Why does everyone automatically assume fast people dope

LoneStarXC wrote:
Given that it is estimated that nearly 1 in 2 athletes are doped, and that PED use and blood doping do improve performance, it is a reasonable assumption that top athletes are on something.

Yes - this is like adding 1 + 1 together. We actually have, though somewhat uncertain, numbers to assess that quantitatively.
For example, the last worlds had 39 competitors in the 5000 m. Assuming that 0.44 x 39 = 17 of them are cheats, as per your linked study, and recognizing that blood doping alone aids performance by 15 - 30 seconds in the 5000 according to the Sunday Times experts consulted in 2015, how likely is it that the winner was clean?

Sledge_Hammer wrote:

Ever heard of innocent until proven guilty? You just got it backwards.

"Innocent until proven guilty" is a legally overprotective stance to try to ensure anyone who even remotely might conceivably be innocent is not erroneously convicted. It doesn't necessarily have much to do with the probability something has actually occurred. It bends over way backward not to convict someone in a court of law. But the tradeoff is many who are guilty get off scot-free because of not enough iron-clad-in-a-court-of-law evidence to convict.

If you want to look at what's most likely, though, you consider not just what's admissible in a court of law (or by WADA), but probability based on logic, experience, historically observable patterns, personal connections between athletes/coaches/agents, etc. Is it provable under WADA's code? Often not, but if it talks like a duck, walks like a duck... it's probably a duck.

One can always hope against hope if they like. But you have to be naive in the face of so many fast times and WRs of the past having been doped not to think most of the times approaching them today aren't as well.

Really, to believe that a super-fast time is not doped, you have to believe the person who achieved it is a genetic freak even further beyond the pale than all the other genetic freaks who rise to the elite level in our sport in the first place. Given the scientifically shown 2-4% advantage or whatever that EPO gives you, it strains credulity to believe that the bell curve of genetic distribution could be exceeded that much, when we have had so many decades of history with doped WRs already. (Either proven in retrospect, or highly suspect by veteran observers.)

Of course, one thing muddying the waters these days is the advent of the Nike pogo shoes. Those appear to give about the same level of advantage as EPO (2-4%, possibly more than that with the very latest model). This makes it difficult to assess how much merit the recent road marathon and half-marathon times really have. But in general, when you take the likely performance improvement estimates into account, the current times (since 2016 when the Vaporfly came out) don't appear to be any better intrinsically than the previous WRs. In other words, *something* still very likely needs to be doped, in this case the shoes, to beat a WR.

LoneStarXC wrote:

From this 2017 paper:

The estimated prevalence of past-year doping was 43.6% (95% confidence interval 39.4–47.9) at WCA and 57.1% (52.4–61.8) at PAG. The estimated prevalence of past-year supplement use at PAG was 70.1% (65.6–74.7%). Sensitivity analyses, assessing the robustness of these estimates under numerous hypothetical scenarios of intentional or unintentional noncompliance by respondents, suggested that we were unlikely to have overestimated the true prevalence of doping.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs40279-017-0765-4Given

that it is estimated that nearly 1 in 2 athletes are doped, and that PED use and blood doping do improve performance, it is a reasonable assumption that top athletes are on something. Plus there’s also the fancy bears leaks which showed that many top athletes had ABPs flagged as “likely doping”, including Rupp and Jager, so doping isn’t just a Kenya problem, it’s an everywhere problem.

+10

It's time to set blood limits for Hb etc. at normal human levels. Above 12 you don't race, and test at the starting line. If you are allowed by iaaf to use a certain drugs for your "sickness" you should not be allowed to race. Etc. Etc hard clear rules no exception.

Luv2Run wrote:

Because so many have been found to have doped or hang around coaches, docs, agents and other athletes who seemed to be connected to doping or alleged to be.

+1

When you show up/travel with a doctor and you aren’t injured...

When your coach has vials of drugs in his hotel room...

When known dopers are on your team...

When you miss several drug tests and get off on a minute technicality...

When you were good and suddenly ramped into great after some combo of the things listed above...

When you surge late in career/life (e.g. Roger Clemens)...

When you run times known dopers from known doping regimes didn’t run...

You must be new here.

come on people wrote:

Seriously. I understand that their times are ridiculously fast and it would be a thought. But maybe said person has crazy good genetics and incredible work ethic. Why does it automatically go to doping and a group of people nullify the performance

I've typed this about 100x on this website. Because doping works well and it's easy to not get caught. Let's say doping gave you a 4% advantage. We've seen what the Nike shoes did. Now, just pretend you can't see the shoes. That's doping.

Because a lot of them do. Duh!

come on people wrote:

Seriously. I understand that their times are ridiculously fast and it would be a thought. But maybe said person has crazy good genetics and incredible work ethic. Why does it automatically go to doping and a group of people nullify the performance

https://www.worldathletics.org/news/report/valencia-10k-2020-kipruto-chepkirui-world-rec

Because of this, those 5k wr runners are so slow nowadays...... Running twice under the record!!!

Trump wrote:

Because a lot of them do. Duh!

Lol, yes.

"Why does everyone automatically assume fast people dope"?

That's not an assumption, it is a fact: fast people dope.

Proof: Gatlin, Kiprop, Kiptum, ...

Sledge_Hammer wrote:

Ever heard of innocent until proven guilty? You just got it backwards.

That’s in a court of law for a criminal offense.

We can assume on any basis.

When people attain performances achieved by proven dopers, it’s not leap to make an assumption they are doping.

I’m not saying they should be banned without proof.

But it’s fair for people to say they think they are doping.

You got to watch the problem from another corner.

What is the chance that a doper is tested positive at antidoping nowdays???

I dont know exactly but sure very very low!

That been said. Now we move to Kenya. In the beautiful Rift Valley and at the present time Kenya has about 50 athletes suspended cos doping violations. And between them we have WRholder, Olympic champions, winners of Big Marathons, World Champions and so on.

Now do you remember a country in history that has so much great runners suspended for doping violations at the same time??? Me no

Only this fact is supposed to make raise a giant red flag considering the fact that the chance to get caught positive is very very low if they follow certain rules.

Peter Snell

Common sense:

Faster than me? Doper

Slower than me? Lazy