Round II: New German ARD TV doping report coming out tomorrow - Kenya/Russia

I tend to agree with this. When I consider all 3 of the Hajo Seppelt documentaries, I am under-impressed with the content. It seems more hype than real investigative journalism.1) Russian doping is an IAAF crisis? When I look at Russian results since 2001, they don't particularly strike me as a Track and Field powerhouse. Maybe I'm wrong, but what has Russia done since 2001? Women's 800m? Women's steeple? Women's marathon? Race walking? Pole vaulting? Are the Russian men doping? Don't get me wrong -- it's clear that it looks like something like "state-sponsored" organized doping is going on. They just don't seem like an endurance sport showcase for me. If you wanted to make a case for drugs not working in athletics, Russia is certainly not getting a good return on their investment. But what is the basis for saying the IAAF isn't reasonably managing Russian doping to the best of their ability (and budget) with the existing process? I recall many Russian drug busts in the last decade.2) Doping in Kenya? It's certainly happening in the middle, but is it happening at the top? In the "first" documentary, Hajo Seppelt found a doctor willing to take his money, and he found a pharmacy in Nairobi willing to take his money. How can we put this in perspective? He only shows that it is possible to find EPO in Kenya, and now that some doctors are injecting (amateur?) athletes. What is still missing is the connection between the hidden camera footage, and what top athletes are really doing. Of course it is *possible* that they are doping, but that doesn't mean they *are* doping. I tried to look up Tarno's IAAF profile, and didn't find anything. I guess he wasn't an IAAF athlete. I couldn't even find a marathon PB for him, until Renato said he's a 2:25 guy.3) No blood testing in Kenya? I have the impression people vastly over-interpret the significance of this. There is out of competition testing, even in Kenya. After all, Rita Jeptoo was caught taking EPO based on urine tests. The IAAF implemented "out of competition" urine testing for EPO in 2003 (or 2002?). Is it really as easy to get away with doping in Kenya as people seem to think? After all, doping busts have increased dramatically in the last few years, despite the lack of blood testing. Somebody needs to make a better case for this conclusion, and Hajo Seppelt didn't.4) IAAF blood profile database. This raises a lot of questions for me, particularly since the database has not been made public (and I think it should not be made public). I have a lot of respect for Michael Ashenden (don't know the other expert), so I don't have any issue with their interpretation of the blood parameters.But the first question is -- how do we know what the IAAF did or did not do, with respect to the suspicious profiles? Was the IAAF follow-up also indicated in the database? What is the basis for saying the IAAF did not act, or they covered it up?Next question, what does "suspicious" mean? I know what it does not mean -- it is not a doping positive. On what basis should we strip medals, or sanction athletes? Is that a reasonable expectation? What can the IAAF do, except increase targeted testing, and improve testing procedures (both of which the IAAF demonstrably did do)? If they are too aggressive, and sanction athletes based on expert opinions, rather than WADA guidelines, these sanctions will be easily overturned by the CAS, causing aggravation, grief, and frustration for everyone involved, not to mention tainting an athletes reputation, for something which might have a non-doping explanation (e.g. altitude training, illness, ...) WADA guidelines that protect athletes from false positives is not the fault of the IAAF, and this may let some dirty people get away with it.Next question, 2001-2012 is a long period, where a lot of improvements were made in testing, in the area of EPO detection, and detection of blood transfusions (both self and external transfusions). How are the "suspicious" results distributed over time? Are they uniformly distributed, or is there a trend over time that can be linked to improvements in testing. After all we know the IAAF did improve testing, at least by implementing out of competition EPO tests in 2003 (when a "urine test" existed), and by the introduction of the blood passport in 2009.These questions bear repeating: how can anyone conclude the IAAF did not act on the suspicious blood data, when we know that they practice targeted testing, and we know that testing has improved from 2001 to 2012? The only evidence appears to be the blood data itself, rather than how IAAF responded. I think people have a wrong expectation about the extent of the IAAF's ability to sanction athletes based on "suspicion".I won't be surprised if the WADA independent commission found that the IAAF did act reasonably.

Except for all their golds at the world championships and olympics. By the way, if they dope as much as they can and they still get beaten often... maybe the others dope too?

Yes, all that. What more do you want? A clean sweep of all podiums at all major championships?

Don't we just want them to remove doping? (Not that I really believe it is feasible.) Or are we just lowering our expectations to "do a little something against doping with our meager means"? The latter is akin to asking to do more of the same: busting a no-name from time to time and letting the system carry on.

It is now clear:

* it is very easy to get PEDs,

* athletes take them,

* including at least two big names who got publicly exposed,

* medal winners (of all countries) have blood values that reveal doping.

The picture is pretty clear to me. And the motives of the people are very easy to guess and make the whole picture very consistent.

Besides, the best athletes probably have the best support and are less likely to get caught with off-the-charts blood values. At least, that also makes them less likely to die from a blood clot.

Haematocrit, haemoglobin, proportion of reticulocytes cannot be checked with a urine test. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think a biological passport can be established without blood tests. Blood tests enable a much tighter control.

Even if the level of evidence is too weak to formally accuse any individual of doping, the overall results demonstrate a massive prevalence of reckless doping (not to mention properly done doping). The IAAF is expected to clean the mess. It's their message isn't it? These people don't say "we'll see if there is anything we can do to catch one or two people".

You ask if they have taken reasonable measures, or even done all they could. That's one question. The other important one is: did they drastically reduce doping? And the answer seems to be: no.

What if the revelation of Russia is just a part of the ongoing boycott against Russia.

During the American, European boycott so many Russian athletes went down. The timing was the obvious for me.

Kenya is also bothering the UK // US centric sports, they came to dominate and now they are trying to show that they are just dopers and that's it??

Lance would never go down if he wasn't the a$$hole he was. He was put down cause he created an army of enemies.

If he had a different mentality he would still be the American hero.

Doping widespread in Kenia?? yeah right a guy who can eat once a day has money for regular epo injections?

Get real doping is everywhere and always have been. Our sports is more about nationalism and politics than about sports.

Somebody is try-ing to clean up the sport and make way for "their" athletes

DukeBoss wrote:

Doping widespread in Kenia?? yeah right a guy who can eat once a day has money for regular epo injections?

You pinheads still hanging on to this rubbish?

Poor old Kenyans, always the victims.

The doc doesn't how the massive amount of western athletes going for a dope holiday in kenia

Yeah, like Kenyan runners get to be "bread runners" in races all over the world on a single meal a day. They show up to a race, win a couple thousand, and feed themselfves and their families. Prize money goes a long way there. Which is exactly how Kenya became such a powerhouse, not just at the top, but with hundreds of athetes at international level. They're not super fanatic athletes, they're hard workers with exactly 2 professions in the country that pay well. Criminal slash politician, and runner. Unlimited vacancies for runners that can show up to first run practice with a European trainer in 2'12 shape. So, they do. The how-to doesn't require a google search for them. Just join the other wannabees and sufffer.

That's just it. All what golds? I looked at a few Championship years, and if you take away race-walking, I see only a handful of middle distance women runners, and virtually no men. For so many "suspicious" profiles (more than 6x the next country, and about 14x the USA), they don't seem to be significantly overrepresented on the podiums, for a country of their size, and for the men, they are virtually non-existant, with the sole exception of race-walking. And some of the golds have been taken away.

Russian doping doesn't seem to be an IAAF-crisis that is not being properly managed.

I'm glad you share your expectation that the IAAF should remove doping, but the accusation was that they did not act on the "suspicious profiles". We are not lowering our expectations, but comparing the IAAF to other sports federations/organizations, who are subject to the same WADA guidelines. Nothing in the ARD documentary shows that the IAAF did not act. And in fact history shows, that they did target and catch many Russian women, and many Russian race walkers.

Regarding Kenyan blood testing, this only becomes relevant after the introduction of the blood passport in 2009. In other threads, I have seen accusations that Kenya has been getting away with "no testing" for decades, when the reality is that urine testing always existed, blood collection for any athlete from all countries from the IAAF didn't start until 2001, and the ABP was introduced in 2009. This is what I mean by "over-interpret". Kenyans always have been, and are being tested and they are being caught. It's not perfect, but Kenyans are still blood tested outside of Kenya. Something changed in the last few years to increase the number of Kenyan positives, and the lack of blood data collection from within Kenya to form ABP profiles doesn't seem to have been a complete hindrance.

Your expectation that the IAAF is supposed to "clean the mess" sounds idealistic. In any case, the IAAF are supposed to act within the WADA guidelines, and with other national sports and anti-doping organizations, to catch the dopers, and also work with WADA, to improve detection. We have seen evidence that they are catching dopers, and they are one of the leaders, working with WADA, to improve testing. And we haven't seen any evidence that demonstrates that they ignored, covered up, or otherwise failed to act on the "suspicious" profiles collected.