Alex Hutchinson calls out CANOVA over study confirming EPO works on Kenyan runners

I didn't ignore the possibility, but it muddies the water because it is one of many possibilities, all of which are ignored when you only say EPO worked 10%. By changing coaches, Lombard cut his weekly mileage in half, and added intensity. With this give and take, it's not even clear his training load increased. Judging by the lack of substantial response to my request for data and studies to support the possibility, this bigger training load hypothesis looks to be something largely unstudied, and not widely believed even by the athletes themselves as a primary benefit of EPO.

PEDs affect training wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

Similarly, Lombard, the sub-sub-sub elite runner, besides taking EPO, made significant changes to his training, which cannot be ignored. Maybe EPO helped him by 3%, and the remaining 7% has other causes.

But you conveniently ignore the possibility that EPO allowed him to make significant changes to his training. Do you seriously expect an elite athlete to start taking PEDs and to then continue doing exactly the same training load as they were before taking PEDs?

rekrunner wrote:

You were the one that said to ask Christian H. to answer on your behalf.

If you think your best reference is not credible, I'm not sure how that's my problem.

My goalpost didn't change, but telling me to ask Christian H, and then doubting his answer sure has my head dizzy from all that spin.

physics defiant wrote:

So you believe Christian H. Nice

As noted you will just endlessly move the goalposts and change your mind after you've decided what would be acceptable in your little mind.

You failed the test.

physics defiant wrote:

You failed the test.

To no one's surprise.

rekrunner wrote:

I didn't ignore the possibility, but it muddies the water because it is one of many possibilities, all of which are ignored when you only say EPO worked 10%.

By changing coaches, Lombard cut his weekly mileage in half, and added intensity. With this give and take, it's not even clear his training load increased.

Judging by the lack of substantial response to my request for data and studies to support the possibility, this bigger training load hypothesis looks to be something largely unstudied, and not widely believed even by the athletes themselves as a primary benefit of EPO.

PEDs affect training wrote:

But you conveniently ignore the possibility that EPO allowed him to make significant changes to his training. Do you seriously expect an elite athlete to start taking PEDs and to then continue doing exactly the same training load as they were before taking PEDs?

By not writing that possibility (EPO interacting with training ability) down along with the others that you did, you imply that you overlooked/ignored it. And it is strange that you did not highlight it because it is most likely that an elite athlete taking PEDs is also going to increase their training intensity. No one should expect that after a few injections of EPO they will start running faster without doing anything. And yet it seems that this is the kind of thing you want to see to convince yourself that EPO is effective.

And he also said: "I never used it to recover from injuries, i used it to be beyond normal." "Beyond normal?" I don't know about you, but back in my much younger faster days, if I was running "beyond normal" that would be very significant and game changing.

The point is intellectual honesty. But nobody is surprised that point eluded you.

rekrunner wrote:

When I asked for data, I was told to ask Eddy H. Is there an Eddy H. quote that shows "he was able to train differently because EPO raised his level"? That is the goalpost.

This looks like a quote about how EPO made him feel when he raced, attributing it to EPO, and not mentioning his training with real data before and after EPO.

Here's another anadectol for you rek. I mentioned Roberto Barbi (2:10 marathoner) a few times before noting he was the first male runner ever banned for rEPO, and a lifer for multiple doping positives.

Here's an article with an interview of Barbi reference his doping:

Here's a portion of that interview translated:

"is a sport - of which one is often silent - that from professionalism to amateurs is threatened by doping, by magic potions that help to overcome their human limits, only to reveal themselves as' lethal poisons' for the health and consciousness of the athlete that from the podium of the champion he finds himself beaten to the ground, a solitary victim in the dust. Here is the radiant race of Roberto Barbi, 45, Lucca (from Borgo a Mozzano) titles and burst records, a 6th place at the New York Marathon in 1998, and then the dramatic braking, the doping trap and the fall with his face in the mud in the indifference of a world, that of athletics, who pretends chastity, pointing to him as the only guilty one. A tragic story that has decided to make public, for the first time, after the confession given to the Nas of Florence in the investigation "Operation Quadrifoglio". Arrives breathless in overalls and sneakers, meeting in a bar in Lucca, immediately after the daily shift from worker to the paper mill in Lugliano. Barbi, how did your doping nightmare start? At the age of 26, when I went from the uphill race to the marathon. The strongest runners looked at me like the one who could not keep up with them. If we ran all peer and 'clean' without taking anything I would have had 2 hours and 14 minutes. I would have been inferior only to Stefano Baldini who is one from 2 hours and 13 minutes. But when I understood the antiphon I thought that there was only one way to be competitive, take the Epo too. How was the first time? A case, I went to buy the bike for my daughter and with the shopkeeper I talked about the races that I had to face and my state of exhaustion. A guy who dealt with professional cycling listens and when I leave the store he approaches me with a lot of tact telling me that he had the solution to make me feel good and run faster and faster. No sooner said than done. A few hours later Epo was on my table and from then on I did everything: Gh, various hormones, ephedrine ... A shopping list, but how did it take all this stuff? Two weeks before the competitive engagement I was injecting 2,000 units of Epo every day, so for the race I was sure to be at the top. And did it work? Always. If you make Epo you do not feel the fatigue anymore, at night you're still so excited that you want to jump off the bed and run for a while until you're done. Despite the 8-hour shift at the paper mill, I was able to train up to 35 km a day. A Superman. An elixir of success, an unobstructed race to see it like this. I was running and winning. By force, with doping lower the time of 1 minute in the half marathon and up to 5 minutes on 41 km. But it was becoming hell. I was only going to pay for the EPO which cost me 250 thousand lire a week, a million a month minimum..."

-Despite an 8 hr shift...able to train up to 35 km a day!

-A Superman!

-Lower his time by 1 minute in the HM, and up to five minutes in the marathon!

So, according to Barbi: Improved recovery, heavier training load & a significant reduction in his marathon time.

Gary will want to see that the dude actually punched in at the paper mill before he even considers this evidence.

Or maybe he slept under a desk all day like Costanza?

That's probably it. He had more rest.

Because I took you seriously? I thought the test was for you to support your hypothesis.

physics defiant wrote:

You failed the test.

rekrunner wrote:

Because I took you seriously? I thought the test was for you to support your hypothesis.

physics defiant wrote:

You failed the test.

No. Because you fell for the bait and typically contradicted yourself.

Two strange items in the account or Barbi:

1) He admits having used many hormones + HGH, so it isn't all that clear that he got most of the benefit from rHuEPO.

2) Doesn't he emphasize that he tended to have his rHuEPO regimen only some two weeks before major competition when he felt superpowers, so why didn't he want to feel like a superman 52 weeks a year with the alleged training benefit?

I'm willing to consider the possibility if someone is able to show something more concrete than anecdotes. Otherwise it is just a curious hypothesis unsupported by real data or studies.

PEDs affect training wrote:

By not writing that possibility (EPO interacting with training ability) down along with the others that you did, you imply that you overlooked/ignored it. And it is strange that you did not highlight it because it is most likely that an elite athlete taking PEDs is also going to increase their training intensity. No one should expect that after a few injections of EPO they will start running faster without doing anything. And yet it seems that this is the kind of thing you want to see to convince yourself that EPO is effective.

Choosing a slower reference specific to a sub-group doesn't make it more honest, but just changes how you explain the quality and quantity of progress since 1990. I'm not opposed to repeating the exercise with the slower references, but fail to see what that changes. The reason I say it doesn't matter, is because it doesn't change the subsequent discussion in any meaningful or material way.

I'm not seeing a whole lot of concrete data. He only started EPO 2 weeks before the race? And trained up to 35km a day? What was he doing before?

Let's Get To The Bottom Of This wrote:

Here's another anadectol for you rek. I mentioned Roberto Barbi (2:10 marathoner) a few times before

-Despite an 8 hr shift...able to train up to 35 km a day!

-A Superman!

-Lower his time by 1 minute in the HM, and up to five minutes in the marathon!

So, according to Barbi: Improved recovery, heavier training load & a significant reduction in his marathon time.

I fell for the bait, but I don't see how you failing to support your hypothesis is me contradicting myself. You tried to shift the burden to me, and all three examples you gave fail in different ways.

physics defiant wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

Because I took you seriously? I thought the test was for you to support your hypothesis.

No. Because you fell for the bait and typically contradicted yourself.

It's not about what you think "beyond normal" means. He said he could get to race shape more quickly, but believed that race shape was still achievable clean. The few numbers he gives doesn't show that 5:00 pace from EPO was better than 4:45-4:50 completely clean.

According to Barbi all Italians were doped, because according to him the italian clean limit in the marathon was 2 h and 13 '(and this is already a bullshit) so Baldini, Leone, Goffi, Caimmi, Ingargiola, Poli etc and already Bordin were already all doped.

While of these the only Di Cecco was found positive.

For this he was sued by Baldini.

He went to the cyclists, in cycling it is already known that without EPO you can not be absolutely competitive (when everyone else takes it) for which it is assumed that those would have advised him in that way and that they had installed in him the same conviction.

Anyway, I believe that Canova will intervene on the history of Barbi.

rekrunner wrote:

I fell for the bait, but I don't see how you failing to support your hypothesis is me contradicting myself.

You tried to shift the burden to me, and all three examples you gave fail in different ways.

physics defiant wrote:

No. Because you fell for the bait and typically contradicted yourself.

Dang. You failed the re-test too.

Of course you've been given the answers for page after page so that's not too surprising.

Significant changes in training augmented by the use of EPO perhaps. If all these confirmed dopers could significantly improve their times by making "changes" to their training, then why the hell are they using dope in the first place? If it was that simple to just make "changes" in training then why dope and end up getting caught? I think it's more like they can't make the changes to their training, particularly increasing mileage & training intensity, without increasing injury risk or illness, therefore they use dope to break through their physiological barriers and limitations.

On "sub-sub-sub elite" Lombard: He also improved his 5000 ~8% in about 3 yrs (14:27 - 13:19). This PB was also set before the EPO positive . Though neither of his significantly improved times (13:19.22/27:33.53) meet your pre-90 benchmarks of 13:02 & 27:14, this "sub-sub-sub elite" jacked himself up to elite status qualifying for the Olympics in both events. So when you keep harping on the "non-African world" making very little progress you need to keep in mind the cases of Lombard, Barbi, Garcia, etc. ?