Another Kenyan goes down

You are Pharma bogus bro. Mice troll.

KATAM wrote:

Oh well... wrote:

Helped pace Kipchoge to WR too.

Be serious, man. Kitwara hardly made it to 15K in that WR race and was the first of the 3 pacemakers to drop out even though he was supposed to be the main pacer to take Kipchoge to at least 30K. Rewatch the race again!

Question:

Do you believe Salazar using L-carnitine is cheating?

If so, you are a massive hypocrite. Having a doped pacemaker is cheating, whether you know he’s cheating or not.

letsrun away from the truth wrote:

KATAM wrote:

Be serious, man. Kitwara hardly made it to 15K in that WR race and was the first of the 3 pacemakers to drop out even though he was supposed to be the main pacer to take Kipchoge to at least 30K. Rewatch the race again!

Question:

Do you believe Salazar using L-carnitine is cheating?

If so, you are a massive hypocrite. Having a doped pacemaker is cheating, whether you know he’s cheating or not.

Why is having a doped pacemaker cheating? Pacers are entered into the race in their own right, and could finish for the win if nobody kept up.

Is anybody who runs a PB in a race with a winner who doped automatically a cheater by virtue of being beaten by them? That doesn't seem right.

Sprintgeezer wrote:

Speaking of Kenyans, the poll got me thinking about Rudisha.

He was doped to the gills, another Ackbar, only better-looking.

My prediction is that he will never again be a factor. He has been undoped for too long. He was peaked, it was open season for the best. He made everybody else look like a chump, even Amos.

What's the clean 800m WR? Kipketer?

kipkiter was in the epo era.

coe is probably the record holder, and if he ever did anything, it was probably light weight.

142 snell equivalent on grass was certainly clean.

man can go 141 clean.

140 too. but very not likely

This one is a pretty big fish. With all of the crazy Vaporfly times over the past few years, it is easy to forget that Kitwara was hyped as the next Wanjiru back in 2009. A 58:xx half marathon and a big win over Geb made him a regular on the letsrun front page.

Hopefully this was just a pathetic attempt to revive his career as he ages. It’s hard to understand why he would pass his tests for a decade and then suddenly fail when he is no longer relevant. Did drug testing really suck this much ass until recently?

Actually he probably inadvertently inhaled the exhaled air from a British cyclist who passed close by him when he was out on a training run. Even then the British cyclist at the time was probably suffering from temporary kidney failure and could not excrete the drug in his urine so that's why there was a high concentration of the drug in his breath. So everyone was probably innocent really....

Subway, your good friend Renato has normally many other things to do, than to answer to all the suppositions and speculations made from posters who never where in Africa, Kenya, Eldoret, Iten and never knew personally top athletes and top coaches.

I remain in two cases only, cases that I know.

We well know Kitwara was not ready for pacing in Berlin, but probably his manager pushed him to run because the economical Agreement could be interesting, and nobody really in touch with the organizer had the clue about his shape.

Kitwara doesn't have any coach. In his training group, he never was able to train well, having from long time health problems.

He went (not only one time) to different doctors in Eldoret Hospital, and they certified problems of asthma and allergy.

If Kitwara had one of the top managements, probably could have the advice to ask for a TUE ; instead, he didn't do, took the medicine, and at the end honestly admitted he was wrong.

But really somebody can think that an athlete like Kitwara can look for doping himself for something that REDUCES THE TRANSPORT OF OXYGEN ?

One of the reasons that make me upset is that NOBODY here, when we speak about Kenyans, accepts the idea that it's possible to have a lot of mistakes, due to specific ignorance of athletes and doctors and pharmacists of the substances that are in the medicines, where small quantities of steroids can be found.

If athletes are from US or UK, it's possible to think that there are mistakes in the whereabouts (in a Country where everybody has the most advanced technology) or casual assumptions for a lot of different reasons ; but if you are a Kenyan with very low level of education, not knowing modern technology (apart mobiles that everybody has), not having a prepared manager (the most part of the athletes have small managers not expert about many situations regarding the international activity), for the posters is not possible any mistake…..

We have to distinguish among athletes OF SURE GUILTY (for example Rita Jeptoo, Jemima Sumgong, Kipyegon Bett, Ruth Jebet…) and athletes who can easy do something wrong because of their level, that for Kenyans is not professional, and the local situations regarding medicines.

When some athlete is positive for EPO, there are not excuses : this substance is not in some other medicine, and who has EPO in his body is because VOLUNTARY took the substance.

But when we read about some steroid (which we can find in a lot of medicine coming from India, China, and generally Asia, where there is not the must to write ALL the components, and if a medicine is doping or not, like in Europe where there is a specific stamp on the package in case of every component part of the list of illegal substances from WADA), in the most part of cases we need to look at mistakes due to ignorance, and not at attempts to enhance the performances.

I already explained several times, but of course posters here think that all the World is like US or Europe.

1) In ALL AFRICA the quantity of medicines is very much inferior to the real needs.

2) For that reason, if there is a medical prescription of, for example, 7 tablets (once per day) in a package containing 10 tablets, the pharmacists removes from the package 7 tablets only, giving in a piece of paper without any info about the composition and the posology.

3) Athletes who in every other Country can be considered "professional", in Kenya are FARMERS of HOUSEWIVES able running 2:10 or 2:30, and when are sick (this happens frequently in Africa) go to the hospital like NORMAL PERSON, not like athletes.

James Kibet is another example, and I can give in this case a precise picture of the situation (according to him) because I spoke with him directly, since he is the elder brother of one athlete of my group (Bryan Limo) and of Yasemin Can.

He was positive for Norandrosterone, in a test in competition in Italy (a race of 10 km on road). He had cough before going Italy, and took a supplement made in US for enhancing the immunitary system (this was what doctors explained him).

In that supplement, there was Norandrosterone.

I want to give you some picture about the different situation in US and Europe, and the list of WADA.

Look at the following infos :

PROJECT REVIEW

“Conversion of 4- Norandrostenedione 4- Norandrostenediol and 5- Norandrostenediol to Nandrolone in Human Subjects” W. Schänzer, Y. Schrader (German Sport University, Cologne, Germany)

According to the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act, prohormones like DHEA, androstenedione and norandrostenedione are sold as nutritional supplements in the USA. Manufacturers are claiming that these hormone precursors are converted to the active hormone after oral ingestion. Because these prohormones are currently marketed legally in the USA, athletes are using these compounds as an alternative to the illicit anabolic steroids to enhance muscle size and strength and to improve performance……. (omissis)

In conclusion, administration of 4-norandrostenedione and 4-norandrostendiol gives rise to pharmacologically relevant plasma concentrations of unconjugated nandrolone. Considering the results of this study, distribution of these particular prohormones as nutritional supplements as done in the past has been irresponsible.

In fact, these effective nandrolone 2 precursors should be classified as drugs.

So, really do you think many Kenyan athletes know all these infos, therefore they look for some PED, or, arguably, in the situation we have in Kenya, normal persons (including athletes of medium national level without professional managements) can also do some mistakes, possibility that people in LR seem to exclude, making everybody ALWAYS guilty not as practical situation (of course, if there is the substance in their urine they have to be banned), but looking at the precise and specific purpose to enhance their performances, in this way connecting every action with their athletic

activity ?

This is something I never can accept, and that's the reason because I consider, for example, Coevett as a "persecutor" leaving this out of consideration.

You never try to explain, Always to condemn, making wrong generalizations without knowing and analyzing all the real factors.

^Everybody should read what the coach wrote.

Renato,

While I don't doubt the struggle for unmanaged Kenyan athletes, things are not perfect in the USA, and EPO test verdicts are not perfect. It's a long post, but read on.

Even in the USA, athletes are often confused or unaware that supplements or medication that may contain banned substances, for a catalog of reasons, including manufacturers using alternate names for drugs, or even for drugs not listed but falling under a "catch-all" provision (see the case of Canadian swimmer Dmitry Shulga). A US Ombudsman recently (Rugers, 2013) stated that "between 40 to 60% of positive test doping results were inadvertent".

"Routledge Handbook of Drugs and Sport" documents a similar ratio in swimming:

"The various ADRVs issued by FINA show that almost half of contemporary cases were inadvertant."

If "educated US athletes" can get it wrong 40-60% of the time, I wonder what that figure is in Kenya.

Regarding "terbutaline", the same handbook said it is not performance enhancing, but could be dangerous to health:

"The IOC Medical Commission in 1993 decided that only two short-acting inhaled Beta2-agonists, salbutamol and terbutaline, were allowed for use in competitive sports. Such use should be notified pre-competition and accompanied by a physician's declaration. The restrictions placed on anti-asthma medication were based on the very tenuous concern that systemically given Beta2-agonsists might influence performance in research animals. Because the IOC Consensus in 2008 (under the oversight of WADA) lacked reliable scientific evidence to show any performance effect in athletes, they recommended continuing strict control of Beta2-agonists under the premise not of performance effects per se, but for protecting athletes' health (Fitch et al., 2008)."

Side note: For those who question how so many athletes can be so sick, this quote from the handbook may help:

"Training at the elite level is extremely punishing to -- and may, ironically, have a negative effect on -- athletes' health."

Regarding testing positive for EPO, this is also not as clear cut as we should hope. Three cases were recently made public where the EPO results from the labs were made available for independent review and came back as highly questionable, or at least highly questioned:

- Vojtěch Sommer

- Steven Colvert

- Benedikt Karus

Ross Tucker, at his "sportsscientists" website, recently published a guest post from Erik Boye, highly critical of some of the outcomes from WADA-labs, and the difficulty for athletes to get the information necessary to defend themselves in an anti-doping case if the labs got it wrong.

Some interesting tidbits from that post:

- "Lawyers are expensive. Many athletes do not have the resources to fight a doping allegation, thus creating an economic imbalance: the rich can contest WADA decisions, but not the poor. "To put it bluntly, the more money you have available to put together a comprehensive defense, the more likely you are to be exonerated", stated Andy Brown."

- "Following positive results in a WADA-accredited lab, the athlete is confronted with electronically manipulated data and is not allowed to see the original analytic data. The laboratory rarely makes available more data than what supports their own conclusion, and they sometimes neglect to point out uncertainties and questionable findings. This restriction of access reduces the possibility for the athlete’s experts to counter the charges."

- If you want to prepare a legal defense: "Some athletes even have to pay to see the data,"

- "WADA-accredited laboratories routinely employ one another to present a "second opinion". However, another WADA-accredited laboratory is not independent; the laboratories are all bound by rules saying that they cannot dispute the conclusions of another WADA-accredited lab ..."

I cannot imagine how many Kenyans can afford this kind of legal and scientific support, once confronted with an announcement of a positive test.

But under the current paradigm, none of these points factor into deciding an ADRV. WADA's "strict liability" legal paradigm places the blame by default for athlete's ignorance, doctor's ignorance, pharmacist's ignorance, bad labelling, no labelling, unspecified drug falling under a "catch-all" provision, and WADA lab errors, squarely on the shoulders of the athlete.

A few supporting links:

"Routledge Handbook of Drugs and Sport" - edited by Verner Møller, Ivan Waddington, John M. Hoberman

https://sportsscientists.com/2019/08/guest-article-prof-erik-boye-on-the-bias-in-power-in-anti-doping/

https://www.sportsintegrityinitiative.com/borderline-analysis-wada-accredited-laboratories/

https://febs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/febs.14920

Thanks for the insight. It's sad and strange that such a talented and successful runner would not have a coach or proper management...I also thought I'd read he was one of Kipchoge's favorite pacer, something which you'd expect would give him some decent status and access to proper advice.

El Keniano wrote:

^Everybody should read what the coach wrote.

Wow!

That is huge. I do agree. Everyone should read it and see it for him/herself.

That said, the Coevetts of this world, including the gadfly Coevett himself here, will read it, then, still go ahead with their PERSECUTION.

To most of these characters, it will mean nothing. They will attack Dr. Canova personally and especially his heritage.

Asante Daktari!

Great insight!

There are many famous runners among Kenyans

Sprintgeezer, I was just looking up IAAF points results for the 1k, and I saw that Rudisha's 1:40.91 is regarded as almost exactly equivalent to El Guerrouj's 3:26 flat, 3:42 mile, and 2:09 1k! All equally improbable but the 800 and 1500m times were actually run.

I challenge the premise that Sammy Kitwara was a small fish who didn't know what he was doing. The fact is that he has had a long career, running some very impressive times on the road, 27:11, 58:48, and 2:04:28, all between 2010 and 2014, an era in which road races were not very much policed and testing wasn't hardly extended to Kenya. He was from a lowland area, according to an article for the Chicago marathon a few years ago, where it was too hot to run and he got a late start when he moved to the mecca of distance running where he started training, getting noticed by a Dutch agent after a year. He was coached by Moses Kiptanui for five years.

5000 Metres 13:34.0h Nairobi (KEN) 07 JUN 2008 1088

10,000 Metres 27:44.46 Nairobi (KEN) 27 JUN 2009 1156

10 Kilometres 27:11 Utrecht (NED) 26 SEP 2010 1219

12 Kilometres 34:15 San Francisco, CA (USA) 16 MAY 2010 0

15 Kilometres 43:42 Heerenberg (NED) 07 DEC 2008 1090

10 Miles Road 45:17 * Amsterdam (NED) 21 SEP 2008 1176

20 Kilometres 57:42 Paris (FRA) 12 OCT 2008 1150

Half Marathon 58:48 Philadelphia, PA (USA) 18 SEP 2011 1243

Marathon 2:04:28 Chicago, IL (USA) 12 OCT 2014 1263

These road times are all extremely fast, in fact they are all significantly faster than the what the WR was in these events pre 1992 (or later).