'I cheat because others cheat': Kenya struggles against doping

Joplas wrote:

All countries have cheats. As far back as 1996, BBC filmed a documentary in which experts claimed that 70% of medalists at the 1996 Olympics were doping. The documentary is still on youtube.

As far back as 1996? You mean the peak of the EPO era when doped up Africans were dominant?

Are you 18 or something?

He's just no good wrote:

EX - Runner wrote:

+1

Everybody cheats, it's human nature.

When I was injecting myself with EPO to go from 2:00 to 1:52, that's what I kept telling myself. I cheat because others cheat.

I told you all that ex runner was no good.

ex runner has no shame.

Coevett wrote:

ex runner has no shame.

Do you honestly believe the anonymous (im)poster "EX - runner" is the same as the registered poster "ex-runner"?

For that matter, who do you mean by "ex runner" -- one of the above?, or maybe a third poster?

Responding to your initial post, it is unsurprising that sub-elite athletes, like "Alex" and "Tony" have succumbed to widespread beliefs that "everyone" is cheating, and that they also need to "cheat" to succeed.

"It is among this class of competitor -- professional grade, but not elite -- that doping is most rampant and unchecked, athletes say."

On the front page of "letsrun", there is another article which came out the same day (July 30) about a Kenyan doping with EPO, I have not seen discussed (link at the bottom), which had some interesting quotes about his negative experience with EPO leading to premature retirement:

""At 35 kilometres, I started getting cramps," the athlete told AFP on condition of anonymity, recalling the 2012 race in Europe where his health starting failing."

"I then started limping from 36-37 kilometres until I crossed the finish line."

"the 35-year-old started doping again."

"The pain came roaring back, worse than before."

""I feel pain in my chest, my muscles are sore and I cough a lot," he said, describing common side effects of EPO"

"By 2016, he was forced off the track into early retirement, and has not run since."

"I was told if I used it, I'd run much better. But now I have missed out on everything."

Another thread rekrunnered, i.e. buggered.

See ya. wrote:

Another thread rekrunnered, i.e. buggered.

He is just getting started, with only one post of sub-average length. Maybe these slow 2:07 hobbyjoggers aren't worth more?

Yes of course EPO doesn't work remember? Btw whatever happened to that Rekrunnner chap, he was amusing?

Subway Surfers wrote:

Yes of course EPO doesn't work remember?

Right. If anything, it slows people down, what with the pain and wrong Hct etc. Imagine how fast Ramzi, Kiptum, Kiprop et al. would have been, hadn't they ruined their blood with doping!

Everyone faster than me cheats. I already knew that.

I remember "EPO doesn't work" as your words, not mine.

Subway Surfers wrote:

Yes of course EPO doesn't work remember? Btw whatever happened to that Rekrunnner chap, he was amusing?

The key word is "imagine".

casual obsever wrote:

Subway Surfers wrote:

Yes of course EPO doesn't work remember?

Right. If anything, it slows people down, what with the pain and wrong Hct etc. Imagine how fast Ramzi, Kiptum, Kiprop et al. would have been, hadn't they ruined their blood with doping!

rekrunner wrote:

The key word is "imagine".

casual obsever wrote:

Right. If anything, it slows people down, what with the pain and wrong Hct etc. Imagine how fast Ramzi, Kiptum, Kiprop et al. would have been, hadn't they ruined their blood with doping!

You're not going to start that again? Can't you for just once acknowledge that Kenya has doping problem with both top & low-tier elites, that this has been going on for quite sometime, and they're getting a performance benefit or they wouldn't be doping at this prevalence.

I thought the link Coevett posted was interesting - I had no idea that hundreds of Kenyans who ran professionally were not part of AKAD and not being tested. What's your thoughts on that? (with the new WADA-accredited lab in Nairobi can they add more athletes to the testing pool?).

I didn't start it now.

I have acknowledged the doping problem goes all the way to the top.

Yet here's a quote from athletes that doping is "most rampant" with, "not elite", but "professional grade". Who am I to argue with what "athletes say"? Who are you to argue with that?

Unfortunately "Alex" and "Tony" shed no light on the performance benefit of top-tier athletes, so this is not a topic on the table.

Regarding testing of lower tier athletes, I already had an idea as Renato has told us something similar several times.

My thoughts on lack of testing:

- I think increased OOC testing will catch a few more athletes for the next few years, but it will likely change very little with respect to performance results "at the top".

- I've always understood that arguments based on a "lack of testing" as "arguments of ignorance" (*). So from an intellectual point of view, such arguments do very little to convince to change my complex opinions about effect.

- Nevertheless, I am in favor of more testing, but my question is who should rightly pay for it? Since the beneficiary of increased testing is "everyone else", the IAAF/WADA should find a scheme, like insurance, where everyone pays, and treatment goes where it is needed.

(*) An argument from ignorance (Latin: argumentum ad ignorantiam), or appeal to ignorance ('ignorance' stands for "lack of evidence to the contrary"), is a fallacy in informal logic. It says something is true because it has not yet been proved false.