Anyone else actually encouraged by Times of London/ARD Doping Report?

It's probably just a matter of time before it's leaked to the 'net.

Wejo,

I agree with your point that one aberrant value does not mean the individual must have been doping, but it certainly makes one wonder.

I watched the whole video and found it thorough. The videos of Kenyans supposedly receiving injections on EPO or something else were quite intriguing. The Rita Jeptoo interview, although short, was revealing, too, in her saying since 2006 she had only had urinalysis, never a blood test.

I wonder what kind of message this sends to our youths. Crazy.

Greg Hill

wejo wrote:

It said 80% of Russian medals were won by suspicious athletes. I'd have assumed it was 100%.

I would assume 100% of Russian medals were won by dopers, but only 80% had suspicious values. That means that 1 out of 5 Russian medalists got away with it. I would also assume that Russians take massive amounts of dope instead of micro dosing like athletes in countries with stricter control. I'd guess that most micro dosing dopers would not get caught.

I agree, it's MUCH lower than what I thought. It's very surprising. However, is it possible that people train with elevated values, but had much lower levels at the time of the championship?

I"m actually somewhat depressed Not because of the rates of suspicious values, but because this revelation, like that back a few months ago seems to indicate that the IAAF not only can't catch drug cheats, not only isn't interested in trying very hard to do so, but, seems to be involved in covering things up.

What is encouraging, I guess, is that there are people out there who do care about clean sport and are doing something about it. The Russian couple, the snitches at the IAAF, and, yes, most especially, the Gouchers and Magness. Lance got busted only after everyone with inside knowledge turned on him under oath. That's what it's going to take. And an independent investigator. Nike is much richer than Lance. We'll see....

I don't find it encouraging in the least - just the opposite. It reaffirms the awful fact that at the top levels, the sport has been unable to clean itself up.

Those who did not test as suspicious may well have been doping in ways less detectable.

The World Championships? Who gives a sh*t? The game is rigged, so, why care?

The Russians, the Kenyans, the American sprinters - they are disgusting as a group.

I think there will also be a lot of dopers with sophisticated enough programs to not fall under the 'suspicious' category so no, this report doesn't encourage me.

A report that tells us Bolt and Farah are clean is very encouraging indeed

This is the kind of evidence that magness and goucher lacked. If NOP were as dirty as they said they should've had no problem getting evidence like this German group did.

Hsjsksshsbdb wrote:

This is the kind of evidence that magness and goucher lacked. If NOP were as dirty as they said they should've had no problem getting evidence like this German group did.

Who is to say that Rupp or other NOP athletes aren't among those 146 medalists that have suspicious values?

Hsjsksshsbdb wrote:

If NOP were as dirty as they said they should've had no problem getting evidence like this German group did.

They live in America where it's illegal to make secret recordings of everyone and everything. They'd get sued and maybe go to jail. I expect that may be why that Russian couple is exiled.

Seppert has gone to a whole lot of effort to find out that the bio passport doesn't work very well, and people from poorer countries with no better alternatives to EPO are willing to gamble that they will get through. That's already widely known. EPO is yesterday's PED.

What's not widely known is what the western countries are doing - the ones with athletes who win, easily, repeatedly, without suspicious blood tests. The ones with the financial backing either to blood dope risk free, or to use newer PED's that WADA doesn't even know about and hasn't banned, or both.

Western doping may be gray-area, but that doesn't mean it's less effective. Indeed, blood doping shouldn't logically be that effective above middle distances because oxygen requirements are lower. Top western athletes seem rather to be underweight - somehow their body fat is reduced to extreme lows without the metabolic consequences that impair performance. Less weight with the same power. A higher power to weight ratio should improve performance at all distances, as long as the fuel supply lasts, up to about 10,000 meters but not to marathon.

Even if WADA catches up with middle-to-distance doping, what then? Sprint doping has been repeatedly smashed to pieces, quickly recovers and nobody cares. The presence of Gatlin and Gay in Nike uniforms shows the utter futility of anti-doping unless the entrenched culture is rooted out from organizers and sponsors themselves. That's where Seppert made progress.

Wejo,

I'm not encouraged and here's why: The BBC documentary showed the reporter taking EPO and then having his values analyzed. He didn't hit the threshold of abnormal. And that guy was not someone with a team of people around him advising him on how to not get flagged.

The people who had super high values, as the scientists said in the documentary, are probably people who did not have access to high level doping protocols. People that having huge financial backing (read: NOP, Bolt, etc) can take these drugs and avoid having their values register as suspicious.

The fact that 1/3 of medalists showed up as having unquestionably abnormal values shows just how widespread doping is, because for the reasons I wrote above, the actual number is certainly higher.

Wejo the article states:

A top UK athlete is among seven Britons with suspicious blood scores.

As well as stating

British athletes - including Olympic champion heptathlete Jessica Ennis-Hill - have lost out in major events to competitors who were under suspicion.

Stars such as Britain's Mo Farah and Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt recorded no abnormal results.

You seem to suggest the article is trying to hide the fact that british athletes are on the list. Unless that article has been changed since you read it that does not seem to be the case.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/athletics/33749208

Flat Stanley wrote:

Wejo the article states:

A top UK athlete is among seven Britons with suspicious blood scores.

As well as stating

British athletes - including Olympic champion heptathlete Jessica Ennis-Hill - have lost out in major events to competitors who were under suspicion.

Stars such as Britain's Mo Farah and Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt recorded no abnormal results.

You seem to suggest the article is trying to hide the fact that british athletes are on the list. Unless that article has been changed since you read it that does not seem to be the case.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/athletics/33749208

I wonder who else would be considered a 'top British athlete' other than Mo & Jess Ennis during that time frame. Blood doping would probably suggest an endurance athlete. Hmmmm

It's Christine Ohuruogu.

I don't find this encouraging. What sports are we way ahead of? It seems there is wide spread drug use which is being allowed to go unchecked. The results of suspicious values don't necessarily mean someone is cheating but undoubtably there are also others who's blood results look ok that are cheating. The real numbers are probably even higher. Depends on when the tests were done compared to when drugs were taken. Even cycling seems cleaner than track these days.

I am surprised its not higher. Here's data from skiing from long ago. I have to believe things have gotten worse (with micro-dosing) not better.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12792206

Flat Stanley wrote:

Wejo the article states:

A top UK athlete is among seven Britons with suspicious blood scores.

As well as stating

British athletes - including Olympic champion heptathlete Jessica Ennis-Hill - have lost out in major events to competitors who were under suspicion.

Stars such as Britain's Mo Farah and Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt recorded no abnormal results.

You seem to suggest the article is trying to hide the fact that british athletes are on the list. Unless that article has been changed since you read it that does not seem to be the case.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/athletics/33749208

It's only a matter of time until we see a thread about Vernon being doped to the gills. With the title in ALL CAPS

No

It's already been shown how easy it is to dope AND not show up as anomalous in the bio passport.

The fact that there are apparently so many people still glowing only shows how widespread and in-grained doping actually is in track and field.