Dragon Runner wrote:
rojo wrote:Fagan is 1. Who is #2?
Ezkyas Sisay.
Abdi sure has a knack for associating with dopers.
Dragon Runner wrote:
rojo wrote:Fagan is 1. Who is #2?
Ezkyas Sisay.
Abdi sure has a knack for associating with dopers.
Good translation wrote:
Good translation wrote:I tore up some cardboard this morning, tossed it in the bin, and it was carried away by the garbage truck later. AFAIK know one saw me do this, except maybe they saw me put the bin on the street. I probably did this before and might not recall it. SO WHAT.
Some of you people are so stupid.
rojo wrote:
Translation, you are the idiot. We're talking about syringes. If he's got nothing to hide, just put them in the trash.
Duh, that's what he did, although there's no evidence for any of this.
If you did the same thing 3 nights in a row using a different route each time, I'd know you were up to something.
Oh yeah well last week I put my trash bin on the north side of the sidewalk, this week I put it on the south side of the sidewalk, yesterday I went to Walmart, last week I went to Costco, tomorrow I'm going to the track, and next week I'm going to the ocean so you must know that I'm up to something huh, which answers the question of which one of us is the idiot. Now be sure you drive the same way tonight that you did the last 5 nights.
Is your trash drug paraphernalia? Are you living with Olympians who have epo in their rooms?
Unbelievable Jeff wrote:
First off the hotel point you and Rojo like so much I just don't understand: You want 30 athletes, some of them absolute world class level, to stay in Airbnb housing, scattered all over a rough area when they can stay at a nice hotel and all of them can have the same starting point for their runs and eat prepared food in the same place and their manager will know where they are. I am not on Airbnb but I am pretty sure if you look for Sabadell apartments you won't find much where you'd like to stay yourself for months at a time.
First off, this is mostly just me, Rojo copy-pasted my email. And the hotel was a minor point.
Sabadell has 200,000 people and it's only a mile across, and Barcelona is one of the densest cities in the world. Surely it can accommodate 30 athletes. Ok, I get that it's more convenient for the group, but personally I wouldn't enjoy living in a hotel. If I'm wealthy, I'll buy or rent a flat or house. If I'm poor, I go airbnb or sublet if possible. I've read of many athletes who base themselves in Europe doing so. Maybe this is a cultural difference.
Unbelievable Jeff wrote:
Next point: Why choose barcelona for training?
(I know you have decided that it's to be "close to the drugs" but I think you can find drugs wherever you are. So in my opinion it's probably something else)
Some bullet point ideas:
It is a fairly short trip with direct flights to diamond league spots like Zurich, Paris, Rome, Monaco, London, Brussels, Stockholm
The weather is great
For those who need to spend some time at altitude it's a short trip to Font Romeu
Nice trails
Spain has a lot of nice meets where they can race
Something do with money, what with I don't know but there's always money involved with the top dogs
Ok but do you understand that in most countries what they're doing isn't even a crime? That the police would never get involved? They're doing something considered highly ethically dubious, and they're staying in one of the very few places in the world where it's actually illegal. How stupid do you have to be? All of those benefits that you've listed have to be weighed against the consequences of getting caught. If I were doping my athletes, I wouldn't stay in one of the very few countries in the world where it was actually illegal unless it were the only way to get the drugs in the first place.
Maybe they just didn't think they'd get caught.
So your thinking is just that they ignored the consequences of getting caught and decided that this small city in Spain happens to be the best place in Europe to train. I guess that's possible. Maybe I'll have to visit there some day.
rojo wrote:
While we're talking about Aden, over the weekend, I got a great email from a guy I used to coach at Cornell. He asked me some great questions that I don't have the answer for.
Anyone want to take a crack at the following questions?
A Cornell alum wrote:One of the things I don't get about this whole Jama Aden drug bust is why the hell would they go to Spain to train? Isn't Spain one of the very few countries in the world where it is illegal for coaches to distribute performance enhancing drugs, even if they're legal to distribute otherwise? I think it's one of the countries with the harshest laws against athletes taking drugs like EPO. Is that correct?
Do you guys have any idea why the group wanted to train there in the first place if the drug laws are so harsh? It seems like literally the last place they'd want to go. Is France worse? Maybe it's safer to be in Spain than France if they need to be near Monacco to get the drugs in the first place? Or just cheaper? Why a hotel?
Spain has a bit of a PR problem, which they’ve tried to lessen in recent years by way of a few low level busts of obscure cycling PED suppliers. The recent court decision not to destroy the Fuentes blood bags may be an interesting weather vane. But this recent Aden bust is a bit of a surprise – probably an opportunity for some good old pre-Olympic anti-doping PR, as it involves some non-Spaniards for a change.
I’ll try to answer those questions, although I’m talking out of my ass a bit as I haven’t thought about some of these details for years. For basic answers about PED concepts, it helps to look to the world of cycling – not because they are or were any dirtier than track, but simply because they got caught red-handed ten years earlier. Cycling has been the whipping boy of endurance sports (or the “beard†by which all the others were able to maintain the illusion of “cleansâ€) but now it is all coming home to roost for track and others.
It used to be open season for PEDS in Europe. Then one of the team cars during the Tour was caught at the border with a trunk load of PEDS (the 1998 Festina scandal). This was a major embarrassment for France and they were the first to pass laws. (This resulted in all the French teams going through a decade of self-flagellation [cf., “cleansâ€] during which their results were crap.) Armstrong and most other teams immediately moved their training bases from France to Girona, Spain, where the laws were slack.
Italy got into the act next. It was obvious to all that Armstrong was doping heavily, but he was impossible to catch, probably due to collusion of the UCI (sound familiar?). The Italians went after Armstrong’s personal physician, Ferrari, and busted him, although he eventually evaded jail through delay, ineptitude, and statute of limitations (ca 2004-2006). Italy was also embarrassed by this and other scandals (Conconi, Padua, etc), and passed laws.
Spain, meanwhile, did nothing. They had their own scandal (the Puerto or Fuentes blood bags scandal – from 2006 ongoing to the present day), but for reasons of graft and incompetence, the DNA identities of the bags have not been revealed or acted upon after all these years. It is widely understood or believed that Fuentes’ clients included Spain’s top tennis players and two largest football teams, resulting in political influence being exerted on the judge. Meanwhile, Italy, having been humiliated themselves, were somewhat infuriated by all this, so the next time the Tour dipped into Italy for one day, they took the opportunity to test Valverde (Spain’s leading rider at the time), match his DNA and ban him for two years. Spain itself remained a safe haven.
Literally all top level cycling teams train in Spain. I’m not aware that Spain has passed any laws making PED use illegal, although it may now be illegal to supply. I think they nailed Fuentes for something lame like unsafe public health issues. Nevertheless, the pro move in cycling is to take the training camps off the mainland to Tenerife and Majorca or else to Andalucia, or that mythical place known as “Altitudeâ€, (far away from testers, same as in Track). Hotels are used a lot, often in the off-season. Maybe they are cheap enough, or there might be a move away from permanent bases and apartments, not sure, maybe it makes it harder to pin the tail on the donkey from a testing standpoint.
Cycling has by now served its ten years of hand-wringing and gets to pretend again that it is now PED free. Hahahahahaha! And now track is reading from seemingly the same script, so we can expect the same political obfuscation and play-book. [Don't get me wrong, both are great sports, just a little bemused by the lack of progress on the ped front.]
messinat wrote:
rojo wrote:Fagan is 1. Who is #2?
Ezkyas Sisay
"RW: Who have been your main training partners in this cycle?
AA: I trained with Martin Fagan (of Ireland). And also Ezkyas Sisay, who ran 2:11:04 at the New York City Marathon this year (for ninth place; Sisay is from Ethiopia)."
http://www.runnersworld.com/olympic-trials/a-brief-chat-with-abdi-abdirahman-0http://running.competitor.com/2012/06/news/sisay-disqualified-from-nyc-marathon-for-doping_53214
You forgot someone that has been training with Abdi Abdirahman in Flagstaff, Arizona this year.
The name of the training partner is MO FARAH:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/othersports/video-1177295/Mo-Farah-gruelling-run-trains-Northern-Arizona.htmlIt is just a coincidence.
There is nothing to see here.
Go back to sleep.
No worries.
No doorbell.
http://www.elconfidencial.com/deportes/atletismo/2016-06-26/dopaje-sabadell-jama-aden-operacion-rial-mossos-doping_1222935/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=%5BECTwitterNocheAutomatico%5D(This article has already been posted on the other thread yesterday):
Did Rojo miss it? It is a little bit longer than the article he posted. Enjoy the Spanish. Enjoy the pictures.
Enjoy the circus.
rojo wrote:
I saw how people were complaining there was no news about the Aden raid. That prompted me to look in the Spanish press.
I found a good article from yesterday.
Actual article:
http://deportes.elpais.com/deportes/2016/06/26/actualidad/1466967833_265448.htmlGoogle translate version:
https://goo.gl/QVvMdIAccording to the google translate (and my HS spanish lessons), it says in room 107, Aden's room, they found used syringes, illegal drugs, and receipts for drugs that had been purchased in France which were found in other athletes rooms.
It says that in the room where the passport of Ouarid Mounir (the physiotherapist who was also arrested with Aden) was, they found 23 pre-filled syringes of EPO and six vials of EPO (that had 4 different types of EPO).
It says in room 120, the room of 800 runner Musaeb Abdulrahman Balla's room, they found performance-enhancing drugs, illegal drugs and various syringes.
It also talks alot about how investigators watched Aden on three occassions dispose of syringes in dumpsters. They said he took a different route each time.
Any Spanish speakers want to translate this phrase on the dumpsters as the google translate isn't great?
"AsÃ, los policÃas comprobaron que los atletas hacÃan y deshacÃan a su gusto en el interior, donde se comportaban como Pedro por su casa. Y, sobre todo, vieron cómo Aden salÃa de paseo con jeringuillas, que troceaba y arrojaba por distintos contenedores de basura. Lo hizo en al menos tres ocasiones, y cambiando de ruta, por si acaso: el técnico que habÃa convertido a Dibaba y otros atletas en los mejores del mundo regaba Sabadell con trozos de jeringas y envases de medicamentos."
I messaged a source who works with Aden. According to him no EPO was found in the room of Aden. This was confirmed by another report.
Of course he was at it but its not going to be so easy to nail him
Reader of articles wrote:
So your article says Jama did nothing wrong Rojo!!!!!
He can't help that the Saudi team's chiropractor has drugs for the Saudi guys
NO PEDs IN JAMA'S ROOM!
Where was the physio for the Jama group (in another country)
Sounds great for Jama until you realise his group is always going to need an on site physio
One of Jamas athletes also had EPO in his room although I think they claim he was sharing with someone else
All BS of course they are all at it
Looks to me like the police could have done better or he gave them a bung
I think this poster is right. People want to be in Europe for the rAces. Spain, Italy, and Farnce are the main locations where cyclists and runners can train at attitude and come down. All 3 countries had scandals but Spain has arguably done the least. I think one can get the drugs In other countries but those countries are either smaller or not near altitude (Belgium) so you may need to travel with the drugs and it is easier to be discovered.
Paula’s Stigmata wrote:
rojo wrote:While we're talking about Aden, over the weekend, I got a great email from a guy I used to coach at Cornell. He asked me some great questions that I don't have the answer for.
Anyone want to take a crack at the following questions?
Spain has a bit of a PR problem, which they’ve tried to lessen in recent years by way of a few low level busts of obscure cycling PED suppliers. The recent court decision not to destroy the Fuentes blood bags may be an interesting weather vane. But this recent Aden bust is a bit of a surprise – probably an opportunity for some good old pre-Olympic anti-doping PR, as it involves some non-Spaniards for a change.
I’ll try to answer those questions, although I’m talking out of my ass a bit as I haven’t thought about some of these details for years. For basic answers about PED concepts, it helps to look to the world of cycling – not because they are or were any dirtier than track, but simply because they got caught red-handed ten years earlier. Cycling has been the whipping boy of endurance sports (or the “beard†by which all the others were able to maintain the illusion of “cleansâ€) but now it is all coming home to roost for track and others.
It used to be open season for PEDS in Europe. Then one of the team cars during the Tour was caught at the border with a trunk load of PEDS (the 1998 Festina scandal). This was a major embarrassment for France and they were the first to pass laws. (This resulted in all the French teams going through a decade of self-flagellation [cf., “cleansâ€] during which their results were crap.) Armstrong and most other teams immediately moved their training bases from France to Girona, Spain, where the laws were slack.
Italy got into the act next. It was obvious to all that Armstrong was doping heavily, but he was impossible to catch, probably due to collusion of the UCI (sound familiar?). The Italians went after Armstrong’s personal physician, Ferrari, and busted him, although he eventually evaded jail through delay, ineptitude, and statute of limitations (ca 2004-2006). Italy was also embarrassed by this and other scandals (Conconi, Padua, etc), and passed laws.
Spain, meanwhile, did nothing. They had their own scandal (the Puerto or Fuentes blood bags scandal – from 2006 ongoing to the present day), but for reasons of graft and incompetence, the DNA identities of the bags have not been revealed or acted upon after all these years. It is widely understood or believed that Fuentes’ clients included Spain’s top tennis players and two largest football teams, resulting in political influence being exerted on the judge. Meanwhile, Italy, having been humiliated themselves, were somewhat infuriated by all this, so the next time the Tour dipped into Italy for one day, they took the opportunity to test Valverde (Spain’s leading rider at the time), match his DNA and ban him for two years. Spain itself remained a safe haven.
Literally all top level cycling teams train in Spain. I’m not aware that Spain has passed any laws making PED use illegal, although it may now be illegal to supply. I think they nailed Fuentes for something lame like unsafe public health issues. Nevertheless, the pro move in cycling is to take the training camps off the mainland to Tenerife and Majorca or else to Andalucia, or that mythical place known as “Altitudeâ€, (far away from testers, same as in Track). Hotels are used a lot, often in the off-season. Maybe they are cheap enough, or there might be a move away from permanent bases and apartments, not sure, maybe it makes it harder to pin the tail on the donkey from a testing standpoint.
Cycling has by now served its ten years of hand-wringing and gets to pretend again that it is now PED free. Hahahahahaha! And now track is reading from seemingly the same script, so we can expect the same political obfuscation and play-book. [Don't get me wrong, both are great sports, just a little bemused by the lack of progress on the ped front.]
psaaf wrote:
So it was about this time last year GD started doing record times no? With a 3:54 PB in Barcelona and following up with the WR at Monaco DL.
Wonder if she did the same preparation last year. Oh, guess who else PB'd at that Barcelona meet last year - Souleiman
Ivan Lopez from Chile also ran 3:39 indoors (Area Record) at Sabadell indoor meeting this year (February) , and then, a week later, he was tested and came positive for EPO in another indoor meeting (Madrid). No wonder why...
http://consudatle.org/los-mediofondistas-chilenos-brillaron-en-sabadell/http://www.emol.com/noticias/Deportes/2016/06/01/805681/La-caida-de-Ivan-Lopez-la-promisoria-figura-del-atletismo-chileno-que-es-acusado-de-inyectarse-doping.htmlIn that race (Sabadell), he ran against athletes coached by Jama Aden.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_t8bs2chyt4TrackCoach wrote:
In the U.S., possession of any non OTC drug without a prescription is illegal. That means EPO is an illegal drug. Perhaps it works the same in Spain.
A crime without punishment in the U.S., probably the same in Spain. The sports federations want to keep it this way under the guise of "Keeping sport free from politics."
TrackCoach wrote:
A bunch of blithering nonsense that no one would read except
rojo wrote:
Trackcoach, it's clear that you are a great fan.
for the guy who wrote it.
webby wrote:
Is your trash drug paraphernalia? Are you living with Olympians who have epo in their rooms?
Why do you keep changing your nickname?
agsdfsd wrote:
First off, this is mostly just me, Rojo copy-pasted my email.
Sure he did.
Why do you keep changing your nickname?
Ben L Wrong wrote:
psaaf wrote:So it was about this time last year GD started doing record times no? With a 3:54 PB in Barcelona and following up with the WR at Monaco DL.
Wonder if she did the same preparation last year. Oh, guess who else PB'd at that Barcelona meet last year - Souleiman
Ivan Lopez from Chile also ran 3:39 indoors (Area Record) at Sabadell indoor meeting this year (February) , and then, a week later, he was tested and came positive for EPO in another indoor meeting (Madrid). No wonder why...
http://consudatle.org/los-mediofondistas-chilenos-brillaron-en-sabadell/http://www.emol.com/noticias/Deportes/2016/06/01/805681/La-caida-de-Ivan-Lopez-la-promisoria-figura-del-atletismo-chileno-que-es-acusado-de-inyectarse-doping.htmlIn that race (Sabadell), he ran against athletes coached by Jama Aden.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_t8bs2chyt4
That's because Aden only operates stopwatches. He's not doping anyone, ever.
Trolls have appeared to argue regional law enforcement did not in fact find doping products. It's all a big misunderstanding manufactured by people that "hate" track and field that have somehow gotten regional law enforcement to play along with stakeouts, and a raid and such.
Very odd. I wonder what the trolls fear will be made public.
pop_pop!_v2.2.1 wrote:
That's because Aden only operates stopwatches. He's not doping anyone, ever.
Trolls have appeared to argue regional law enforcement did not in fact find doping products. It's all a big misunderstanding manufactured by people that "hate" track and field that have somehow gotten regional law enforcement to play along with stakeouts, and a raid and such.
Very odd. I wonder what the trolls fear will be made public.
Right, and the Brojos are intelligent.
pop_pop!_v2.2.1 wrote:
That's because Aden only operates stopwatches. He's not doping anyone, ever.
What really irritates me these days is how any questioning of Farah is answered not by Farah himself, but by British Athletics.
Similarly, when Coe is challenged by MP's or the tabloids, the IAAF - and not Coe himself - issues a response.
MTFU, guys.
rojo wrote:
TrackCoach wrote:Glad to see I am not the only one who reads foreign news outlets. Sometimes when I say I've got inside info, it was clearly published online somewhere and sometimes there is an English translation of the article. Translation can be difficult at times, online translators don't do well with Amharic and Oromo, but I take a print out with me when I go to my local Ethiopian restaurant and they are more than eager to translate. They get excited to know I am interested in their news. When I spoke about The Ethiopian federation not being aware of Genzebe Dibaba's injury and the fact that she missed a mandatory training camp, I read it in Addis Neger. Ethiopians have questioned Aden for years and in spite of his success, most of elite Ethiopians have stayed away from him. I read an article over 2 years ago that the Ethiopian federation had some issues with him simply running a training camp their country. I have heard Ethiopians question why he constantly changes his training sites for no apparent reason and why he has some sites with one way in and one way out and seems to have spotters along the road. I have seen Kenyan online sites where people are complaining about using over aged athletes in global youth and junior competitions at the expense younger more deserving athletes. One article named a particular athlete who had clearly competed in world Jr XC several years earlier under a difference name. Btw, Kenya prefer to use athletes from pro training groups who have no grade school or age group marks whereby their true age outside of Kenya is undetermined when in fact, most Kenyan nowadays have a have a record of their birth.
Is anyone aware that several years ago, testers showed up to an Aden training camp, he was there, but none of the elite athletes showed up for training. The testers waited and the athletes never showed up. This was not counted as a whereabouts miss for some odd reason. I think they were able to test the athletes the following day, but if you are taking small dosages of dope, you only have a window of about 24 hours to test positive. Aden and most of the African athletes up until this year were only being tested at international competitions.
There is a mountain of analytical and circumstantial evidence the Mills and Francis have been doping their athletes for years and they seem to be untouchable. I have often defended the IAAF, but they have access to the same info that I do. I am starting to come to the conclusion that something is not right. In some countries, athletes are being tipped off when the testing is going occur and there are quite a few whereabouts misses that are not being reported.
Trackcoach, it's clear that you are a great fan.
I wasn't aware of much of this.
Can you in the future please email us if you see an interesting article about Kenya, Ethiopia, or Jamaica? WHatever language, we'll pay to have it translated if need be.
I'm serious. Please send it to me at
robertjohnson@letsrun.comand our main inbox at
letsrun@letsrun.comCan you please provide specifics of the a) Aden training camp testing thing and b) Mill/Francis being dirty?
It seems like if you knew all this, you'd want to share.
A fellow fan,
-Rojo
Certainly, will do.
What's interesting is, when there is an English version, I will write a reply to an article or chime in on a thread and the thread stops and the article is taken down. These publications seem to know who I am even when I post under a different name. This has even happened with the Jamaican TrackAlerts and the Gleaner online publications. People will be discussing some track & field thing and as soon as I join in, the discussion stops. Nowadays, unless I am praising a Jamaican athlete, anything I write is simply never posted. However, there does not appear any national doping conspiracy in Africa. The Ethiopians think the Kenyans are dirty, the Kenyans think the Ethiopians are dirty, both countries think Botswana and the Arab countries are dirty and just like on Letsrun, suspicions are thrown around about individual athletes all the time. David Rudisha and Tegla Loroupe have made some strong antidoping comments critical of Kenyan athletes. The Kenyan public is pissed off primarily about the fact that some of those comments made it to the Western media and the sentiments is they need to keep their mouths shut. You will almost never hear an Ethiopian athlete make any sort of antidoping comment. A couple of years ago there was an Ethiopian article about all of the relatively unknown Kenyans running 2:04 marathons and one athlete who ran a 4:18 mile in the middle of a marathon. Ethiopians were having a rather serious debate whether Geb could run under 2 hours if he took the same drugs as the Kenyans.
You have to keep in mind that simply getting signed by an agent is a really big deal and not just for the athlete, but their immediate and extended family as well. A couple of WMM top finishes or 2-3 years on the DL circuit is better than a Georgetown law degree. There does appears to be a universal understanding -or conspiracy among Africans when it comes to money, whether it is doping or age cheating, we can fight among ourselves, but you don't interfere with an athlete's opportunity make money. Several Jamaican athletes recently switched their citizenship to Bahrain. These athletes gave up their Jamaican citizenship to a country that will never accept them as full Bahrain citizens; they gave up their name, religion and culture. In the Jamaican media, these athletes got way more praise than condemnation. - To athletes from 3-world countries, track & field is far more about money than it is about sport.
Paula’s Stigmata wrote:
rojo wrote:While we're talking about Aden, over the weekend, I got a great email from a guy I used to coach at Cornell. He asked me some great questions that I don't have the answer for.
Anyone want to take a crack at the following questions?
Spain has a bit of a PR problem, which they’ve tried to lessen in recent years by way of a few low level busts of obscure cycling PED suppliers. The recent court decision not to destroy the Fuentes blood bags may be an interesting weather vane. But this recent Aden bust is a bit of a surprise – probably an opportunity for some good old pre-Olympic anti-doping PR, as it involves some non-Spaniards for a change.
I’ll try to answer those questions, although I’m talking out of my ass a bit as I haven’t thought about some of these details for years. For basic answers about PED concepts, it helps to look to the world of cycling – not because they are or were any dirtier than track, but simply because they got caught red-handed ten years earlier. Cycling has been the whipping boy of endurance sports (or the “beard†by which all the others were able to maintain the illusion of “cleansâ€) but now it is all coming home to roost for track and others.
It used to be open season for PEDS in Europe. Then one of the team cars during the Tour was caught at the border with a trunk load of PEDS (the 1998 Festina scandal). This was a major embarrassment for France and they were the first to pass laws. (This resulted in all the French teams going through a decade of self-flagellation [cf., “cleansâ€] during which their results were crap.) Armstrong and most other teams immediately moved their training bases from France to Girona, Spain, where the laws were slack.
Italy got into the act next. It was obvious to all that Armstrong was doping heavily, but he was impossible to catch, probably due to collusion of the UCI (sound familiar?). The Italians went after Armstrong’s personal physician, Ferrari, and busted him, although he eventually evaded jail through delay, ineptitude, and statute of limitations (ca 2004-2006). Italy was also embarrassed by this and other scandals (Conconi, Padua, etc), and passed laws.
Spain, meanwhile, did nothing. They had their own scandal (the Puerto or Fuentes blood bags scandal – from 2006 ongoing to the present day), but for reasons of graft and incompetence, the DNA identities of the bags have not been revealed or acted upon after all these years. It is widely understood or believed that Fuentes’ clients included Spain’s top tennis players and two largest football teams, resulting in political influence being exerted on the judge. Meanwhile, Italy, having been humiliated themselves, were somewhat infuriated by all this, so the next time the Tour dipped into Italy for one day, they took the opportunity to test Valverde (Spain’s leading rider at the time), match his DNA and ban him for two years. Spain itself remained a safe haven.
Literally all top level cycling teams train in Spain. I’m not aware that Spain has passed any laws making PED use illegal, although it may now be illegal to supply. I think they nailed Fuentes for something lame like unsafe public health issues. Nevertheless, the pro move in cycling is to take the training camps off the mainland to Tenerife and Majorca or else to Andalucia, or that mythical place known as “Altitudeâ€, (far away from testers, same as in Track). Hotels are used a lot, often in the off-season. Maybe they are cheap enough, or there might be a move away from permanent bases and apartments, not sure, maybe it makes it harder to pin the tail on the donkey from a testing standpoint.
Cycling has by now served its ten years of hand-wringing and gets to pretend again that it is now PED free. Hahahahahaha! And now track is reading from seemingly the same script, so we can expect the same political obfuscation and play-book. [Don't get me wrong, both are great sports, just a little bemused by the lack of progress on the ped front.]
Paula's Stigmata,
I loved the post. You know your stuff. I'd love to bounce ideas of your head in the future. Emai me if you want to do this
robertjohnson@letsrun.comWow, that is so true. Thanks for pointing that out - it's one of those things you're sort of aware of, but it hadn't quite penetrated my thick skull. Very irritating.
If we made a list of the obfuscation tactics (many of which simply follow the cycling playbook), this would be right on there.
rojo wrote:
TrackCoach wrote:Glad to see I am not the only one who reads foreign news outlets. Sometimes when I say I've got inside info, it was clearly published online somewhere and sometimes there is an English translation of the article. Translation can be difficult at times, online translators don't do well with Amharic and Oromo, but I take a print out with me when I go to my local Ethiopian restaurant and they are more than eager to translate. They get excited to know I am interested in their news. When I spoke about The Ethiopian federation not being aware of Genzebe Dibaba's injury and the fact that she missed a mandatory training camp, I read it in Addis Neger. Ethiopians have questioned Aden for years and in spite of his success, most of elite Ethiopians have stayed away from him. I read an article over 2 years ago that the Ethiopian federation had some issues with him simply running a training camp their country. I have heard Ethiopians question why he constantly changes his training sites for no apparent reason and why he has some sites with one way in and one way out and seems to have spotters along the road. I have seen Kenyan online sites where people are complaining about using over aged athletes in global youth and junior competitions at the expense younger more deserving athletes. One article named a particular athlete who had clearly competed in world Jr XC several years earlier under a difference name. Btw, Kenya prefer to use athletes from pro training groups who have no grade school or age group marks whereby their true age outside of Kenya is undetermined when in fact, most Kenyan nowadays have a have a record of their birth.
Is anyone aware that several years ago, testers showed up to an Aden training camp, he was there, but none of the elite athletes showed up for training. The testers waited and the athletes never showed up. This was not counted as a whereabouts miss for some odd reason. I think they were able to test the athletes the following day, but if you are taking small dosages of dope, you only have a window of about 24 hours to test positive. Aden and most of the African athletes up until this year were only being tested at international competitions.
There is a mountain of analytical and circumstantial evidence the Mills and Francis have been doping their athletes for years and they seem to be untouchable. I have often defended the IAAF, but they have access to the same info that I do. I am starting to come to the conclusion that something is not right. In some countries, athletes are being tipped off when the testing is going occur and there are quite a few whereabouts misses that are not being reported.
Trackcoach, it's clear that you are a great fan.
I wasn't aware of much of this.
Can you in the future please email us if you see an interesting article about Kenya, Ethiopia, or Jamaica? WHatever language, we'll pay to have it translated if need be.
I'm serious. Please send it to me at
robertjohnson@letsrun.comand our main inbox at
letsrun@letsrun.comCan you please provide specifics of the a) Aden training camp testing thing and b) Mill/Francis being dirty?
It seems like if you knew all this, you'd want to share.
A fellow fan,
-Rojo
Certainly, will do.
What's interesting is, when there is an English version, I will write a reply to an article or chime in on a thread and the thread stops and the article is taken down. These publications seem to know who I am even when I post under a different name. This has even happened with the Jamaican TrackAlerts and the Gleaner online publications. People will be discussing some track & field thing and as soon as I join in, the discussion stops. Nowadays, unless I am praising a Jamaican athlete, anything I write is simply never posted. However, there does not appear any national doping conspiracy in Africa. The Ethiopians think the Kenyans are dirty, the Kenyans think the Ethiopians are dirty, both countries think Botswana and the Arab countries are dirty and just like on Letsrun, suspicions are thrown around about individual athletes all the time. David Rudisha and Tegla Loroupe have made some strong antidoping comments critical of Kenyan athletes. The Kenyan public is pissed off primarily about the fact that some of those comments made it to the Western media and the sentiments is they need to keep their mouths shut. You will almost never hear an Ethiopian athlete make any sort of antidoping comment.
You have to keep in mind that simply getting signed by an agent is a really big deal and not just for the athlete, but their immediate and extended family as well. A couple of WMM top finishes or 2-3 years on the DL circuit is better than a Georgetown law degree. There does appears to be a universal understanding -or conspiracy among Africans when it comes to money, whether it is doping or age cheating, we can fight among ourselves, but you don't interfere with an athlete's opportunity make money. Several Jamaican athletes switched their citizenship to Bahrain. These athletes gave up their Jamaican citizenship to a country that will never accept them as full Bahrain citizens; they gave up their name, religion and culture. In the Jamaican media, these athletes got way more praise than condemnation. - To athletes from 3-world countries, track & field is far more about money than it is about sport.