Jamaican medalist tests positive in Beijing 08 retest

Nice work, Bad Wigins.

Good questions. Clearly there is at least one untouchable in sprinting.

Llemy2.0 wrote:

... And btw this stimulant which is supposed to have given him superhuman abilities from a supplement he ingested was NOT banned at the time. This is blatant bending of the rules if he gets banned. You can't test positive for a substance that wasn't banned.

And it's a STIMULANT which 99% got into his system innocently. It's not creams and injections like ya boys Gatlin and Tyson.. Sorry Mr. T.

Carl Lewis got busted for a stimulant found in common cold medicine and was an ingredient in numerous over the counter drugs at that time. The stimulant was only added to band list less than a month before he got caught and the following year it was actually removed from the band list. - Jamaicans consider Lewis a doper.

LaShawn Merritt was busted for a supplement in which he was able to clearly demonstrate through credit card transactions and receipts that it was purchased from a convenience store. The purchase volume was consistent with the use the supplement was intended and way below what would be required to be a PED. - Jamaicans consider Merritt a doper.

Gatlin's first bust was for ADD medicine, which he informed TN University at age 18 he was taking. This drug at that time was allowed to taken if you filed a TUE (exemption) with WADA. TN University failed to file the appropriate TUE paperwork, which resulted his first suspension. Btw, Gatlin was only a couple weeks past his 20th birthday when this happened.- Jamaicans could care less about the circumstances of Gatlin's first bust.

When an athlete get's caught, there is always a story, sometimes it is a mistake inadvertent use and sometimes it is not...they need to suffer the consciences either way. But, you can't have it both ways. You can't try to explain away situations when Jamaican get busted and state that is should be overlooked. Yet, assume when an American gets busted they are a career doper, anything they say is a lie and they should crucified.

In total, quite a spirited discussion with some solid efforts on both sides.

In the end, though there are many places from which to draw facts to try to arrive at a verdict about just how widespread doping is in Jamaican sprinting, and whether Usain Bolt is among those doping, none of us is - or will ever be - privy to what the sprinters, coaches, JADCO or WADA are doing behind closed doors - and so we won't be able to speak with the precision any from among that group could. At best we can use available facts, past history, statistical models, and known circumstances, and by rational thought arrive at an objective decision we believe a majority of rational thinkers would also accept.

That said, I believe the totality of data points that are there to be considered - particularly the sharp change in fortunes across virtually the whole of the Jamaican T&F complex from '07 to '08 - just screams the likelihood of systemic doping. And keep in mind, rarely in life when a case is made regarding most anything are the facts all aligned to one side. Defenders of Jamaican T&F can be right on many points of their argument, but still ultimately wrong about the actual fact of doping.It's my belief this is what we're seeing. There are just too many known facts, and too much circumstantial evidence, for the rational mind to not conclude the likelihood of systemic doping.

TrackCoach went through a recitation of names and associated career improvements - followed by some corrections or re-statements by defenders. This is exactly the thing I mean, as those corrections can be quite accurate without undermining the truth of what TrackCoach is asserting. Dovetailing with TrackCoach's assertion is this unassailable fact:

Prior to 2004, Jamaican sprinters (men and women) had claimed just four Olympic golds in sprinting, with just one being at 200m or less (Don Quarrie), and that was in 1976. But after a 28 year drought, in just a roughly 5-year span - Jamaicans claimed 11 Olympic golds in sprint events, along with a handful of world records. In two Olympics, after nearly three decades of no gold medals, they nearly tripled the number of sprinting golds in their entire history.

A rational person just isn't going to accept forced explanations for why this suddenly happened. Among all other factors in play, sports history cautions us not to do so.

In the 2008 Beijing Olympics women's 100 meter dash, Jamaica stuns the world finishing 1-2-3. Only the 2nd time in Olympics history has any nation swept the podium in a running any event. Virtually unknown prior to 2008, Shelly-Ann Fraser wins the gold medal in 10.78, the world lead and 3rd fastest time ever run in the Olympics. Jamaican women also finished 1st and 2nd in the 200m. 19 year old 200m specialist Usain Bolt wins the men's 100m dash running 9.69 smashing the previous world record buy the largest margin ever. In the most dominant display of sprint speed ever, Usain Bolt got a slow start, caught up with the field by 50 meters and was able to win by 2 full strides while celebrating 10 meters before the finish line. Usain Bolt also set the world record in 200m dash and like his country women, was able to finish 1 and 3rd in the 200m dash. Jamaica's men and women also won the 4x400m relays, finished the 2008 Olympics with the most dominate display of sprinting the world has ever seen.

In the 1993 World Championships in in Athletics, in the women's 3000 meter run China stuns the world finishing 1-2-3. The 1st time in World Championships history that any nation has swept the podium in a running event. All 3 Chinese women were virtually unknown prior to 1992. China's Qu Yunxia also won the gold medal in the 3000m run in a World Championships record and she set the world record in the 1500m later that year. Qu Yunxia 1500 meters record of 3:50.46 minutes is considered one the greatest individual accomplishments the history of athletics. China's Wang Junxia won the gold medal in the 10,000 meter. Chinese women won every track even over 800 meters, finishing the 1993 World Championships with the most dominate display of running the world has ever seen.

...I won't fall for the oki-dok anymore

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In August, Chinese women distance runners under coach Ma Junren stunned the world and swept the world titles from 1500 m to 10,000 m in Stuttgart, Germany. Wang claimed the world title in 10,000 m (30:49.30), although she was sick before the race. In less than a month, she went on to win the 3000 m and 10,000 m in Chinese National Games with 3 world records in 3 races. On September 8, she won the 10,000 m final in a world record of 29:31.78, which is faster than the former record by 42 seconds and also the first-ever sub-30 minute performance in this event.

After retirement[edit]

The Guardian reported in 2001 that Wang was living anonymously in Beijing.[3] In 2008 Wang and her husband Huang Tianwen moved to Denver, Colorado.[4] In 2012 she told the Spanish newspaper El Pais that she was writing her autobiography.[4]

There were doping allegations about her 1993 performances. The Chinese authorities fired her coach, Ma Junren, from the Olympic team in 2000 after six of his athletes failed drugs tests,[5] and a journalist once described Wang and compatriot Qu Yunxia as "the chemical sisters".[6] The IAAF faced criticism when Wang was named as one of the 12 inaugural members of its Hall of Fame.[5] Wang was the only Chinese athlete to repeat her 1993 successes at the 1996 Olympics, under a different coach, though Qu had managed a bronze medal at the 1992 Olympics. In 2016, a letter in which Wang allegedly admitted to participating in a Chinese-state-sponsored doping regime was revealed by Chinese state media, fueling suspicion over the legitimacy of Wang's world records.[7]

You are forgetting plenty of sprinters in your list and, some who are shouldnt be, which shows that it is carefully selected I Will even pass the fact that you are jumping male and females from the age standard.When did Y. Blake (a doper) or Ashmeade, ever dropped above 0.15 over 100m ?

An often forgotten fact is that these sprinters completely and utterly owned the historically GOAT sprinting nation, the USA.

Population of the USA = roughly 320 million

Number of sprint clubs = in the hundreds

Population of Jamaica = roughly 2.8 million

Number of sprint clubs = two

Call me cynical, but I think it took something more than cough mixture and nasal decongestant to make those Jamaican sprinters that dominant.

Paposo wrote:

You are forgetting plenty of sprinters in your list and, some who are shouldnt be, which shows that it is carefully selected I Will even pass the fact that you are jumping male and females from the age standard.

When did Y. Blake (a doper) or Ashmeade, ever dropped above 0.15 over 100m ?[quote]TrackCoach wrote:

[quote]Llemy2.0 wrote:

Crazy guys I tell you. The level of creativity they put into concocting these lies is admirable.

That they actually being their own lies is sad, however.

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Yohan Blake went from a PR in 9.82 in 2011 to 9.69 in 2012. You are correct, Blake only dropped by 1.13 and not 1.5. However, he did go from 10.27 in 2008 to 9.93 in 2009, which is a drop of over 1.5, but I think he was under 21 at that time and big drops at that age do happen. Nickel Ashmeade went from a PR of 10.37 in 2009 to 9.96 in 2010. I think he was still quite young at that time, but that is an amazing drop at any age. Let's not focus on individual athletes because I admit my analysis was done eyeballing results. And, you are always going to have an athlete whose an outlier in terms of making a major improvement, every so often a special athlete will have an unexpected amazing performance. Focus on the trend and the trend is, way too many Jamaican's have had those "unexpected amazing performances".

Carl Lewis ran 10.00 at age 21 and spent the rest of his career improving by 1.5; that's normal. Ben Johnson ran 10.22 at age 21 and eventually ran 9.79; that's not normal. 90% of the world's sprinter's career resembles Carl Lewis, that even included Jamaican's up to 2007; however, starting in 2008 Jamaican sprinter's career started resembling that of Ben Johnson.

I recall in 2003, I started seeing these groups of Russian middle distance females running 1:57x in the 800m, 3:57x in the 1500, etc. If you don't follow middle distance, I will let you know that most countries are lucky if they can produce 1 or 2 of those athletes in a decade, yet Russia was producing groups of them at an amazing rate. I did some research and realized that many of those athletes were improving by a crazy amount in one season. Like 13 seconds in the Steeple Chase, 5 seconds in the 1500m and 3 seconds in the 800m. Those types of improvements are not impossible, but once your body is fully mature and you have been training since your teens, improvements like that are uncommon, especially when it happens to half dozen athletes. When you add to this these athletes having no significant youth or junior pedigree and that these athletes were interconnected geography or by training group, you get suspicious. I was posting on Letsrun many years ago that I suspected the Russian women were doping, which has obviously come light. - Is there systematic doping in Jamaica, I really don't know, but every now and then I might mistake a chicken for a duck, but if I see a duck enough times...I am going to call it a duck.

Paposo wrote:

You are forgetting plenty of sprinters in your list and, some who are shouldnt be, which shows that it is carefully selected I Will even pass the fact that you are jumping male and females from the age standard.

When did Y. Blake (a doper) or Ashmeade, ever dropped above 0.15 over 100m ?

There's a saying that references "not seeing the forest for the trees" - becoming so muddled in the details, that the larger situation isn't grasped. It's what you and some others are doing now. As I wrote above, rarely is there a perfect case made regarding ANYTHING. Data points can line up in varying proportions to appear to support both sides of a decision. Guilty people can look innocent. Innocent people can look guilty. A stock can look like a good buy - just before the bottom falls out - but there will be buyers and sellers on both sides of that transaction. But in all those cases where rational thought prevails, it's ultimately known which set of facts was correctly pointing to the truth - and unsurprisingly, the indications were there for any who cared to objectively see them.

So what difference does it make if you can chip away at a list and remove a couple of names? Or if you can assert a different view about the status of an ultimately banned or restricted substance? You can cut some "trees" down and rearrange others if you like - but it's still going to be a forest that's clear for any rational person to see. TrackCoach has shown you that across multiple posts with his own data and approach. I've shown you that in similar fashion. What they have in common in terms of a "forest" that is clear to see is that there was an undeniable surge in Jamaican sprinting successes beginning in 2008 - unprecedented in the history of that country by magnitudes. In fact, on an international scale the successes were so sudden and so thorough that obvious precedents emerged - as TrackCoach showed - drawing direct comparisons to countries that are known to have doping programs.

At some point defenders of the Jamaican sprinting surge are going to have to move beyond the muddling minutiae and acknowledge there is an undeniable bigger picture most rational people acknowledge up front. Some have, but unfortunately they're left grasping for credible explanations to explain it. I think this is where your track community fails you, because if it's actually doping - and there have been plenty of failed tests and bans (including several lifetime) by Jamaicans involved with PEDs - what can they tell you to explain this without admitting it?

At some point trees standing together aren't just a group of "trees" anymore. With each successive return of results in recent years, the case for Jamaican doping is no longer about individual details. There are now too many of them to not see them for what they are, and it's a fool's errand to try to deny them one detail at a time.