new study shows micro-doping can boost performance nearly 5% and impossible to detect

Well, as you know, I don't believe the 5% for runners either, aside from a few high responders such as Paula. And I don't really care whether it's 2% 3%, or 4%.

Your "estimate" of 0ish despite all the evidence is just extreme trolling though. That is getting quite boring, to be honest.

rekrunner wrote:

This is not the only thread that advertises 5%. You yourself brought up the Scottish and Kenyan study, despite your stated reservations about the Kenyan study.

The "facts" you presented in a decade by decade analysis show that non-Africans only improved on the order of 3% since the 1960s

I'm going to have to agree with rekrunner on this one.

The numbers just don't add up. How can a 5% performance boost explain a 3% real-world gain?

The witch hunters are quick to pounce on this news story and then blame every single runner, but the numbers don't make any sense.

If Kipchoge is cheating with a 5% boost from drugs, then his "natural time" in the marathon would be 2 hours, 7 minutes, and 44 seconds. Kipchoge would have held the world record until 1985.

Abebe Bikila from Ethiopia held the world record in the marathon in 1960 with a time of 2 hours, 15 minutes, and 16.2 seconds. Where are all the natural marathon runners in the 1960s and 1970s?

People don't set PRs every race. It doesn't matter what % the gain is. Just rest assured there is a gain.

casual obsever wrote:

Well, as you know, I don't believe the 5% for runners either, aside from a few high responders such as Paula. And I don't really care whether it's 2% 3%, or 4%.

Your "estimate" of 0ish despite all the evidence is just extreme trolling though. That is getting quite boring, to be honest.

+1

POTD

I was a Hobby Jogger before I took up cycling.

Rowdy Gaines wrote:

It doesn't matter what % the gain is. Just rest assured there is a gain.

If you're going to accuse 100% of the top 10 runners of cheating with drugs, then you're going to need hard proof with specific numbers.

Let's say the improvement is less than 3%. How are you going to prove it? That would mean the human body is capable of running 2 hours, 5 min, and 18 seconds naturally. How can you accuse everyone at the start line of cheating if the max potential is already very fast?

How are you going to convince the fans, the media, and sponsors that 100% of the top runners are cheating? You can't just call everyone stupid for not believing in your idea.

facts and reason wrote:

Rowdy Gaines wrote:

It doesn't matter what % the gain is. Just rest assured there is a gain.

If you're going to accuse 100% of the top 10 runners of cheating with drugs, then you're going to need hard proof with specific numbers.

Let's say the improvement is less than 3%. How are you going to prove it? That would mean the human body is capable of running 2 hours, 5 min, and 18 seconds naturally. How can you accuse everyone at the start line of cheating if the max potential is already very fast?

How are you going to convince the fans, the media, and sponsors that 100% of the top runners are cheating? You can't just call everyone stupid for not believing in your idea.

I didn't nor am I trying to do any of that. What gave the impression I did?

facts and reason wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

This is not the only thread that advertises 5%. You yourself brought up the Scottish and Kenyan study, despite your stated reservations about the Kenyan study.

The "facts" you presented in a decade by decade analysis show that non-Africans only improved on the order of 3% since the 1960s

I'm going to have to agree with rekrunner on this one.

Oh...that's just wonderful to hear. Now rekrunner will probably pop a champagne bottle, go outside and do little jig in the streets of London, and rub into us over the next several weeks that someone agrees with him.

Rainbows & Marshmallows.

Someone said a couple pages back to look at the numbers...

Please...No...Say it so wrote:

facts and reason wrote:

I'm going to have to agree with rekrunner on this one.

Oh...that's just wonderful to hear. Now rekrunner will probably pop a champagne bottle, go outside and do little jig in the streets of London, and rub into us over the next several weeks that someone agrees with him.

Rainbows & Marshmallows.

Now you're trolling. I can tell by the lack of responses to my posts how "boring" they are. My suggestion of small effect "at the top" is in line with top performance evidence -- even your 5-decade progression of small gains. All the evidence of significant effect "at the top", in a real world setting with elite runners, is scarce, often requiring imagination, and assumption, in order to attempt to link improvements to doping. I know what fun is for you is -- fabricating possible scenarios where all up and coming Kenyans can freely dope themselves to 59:07, and then laying low once they are in the OOC pool -- despite the lack of any evidence of such gaming the system. Did Wanjiru do this in Japan?

casual obsever wrote:

Well, as you know, I don't believe the 5% for runners either, aside from a few high responders such as Paula. And I don't really care whether it's 2% 3%, or 4%.

Your "estimate" of 0ish despite all the evidence is just extreme trolling though. That is getting quite boring, to be honest.

Please...No...Say it so wrote:

facts and reason wrote:

I'm going to have to agree with rekrunner on this one.

Oh...that's just wonderful to hear. Now rekrunner will probably pop a champagne bottle, go outside and do little jig in the streets of London, and rub into us over the next several weeks that someone agrees with him.

Rainbows & Marshmallows.

Or perhaps it shows that epo doesn't work on athletes born and raised at sea level ?

Article Please? wrote:

[quote]Article Please? wrote:

OK, I need to remember that i'm surrounded by tards, including myself! and should have re-read the abstract at the very least before posting.

The 4.7% gain in power after the first 135ml transfusion was for a time trial of approximately 45-50 MINUTES in length. The .9% gain in power after the 235ml transfusion came in the second time trial the day after the first one and was an average of their power output for 4 x 30 SECONDS.

It is completely reasonable to expect to see a much larger impact as a percentage on power output for a predominately aerobic output last nearly 50 minutes versus several sprints lasting 30 seconds.

Does anybody expect a 200 meter runner to gain as much from EPO as a half marathoner? Of course not.

Lets see what Michael Rasmussen has to say about the study. Do you think he might know a little something about blood doping??

A viewpoint from a former blood doper wrote:

Lets see what Michael Rasmussen has to say about the study...

I don't know how relevant the comments made by the recovered blood doping-junkie Rasmussen are from his own experiments, because he took multiple blood bags constantly with rHuEPO throughout his career and not 135 ml microdoses. The author on the other hand agrees that I made no significant error in the data regardless of how accurately the simplistic chart represents it:

While the study has its limitations - measures of VO2 Max and haemoglobin did not rise at the same rate as one might expect, and there was little further increase in performance after a larger blood transfusion, the paper serves as a platform for anti-doping researchers to step up efforts to develop new methods for ABTs.

Maybe it is just he public choise/libertarian side of me, but the last sentence pretty much gives some sinister motives for all the noise about the study, because from the economic viewpoint: someone developes new methods = someone gets more money.

While Rasmussen thinks that blood doping "works", even he sees very little anything conclusive in the results and acknowledges that "if you repeated the experiment with 20 Tour riders, you would get a more accurate picture of the power boost".

Perhaps it would also have looked more linear if the individual Hb responses to infusions would be taken into account (some guys develop haemolysis after infusion) and not lumped together, we don't know how much each individual Hb increased. But regardless of how one shows the data, it is really difficult to circumvent the conclusion that there was practically no performance boost after the c:a 6 % increase in hemoglobin after the 235 ml. Even the authors write that "the transfusion was a mix of replacing the lost cells and adding additional" and also elsewhere that "t may be speculated that the initial normalization of the blood volume is contributing the most to the performance enhancing effect while the additional increase in blood volume contributes less".

Here is the individual data recalculated from the FIGURE 2. There might be a watt missing from here-and-there, but the average improvements are exactly 4.7 % and 0.9 % as stated in the paper.

PRE/135/135+

.....................235

291 307 310

217 223 220

202 215 209

203 210 219

199 207 208

196 204 208

186 199 205

From this material, it looks that nobody completely tanked after the 235 ml infusion (worst c:a -2.8 %) and unlikely what one might've expected from the protocol, only one participant responded more to the 235 ml RBC infusion than to the lower one (c:a +4.3 % vs +3.4 %) and even when he was the highest responder, he didn't even reach the average boost of the 135 ml group. There is no way never to prove it, but the data would be far more consistent and in the line with the other blood doping research if there blinding wasn't that good in the first test and the 4.7 % is a drastic overstatement of the "real" physiological improvement.

But - as Dr. Coggan pointed out - this is a small cohort and it causes now-and-then certain anomalies into the data.

rekrunner wrote:

-- even your 5-decade progression of small gains.

a) A progression from an averaged 13:22.5 to 12:56.3 is not a small gain.

b) As proven before, athletes doped in the 60s too.

rekrunner wrote:

Now you're trolling. I can tell by the lack of responses to my posts how "boring" they are.

My suggestion of small effect "at the top" is in line with top performance evidence -- even your 5-decade progression of small gains. All the evidence of significant effect "at the top", in a real world setting with elite runners, is scarce, often requiring imagination, and assumption, in order to attempt to link improvements to doping.

I know what fun is for you is -- fabricating possible scenarios where all up and coming Kenyans can freely dope themselves to 59:07, and then laying low once they are in the OOC pool -- despite the lack of any evidence of such gaming the system. Did Wanjiru do this in Japan?

What exactly are you defining as "at the top?" (time wise? Olympic & WC caliber level?). What if an athlete who wasn't "at the top" transitions to the top through the use of PEDs? (e.g., Rocket Fuel Ramzi).

Well Jon, that just confirms dope works pretty darn good.

223 watts for a short time trial is equivalent to about 8 minute mile pace for running. Hobby jogger pace. So it they were well trained they were riding very sub maximally.

What if? It happened... wrote:

Dopeology wrote:

What exactly are you defining as "at the top?" (time wise? Olympic & WC caliber level?). What if an athlete who wasn't "at the top" transitions to the top through the use of PEDs? (e.g., Rocket Fuel Ramzi).

Well Jon, that just confirms dope works pretty darn good.

Oh I wonder jamin? How did that happen?