I never was joined with any doped athlete (among hundreds athletes I coached from different Country, nobody never failed some test), and now are more than two years I don't go Kenya, so I don't have any reason to defend myself or Kenyan runners (not coached by myself).
My intervention on this site, when there is some argument of doping, is for trying to explain the reality, on the side of somebody living this reality from more than 40 years.
This is my world, was my world and I hope can be still for some time my world, since I'm now 71 and don't have a long future ahead.
May be I'm like "Don Quijote", fighting against windmills, but I don't accept as reality opinions not considering all the real facts, and stereotypes coming from the belly instead that from the brain.
Put in your mind I coached in Kenya for 16 years, staying in Iten about 6-9 months per year, producing some of the WR holders and world Champions, so I suppose to know the Kenyan reality better than the most part of LR posters.
Something changed in the last 3 years (read the interview of Br. Colm), but I don't think there was a total revolution in the behavior of Kenyan runners.
Put in your mind, also, that there are not scientific and proper researches about the effect of blood doping with top athletes born, living and training in altitude. When we speak about this, everybody can only show researches with different Group of athletes, born at sea level, training in altitude (eventually) for short time, and not very strong. When we ask for some top name as example of the fact that blood doping works, the only names are Always the same : Rita Jeptoo and Mathew Kisorio (who used nandrolone), and this is very strange, if we compare the list of top African runners caught positive, with the list of top sprinters, who have more money and assistance than in Africa.
I frankly hope we can have in short time not only a working lab for antidoping in Nairobi, but also a lab for testing frequently the best runners in altitude, in order to collect new data, that partially I already have, while all the experts of antidoping don't have. The data they have about variations of values foir athletes training in altitude are very poor, and it's possible to compare them only with athletes having the most part of training at sea level, if we want to look at differences between altitude training and sea level training.
But, about Kenyans and Ethiopians, we have not to see the differences among sea level and altitude, because theyr ALWAYS have training in altitude, and NEVER there was a research about their data.
The data I have explain me something different. My "pseudo-scientific" explanation of the reasons because, in my opinion, EPO doesn't give any advantage for the top Kenyans and Ethiopians, is based on several factors :
1) I know personally that it's possible to achieve WR in many distances with athletes completely clean (800 with Rudisha, steeple with Shaheen, HM and 25-30 km with Paul Kosgei, Florence Kiplagat, Moses Mosop). For that reason, I don't think EPO can give the opportunity to run faster, and of sure not with the "official" advantages many wrote in the past (8" for 3000m, till 40"/1' in 10000m, till 3'-4' for Marathon).
2) Starting from this point of view, I tried to understand the differences between these athletes and other athletes (for example, Moroccans, who had of sure advantages taking EPO). May be nothing scientific, or better, nothing connected with the "official science", but you must remember that the "official science" NEVER studied this phenomen with this type of athletes.
3) The main difference between the blood of top African runners and the blood of caucasian athletes is in the viscosity. Kenyans and Ethiopians are able to reach, under maximal effort, a higher number of heart beats than European or American, and practically the same HR they can reach at sea level. For example, if we ask some European athlete (having normally a max HR of 200) to run at his max speed 400m uphill at sea level, or at 2400m of Iten, we can see a difference of about 10% (200 at sea level, 180 in altitude). If we ask the same for some top runner Kenyan or Ethiopian, we can see a very little difference (for example, 200 at sea level and 195 in altitude). This is due to the less viscosity of their blood.
4) We know EPO increases the ability to transport Oxygen, but at the same time the viscosity. We know it's possible to use some blood thinner, but this means to increase the volume of plasma, and it's possible only if the total volume of blood is not at the same level top athletes reach after a proper and long training in altitude, when they can increase the total volume of about 25%. In this case, we can have two situations only : or we have the same volume with high density, because there is no more space for adding plasma in the circulatory system, or we have the same volume of plasma, but also the same volume of RBC, so the effects is exactly the same of the training. I don't know if it's possible to understand my explanation, but this is what happens with the best African athletes.
5) The main effect of altitude is not the increase of RBC. We have many "responders" able running faster after going back at sea level, with the same values of Hct and Hb. So, what did change ? Tha affinity between Hb and Oxygen, in other words the ability to "catch" oxygen from the air.
This means the limiting factor is not a lack of transportation of Oxygen, but the lack of available Oxygen itself, and under this point of view EPO doesn't have any effect.
I'm not a scientist, but I have a lot of data, because you can't be a coach if you don't understand (and of course don't know) what happens inside the body, using different types of training.
For that reason, I say that there is not knowledge enough about effects of EPO and performances, when we speak about athletes living and training in altitude.
Everything we can suppose at the moment is fried air, and we need proper investigation on the phenomen, without transfer data valid for other athletes to this type of situation.
We can't study something in one type of conditions, transfering the results on situations that are completely different. Every phenomen must have a clear uniqueness, and the behavior and the body reaction to altitude training for Kenyans and Ethiopians is something specific, which never was investigated in a proper way.