I read all the Sunday Times stories last night and they gave much more perspective. We're going to see if they can be republished on LetsRun.com.
Some factors are more alarming after reading the whole thing, in terms of cover-ups.
I'm in the Minnesota wilderness but some highlights:
The 2 experts marked samples as "yellow" = suspicious and requiring more follow up (they said this indicated a 1/1000 chance of being natural) or red = "likely to be doping".
(Side note, 1/1000 to me seems like it would be likely to be doping so I'd like to ask them more about this).
The amount of suspicious tests (this is only for athletes with abnormal blood values indicating possible blood boosting/doping, the experts did nothing to look at steroid usage) by country
Russia 415, Ukraine 102, Morocco 82, Spain 81, Kenya 77, Turkey 52, Greece 42, Belarus 42, Romania 32, Portugal 32, USA 32, Britain 12
So Kenya gets a ton of attention, but it is less suspicious as a country than Morocco or Spain who have a lot less top level athletes. USA is nearly half the level of Kenya.
Am I surprised it is easy to get EPO in Kenya? No. The more troubling aspects to all of this for me are possible coverups.
I don't think athletes could be sanctioned for these offenses until 2009 and it says since 2009 70 athletes have had suspicious values and not received the proper scrutiny. That is the part that is alarming to me.
But the good thing it it would mean by the vast majority of these things were before 2009. So since 2009 when athletes new they could get sanctioned the most blatant cheating has stopped.
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The paper also talks about "Off-scores" and its a measure of whether the blood values are natural. It talks abut 1/10000 chances and 1/100,000 chances. I think at that level we should be sanctioning athletes unless it means 1/10000 athletes can have blood values like that.
It says Andy Baddeley was beaten by an athlete with a 158 off score which means 1/million chance of being clean. If the precision is really that accurate all of these people should be sanctioned.
They talked to Lisa Dobriskey at length and talked about how she was battling with 2 likely dopers without naming the person or the race. Dobriskey was never 3rd at a major championship but was 2nd at Worlds and 4th at the Olympics.
2008 Olympics
1. Nancy Langat KEN
2. Irina Lishschinska UKR
3. Nataliya Tobias UKR
4. Lisa Dobriskey
2009 1. Maryam Yusuf JAMAL BRN
2. Lisa DOBRISKEY GBR
3. Shannon ROWBURY USA
4. Nuria FERNÁNDEZ ESP
Now the way the article is written most likely it is a race where 2 people beat her. But I didn't need leaked blood values to tell you the 2008 Olympics silver and bronze were very suspicious. 7 years later I've never heard of them.
And that reminds me of the LRC doping polls: http://www.letsrun.com/tag/doping-poll/
One British athlete gets singled out, the newspapers points to blood doping with their own blood as being a possibility. The athlete says they'd sue if their name came out and the paper says a later test was investigated by an Iaaf panel that looked at their results and 11 out of 12 experts cleared them saying it could come from training at altitude.
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The IAAF spends 5% of its income on anti-doping. They act like this is very little but I bet it blows away other sports with perhaps the exception of cycling. Anyone know figures for other sports?
List of Abnormal Results by Country - Russia 415, Morocco 82, Kenya 77, USA 32, Britain 12
Report Thread
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In 2012, aside from the sprints, some races that really stand out, of course, are the women's 800m, with Poistogova and Savinova, named in the Seppelt program, and Semenya, who has her own exception; the women's 1500m with the two Turkish runners, Cakir and Bulut, plus Jamal of Bahrain, who has not been suspected before; the men's 1500m with Makh Daddy of Algeria and Iguider of Morocco, as well as Manzano for silver.
Here are the men's endurance medalists:
Men's 800m
David Lekuta RUDISHA KEN 1:40.91
Nijel AMOS BOT 1:41.73
Timothy KITUM KEN 1:42.53
Men's 1500m
Taoufik MAKHLOUFI ALG 3:34.08
Leonel MANZANO USA 3:34.79
Abdalaati IGUIDER MAR 3:35.13
Men's 3000m Steeplechase
Ezekiel KEMBOI KEN 8:18.56
Mahiedine MEKHISSI-BENABBAD FRA 8:19.08
Abel Kiprop MUTAI KEN 8:19.73
Men's 5000m
Mo FARAH GBR 13:41.66
Dejen GEBREMESKEL ETH 13:41.98
Thomas Pkemei LONGOSIWA KEN 13:42.36
Men's 20km Walk
Ding CHEN CHN 1:18:46
Erick BARRONDO GUA 1:18:57
Zhen WANG CHN 1:19:25
Full results
Men's 50km Walk
Sergey KIRDYAPKIN RUS 3:35:59
Jared TALLENT AUS 3:36:53
Tianfeng SI CHN 3:37:16
Full results
Men's Marathon
Stephen KIPROTICH UGA 2:08:01
Abel KIRUI KEN 2:08:27
Wilson Kipsang KIPROTICH KEN 2:09:37
Full results
Men's 10000m
Mo FARAH GBR 27:30.42
Galen RUPP USA 27:30.90
Tariku BEKELE ETH 27:31.43 -
Another reason to take walking out of the Olympics.
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Sue for what? This is nonsense. They will get nowhere. juristiction?
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(Jeter won silver and bronze in the 100/200).
Here are the women's endurance medalists in London, plus a few other results with Russian medalists, and another race with a UK runner who may or may not be the one they mean. They said 10 medalists in the distances were suspect. Note that this is only based on blood values and does not take account of steroids or other forms of doping at all.
If you take the men's 50k walk gold medalist from Russia, Savinova and Poistogova from the women's 800m, Cakir (positives) and Bulut (spectacular improvement) from Turkey in the women's 1500m, Zaripova, the gold medalist, in the women's steeple, maybe Antyukh, gold medalist in the 400mH, plus Lashminova and Kaniskina, gold and silver, from the women's 20k walk, and Arkhipova, bronze in the women's marathon, then you already get ten medalists that might be suspect, since 80% of the Russian blood values were highly suspicious and the two Turks are clear dopers--the one with two doping positives (two year suspension in 2004 and blood passport lifetime suspension pursued from 2012 http://www.runnersworld.com/newswire/turkeys-olympic-champions-drug-ban-is-reinstated) and the other associated with her and completely off the charts in improvement.
Women's 400m
Sanya RICHARDS-ROSS USA 49.55
Christine OHURUOGU GBR 49.70
Deedee TROTTER USA 49.72
Women's 800m
Mariya SAVINOVA RUS 1:56.19
Caster SEMENYA RSA 1:57.23
Ekaterina POISTOGOVA RUS 1:57.53
Women's 1500m
Asli CAKIR ALPTEKIN TUR 4:10.23
Gamze BULUT TUR 4:10.40
Maryam yusuf JAMAL BRN 4:10.74
Women's 3000m Steeplechase
Yuliya ZARIPOVA RUS 9:06.72
Habiba GHRIBI TUN 9:08.37
Sofia ASSEFA ETH 9:09.84
Women's 400m Hurdles
Natalya ANTYUKH RUS 52.70
Lashinda DEMUS USA 52.77
Zuzana HEJNOVA CZE 53.38
Women's 5000m
Meseret DEFAR ETH 15:04.25
Vivian CHERUIYOT KEN 15:04.73
Tirunesh DIBABA ETH 15:05.15
Women's Shot Put
Valerie ADAMS NZL 20.70
Evgeniia KOLODKO RUS 20.48
Lijiao GONG CHN 20.22
Women's Discus Throw
Sandra PERKOVIC CRO 69.11
Darya PISHCHALNIKOVA RUS 67.56
Yanfeng LI CHN 67.22
Women's Hammer Throw
Tatyana LYSENKO RUS 78.18
Anita WLODARCZYK POL 77.60
Betty HEIDLER GER 77.13
Women's Long Jump
Brittney REESE USA 7.12
Elena SOKOLOVA RUS 7.07
Janay DELOACH USA 6.89
Women's Triple Jump
Olga RYPAKOVA KAZ 14.98
Caterine IBARGUEN COL 14.80
Olga SALADUKHA UKR 14.79
Women's High Jump
Anna CHICHEROVA RUS 2.05
Brigetta BARRETT USA 2.03
Svetlana SHKOLINA RUS 2.03
Full results
Women's 20km Race Walk
Elena LASHMANOVA RUS 1:25:02
Olga KANISKINA RUS 1:25:09
Shenjie QIEYANG CHN 1:25:16
Women's Marathon
Tiki GELANA ETH 2:23:07
Priscah JEPTOO KEN 2:23:12
Tatyana PETROVA ARKHIPOVA RUS 2:23:29
Women's 10000m
Tirunesh DIBABA ETH 30:20.75
Sally Jepkosgei KIPYEGO KEN 30:26.37
Vivian CHERUIYOT KEN 30:30.44
Women's Heptathlon
Jessica ENNIS GBR 6955
Lilli SCHWARZKOPF GER 6649
Tatyana CHERNOVA RUS 6628 -
1/1000 chance of being natural? This is what confuses me. What is considered natural? An average person that goes bowling once a month and eats a lot of pizza? What happens when you train at 8000-9000ft altitude for 10 years, and you are extremely talented and biologically gifted, on top of the unreal amount of endurance work you put in at such a high elevation? I'd bet your blood would look a bit unnatural compared to your average person.
So what exactly is "natural" for an athlete training at altitude for 10 years, being very talented and gifted, and putting an insane amount of training in? So what these results say is that AFTER all that has been factored in, there is only one chance in ONE THOUSAND that the athlete is clean? (just trying to understand) -
Wow - Russia and Ukraine really really distort the drug bust numbers. They are 60% of the suspicious athletes.
Actually, if you take those two outliers out, you'd have less than 8% athletes out of 5000 suspicious. That's actually quite low. -
The singled out athlete is clearly Paula. But I believe that she just got unlucky and that a 1 in 10,000 event of bad luck happened to her...because Wejo swore she was clean.
Everyone trains at altitude. How do her values get so drastically higher than everyone else's? -
Analyzed the data and normalized based on geographical size and population size. Interestingly enough, based on the data given, the US has the least suspicious results per square kilometer and per individual.
Abnormal blood results by geographical size
Country Name Abnormal Results Size (km2) Normalized value(results/km2)
Portugal 32 92090 0.000347486
Greece 42 131990 0.000318206
Belarus 42 207600 0.000202312
Morocco 82 446550 0.000183630
Ukraine 102 603500 0.000169014
Spain 81 505992 0.000160082
Romania 32 238391 0.000134233
Kenya 77 580367 0.000132675
Turkey 52 783562 0.000066364
Britain 12 242900 0.000049403
Russia 415 17098242 0.000024272
USA 32 9826675 0.000003256
Abnormal blood results per capita (2014)
Country Name Abnormal Results Population Size Normalized Result(Results/Person)
Belarus 42 9307609 0.000004512
Greece 42 11128404 0.000003774
Portugal 32 10610304 0.000003016
Russia 415 142467651 0.000002913
Morocco 82 33492909 0.000002448
Ukraine 102 44941303 0.000002270
Spain 81 47066402 0.000001721
Kenya 77 45545980 0.000001691
Romania 32 21640168 0.000001479
Turkey 52 75837020 0.000000686
Britain 12 63489234 0.000000189
USA 32 322583006 0.000000099 -
Wejo, you mentioned IAAF panel results (which are clearly about Paula's blood values). If 11 of 12 experts claim her ridiculously high values could come from altitude training, then every athlete could use that same excuse, since Paula's values were so extreme. Interesting that you chose to note that.
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Do we have any stats or the number of tests by country? I would like to know how often Kenyan athletes are being tested compared to other countries.
You often hear people saying that it's a free for all for the athletes when they return to Kenya, all the drugs they want and little or no testing. -
Interesting, there was a poster a few weeks ago claiming that Paula was making threats via her lawyer. The brojos were given an opportunity to refute it and they never did.
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mkxcttf wrote:
Analyzed the data and normalized based on geographical size and population size. Interestingly enough, based on the data given, the US has the least suspicious results per square kilometer and per individual.
Abnormal blood results by geographical size
Country Name Abnormal Results Size (km2) Normalized value(results/km2)
Portugal 32 92090 0.000347486
Greece 42 131990 0.000318206
Belarus 42 207600 0.000202312
Morocco 82 446550 0.000183630
Ukraine 102 603500 0.000169014
Spain 81 505992 0.000160082
Romania 32 238391 0.000134233
Kenya 77 580367 0.000132675
Turkey 52 783562 0.000066364
Britain 12 242900 0.000049403
Russia 415 17098242 0.000024272
USA 32 9826675 0.000003256
Abnormal blood results per capita (2014)
Country Name Abnormal Results Population Size Normalized Result(Results/Person)
Belarus 42 9307609 0.000004512
Greece 42 11128404 0.000003774
Portugal 32 10610304 0.000003016
Russia 415 142467651 0.000002913
Morocco 82 33492909 0.000002448
Ukraine 102 44941303 0.000002270
Spain 81 47066402 0.000001721
Kenya 77 45545980 0.000001691
Romania 32 21640168 0.000001479
Turkey 52 75837020 0.000000686
Britain 12 63489234 0.000000189
USA 32 322583006 0.000000099
That's because it doesn't include steroids and other strength-enhancing drugs (U.S. sprinters).
That said, the U.S. is certainly far cleaner for endurance athletes than most of the other countries on the list, just from the opportunity/desperation ratio alone. The gaping hole here is Ethiopia. No suspicious results? -
These stats are meaningless.
I'd like to see abnormal results per test or per number of professional athletes in that country -
looks like english and americans are being let known advanced details
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Dr F wrote:
These stats are meaningless.
I'd like to see abnormal results per test or per number of professional athletes in that country
And suspicious blood values would tend to be avoided by those with sophisticated drug protocols and their own testing, like that of Nike's own lab. -
So Ethiopia isn't EPOpia after all?
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is this right? wrote:
1/1000 chance of being natural? This is what confuses me. What is considered natural?
In a pool of blood scores, natural athlete scores will create a large pool of similar data. Bayesian statistics is brutally effective at targeting outliers to this pool of data.
Read the WADA standards. It's all there. -
is this right? wrote:
1/1000 chance of being natural? This is what confuses me. What is considered natural? An average person that goes bowling once a month and eats a lot of pizza? What happens when you train at 8000-9000ft altitude for 10 years, and you are extremely talented and biologically gifted, on top of the unreal amount of endurance work you put in at such a high elevation? I'd bet your blood would look a bit unnatural compared to your average person.
So what exactly is "natural" for an athlete training at altitude for 10 years, being very talented and gifted, and putting an insane amount of training in? So what these results say is that AFTER all that has been factored in, there is only one chance in ONE THOUSAND that the athlete is clean? (just trying to understand)
The biopassport system measures a few things: the number of new blood cells, and their percentage of blood, red blood cell count, hemoglobin mass, hematocrit.
"Natural" is well understood: certain values fluctuate in known ways according to stresses and environment.
Among them:
-go to altitude, new blood cell count rises.
-go to altitude, hgb mass goes up, both as a result of the body's adaptation to altitude.
-intense racing schedule, hematocrit goes down due to blood volume expansion
EPO and Blood transfusions also manipulate the blood in known ways. They manipulate the blood in ways that are not possible without certain environment/stress factors:
-a sea-level increase in new blood cells: can't happen unless EPO is introduced into the body.
-an altitude adapted athlete (been there for 25 years) suddenly increasing their new blood cells; can't happen unless EPO was introduced in the body.
-Hematocrit rising during the course of an intense season: can only happen if new blood is being introduced by a transfusion or EPO-induced blood production.
So, to answer your question: "natural" processes are well understood, as well as unnatural process's effects on blood. The Off-Score the data refers to is a number reflecting how far off real changes in their blood value are compared to expected changes. So, when an athletes value is given a "suspicious" label, it means that a certain parameter changed in a way that is not possible naturally, with a 1000:1 assurance that it was changed by doping. -
Singled out wrote:
Wejo, you mentioned IAAF panel results (which are clearly about Paula's blood values). If 11 of 12 experts claim her ridiculously high values could come from altitude training, then every athlete could use that same excuse, since Paula's values were so extreme. Interesting that you chose to note that.
http://www.ecb.co.uk/news/articles/plunkett-and-brooks-mix-it-olympians
