a) Just looking at the subject line -- Chepngetich is Kenyan, and Dubai refers to the marathon. It is certainly not about sprinters, throwers, and walkers. b) So long as we keep that in mind when always keeping 43.6% in mind, because they are inseparable. It's impossible to say from an average over so many disparate events, how dirty just the endurance events dominated by Kenyans are. Also difficult to translate absolute numbers to percentages with no indication of athlete population size. c) "Seppelt's data" is not enough to draw such a clear conclusion. First, it is a count of medals, not medalists. It was 146 endurance medals won by 76 medalists, with no medal breakdown indicated, in a database with more than 800 athletes with abnormal blood data. Connecting this to distance events, the Sunday Times showed us that, in 9 "dirty" events, this suspicious medal count was highest among 1500m medalists, including several Russian women known to be on steroid cocktails, and two race walking event medalists (20km and 50km), dominated by Russian men. For the events dominated by Kenyans, the number of medals, and medalists, is smaller, and the concentration is less. You assume the very thing under doubt, that there are "Ds" which are PEDs for these top altitude trained athletes. It's also logical that mid-pack runners would be more tempted to dope, believing it will take them to the next-level.
casual obsever wrote:
a) The thread is not "about Kenyan marathon distance running".
b) We all know that IAAF events include sprinting.
Are the endurance events a lot dirtier?
...
Given how high up the typical distance running nations a la Morocco and Kenya are, they are certainly not cleaner than the average.
c) Seppelt's data showed that doping is more concentrated on the top. For example, gold medals were more suspicious than bronze medals.
It is also logical, for PEDs improve performance, and there is more (money and fame) to gain at the top: higher rewards, more risk takers.