rekrunner wrote:
Coevett wrote:
You know, when you say utter garbage like this, you loose any pretence you had of being some kind of fair minded contrarian 'voice of reason' here.
150+ doping busts is not the worldwide average. I'd take actual doping convictions despite third rate anti-doping standards, over some unscientific straw polls at the Pan Arab EPO Games quoted again and again by Casual Observer.
I wonder how anybody watching the Olympics, and looking at the medal table, can take seriously the possibility that Kenyans are 'genetically superior' for distance running?
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Lets stick to the marathon then, and suppose that 90% of the top 100 marathon runners are either Kenyan or Ethiopian.
1% is British lets say on average over a couple of decades period.
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But in 2019, Sandra Moen of Norway was at 44, and Callum Hawkins was at 122.
And this is all before you factor in the RAMPANT and proven doping epidemic in East Africa, involving a cheap and simple endurance drug that knocks as much as 10 minutes off a runner's marathon time.
BTW, Japan has a far higher proportion of elite marathon runners, despite having an aging population not much bigger than the biggest European countries. North Africa too has a higher proportion. Does anybody think that the Japanese and North Africans are genetically more advantaged than Europeans, or is it more likely down to simply participation numbers (and the related obesity figures)?
I’m not sure you are the best judge of credibility.
Your 150+ busts is over a period of nearly two decades, across a large athlete population. To compare with other nations, it would be better to express that as a percentage of busts across the actual athlete populations.
You talked about “blood doping” in the ‘70s and ‘80s, and “DopeKemboi” about the importance of EPO and Kenya and 1995 and 3:32 for 1500m. So we are not talking about steroids of the ‘70s and ‘80s, or whereabouts failures, or test refusals, but about blood doping causing fast performances.
When we look at these 150+ doping busts which one are blood doping, that number drops to about 25 — over nearly two decades. Most of them are no-name athletes. When we talk about high performances, the list dries up, and we talk about 4-5 athletes. This is a small percentage of the total athlete population.
I don’t ever argue about Kenyan “genetics”. Genetics is only one factor of about a dozen, if not more, that explains performance, excluding doping and doping testing.
I think the main problem of non-Africans is that they are 20 pounds too heavy, as mature healthy adults.
My idea of Kenyan dominance is to look at the events where they dominate — long distance running.
Maybe if more Kenyans had bicycles, and roads, they would excel in cycling too.
Not sure where you want to go with your GB and population analysis. GB’s population grew in the last few decades, and they can’t keep up with Steve Jones from the ‘80s, except for one Brit born in Somalia. Many countries world-wide have doped, and only two non-East African has gone sub-2:05, one in a tailwind-storm, and Kengu Suzuki this year. What is the number of sub-2:06? Two more? Osaka and Moen? And that is considering all countries, worldwide, all time.
When you say “RAMPANT and proven doping epidemic in East Africa”, what is your proof that doping is significantly worse in East Africa than average, as a percentage of competing athletes?
When you say “cheap and simple endurance drug that knocks as much as 10 minutes off a runner's marathon time”, where is the proof of that? Why aren’t more non-Africans beating Steve Jones? When I counted back a couple years ago, there were 183 East Africans, 6 North Africans, and 12 from the rest of the world, that could beat Steve Jones. If EPO could bring up to 10 minutes to the marathon, we wouldn’t be talking about only 18 non-East African athletes worldwide all-time, and then by only up to a minute or minute and a half.