Half Marathon WR holder Abraham Kiptum busted by Bio Passport!!!!!!!!

I am neither confused, nor I am ignoring anything.

rekrunner wrote:

It is correct to say "what they said publicly contradicted their own peer-reviewed research".

You are just pretending, repeatedly and insistingly, that changing an opinion about legality - that I acknowledged right from the start - equals contradicting research - which is wrong. And on and on you go, with a few insults thrown in here and there to keep your little distraction going.

WTF? I just find it funny if you ask the average Joe out there who know nothing about running, it isn't controversial at all to suggest all elite level Olympic athletes(including elite runners) are doping. Only on letsrun do people object to this idea. I think after the Lance Armstrong incident, most people wised up to what is going on.

Why so serious??? wrote:

WTF? I just find it funny if you ask the average Joe out there who know nothing about running, it isn't controversial at all to suggest all elite level Olympic athletes(including elite runners) are doping. Only on letsrun do people object to this idea. I think after the Lance Armstrong incident, most people wised up to what is going on.

That's untrue. Cycling was always known to be doped from top to bottom, just as many other sports are such as powerlifting, bodybuilding etc. Whether it's true or not, the view that EVERY elite runner is doping is not universally held, not by far, and so is controversial or at least debateable. I'm also pretty sure that the view is far more widely held (or at least expressed) here than by athletics fans in general.

Morrocan Magic wrote:

It's a clear case of a Morrocan full-throttle program that they initiated in the 90s. So, you take a high-responder to 02-vector doping and presto he goes from an also ran to double-gold World champion, Olympic champion and 3:26.14 PB all in a short period of time! (and to see posters like rekrunner say it's more due to a change in training, nutrition, scenery, etc., is comical. ?).

.

Don't forget plyometrics, calisthenics and hurtling technique drills ? they've got to add up to 9 seconds of magic.

Coevett wrote:

Why so serious??? wrote:

WTF? I just find it funny if you ask the average Joe out there who know nothing about running, it isn't controversial at all to suggest all elite level Olympic athletes(including elite runners) are doping. Only on letsrun do people object to this idea. I think after the Lance Armstrong incident, most people wised up to what is going on.

That's untrue. Cycling was always known to be doped from top to bottom, just as many other sports are such as powerlifting, bodybuilding etc. Whether it's true or not, the view that EVERY elite runner is doping is not universally held, not by far, and so is controversial or at least debateable. I'm also pretty sure that the view is far more widely held (or at least expressed) here than by athletics fans in general.

This is true, in running middle class parents go to local fun runs for they're own benefit and they take they're children along for exercise. In many cases the parents are startled to find that little Jonny or little Sarah has previously unknown talent and from there they are introduced into the sport. But these children are introduced to the sport for fitness and enjoyment not wealth and not from a culture of drugs. The opposite occurs in Morocco and Russia where the state sends people with sinister motives to look for kids with running talent purely for winning purposes. The same happens in East Africa but through dirty managers and the coaches they employ.

Coevett wrote:

That's untrue. Cycling was always known to be doped from top to bottom, just as many other sports are such as powerlifting, bodybuilding etc.

This picture shows that athletics became worse than cycling with regards to blood-doping:

And that's athletics as a whole, with lots of field events not benefiting from increased Hct...

No. People have always known cycling was doped from top to bottom. Most people believed Elliott, Snell, Walker, Ovett to be clean, and still likely do, as I do. The difference between cycling and athletics is that the elite cyclists didn't suddenly have their culture transformed in the 90s, but of course doping apologists shout 'racist' at that obvious fact. Also cyclists have multimillion pound teams to manage their blood values.

Not saying those athletes doped, but . . .

First experts/studies done on blood transfusions improving endurance happened in the late 1940s(a coach, national doctor for the Olympic team, someone in the know tells his running buddy, why would it be crazy to suggest they try it?).

Steroids and speed became wide spread in other sports during the 1960s(post WWII doctors find out what the Germans were doing and thought speed was a cure all.).

A lot of these sports would've had a close proximity to running. Hypothetically, a cyclist and a runner drink coffee in the same cafe, 'hey have you tried this?'

Now why would it be crazy to suggest that some of the runners even as far back as the 1950s were using PEDs?

People want to win, even if that means consuming some crazy stuff

FYI, Strychnine= poison/pesticide used to kill small animals, rodents and birds, which can also kill humans in large enough doses.

Even the good clean Americans.

casual obsever wrote:

Coevett wrote:

That's untrue. Cycling was always known to be doped from top to bottom, just as many other sports are such as powerlifting, bodybuilding etc.

This picture shows that athletics became worse than cycling with regards to blood-doping:

http://features.thesundaytimes.co.uk/web/public/2015/the-doping-scandal/assets/images/cycling.jpg

And that's athletics as a whole, with lots of field events not benefiting from increased Hct...

Fascinating graph (I recall seeing this a few times before). What's your analysis on this? Not knowing whether or not the RET% is going up or down (it just states "abnormal RET%") can you see any trends of EPO use vs blood doping?

There's a jump to almost 20% in 2001 just after the EPO test was implemented -- a transition to blood transfusions which would drop RET% down significantly or a reduction in EPO use to microdosing which wouldn't affect RET% as much?

But what causes the significant drop in 03? Then back up again before a slow, steady downward trend for a few years before a sharp spike in 2010 coinciding one year after the implementation of the ABP.

What was the impetus of the big spike in 2010? -- increase use of EPO or transfusions? Any theories on this? Also, any data on what the trends look like more recently?

[quote]rekrunner wrote:

I am often discussing where knowledge stops, and where belief starts -- none of this should be interpreted or misconstrued that the problem is less serious, or that a doper should be set free. On the contrary, I think the problem is MORE serious because the decision to dope is based more on beliefs, rather than knowledge.

I think doping among athletes, even the fastest ones, is a widespread issue, because so many athletes/managers/coaches BELIEVE it is necessary to win. "casual obsever" goes further and says "experts KNOW it is necessary to win".

Sometimes I wonder if you are fully aware of what you are saying. Doping, in your view, is MORE serious than many think because - you say - it isn't necessary to dope in order to win, but athletes believe - erroneously, apparently - that it is necessary. What? If it isn't necessary, then it doesn't work - and if it doesn't work then it can't really be a problem, can it? Doping is effectively harmless. If your view is correct, we have nothing to really worry about. Let the athletes and their coaches play their funny little games, imagining these drug 'placebo's' are crucial to their success. Yet, strangely, you do worry about it. A lot. You spend much of your life trying to discredit research and expert opinion that says doping is a problem, because it does work.

[quote]rekrunner wrote:

"I am often discussing where knowledge stops, and where belief starts -- none of this should be interpreted or misconstrued that the problem is less serious, or that a doper should be set free. On the contrary, I think the problem is MORE serious because the decision to dope is based more on beliefs, rather than knowledge."

"I think doping among athletes, even the fastest ones, is a widespread issue, because so many athletes/managers/coaches BELIEVE it is necessary to win. "casual obsever" goes further and says "experts KNOW it is necessary to win"."

Sometimes I wonder if you are fully aware of what you are saying. Doping, in your view, is MORE serious than many think because - you say - it isn't necessary to dope in order to win, but athletes believe - erroneously, apparently - that it is necessary. What? If it isn't necessary, then it doesn't work - and if it doesn't work then it can't really be a problem, can it? Doping is effectively harmless. If your view is correct, we have nothing to really worry about. Let the athletes and their coaches play their funny little games, imagining these drug 'placebo's' are crucial to their success. Yet, strangely, you do worry about it. A lot. You spend much of your life trying to discredit research and expert opinion that says doping is a problem, because it does work.

Do you have a substantive rebuttal to the graph casual presented, or just more opinion pieces?

mofong wrote:

Do you have a substantive rebuttal to the graph casual presented, or just more opinion pieces?

First of all, I'm not a paid troll, unlike Casual Observer and RekRunner is, so I spend most of my waking hours either working or trying to enjoy life. Secondly, what exactly am I supposed to be rebutting? I made the simple point that most people have always known or suspected that cycling (which has been a professional team sport since the 19th century) has been doped from top to bottom since forever, whilst most people in the 70's in 80's did not believe EVERY athlete dopes. I believe this is still the case, however likely a majority of both athletics fans and the 'general public', would suspect East Africans or at least Kenyans.

I think I've stated here enough times that I believe most elite African runners are doped, so I'm not sure how this Sunday Times graph, which purports to show that elite athletes have at times shown even greater blood score abnormalities than cyclists, contradicts this.

The report actually states the percentage of abnormal results for different countries, and there's a WIDE DISCREPANCY between them. For example, unsurprisingly, Kenya shares top place with 11%. Great Britain, on the other hand, is near the bottom with 4%, similar to Norway at 5%, with New Zealand having only 2% abnormal scores.

This likely underestimates Kenyan doping because we know it's only recently that Kenyan athletes were even tested in their own country, and even when they have been they get 24 hour text warnings and the offer of tea money bribes if anything is suspicious. Casual Observer has even agreed with me that the introduction of the WADA lab in Nairobi will lead to more ABP busts of Kenyan runners now they are getting tested more.

It also stated - 'More than 80% of Russia’s Olympic and world championship medals were won by suspicious athletes.

Kenya is renowned for producing many of the world’s greatest distance runners but 18 of the country’s medals were won by athletes judged to have had suspicious blood test results.'

So what does this Sunday Times report suggest? That doping is a problem everywhere, but it's a far bigger problem in places like Kenya and Russia than Norway, GB, or New Zealand. This pretty much ties in with the perceptions of most reasonable observers - not that EVERYBODY dopes, but that doping is a much bigger problem in places like Africa with high corruption, huge incentives to dope, and lack of testing.

As I've said before, Casual Observer is likely a Russian troll here to propagate the view that doping is universal and that therefore the treatment of Russian athletics by the IAAF is unfair (I agree with the latter, actually, at least countries like Kenya should also have been banned). Rekrunner is likely the same and his 'counterfoil'. Casual Observer says EVERYBODY DOPES because YOU CAN'T WIN WITHOUT DOPING. Rekrunner says IT DOESN'T MATTER because PEDS DON'T WORK. Two extreme positions that apologize for doping from two opposite but really complementary positions - everybody dopes, but doping doesn't work. All to obfuscate the reality that there is an endemic doping problem in Africa and it's likely turned the last 3 decades of the sport into an utter fraud of a spectacle.

Kiptum: ~2.1% improvement in the HM; 59:36 (2016) - 58:18 WR (2018). Also a ~1.4% improvement in about a month from Copenhagen (59:09) to the WR at Valencia.

~4.6% improvement in the marathon; 2:11:36 (2015) to 2:05:26 (2018).

Since this is an ABP violation case, the question is did he trip his passport on suspected EPO use or blood transfusions? The off-phase of EPO use and a transfusion would show the same pattern (high Hgb/low RET%) where high Hgb & high RET% would be the on-phase of EPO use IC (which brings the probability of glowing IC and testing positive).

Any info that the Kenyans are engaging in blood transfusions? Would the athletes have the money and resources for this? Historically, the Kenyans have tested positive for EPO (and other PEDs) and now three (3) Kenyans in the last three (3) months have tripped their passports. Either they've started blood doping or they're getting good advice on when to shutdown EPO use before competition as to not test positive (but showing anomalies on the off-phase of discontinued use).

Coevett wrote:

First of all, I'm not a paid troll, unlike Casual Observer and RekRunner is

Wow, any other conspiracy theories to toss about willy-nilly?

So you are backtracking on criticizing the statement that athletics have more abnormal blood results than cycling, and you even claim that the athletics abnormal blood results are underrepresented in Kenya, meaning athletics would have even more of a lead on cycling. Glad that you've learned how to read a chart and data, if only somewhat. And then you slide into doping apologism for Russia.

Coevett wrote:

As I've said before, Casual Observer is likely a Russian troll here to propagate the view that doping is universal and that therefore the treatment of Russian athletics by the IAAF is unfair.

A Russian troll? That's hilarious! ?

There seems to be an ongoing back-and-forth here with respect to the research about the efficacy of various doping methods and substances. For anybody demanding hardcore, airtight proof of the efficacy of drug X for increasing performance, it must be said that no statistically decent double-blind, placebo-controlled studies on elite runners/other sports with a sufficient n number will ever be performed, as there are way too many confounders and ethical issues involved. So yes, for those who seek to deny the efficacy of doping, you can point and say 'the perfect study was not done,' and you'd be correct. But realize that that is a cheap point, lacking in merit. The perfect evidence will never exist, but the circumstantial evidence is overwhelming, and that will have to do here.

And you are going on and on and on, clinging to some kind of semantic objections on how I phrased the contradiction. The peer-reviewed opinion of legality is a part of the three studies, and changing their opinion contradicts that part. This isn't a gray area of ambiguity. And when you see titles like "A strategy to deter doping" and "Contemporary issues in the fight against doping", the legality is a rather important part of these studies, in positioning how blood test results are recommended to be used by anti-doping bodies. Saying blood test results on their own can be used to initiate sanction proceedings does contradict a study that says blood tests results are just an investigative tool for intelligent and cost-effective target testing because the legality of doing more is unsure and easily challenged and not cost-effective. Everyone can change their mind, based on an evolution of personal experience and new findings, but: - Not only did Ashenden and Parisotto change their mind, they used their expert status to put the IAAF on trial by media, holding them to this contradictary non-peer reviewed opinion of legality, in the Sunday Times, doubling down in their rebuttals, and in testimony to British parliament. - Their changed opinion were soundly rejected by experts as simply not possible without following ABP protocols. It is not an insult to say which acts are within the bounds of competent scientists and which acts are not. They certainly acted as competent scientists when they analyzed the raw data they had, but they were not acting as competent scientists when they publicly accused the IAAF of inaction while not possessing sufficient data.

casual obsever wrote:

You are just pretending, repeatedly and insistingly, that changing an opinion about legality - that I acknowledged right from the start - equals contradicting research - which is wrong. And on and on you go, with a few insults thrown in here and there to keep your little distraction going.