A very simple question

Renato Canova wrote:

HRE, don't say "Kipsang being caught". In his current situation, missing some test has nothing to do with being doped, also if the sanction is the same.

When somebody looks at the list of banned athletes, needs to distinguish among :

a) Caught with EPO

b) Caught for steroids

c) Trying to change his own urine (the main case of "tampering")

d) Escaping from the window

e) Depending on Biological Passport

f) Missing test

g) Doing mistakes in the whereabouts

All these athletes are banned (maybe with the ecception of US athletes, it seems that USADA accepts the most strange excuses for reducing the charge...), but the reals users of EPO are only a very small percentage.

Okay, that's a good point about Kipsang and adds a step to the thinking process which then goes something like making it hard to believe that Kipsang wasn't trying to avoid testing on three occasions (I'll agree with Coe's comments about Christian Coleman here) which makes it hard to think he would not have been caught had he been tested. But again, hard to believe is not the same as knowing.

Yes, I have the stupid idea that these results were produced by doping.

Ghost1 wrote:

Farah before he joined Salazar in Oregon. 148, 333 and 13 07 were pointers to what he could do in the future and he improved from that.

With Renato‘s guidance and Salazar‘s guidance Farah’s improvement was logical and not out of the ordinary despite his age at the time.

Salazar also took care of Farah. in the strength department and greatly increased her strength and mobility in the gym.

The main point is that Farah was not a nobody before meeting Salazar and Renato. The claim that he was a nobody is a gross exaggeration because he was not far away from the pinnacle of success. It was more question of tweaking his extraordinary potential.

Farah’s bio mechanics are basically second to none - the most beautiful and efficient mover in the history of running in my opinion, somewhat similar to Paul Tergat.

Farah was 12:57 before he joined Sal.

cheesewiz wrote:

blahblahblah

You seriously have to be the most annoying nike intern on this board, you sound like those guys who defended Lance over all the years despite having no idea about the sport

Logic dictates;

like runners, there must be two types of coach in this world, those that dope their athletes, or by ignoring it are complicit, and those that dont.

Those that do realise that their runner's results are suspicious.

Therefore they spread misinformation about the ineffectiveness of dope, the progression of running, and their brilliant coaching skills.

defeat the logic.....

My opinion; You see Renato, we will not move forward in the doping problem by speculating

about who is doped or not and about EPO and its effects, or according to you speculation that EPO would be ineffective on world class runners who train with a high volume at high altitude.

EPO is on the forbidden drug list because it`s proven it enhance the ability in cardio sports.

What we have to do instead is to concentrate on to keep on develop the work against doping on several levels.The whereabouts and biological passport are two methods that really have made the work more effective and finding the cheaters.

- Run clean! -

Renato Canova wrote:

2- STEROIDS : the main effect is to allow athletes working more in direction of strength, and for that reason who more benefitted of this doping were sprinters (specifically women), throwers, and jumpers (people using explosivity and fundamental strength, more than endurance).

From what I understand, steroids speed up the recovery process. They don't specifically build strength, it's just the quicker healing allows sprinters and the like to build more muscle because that's what they want to do.

But Tyler Hamilton said in his book that he was getting seriously fatigued during a multi-stage race and then his team doctor offered him a little pill. It was the moment he decided to start using, he took it and was felt great when riding again the next day.

So that says to me steroids have a benefit to endurance runners. After all the reason runners only train up to 14hrs per week rather than the 30-40 that rowers, cyclists, swimmers, skiers do is because the body can't handle the extra stress and impact. So wouldn't steroids enable runners to train hard or longer to get better adaptations like those other sports?

Renato may be a highly respected coach but he is making a claim he can't support; he says the best-trained distance runners at altitude will be superior to any doped athlete. He is firstly assuming that the best-trained altitude athletes will not have also doped - and yet we see the growing list of such athletes who have doped that include Olympic and championship medallists and world record holders - and his claim that for distance athletes the right combination of training with altitude will produce a superior performance to doping is made without proof. How can he know the limitations of doping if he has not doped some of his athletes and assessed its effects on their performances? He doesn't have the necessary data to draw the conclusions he has. That is quite apart from the contradictory approach of the anti-doping authorities to pursue and penalise some athletes for practices that - he says - offer less advantage than legitimate training methods. What is the logical argument for banning EPO if altitude-training works better? Or perhaps both (or neither) should be banned. That is where his argument takes us.

We may not know for a fact which athletes are doping - unless they are caught - but we do know that doping is endemic in sports across the board and has been so for years. We also know for a fact that many more dope than are caught. When as many as 1 in every 3 championship-level athletes may be doping it makes it increasingly difficult to believe in the bona fides of any performance.

Athletes are by their nature competitive personalities. They are driven to win by temperament and character as much as by the necessity to make a living. There are risks in being caught - yet they are few - but there are far more incentives to dope. If success at sports involves rational as well as emotional choices the argument for any individual athlete falls squarely in favour of doping. It may well be that it is only in the stands that there remains a belief that sport is still mostly clean and our heroes are who we wish them to be.

Armstronglivs, what you say is ok, eccept the fact you continue to speak about "doping" in general way. I think that already I explained my ideas about "doping", and I never said it doesn't work : all what I say is about EPO.

The only thing we know about EPO is that, due to the ability to transport more oxygen, the recovery from fatigue becomes shorter. This is a fundamental factor in cyclism, during the big competitions with 20 stages in following days (Tour de France, Giro d'Italia, Vuelta de Espana), but is not a factor in athletics, where the ratio between number of training sessions and number of competitions is 1/100, or maximum 1/50 (100 training sessions for one competition, in the case of Marathon, sometimes, 300 training sessions for one race).

In this "panorama", athletes can decide when are ready for the next tough session, increasing the modulation between intensity and recovery looking at individual characteristics, and absolutely is not true that who is able to recover in shorter time can be also able to have the training sessions with more quality.

Therefore, the acclarated fact that EPO can help the recovery doesn't produce any variations of the final performance, if athletes are trained according their natural characteristics.

Also, it seems everybody forget that the percentage of athletes doped with blood manipulations (including EPO and BP) is less than 15% of the total, while the percentage of athletes doped with steroids is of 65% and the percentage of athletes banned for missed tests of whereabout mistakes is about 10%.

What I cant accept is that doped athletes, at very high level, in the general vision, can show that also who is not "officially" positive MUST be positive, because it's not possible that doped and not doped athletes can achieve equivalent results.

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) ? Really do you think African athletes are clever, and able to evade every control, and rich American sprinters are idiots who don't know what have to do for appearing clean ?

The problem is not that I don't know the limitation of doping : the problem is that people believing in doping as main reason of any performance don't knopw the limitation of training.

So, I give you reason, but also I reverse your argument. You ask "what is the logical argument for banning EPO if altitude training works better ?". The logical argument is that very few athletes, excluding who lives in altitude because born in altitude, decide to move their life from their place to altitude (maybe in different Country), so continue to train at sea level, and in this case EPO works, giving the same effect (maybe in shorter time) of Altitude. For that reason, EPO must be banned, and who uses EPO must be banned, but this doesn't mean that taking EPO in altitude, if there is proper training, can produce the summation of the two effects.

And, again I point out, NEVER there was some research with top athletes living and training in altitude, giving them EPO for controlling the final results.

Therefore, my conclusions depends on what I see and I know (facts), the conclusions that EPO gives advantage also for top athletes living and training in altitude depends on what researchers see, but don't know, refusing to investigate clean athletes for understanding the physiological effects of proper training.

I used to believe in Santa Claus once.

It's very hard to look at an individual and think they're dirty. We want to believe the best in seemingly nice people. But we've been fooled over and over again. At this point I doht expect anyone in medal contention to be clean.

Renato, thank you! Very enlightening.

Renato, what exactly is your point here? That by taking the results of last night (where we assume and believe these athletes to be clean - which, for the record I do) and saying because of the high probability of this, it makes it an almost certainty that the performances of (more talented?) African athletes, some of whom were born and train at altitude, must therefore be legitimate?

Mate, your simplistic logic, based entirely on assumptions (and stereotypes to be honest) is so mind numbing it's astounding.

Not everyone believes all Africans dope - but a lot do and the fact is a lot of them are now being caught. There is no way to get around that fact for you or anyone with an invested interest in these athletes. American athletes dope too - in fact some were coached by the most blatant and borderline psychotic bender of ethics in Alberto Salazar and while there may be enough layers of smoke afforded to them by the system here in the US, we all know who they are (ahem Galen Rupp, Matthew Centrowtiz, Dathan Ritzenheim, Kara Goucher etc etc).

What do performances like last night tell me? That really the pedestal we put have put athletes like Bekele, El G, Dibaba etc on in terms of their pure athletic ability maybe isn't that deserved. By that I mean the gap between these athletes and athletes like Houlihan, Ahmed - which at one point we probably would say was astronomical, in reality isn't.

Because do I for a second believe the performances of El Guerrojou (3.26.00/3.43.13), Bekele (12.37.35/26.17.53) were set "unassisted"? In the era of those performances? Not a chance in the world. So no, doping will not take you from being a 3.58 miler to a 3.43 miler or a 13.20 5000m runner to a 12.37 runner, but it can take you from being a 3.48 miler to being a 3.43 miler and 12.46 5000m runner to a 12.37 5000m runner.

Your logic doesn't change my opinion on this at all. The only thing I am realizing is how the gap between what we categorize as athletic "outliers" and the field really isn't that large after all once you level the playing field.

Aren't they all wearing the new bouncy spikes? If they're anything like the road equivalent then the goal posts for times will be shifted wildly. Wait until Cheptegei laces up a pair and runs 12:30 and the BTC guys and girls will still be great but still distant from the top East African athletes. Just like 2:06 in the marathon has now become an 'also-ran' time so will sub 13:00 for 5k.

Jager another BTC runner, had a suspicious blood profile, this establishes suspicion. Can we just ask Ahmed and Lomong how many injections they get a week and what TUEs they are on? I dont care that they do it, it’s fair on the world level because everyone else is doing it. Just don’t lie.

Salazar is banned for doping but none of his athletes are? Was he doping himself, did I miss something?

This is nonsense. There is a very simple reason top athletes continue to take PED's like EPO and athletes taking these drugs to dominate the world's stage because it works.

We've heard every garbage argument for world-class athletes being clean. From Viren's goat milk, the Jamaican sprinters just being honest hard-working people, EPO not working on athletes at elevation. It is all a smokescreen of misinformation. Over and over again the top athletes continue to get popped. Over and over again they have the tone-deaf stupidity to continue to associate with dopers or agents/coaches known to push drugs on athletes.

For the longest time we were told there was no doping in Kenya but as soon as any out of competition testing started, which is minimal compared to many other countries athletes began getting popped left and right. If you talk to any elite who has traveled and trained in Kenya PED's are rampant in the training camps.

Letsrun has always verbally taken a hard anti-doping stance. But why they continue to promote a coach from a country with a tradition of cheating in sports who moved to a country to train elites, where no testing existed, is beyond me. I'm not questioning Renato's coaching credentials, he is extremely knowledgeable about running. So was Alberto. Coaches who know a lot about running and training understand that there are PED's that improve performance. A well-designed training regime is always going to be more effective with the support of PED's.

It establishes suspicion, but the same group who established Jager as should be investigated also said that more information was required to make a decision. Considering he has not been banned, I think it’s reasonable to say he’s clean. I believe BTC to be clean. Many athletes dope not because they really want to win, but because winning means prize money that they can use to support themselves and their families. BTC is sponsored through Nike and all their athletes are on Nike contracts with access to the best facilities in the nation. It doesn’t seem realistic that they would even risk doping considering that many in the group like Hill,Derrick, Jager, Infield, Cranny, Fraser, Scott, Thompson have not had amazing careers yet. Why would any athlete whose life is being paid for through Nike risk losing sponsorship?

With Moh and Lopez, who had great collegiate careers and are now great professional athletes, why is there the assumption that they must be doping? It’s no secret that the East Africans are have the genetics for distance running. Sudan and Somalia do not produce the runners that Kenya and Ethiopia for obvious reasons, but you take two athletes who have good talent and genes (Lopez has two brothers who are also great runners) and put them under a coach who obviously knows what they are doing. Schumacher was pretty successful at the NCAA level. Give them all the resources, recovery tools, physios, nutritionists, strength coaches Nike can pay for plus an environment where other elite athletes live and train together and it shouldn’t be surprising that they constantly produce great results.

Part of the issue with American distance running I believe is that 1.kids usually start in high school, so without good talent they most likely won’t make it to the NCAA level and will stop running competitively.

2. An athlete might switch coaches from cross country to track to college coach to professional coach. When you only have one coach you will be under the same plan for a long time and maximize development.

3. There are very few elite teams in the US. Besides BTC and OTC are elite programs. Below them there are groups like brooks beasts, Boulder track club, NAZ elite, and so on. Other countries have groups where they coach the national team members. The closest thing America has to that is BTC because so many athletes train together and make the teams.

There are dopers in this sport. But there are so many who say those people can’t succeed without doping. They attack the successful out of jealousy and anger instead of congratulating and aspiring to be great.

They attack groups like BTC which doesn’t even make sense! They are such an active member of the community in running.

And Salazar was banned for using testosterone on himself and L-carnitine infusion that exceeded 50 mL. The athletes that had the infusion said it didn’t do anything and they stopped taking it. And the 50 mL rule is quite bogus anyways. You could simply concentrate the substance and inject it and be under 50 mL. So I think that that part of the ban is a non issue

Sorry, but I don't agree in several things you say (while I agree with some of your observations).

First, you have to change your first assertion :

There is a very simple reason top athletes continue to take PED's like EPO and athletes taking these drugs to dominate the world's stage because it works.

The following can be more realistic :

There is a very simple reason SOME top athletes continue to take PED's like EPO and SOME athletes taking these drugs ARE AMONG the best in the world : because they THINK it works.

This because it's not true they DOMINATE the world : this is the supposition of people like you, believing not possible to be the best without blood doping. Instead, the fact is that many athletes with WR achieved it in very clean way. You don't believe, and is your problem, but I KNOW.

I agree with you when you write :

Over and over again they have the tone-deaf stupidity to continue to associate with dopers or agents/coaches known to push drugs on athletes.

This is what happens for the most part of doped athletes, but, also in this phrase, you have to be more precise, adding :

They have a very easy way for avoiding these risk : to move to the coaches WELL KNOWN IN THE AMBIENCE FOR BEING AGAINST EVERY KIND OF DOPING, WHO ARE EDUCATORS BEFORE BEING COACHES.

Because, also for you it's difficult to believe, there are coaches acting in this way, and it's not a case that these coaches NEVER had some athlete training with them doped.

About doping in Kenya, really before 2011 there was not doping in Kenya, with the ecception of some useless anabolic in normal medicines produced in Asia. Only after that year something changed, and the mentality that athletes could not be among the best in the World without doping grew, inside training camps not organised for educating athletes, or on individual basis.

Your generalization about "training camps" is not correct, like isn't correct any kind of generalization. So, it's not correct to say "all Kenyan dope", and is not correct to say "there is no doping in Kenya". It's not correct to say "EPO doesn't work for Kenyans" (I never said something like this), but is not correct to say "EPO works with all Kenyan training in altitude".

Training camps doesn't mean anything : there are training camp with very good organization (top coaches, physiotherapists in the camp, good food, small buses for transporting athletes in different places depending on the type of training, television and good dining room for making comfortable long periods of training), and "training camps" made of two small rooms, with bed one upon the other, no running water, no electricity, no food, no physio, and some ex-athlete without any real competence as coach, staying with the athletes 3 times per week for two hours. In these camps, athletes are practically alone, and it's very easy to introduce doping together with the idea that is the only way for running fast.

Of course I understand there are PED's that improve performances, but I'm strongly convinced EPO is not one of them, with athletes responding to altitude training in the best way.

And the solution about the other substances that I know can produce advantage is very simple : I teach everybody not to use, also if can give some advantage, before for me ethic and loyalty are two words meaning something fundamental, and who doesn't show these values and moral integrity can't train with me.

I have said from the very beginning that drugs don't help people to run any faster, certainly not any faster than intelligent people using natural means, and this has been proven to be the case over and over again.

Plus, for anyone who uses logic, looks at the science and thinks realistically, there is no possible reasoning that drugs would help anyone to run faster, because running is a natural physiological process depending completely on natural talent, training, and performance characteristics.

There is no magic snake oil potion, Rockefeller coal tar and opium cancer cure. nor any other big pharma concoction, now in modern times masquerading as a performance enhancer. HA!!! If anyone thinks those things would actually help you, then you've been deluded again.

Coach...I never really understood what you meant when you said that EPO would not do anything for athletes who are properly trained at altitude. However, after studying Covid and the way it attacks the blood through the CD147 receptor, what you have asserted may be making sense.

There have been a couple of interesting findings:

1) EPO has shown to a candidate for supportive treatment of Covid.

https://molmed.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s10020-020-00186-y?fbclid=IwAR2Tr_XoYd0TBjGKOWllNvJT-kfmUDVMaYCiZQL0H7VYqrwbmnt14CPlR6s

2) People living at high altitudes for an extended period are less vulnerable to Covid:

https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/coronavirus-pandemic-people-living-on-higher-altitudes-lesser-vulnerable-to-covid-19-report-2238744

It looks probable that taking EPO and adapting to altitude are basically doing the same thing...namely...increasing EPO. If you said this many times and I didn't get it, my apologies. Therefore, if I am understanding correctly, taking EPO if you are properly altitude trained is redundant and will give no additional benefit.

Does this make sense?