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

"more data required"

^This. So again, not a case of someone who started doping out of despair to fight the slowing down. He was literally in top shape while doping - not exactly surprising.

casual obsever wrote:

^This. So again, not a case of someone who started doping out of despair to fight the slowing down. He was literally in top shape while doping - not exactly surprising.

Yes, so the "he/she was only doping on epo because they were injured/past it" excuse Rek/Renato have pushed on here simply doesn't hold for Kiprop, he was red-flagged at the latest in February 2016, four months later he ran 3:29.33 in BIRMINGHAM the fastest ever time in Britain, smashing the field of Iguider, Willis, Kiplagat and H. Ingebrigtsen. This was one of the few non-Monaco sub-3:30 times over the last decade. The track there is clearly not as fast as Monaco and at 1:29 on the race clock the wind is blowing some fat official's pass all over the place. A month earlier, as I posted above, he was likely in similar shape.

Damn!...just watched that video! (great find btw Subway ?). Kiprop smoked Iguider, who's no slouch and Morroco's 2nd fastest ever 15 man! And he made the rest of the field look like a bunch of sub-elites! Lol. A walk in the park for Kiprop as he was hardly fatigue after the race. Ridiculous performance!

So, what's going on here with rekrunner? Is he just naive or is he just trolling to keep these discussions lively & entertaining? ?

Well we're not sure how his training changed etc.

Of course, racing is always about winning. That is not quite the same discussion as the connection between EPO and top times. Maybe you can start a new thread. As an example, Baumann is famous for his FAST TIME, in a RACE where he did NOT WIN. He took 5th, some 12 seconds behind the winner. And yet his name comes up a lot in these discussions because his FAST TIME has not been beaten by any non-African. Yes I still run, but not as fast as before. If we want to talk about RACING and WINNING WC medals, we can see that for overall GOLD medals Spain is ranked 23rd, and for overall medals, Spain is ranked 15th, behind Germany, Great Britain, East Germany, Poland, France and Italy. And we can see that Spain was winning World Championships in the marathon, at a time when the World didn't seem that interested in the marathon. After Dinsamo ran 2:06:50 in 1988, no one ran sub-2:07 until 1998 when da Costa set the new WR with a 2:06:50. So, EPO was not causing FAST TIMES in the marathon before 1998. Only in 1999, six more athletes (RSA, KEN, ETH) beat Dinsamo, with Japan not far behind, and then, not at the World Championship.

physics defiant wrote:

Nope. Racing is always more about winning.

Do you even run?

So he ran his PB in July 2015, seven months earlier than Feb. 2016. And he ran fast times three and four months after that, but not as fast as his PB, and not as fast as 2014, 2013, or 2012. All very compelling to be sure, but just the same, I will simply postpone forming any opinion one way or another until I have more information, for example, if his sanction includes annulling July 2015 performance.

I think you mean 2:06:05 for da Costa:

2:06:05 Ronaldo da Costa BRA 07.06.70 1 Berlin 20.09.1998

And Osoro also ran sub-2:07 in 98:

2:06:54 Ondoro Osoro KEN 03.12.67 1 Chicago 11.10.1998

I don't understand why you continue to speak about "excuses" when I try to explain one reason of doping for some athlete.

Also if English is not my language, I think there is a big difference between "excuse" and "explanation".

I pointed out several times that athletes caught for EPO MUST be banned for a long period (maybe longer than 4 years) and have to lose ALL THEIR PREVIOUS RESULTS, also if they were clean when achieving them.

So, to think I can find "excuses" doesn't correspond to the reality, because excuses can eventually searched for trying to cancel (or to cut) the ban. Excuses are the reasons that Dennis Mitchell or Shawn Barber or Gil Roberts or the Spanish walker Daniel Plaza tried for justifying their doping, while to explain WHY athletes start to dope is something very different.

In the case of Asbel, for example, we have to see that his best performance was achieved in 2015, that his seasonal best in 2016 (3'29"33) is only the 6th performances of his career, that his PB in 800m (1'43"15) is from 2011, and that his season 2016 was very poor, including a 6th position in Monaco (15 Jul) in 3'32"03, a 6th position in Olympics with big tactical mistakes, and a 3rd position in the DL final (9 Sep). So, also if he started EPO in February 2016, there is no proof that the doping gave him some advantage, and in any case he started when he had some physical problem (winter 2015-2016) that didn't allow him to train (remember his car accident, when one person was killed).

We don't know WHEN the positive athletes started to take EPO (Asbel, Rita Jeptoo, Jemima Sumgong, etc...), but the idea that ALL THEIR CAREER was under doping is a specualation only, without any real base, while the real fact is that, in the last competitions they had after the official positive test, THEY NEVER WERE ABLE TO IMPROVE THEIR PB.

As I've said a few times now, the risk with small groups is more noise in the data from potentially under-developed groups pre-1990. Even world-wide, this happened in the women's longer distances, where Ingrid Kristiansen stood out from the rest of her competitors. Since you are asking what is "my question", the nature of my question was "who produced top times in the EPO-era", and more importantly "who did not produce top times". Quality and quantity measures were meant to compare post-1990 groups with each other, with athletes competing in the same EPO-milestone related context, and NOT to their respective pre-1990 sub-groups. This reflects how top athletes compete with other top athletes in the WORLD with other athletes in the present, rather than with athletes in their ethnic sub-group from the past. My choice of a using a cutoff at 1990 was to provide a clear and consistent definition of a "top time", for everyone over all events. It could have been 1980 or 1960 or 1900, but the value of 1990 was to have a mature reference performance likely to be achievable without EPO (even if it was tainted by steroids, and blood transfusions and other drugs of that era, and possibly even early adopters of EPO). I further broke down this all-time world performance comparison to emphasize which ethnic sub-groups performed well, and which ethnic sub-groups did not, compared to each other, relative to the 1990 WORLD reference. We can play around with different definitions of top-times, and create custom sub-group specific references, but this ultimately doesn't change my main observation in any significant way, and is likely to cloud the comparison with unwanted noise. I do have an advanced education, but didn't need it for this simple analysis, requiring just counting (1st grade math) and percentages (5th grade math).

If you are asking the question, "Did Basque runners (or Catalan runners) improve in the EPO era" then the correct reference group would be Basque (or Catlan) runners prior to the EPO era. Comparing them to a much larger reference group makes absolutely no sense.

For somebody who claims that you have some sort of advanced training, you seem to have missed the days in statistics class where they taught statistics.

Yes 2:06:05. Yes Osoro in 1998, after da Costa.

rekrunner wrote:

"more data required"

"Intensive testing during competition period." Priority level - +++ ?

As compelling as "+++" is, there are still gaps in the data.

We're on to you wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

"more data required"

"Intensive testing during competition period." Priority level - +++ ?

No wrong again the 3:29 in Birmingham was likely 3:27 shape in Monaco or better. 3:29 there was one of his fastest career times and a faster season best than 2008, when he was Olympic champion, 2009 & 2011 when world champion.

2017 3:33.17 Stockholm (SWE) 18 JUN 2017

2016 3:29.33 Birmingham (GBR) 05 JUN 2016

2015 3:26.69 Monaco (MON) 17 JUL 2015

2014 3:28.45 Monaco (MON) 18 JUL 2014

2013 3:27.72 Monaco (MON) 19 JUL 2013

2012 3:28.88 Monaco (MON) 20 JUL 2012

2011 3:30.46 Rieti (ITA) 10 SEP 2011

2010 3:31.78 Rieti (ITA) 29 AUG 2010

2009 3:31.20 Roma (ITA) 10 JUL 2009

And is only 0.15s outside of his non Monaco best of

3:29.18 Asbel Kiprop KEN 1 Ad-Dawhah 09.05.2014

the 52nd fastest performance of all time.

Sorry, but a 3:29 in June in Birmingham is worth a 3:29 in June in Monaco. 6 weeks later, Kiprop ran 3:32.03 in Monaco, losing by 2 seconds -- wait what? EPO + Monaco? 3:32? What is that worth anywhere else?

Subway Surfers wrote:

No wrong again the 3:29 in Birmingham was likely 3:27 shape in Monaco or better. 3:29 there was one of his fastest career times and a faster season best than 2008, when he was Olympic champion, 2009 & 2011 when world champion.

2017 3:33.17 Stockholm (SWE) 18 JUN 2017

2016 3:29.33 Birmingham (GBR) 05 JUN 2016

2015 3:26.69 Monaco (MON) 17 JUL 2015

2014 3:28.45 Monaco (MON) 18 JUL 2014

2013 3:27.72 Monaco (MON) 19 JUL 2013

2012 3:28.88 Monaco (MON) 20 JUL 2012

2011 3:30.46 Rieti (ITA) 10 SEP 2011

2010 3:31.78 Rieti (ITA) 29 AUG 2010

2009 3:31.20 Roma (ITA) 10 JUL 2009

And is only 0.15s outside of his non Monaco best of

3:29.18 Asbel Kiprop KEN 1 Ad-Dawhah 09.05.2014

the 52nd fastest performance of all time.

rekrunner wrote:

As compelling as "+++" is, there are still gaps in the data.

You can quit apologizing for dopers - for most of us following your posts we already know that's your character. You seem to have soft heart for dopers. Lol. I can see if an athlete has never tested positive, or sanctioned for an ABP violation, but is suspicious nonetheless - you want to give them the benefit of the doubt. But confirmed dopers i.e. confirmed cheaters....please. But you give the impression of a doping apologist so I get it. And if it wasn't EPO involved, you might have different stance. Who knows.

Kiprop had a high priority (+++) classification with the strategy of intensive testing during his competition period per the WADA 2016 leaked data. And since they actually decided to really test him, he gets nailed in 2017. Hook, line & sinker. Lol. The 3rd fastest ever at the 15 goes down for the count. As far I'm concerned, the guy was doping a long time back. First clue: When he almost ran down a full-throttled Rocket Fuel Ramzi at Beijing. ?

So keep on apologizing for known dopers who test for EPO. Who's next? Jebet? Bett? Kalalei? It's a sure bett it'll be someone. ?

Renato Canova wrote:

In the case of Asbel, for example, we have to see that his best performance was achieved in 2015, that his seasonal best in 2016 (3'29"33) is only the 6th performances of his career, that his PB in 800m (1'43"15) is from 2011, and that his season 2016 was very poor, including a 6th position in Monaco (15 Jul) in 3'32"03, a 6th position in Olympics with big tactical mistakes, and a 3rd position in the DL final (9 Sep). So, also if he started EPO in February 2016, there is no proof that the doping gave him some advantage, and in any case he started when he had some physical problem (winter 2015-2016) that didn't allow him to train (remember his car accident, when one person was killed).

So you're actually remarkably brave sometimes but other times, you lecture that you are tired of repeating the same explanations. But that defense of Kiprop was entirely flawed. What we know is that his passport was red-flagged and his most recent off-score was 9 Feb 2016. Obviously something in his trend analysis was amiss and history will show that the internal suspicions of the IAAF's testers were well grounded. We also know from the various leaked blood values to Seppelt and The Sunday Times, which were analysed by Ashenden etc, there were alot of dirty medalists in the 1500m since 2003, and Kiprop won the highest amount of these medals. Time and time again from Deanouk to Mindweak posters here have pointed out that nearly every 1500m runner is 2s quicker in Monaco than anywhere else. This year alone the year's best for men were set in Monaco: 200m, 800m, 1500, 3000mSC, HJ and women 400m, 800m and 3000mSC (a WR). This year in the men's 1500m there was a staggering amount of pbs. So the claim that Kiprop's 3:29.33 was only his 6th fastest in his long career is silly, he was on the scene for 11 seasons. So in Birmingham he was clearly in 3:27 shape, then only days later Federico Rosa gets arrested for doping and Kiprop is a shadow of what he was just days earlier and never recovered.

Interesting thread just started on elite race walking ("race walking AMA") with the OP an elite RW. There's some talk on the VO2max and endurance attributes of an elite RW. Also, someone brought up "EPO" and if it would help a RW. Interesting thread - though I think rekrunner has a low opinion of RWs being endurance athletes (?).

I guess that makes you and "most of you following my posts" a poor judge of my character. It seems you are so blinded by your bad faith, that this taints your perceptions. I don't get this idea, that if someone is busted for doping, that anyone suddenly gets expanded freedom to conclude whatever else they want, as if somehow the normal standards of discussion can be waived, and anyone who says, wait a minute, normal logic rules still apply, gets branded an apologist. About Kiprop's doping, our knowledge is dated 2016 and 2017. If you want to say something about 2015, my response is: maybe, maybe not, but the fact is that we don't know yet.