A very simple question

Renato Canova wrote:

In some case doped athletes want to avoid the test, but in several other cases NOT doped athletes are not aware of their must, if professional athletes.

Put in your mind that life is very much different between Kenya and US or Europe. While can be easy to control athletes when are in training camp, the mentality of many among best Kenyans ias no longer professional when they are at home, and their life depends, meny times, on situations out of their control.

In my opinion, there is difference between Coleman, not at home in a big town because in the supermarket during the hour of whereabouts, and somebody who never filled personally his whereabouts (in almost all the cases of whereabouts failures with Kenyans, are their managements filling the form) and is not able to put in his mind that you must be professional ALWAYS, not only while you run.

AK, and specifically Barnabas Korir, are trying to educate the athletes, but too many times they are not really interested to understand and to learn. For example, AK provides each athlete with bundles of 500 Ksh each lesson, lasting one hour, that are done weekly. AIU nominates athletes to take part, but only 50% went to participate, and only 1% asked some question.

So, the reason is not "Doping", but "Ignorance". The idea of many Kenyans (not only athletes) living in the rural areas that they can do what they feel to do at the moment (for example, disappearing without informing anybody for going to the village for meeting their children, something not planned but decided 10 minutes before), is connected with the type of life Kenyans had for thousands years, when the idea of personal freedom was at the base of the individual behavior.

Generally, Africans are not still able to follow the rules of international bodies, if don't allow them to do what they want, because there is not yet a full integration in the global World.

But I'm sure that 90% of the cases are not for hiding something, but only for superficiality, ignorance and, sometimes, arrogance (I'm one of the local heroes, so I can do what I want).

This doesn't change the fact they have to be banned, if not able to show the reason af the missed test, and AK is very clear to explain rules and sanctions.

For that reason, it's absolutely absurd and not correct to ask the ban for the Country, that at the moment is the most active against doping, in both the efforts for educating and preventing, and for catching cheaters and superficial athletes not following the rules.

nikkinemo95 wrote:

At first, there is a difference of individual talent. When we speak of Kenenisa, of Shaheen, of Haile, of Tirunesh Dibaba, of Beatrice Chepkoech, or, in other events, of Usain Bolt, or Edwin Moses, we speak of "freak of nature", who absolutely didn't need any external help for being, at their best, at the top of the world.

Secondly, there is a big difference depending on the training system. Several times we had athletes (especially Africans) wo are already of high international level, in spite of a very poor coaching and the lack of physiotherapic supports. These athletes, when finally approach a professional and well organised situation, including training camps (they finally can eat twice per day) and coaches of international level, can produce big jumps of quality (for example, 2:07 in Marathon can become 2:03, or 3'33" in 1500m can become something better than 3'30").

Compare long distances with sprint. The real money is in the sprint events : there are more opportunity to compete, are still in DL (long distances are cancelled), there are higher contracts from the Companies, there is more interest from the TV, and generally every top athlete has a very high medical support, something that doesn't happen with middle distances, where the best are Kenyan, Ethiopian and Ugandan. So said, how is that in top 100 of 100m almost 50% of the athletes had some problem with doping, while in marathon only 3 had problems (in spite of the fact that at the moment the athletes more tested are specialists of long distances, in order to have data enough for creating their Biological Passport) ?

Renato Canova wrote:

In some case doped athletes want to avoid the test, but in several other cases NOT doped athletes are not aware of their must, if professional athletes.

Put in your mind that life is very much different between Kenya and US or Europe. While can be easy to control athletes when are in training camp, the mentality of many among best Kenyans ias no longer professional when they are at home, and their life depends, meny times, on situations out of their control.

In my opinion, there is difference between Coleman, not at home in a big town because in the supermarket during the hour of whereabouts, and somebody who never filled personally his whereabouts (in almost all the cases of whereabouts failures with Kenyans, are their managements filling the form) and is not able to put in his mind that you must be professional ALWAYS, not only while you run.

AK, and specifically Barnabas Korir, are trying to educate the athletes, but too many times they are not really interested to understand and to learn. For example, AK provides each athlete with bundles of 500 Ksh each lesson, lasting one hour, that are done weekly. AIU nominates athletes to take part, but only 50% went to participate, and only 1% asked some question.

So, the reason is not "Doping", but "Ignorance". The idea of many Kenyans (not only athletes) living in the rural areas that they can do what they feel to do at the moment (for example, disappearing without informing anybody for going to the village for meeting their children, something not planned but decided 10 minutes before), is connected with the type of life Kenyans had for thousands years, when the idea of personal freedom was at the base of the individual behavior.

Generally, Africans are not still able to follow the rules of international bodies, if don't allow them to do what they want, because there is not yet a full integration in the global World.

But I'm sure that 90% of the cases are not for hiding something, but only for superficiality, ignorance and, sometimes, arrogance (I'm one of the local heroes, so I can do what I want).

This doesn't change the fact they have to be banned, if not able to show the reason af the missed test, and AK is very clear to explain rules and sanctions.

For that reason, it's absolutely absurd and not correct to ask the ban for the Country, that at the moment is the most active against doping, in both the efforts for educating and preventing, and for catching cheaters and superficial athletes not following the rules.

Doped to the Max wrote:

Renato Canova wrote:

In some case doped athletes want to avoid the test, but in several other cases NOT doped athletes are not aware of their must, if professional athletes.

Put in your mind that life is very much different between Kenya and US or Europe. While can be easy to control athletes when are in training camp, the mentality of many among best Kenyans ias no longer professional when they are at home, and their life depends, meny times, on situations out of their control.

In my opinion, there is difference between Coleman, not at home in a big town because in the supermarket during the hour of whereabouts, and somebody who never filled personally his whereabouts (in almost all the cases of whereabouts failures with Kenyans, are their managements filling the form) and is not able to put in his mind that you must be professional ALWAYS, not only while you run.

AK, and specifically Barnabas Korir, are trying to educate the athletes, but too many times they are not really interested to understand and to learn. For example, AK provides each athlete with bundles of 500 Ksh each lesson, lasting one hour, that are done weekly. AIU nominates athletes to take part, but only 50% went to participate, and only 1% asked some question.

So, the reason is not "Doping", but "Ignorance". The idea of many Kenyans (not only athletes) living in the rural areas that they can do what they feel to do at the moment (for example, disappearing without informing anybody for going to the village for meeting their children, something not planned but decided 10 minutes before), is connected with the type of life Kenyans had for thousands years, when the idea of personal freedom was at the base of the individual behavior.

Generally, Africans are not still able to follow the rules of international bodies, if don't allow them to do what they want, because there is not yet a full integration in the global World.

But I'm sure that 90% of the cases are not for hiding something, but only for superficiality, ignorance and, sometimes, arrogance (I'm one of the local heroes, so I can do what I want).

This doesn't change the fact they have to be banned, if not able to show the reason af the missed test, and AK is very clear to explain rules and sanctions.

For that reason, it's absolutely absurd and not correct to ask the ban for the Country, that at the moment is the most active against doping, in both the efforts for educating and preventing, and for catching cheaters and superficial athletes not following the rules.

Okay...let me get this straight: Athletes in other countries, say the Slavic nations, European countries, U.S., etc., who are charged with a whereabouts violation could, and maybe even probably, have been intentionally missing the tests for reasons of doping. So, the reasoning would be something like this: Take the 2-yr hit instead of the more than likely career ending 4-yr hit for a doping positive, come back after the ban and get your doping program right this time so as to test negative on OOC testing.

The Kenyans, OTOH, you say in "90%" of the cases are not hiding anything but are missing the testing window for "ignorance" and sometimes "arrogance." "90%" is very high figure to say there's no attempt of the athlete to intentionally miss the testing window because of they're on a doping program and aren't aware of glow times and washout periods.

Well then, why not make the Kenyans exempt from any whereabouts failure violations? If it's impossible for many of them to be available for testing at a certain time frame because of ignorance then just forget about any violations. If testers can find them and the athlete agrees to submit to a test then great. If not, the testers can just leave and maybe give it a college try sometime in the future. Or maybe just exempt them from any OOC testing until they are educated on how OOC testing & the whereabouts protocol works. If they still don't understand, then don't bother testing them.

We really don't want innocent Kenyans banned for whereabouts failure violations when they only did it out of ignorance and you have assured us that "90%" of them would never avoid testing because they're are doping. We can save those suspicions on the Americans, Europeans, Slavics & N. Africans because they would be more likely to intentionally miss tests for nefarious reasons. Lol.

Doped to the Max wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

Maybe. Or maybe not. Hard to say if it is probable.

This kind of thing used to happen in cycling 15-20 years ago.

All we can really say is that a whereabouts failure is a filing failure, or a missed test.

I don't think it's hard to say - it's a high probability that they're dodging the tests because they think they will test positive. Look at the outcomes if a doper takes a chance submitting to a test and comes up positive vs dodging the tests. A positive is 4-yr ban and in these days could easily be career ending. Certainly the athlete's reputation is tarnished and their sponsor will drop them like a hot potato and more than likely want all the $$$ back.

Serving a 2-yr ban (sometimes less) for a whereabouts failures is nothing. The athlete isn't charged with a doping offense so they can maintain that they're not a doper intentionally avoiding tests. They can claim that they got their time frames all mixed up, or their doorbell was broken and they didn't hear any knocking, or their cell phone went dead and on and on and on. So, they serve the 2-yr ban and come back to the sport with their fan base welcoming them back with open arms.

The whereabouts failures is a life raft for a doper. Lol.