Clemence Calvin - who allegedly refused a doping test last month - sets new French NR of 2:23:41 in Paris

That is strange wrote:

dough wrote:

He is right though.

Yes, but normally he loves making all threads about his hysterical drugs-dont-work nonsense. Is he now getting bored by his own trolling?

Tied his own shoelaces together.

rekrunner wrote:

Let me know if you succeed.

Armstronglivs wrote:

How to wade out of a swamp of your own creation.

You are very well-practised at missing the point. Again.

I'm happy to talk more about Spain's European level performances and their amazing medal count of 4 medals in track and field in the 1992 Olympics, but in another thread. Getting back to Clemence Calvin, it's a French national record (to be confirmed), but not with a very fast time. She still ran more than 2 minutes slower than Ingrid Kristiansen and Joan Benoit did in the 1980s. Like Garcia from Spain, this puts her well out of the top-100 all time fastest. Recall that all this "hysterical drug nonsense" is backed by scientific studies where scientists use time trials (NOTE: scientists often look at time for evidence of effect, and not medal wins) to show the effects of blood doping, and estimate 3% gains for elite athletes, or 3-4 minutes benefit for the marathon. This is what science tells us we can predict about the power of blood doping for elites. Recall also that, like Spain and Kenya, France is a country that dopes a lot. In 2016, according to WADA, they have more ADRVs than similarly sized Kenya. One non-racist here confirmed it is because of the strong Moroccan connection -- Clemence Calvin has a Moroccan connection. She was just training in Morocco. Yet 2:23:41, as an all-time fastest for a nation, seems "un peu peu". Once again, I'm asking myself, why so few, and by so little? If the best scientific experts claim EPO provides 3-4 minutes for elites in the marathon, why is the best that France can produce over 30 years, more than two minutes slower than Ingrid Kristiansen and Joan Benoit ran in the 1980s, itself not a particularly fast time, more than 2 minutes slower than Ndereba, and nearly 6 minutes slower than the record?

That is strange wrote:

Yes, but normally he loves making all threads about his hysterical drugs-dont-work nonsense. Is he now getting bored by his own trolling?

2.23.41 is a great time for a woman, doped or not doped. If she were doped (not proven) her true value would be around 2:27/2:28 'clean' -but once again, a lot of innuendo about Clemence and most French are supporting her, as evidenced by sideline support to her during her suprrb run.

Calvin is a 15.40/32.20 type 5k/10k runner, and it seems few girls, aside from Japanese, can go faster than Clemence with those honest but hardly earth shattering track stats.

Benoit had similar speed on the track, but she was similar to the Japanese girls in being able to hold a max threshold for the marathon. I think the year she ran low 2.20s in Boston, she was running early miles in low 5s with a bunch of 2:16-2:18 men.

I feel for Calvin, because the press coverage in France implies she is not lilley white.

Patrice Montel, the guru of track and field in France was taken off the air, because he had alluded to widespread doping on his facebook page. Crazy world.

Ghost in China

Did anyone notice that Cam Levins is nearly an anagram inside Clemence Calvin apart from the 's'?

Indeed -- I don't mean to take away from a great individual performance that could end up being ratified as a national record, by looking at it in the biggest scope possible -- historical all time performances. As Einstein taught us -- time is relative. A 2:23:41 would have been ranked 141st best time beginning of 2018. If we exclude Ethiopian and Kenyan women, it would have been ranked 59th.

Coevett wrote:

Subway Surfers wrote:

19 head bobs and 9 turns of his head to the right to see if anyone was coming (something Steve Ovett or Lydiard once said slows you down dramatically). For the record I got him on this occasion at 50.5 for the last 400m but I know of others who claim he did 50.39.

I'm not an expert on running form, but Cacho appears such an ugly runner, and not just with the head bobs, especially in that Barcelona final . Morceli too just appears to me like a club runner speeded up (and we know how). Although others here seem to think that Morceli had good form.

Cacho was just ugly and Morceli had very good 'couscous.'

Armstronglivs wrote:

Dr Fuentes of the notorious Operacion Puerto and the infamous "blood bags" (that a Spanish court ruled to be destroyed ) claimed his clients were in every major sport in Spain. His wife said that if she told what she knew about what was done for Barcelona and since it would "bring down Spanish sport". Even a Spanish Sports Minister has lately publicly admitted "Spain has a doping problem".

While I'm not surprised, I really am surprised lol ?

Spanish Fly wrote:

Armstronglivs wrote:

Dr Fuentes of the notorious Operacion Puerto and the infamous "blood bags" (that a Spanish court ruled to be destroyed ) claimed his clients were in every major sport in Spain. His wife said that if she told what she knew about what was done for Barcelona and since it would "bring down Spanish sport". Even a Spanish Sports Minister has lately publicly admitted "Spain has a doping problem".

Wow!...no wonder the Spanish courts are keeping the names quiet (with the exception of a few -- cyclist Valverde who served a ban for his involvement in Puerto).

I guess some things are best kept secret - a lot of heroes came out of Barcelona that are in high esteem to this day.

Imagine if Mueller investigated Spanish sport? Every page would be redacted lol!

Banana Bread wrote:

Did anyone notice that Cam Levins is nearly an anagram inside Clemence Calvin apart from the 's'?

A poorly disguised sex change?

rekrunner wrote:

Recall also that, like Spain and Kenya, France is a country that dopes a lot. In 2016, according to WADA, they have more ADRVs than similarly sized Kenya. One non-racist here confirmed it is because of the strong Moroccan connection -- Clemence Calvin has a Moroccan connection. She was just training in Morocco.

[/quote]

Oh come on Rek! Morocco for running is as clean as the Calcutta sewers.

Ghost1 wrote:

Patrice Montel, the guru of track and field in France was taken off the air, because he had alluded to widespread doping on his facebook page. Crazy world.

Ghost in China

This Patrice Montel sounds like a guy I'd like to meet and shake his hand.

Subway Surfers wrote:

This Patrice Montel sounds like a guy I'd like to meet and shake his hand.

Get him on the next letsrun podcast!!

Subway Surfers wrote:

Armstronglivs wrote:

Dr Fuentes of the notorious Operacion Puerto and the infamous "blood bags" (that a Spanish court ruled to be destroyed ) claimed his clients were in every major sport in Spain. His wife said that if she told what she knew about what was done for Barcelona and since it would "bring down Spanish sport". Even a Spanish Sports Minister has lately publicly admitted "Spain has a doping problem".

While I'm not surprised, I really am surprised lol ?

Quite sure the bigger concern was about Spanish soccer, most importantly Real, considering that a court in Madrid decided to not make the dopers public. And their national team at the team, which - coincidentally - was winning a lot, to put it mildly.

Very nice, rekrunner! You are finally getting it.

You continue to act as if doping would equalize performances at record level a la Asterix's magic potion, while it "just" improves each person by some percents. Examples are abundant.

Now add 2 + 2 together. If this alleged doper is 2 minutes slower than the ladies from the crazy Wild West doping of the 80s, and 2 - 6 minutes slower than the ladies during the EPO heydays, she might either:

a) have less talent

b) ran on a slower course

c) have doped less

d) is not such a good responder to O2 vector doping

e) any combination of a - d

That's not very complicated, actually. Other factors such as weather and strategy might also play a role.

But didn't the Spanish national team win everything by boring their opposition to death?

The extra EPO helped them endure the boredom better than others ...

Subway Surfers wrote:

But didn't the Spanish national team win everything by boring their opposition to death?

That, and by always having more men around the ball. I.e. by running more.

As are you. These scientists only give us their opinion of predictions for elite athletes. So far so good.

The next step is to see if the theory matches the practice.

You left out a few other relevant factors, including the most important, training.

You might have a point if I talked about 1 athlete, and 1 race, rather than selecting the best performance over many races.

When I look at large populations, over many races, over the course of several decades, given the large number of opportunities, the impact of many of these intermittent factors, like weather, slow course, race strategy, poor doping response, should disappear, as the races with the most combinations of favorable factors rise to the top of the list.

This is why I act as if any large effects of doping should be visible at the top, and why it is significant when we do not observe the impact of these predicted large effects, over the complete sample across large populations, over many decades.

If these effects do not disappear, then we should rethink exactly what the negative impact is, if we cannot observe one.