Clerk,
You explicitly asked me for comments. Wouldn't that make you the troll -- fishing for my response?
Now I see, when you asked if I had any comments, you wanted much more than that -- you wanted a discussion -- something that would lend legitimacy to your analysis. I think you are wasting your time, by treating such a heavy argument so lightly, unless you solve the many gaps I've identified.
Going back to your myth-busting thread, you start out with a declaration of the game you want to play:
"And if these explanations are debunked, the only possible explanation for his performances is doping."
From the first step, this is wrong, as a matter of basic principle. Any remaining discussion will fail until you salvage this. You need:
- to show that all of these myths, plus doping, are "exhaustive" causes of performance. If not, you need to prepare an exhaustive list.
- to actually "bust" all the myths.
- (pay attention because this is more nuanced than a "Jon Orange" or "JR" denial about drug effectiveness) to attempt to quantify and explain how doping qualifies as a possible explanation for the observed magnitude and progression of performances, producing one extreme outlier among all dopers.
The unique build myth:
Build is not just height and weight. A proper discussion would talk about body type, composition, proportion, and distribution. It would need to analyze limb-lengths and mass distribution and muscle strength and strength endurance and range of motion and muscle/fat distribution. A full performance analysis would add other elements like evolution of training, technique, racing strategy, not to mention non-physical aspects like self-confidence, and intimidation, and external environments such as the level of ability of the competitors.
You don't present any data for other 100m or 200m runners, but 400m runners and decathletes. And you look only at one year.
Your decathlete analysis shows that these all around athletes must focus on other training than the 100m to achieve overall success. What if they focused on one event? For example, why wouldn't we see a change in decathletes comparable to Dafne Schippers? If they focused on just the 100m/200m they would improve over their decathlete performances.
The talent myth:
Myth: "- He was a talent from a young age"
Clerk: "No. He was bred. He was farm-raised."
Me: Both can be true. His talent was discovered at the young age of 14-15, in his third and fourth year of high school, then cultivated by Jamaican sprint-guru coach Glen Mills.
The progression myth:
At first glance at the graph, to me his progression from 2001-2008 looks rather continuous, with 2004-2008 flattening due to a focus on producing a peak around 2008-2009, where his training was timed towards these longer term goals of the Olympics and World Championship during his ripe age of 22-23.
At the start of his professional career, he was held back from competing in the 100m. This delay looks unusual amongst sprinters, something unique to Bolt. Perhaps this is a key, or a clue. This let him build up a higher level of sprint endurance first, before putting speed on top if it. Another coach/athlete would focus on 100m speed and potentially shorten his potential, or even his career.
The hard-work myth:
You don't address this, but dismiss it, citing diet, partying, and season-breaks being the opposite of a 100% committed athlete. Perhaps these releases of stress, and the "active recovery" of dancing till dawn, actually helps recovery versus athletes who in reality were trying too hard.
Doping as a potential cause:
My mental model of doping effectiveness, for the mens 100m/200m, is something that gives a marginal improvement, the small margins being the difference between medalling and not. Generally speaking, a whole field doping does not produce one extreme outlier. There must be bigger, more relevant factors.
Only in women's strength events, when women take male hormones, do we see larger magnitudes of improvements linked to doping.
A proper analysis should include the expected "doping" gain over 100m and 200m, for men, and comparing that to Bolt's performances versus the remaining field of dopers. If we talk about marginal gains of 0.1 or 0.2 seconds, it seems to me we have to search for other, more significant, non-doping explanations. If we find more significant non-doping explanations, then what is the relative value of the smaller marginal gains from doping?
Role of a non-conventional sports doctor:
One often touted benefit of doping is quicker recovery that permits a higher training load.
If homeopathic remedies, acupuncture, injections of natural and non-banned substances, coupled with strategic exercises, provides similar shortened recovery, or can avoid season terminating injuries, this provides a similar increased training without doping.
The bell-curve:
Does the bell curve look like an umbrella, or a bell with flanged edges? In bell curve distribution, in these increasingly rare cases at the edge, when all of the factors align, the difference can be quite significant compared to the rest of the population. Large outliers don't statistically break the bell curve, but in fact are predicted.
Angel Heredia/Victor Conte angle:
These guys had success doping athletes. That's where their expertise lies. They don't seem to me qualified on commenting on the causes of success of clean athletes. If they make comments about athletes they don't know, or that it is not possible to succeed clean, these look 1) out of their domain of expertise, and 2) self-serving.
Probability of catching dopers:
Anti-doping is increasingly in the spotlight. With target testing and repeated tests over a career, and delayed re-testing, it is difficult for me to believe that Bolt is still escaping testing with 100% success, while all the others around him have "slipped up". I also don't buy into this "some athletes are protected" conspiracy -- despite close world-wide scrutiny, Gatlin also managed to escape detection during his comeback, and no one seems interested in protecting him.