-monthly dosing regimen for CERAs promises fewer costly, inconvenient office visits for patients requiring constant hemoglobin level maintenance for chronic kidney disease.
What is your explanation for the jump in performances?
Tested athletes aren't using CERA. They don't need to use any drugs at all. Nothing beats blood doping. Especially if you are only racing seriously twice a year. That makes it very easy to take bags out to store and recover in time for hard training blocks and then it goes back in when it's time to pop off a big race.
To simplify the process slightly:
- You take the initial bag out in the offseason when you can be low on RBCs. It's easy to say your blood passport is messed up because you had a long season and now aren't training so your body does weird things.
- Then because you can only store your blood so long, you essentially take one unit out and put the last one back in however often needed; say once every 4-6 weeks to make sure the blood doesn't go bad. You don't lose any training quality doing this because your blood volume stays the same.
- When your A race comes around you put the bag in that you last took out, but of course this time you don't take another unit out. Now you are supercharged! You can run like the devil and conduct interviews within 20 seconds of running sub 2:05.
It's not the drugs guys, it's their own blood.
