casual obsever wrote:
But normally you argue against this logic:
1) Doping is powerful.
2) Roughly half of the runners dope.
3) Therefore more than half of the finalists dope.
4) Therefore a lot more than half of the medalists dope.
5) Therefore basically all word record holders dope.
.
I argue against the idea that EVERYBODY dopes and always has doped.
Yes, I think every current world record is held by a doper. Nick Willis probably thinks that too. That doesn't mean it's impossible to break a world record without peds. It might be close to impossible to break El G's EPO WRs and the 5K WR clean, or we might have to wait for shoes and tracks to get better and more super talents to come into the sport. I still believe Jakob is clean and still believe he can get very close to El G's records at Monaco in the next few years.
There's no contradiction here. I believe Seb Coe was clean and if he had been around today, could run 1:40 and 3:26 clean. The reason why nobody has gotten near El G's times except a few likely or proven African cheats is because EPO enabled mass African doping and inevitably a few decent talents out of the hundreds doping - like El G and Kiprop - would run crazy times. The reason why we haven't seen any Brits running 3:26 is because the talent hasn't been there (no doubt many put off by the 'natural born runner' invasion from Epiopia and Kenya) and because any talent that was capable of running those sort of times doped, didn't dope.
Herb Elliott and Peter Snell have proven that European descent athletes could be capable of running sub 3:30 and 1:41/2 times without blood doping or EPO (on today's tracks). The Kenyan 1500m record in 1960 was something like 3:38. Kenio appears on the scene just at the moment that both steroids and blood doping are being used by some athletes. There have been reports that the entire Kenyan team in Mexico was doped. Kenio himself was recently charged with embezzling millions of dollars intended for young Kenyan Olympic athletes into his own pocket (got off with it due to political pressure). His performance in Mexico was one of the most suspicious in history. Kenyans suddenly dominate at the end of the 80's just when hgh and EPO become widespread and Italian coaches and agents flock to their country to coach 'naturally superior East African talent'. Can a Kenyan run under 3:35 clean? I was near crucified for saying it before, but I think El K if he's honest probably can't answer that question now.
So yeah, I base my assertion that doping is a much greater problem in Kenya upon the constant stream of doping busts coming out of that country, which I predicted would happen as the abysmal standards of testing improved (thank to Coe). You base your assertion that everybody else is doping too on the Pan African games poll that said 44% of Moroccans admitted to cheating, and the rest said 'not really'. Oh, and that cycling doping ring in Erfurt.
We'll just have to disagree on this. But I do think you do a disservice to anti-doping, as well as a huge slander to Nick Willis who has suffered more than anybody at the hands of cheats (and let's not forget Kyle Langford, who no doubt you also think is doping).
And please don't hijack the Kiptum thread.