Renato CANOVA: congratulations for BEKELE!

As somebody used the nickname "GelindoB", let me take the opportunity to also pay tribute to the great Gelindo BORDIN, also one of the STRONGEST MIND in marathon history. Probably his most impressive victory:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiL3IHNfKzs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xju0P-OhZpM

No actually he is correct and you are wrong. If this guy gave us all his protocols and substances used, anybody should be able to do it. That's how science works.

Newsnight wrote:

The morrocans are nowhere since the biological passport

I highly doubt altitude could restore their former glories

Do you know who Abdelaati Iguider is? He was the bronze medalist in the 1500m in London, the gold medalist in the 1500m indoor in 2012, the silver medalist indoor in 2010 and the bronze in 2014. He was also the bronze medalist in the 1500m in the 2015 WC.

The bio passport is an absolute joke and is easily beaten as was proven by Mark Daly.

Renato,

I have a question: in such a situation with these specialized doctors, does the sponsor pay the bill or does an athlete like Bekele have to pay for the treatment him/herself, does the coach pay, and/or does the doctor waive the fee for marketing reasons?

I was always curious about that.

just wanted to mention wrote:

Newsnight wrote:

The morrocans are nowhere since the biological passport

I highly doubt altitude could restore their former glories

Do you know who Abdelaati Iguider is? He was the bronze medalist in the 1500m in London, the gold medalist in the 1500m indoor in 2012, the silver medalist indoor in 2010 and the bronze in 2014. He was also the bronze medalist in the 1500m in the 2015 WC.

The bio passport is an absolute joke and is easily beaten as was proven by Mark Daly.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-32983932

The bio-passport is easily beaten but the morrocans have been pretty much wiped out by it and can no longer compete at their previous level.

I highly doubt that altitude could solve their problems

Clerk wrote:

jTjg wrote:

Please post his build-up, coach Canova! Would be lovely to see and compare vs. Kirui and Mosop in the past!

It would be interesting to see for sure, but Bekele has always been more secretive in his training. Even if Canova shared the plan from his end, it might not be close to what actually happened out on the road.

It's time for the secrecy to end. We'd like to see if his EPO dosing is the same as during his heyday on the track or if things have actually been altered due to threats of testing, not that certain athletes or countries actually have to worry about that yet.

Newsnight wrote:

just wanted to mention wrote:

Do you know who Abdelaati Iguider is? He was the bronze medalist in the 1500m in London, the gold medalist in the 1500m indoor in 2012, the silver medalist indoor in 2010 and the bronze in 2014. He was also the bronze medalist in the 1500m in the 2015 WC.

The bio passport is an absolute joke and is easily beaten as was proven by Mark Daly.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-32983932

The bio-passport is easily beaten but the morrocans have been pretty much wiped out by it and can no longer compete at their previous level.

I highly doubt that altitude could solve their problems

No, they have not been. So what you're saying is that everyone other than Moroccans can beat the bio passport? Haha ok pal

actual scientist wrote:

No actually he is correct and you are wrong. If this guy gave us all his protocols and substances used, anybody should be able to do it. That's how science works.

No, I am an actual scientist. Both of you are incorrect, I am correct. Keeping your protocols and substances a secret does not mean it is not science. It means it is a secret. You don't have to publish all of your methods and knowledge unless you are trying to get peer reviewed for example. Plenty of organizations and people keep their science a secret for business reasons. That's how science ACTUALLY works.

Tell this to whoever mistaught you about science.

this is interesting.....renato keeps on claiming over and over that kenyans are too talented for EPO to have any benefit, now he is claiming that its altitude training that makes EPO useless to use at 1700m+

and the only way he can know this? cause HE HAS BEEN USING IT ON HIS ATHLETES? how else would someone have soo much knowledge about the effects of EPO on highly trained athletes at altitude unless they have been dabbling in it since the inception?

how about some real science behind your claims, how is it that EPO doesnt work on kenyans, how is it that EPO doesnt work when training above 1700m?

and why is it that the distance times of the top runners fell significantly off since the stricter EPO tests?

bottom line is this, you might be a great coach renato, but take away your talent pool and PED use and how great are you then? what training are you doing that is sooooo ground breaking better than everyone else that coaches out there? every top coach that claims they are soooo much better up till now has been dirty.

russians during the cold war...top coaches? no they were on PEDS

east and west germans during cold war....top sprinting and throws coaches? no they were on PEDS

where did charlie frances learn his "stuff" from? oh them eastern block countries sprint coaches, same with john smith.

Jamaica was always in the top for sprinting, but then booom you have countless stars in a matter of years, how many got busted for PEDs? same with kenya

this spring and summer aden gets raided, then kiprops coach gets arrested, hmmm and both diababa and kiprop were running flawlessly then flailed. how is it there are sooooo many athletes getting busted and coaches denying this and that and getting raided and arrested and your the only clean group on the planet? yet you know so much about how EPO works...hmmm

a good coach can make athletes wherever they go, but coaches with egos and greed will go to where good athletes are located with lax testing to make a name for themselves.

makes me wonder why none of you high profile european agent/coaches havent tried nepal or tibet yet....those sherpas have by far the most amazing "engines" out there, living at 14,000ft for thousands of years, able to summit Everest without oxygen while lugging people and gear over and over....i would imagine they have lax testing

Renato, I love your insights. A few questions.

I'm not sure exactly what you are saying. Are you saying you could give Bekele hard workouts but couldn't determine what day they were on because he might need more or less recovery?

How do you explain Lance Armstrong or most of cycling? Is it different on a physiological level than running? Most of the top cyclists were dirty in the early 2000s. Was that because the Tours are over 2 weeks is that why they needed to dope?

That was a two way battle for $500,000. So great. I think it is the greatest final mile in terms of excitement but I think Wanjiru's final mile was 4:44 if Toni Reavis' time with a mile to go was accurate.

Bekele ran his final 2.195m at 4:30.5 mile pace.

This statement is not true. In 2012 I'm pretty sure four guy broke 12:50 in the same race.

The 800m record is new and running 1:42 barely seems fast anymore

In the 1500m more people than ever are running hub 3:30 and Kiprop is coming very close to the world record

In the marathon, a runner who many presume to be one of the biggest cheats of the "EPO era" recently almost broke the world record.

The only reason there aren't many fast times in the 5000m/10000m is that the majority of the talent has moved to the marathon, which is where the money is. The drug use is the same. Testing has done nothing. We have a 1500m runner dominating, he is literally unbeatable in the 5/10, for the last six years. Trust me, there's plenty of drug use happening.

You wrote a lot of not correct things, and a lot of stupidities.

At first, not now, but ALWAYS I said that EPO doesn't have any positive effect with athletes born, living and training in high altitude, WITH PROPER TRAINING. So, I NEVER SAID EPO doesn't work for Kenyans : if you take a not trained Kenyan, you ask him/her to run 1 km (and he/she runs in 4'30"/5'), administering EPO with them their times can become 4'15"/4'40". So, EPO works with EVERY HUMAN BEING, not trained.

It seems here there are a lot of people not understanding the difference from trained and not trained athletes, and from AVERAGE trained athletes and PROPER trained top champions. This because many speak without having any knowledge about what training for top level is.

You wrote a lot of not correct things, and a lot of stupidities.

At first, not now, but ALWAYS I said that EPO doesn't have any positive effect with athletes born, living and training in high altitude, WITH PROPER TRAINING. So, I NEVER SAID EPO doesn't work for Kenyans : if you take a not trained Kenyan, you ask him/her to run 1 km (and he/she runs in 4'30"/5'), administering EPO with them their times can become 4'15"/4'40". So, EPO works with EVERY HUMAN BEING, not trained.

It seems here there are a lot of people not understanding the difference from trained and not trained athletes, and from AVERAGE trained athletes and PROPER trained top champions. This because many speak without having any knowledge about what training for top level is.

wejo wrote:

I'm not sure exactly what you are saying. Are you saying you could give Bekele hard workouts but couldn't determine what day they were on because he might need more or less recovery?

...

How do you explain Lance Armstrong or most of cycling? Is it different on a physiological level than running? Most of the top cyclists were dirty in the early 2000s. Was that because the Tours are over 2 weeks is that why they needed to dope?...

Having been down this road so often, I will give what I believe is Renato's answer. He will say that the athlete performs the hard workout when they are recovered, not on a scheduled day in the week. HS or college teams that have workout days on Tuesday/Friday or Monday/Thursday are dependent on the day of the week to workout. Renato would ask or observe if the athlete is ready to go hard that day, whether it is two, three or however many days after the last one.

He would respond that East Africans have different adaptations to altitude, different than Europeans. This is true. There are different ways to adapt to altitude that are better for endurance. Tibetan adaptations are to carry more to altitude have the result to make the blood more viscous, (a metaphor is bigger trucks moving slower on the highway). High viscosity is bad for elite athletic performance. East Africans adapt differently: more numerous but smaller blood cells (smaller cars moving faster on the highway): good for running fast.

He will say that EPO makes East African's blood more viscous, and would slow them down.He would say that altitude and the highest level of training optimizes their blood profile, and that EPO would be too much, in the wrong direction.

What Renato has yet to prove is why Elite level athletes are an exception to what we know about amateur and sub elite athletes. While there have been no studies on elite athletes, there is also no information to show that they would react differently. Renato has yet to prove that the hematological characteristics of East Africans, which separate them from what we know about cyclists, for example, in fact carry over to the mechanism of action for EPO; he has yet to show that mechanism of action of EPO in highly trained athletes would in fact be problematic.

In general, he has yet to show why highly trained east Africans at altitude are an exception to what we already know about EPO.

cici wrote:

actual scientist wrote:

No actually he is correct and you are wrong. If this guy gave us all his protocols and substances used, anybody should be able to do it. That's how science works.

No, I am an actual scientist. Both of you are incorrect, I am correct. Keeping your protocols and substances a secret does not mean it is not science. It means it is a secret. You don't have to publish all of your methods and knowledge unless you are trying to get peer reviewed for example. Plenty of organizations and people keep their science a secret for business reasons. That's how science ACTUALLY works.

Tell this to whoever mistaught you about science.

Letsrun is densely populated with engineers doctors and scientists.

Newsnight wrote:

Letsrun is densely populated with engineers doctors and scientists.

2 people is "densely populated"? However, it would not surprise me if you were correct. You've named about half of all possible college degrees, so it is not like your criteria is hard to meet.

Clerk, I don't know if Elite level athletes are an exception to what we know about amateur and sub elite. But is a fact that the volume, and the intensity, of training of Elite athletes is by far very different from the volume, and the intensity, of the training of amateurs.

So, maybe that also with amateurs, if they train in high altitude at their max level of volume and intensity, EPO doesn't have any effect.

The fact is that I connect every physiological change with training, and more the training is proper and hard, more physiological changes we have. This is a COMMON SITUATION of the top elite athletes, who have not only the talent, but also the motivation and the mental stimuli (because they can have big advantages from their top performances) for running this road, while amateurs don't have.

What is not possible to accept are the "researches" carried out with "elite athletes" who are marathon runners with a PB of 2:40 (37 minutes slower than the WR), generally "well trained" (with a volume 5 times little than top athletes, and an intensity that at that level doesn't exist), used as demonstration of what happens in the human physiology at any level, like "training" could be a "magic word" with one effect only, also when there are a lot of differences.

Do you think running 1 hour at 5' per km (12 km), 4' per km (15 km), 3' per km (20 km) can produce the same effect on the body ? Do you think that running 5 x 400m in 1'20" or 25 x 400m in 58" are the same thing ?

But never, never, never, in any pseudo-research, the "scientist" was able to specify the REAL training his subjects did, hiding himself under a generic "well trained".

I don't have to prove that the hematological characteristics of East Africans, which separate them from what we know about cyclist, because I NEVER said something like this : but is a reality that the HEMATOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF ATHLETES LIVING AND TRAINING IN ALTITUDE AT TOP LEVEL are different from the hematological characteritics of athletes LIVING AND TRAINING AT SEA LEVEL WITH AN AVERAGE TRAINING. So, it's not something GENETIC, but is something depending on the environment : if some top Kenyan athlete goes at sea level and trains in the way we use with sea level athletes for 6 months, the data of his blood change, becoming similar any other sea level athlete (especially the MCV).

So, the factors that, according to my experience, make EPO useless for top African, don't depend on genetic differences, but on THEIR CONTINUE STAY IN ALTITUDE, AND THEIR TYPE OF TRAINING. With a top Kenyan who trains at sea level, EPO can work. With a top athlete born at sea level but not African, living and training in altitude for years, EPO can't work.

One example can be the one of the NZL twins Jake and Zane Robertson.

Their talent was normal : Jake 46th in WCCCh 2007 in the junior race, with 26'46" vs 24'07" of Asbel Kiprop winner ; Zane with a PB of 3'50"60 in 1500m when junior. This is a type of talent that many juniores, living and training at sea level, have.

They went in Iten after the WCCCh 2007 in Mombasa, and started to live like African, ALWAYS in altitude (not only in Kenya, in Ethiopia too).

At the end of their choice of life, Zane has now PB of 3'34", 13'13", 27'33" in Olympics, and 59'47" in HM (better than anybody else among white runners), Jake (who had several injuries and had a PB of 3'54"73 in 1500m before Kenya) was in any case able to run 10000m in 27'45" and 5000m in 13'15".

Conclusion : it's the training changing the physiology when we speak about endurance, if carried out in high altitude. And till when there are no scientists doing a SPECIFIC RESEARCH (with the SPECIFIC CATEGORY OF TOP RUNNERS LIVING AND TRAINING ALWAYS IN ALTITUDE) for knowing and understanding the effects of training, NOBODY CAN GIVE SOME DATA ABOUT THE EFFECTS OF EPO ON THE SAME SUBJECTS (of course, not replacing training, but "cumulative" with training.

Thanks again, Renato, for the clarification.

To others, Renato has commented on all this before in other threads. I'm not going to dig them up but maybe Wejo can paste some links. Wejo's questions (tour de france ... Renato never said that EPO wouldn't help 20x Marathon, just possibly not 1x Marathon) were also answered by Renato in other threads from a long time ago.

Another interesting point that I believe Renato raised in the past, is that he observed hematocrit of Properly Trained Kenyan/Ethiopian World Class (let's refer to them as PROKWOCs - or "prokwoks", for efficiency of typing) distance runners living/born at altitude to actually drop over the course of a few months' base level aerobic training. I'm not sure whether this was while training at high or low altitude or both - maybe Renato can expand on that. And I believe that the point was that not only did the hematocrit drop but they produced their top performances and times while it was LOWER than before. So if it had dropped for a negative reason (anemia, hemolysis...etc) you would expect fitness to be lower - and the hypothesis is that it's lower in top fitness not because of those reasons but because it is an adaptation to proper training in prokwoks that makes their circulatory system more efficient through lowered resistance.

He used that as an example of how exercise science has quite a ways to go, and that practically every scientific study is INCOMPATIBLE with the case of prokwoks, since studies use "highly trained athletes" who are usually 18 min 5K runners of completely different physiology/genetics/training/motivation than prokwoks.