'Doping in Kenya is completely out of control'

I did say "generally" and "usually", because you can always find exceptions and omissions.

But on the contrary, Malm does use cautious language when expressing his belief and opinion: "can be estimated", "may improve performance ... up to", leaving lots of wiggle room for the possibility of reduced, or even no, improvements.

Recall, I said "caution when interpreting results". Is Malm even "interpreting results" here?

Malm's study you linked doesn't measure running time trial performance, but VO2max and time to exhaustion (6-7 minutes on a treadmill).

The summarized literature he references is three studies conducted by others: one on cycling (time to exhaustion; 14 minutes on a stationary bike), one on cross-country skiing (15km racing), and one on running (10 km time trials).

The most relevant results to interpret comes from the running study, which cautions interpreters (like Malm): "The subjects in this study, although good caliber runners, were not elite distance runners, and the results in this study may or may not be applicable to the latter."

The cycling study similarly warns us (and Malm) that there results may not actually translate to cycling, or running, performance: "We did not include time trials in this experiment to determine whether the improvement in maximal oxygen uptake would translate into actual improvement in performance in the field and across different sporting disciplines."

I did not find any such caution in the cross-country skiing study (from 1987). It's possible that elite blood-doped runners will ski faster.

But we can see even within this small sample of summarized literature, that "generally" and "usually" there is a discussion of limitations and applicability.

Your understanding of oxygen delivery is very poor. There are natural ways in which your body increases oxygen delivery to the muscles. Vascular shifts. Do some research.

There is no more oxygen delivery beyond your true VO2max, because you are limited by genetics and thermodynamics.

It would help everyone here to have an understanding of basic Biology. However I realise that is asking a bit too much for all of you.

These discussions/arguments go round in circles endlessly. People aren't willing to learn even the most basic principles.

My argument with Kelsall is that he is wilfully ignorant of these basic principles.

Someone in his position has a duty of care to young athletes. He abuses this position whilst adopting a holier than thou stance.

Not sure what the point is supposed to be here. Is that Prof. Malm?

Relevant notes from the referenced study:

"The altitude and sea-level comparison is secondary and given the limitations outlined should be interpreted with caution."

"... caution is required when extrapolating findings from subelite to truly elite athletes ..."

Isn't that always the way? People of all walks of life are given drugs, either not not knowing the consequences or being given misinformation about the necessity of them complying?

Siding with the scientists can be dangerous if you don't question the science.

Here's the thing you're missing; what you believe is that there is a superhuman oxgen uptake available through blood manipulation. So essentially you believe that there is a superhuman aerobic metabolism. There isn't. That's not how metabolism works.

If you don't believe me, why don't you look up the word metabolism and find out what it actually is?

Just so it is clear to everyone, including Renato, this is what he said in this article:

“Also if I know there are drugs able to increase the ability to transport oxygen, I continue to think these drugs, like EPO or CERA, can’t work with the top African athletes. I don’t have any proof about this….”

Reporters need to knock on kipchoges door and start asking questions

This is really funny. I remember Canova saying this same garbage for years on here but didn’t remember it being this simple-minded. The “scientist” Canova says that he knows his athletes are worse than Bekele and he knows they aren’t doping (because they never asked him for drugs) so obviously nobody is doping. Wtf does that mean!?! How can you “know” your athletes are worse than Bekele when Bekele could’ve been doping? Did Canova train Bekele? And all this nonsense about physiology and Africans not blaming others for their failures etc. makes Canova sound like a complete fool and here he is denying it years later with hundreds of African doping busts in between.

I'm just limiting my observations to his article, and follow up posts. As I pointed out earlier, some of his information is old, by as much as a decade. The AIU is telling us that Kenya is cooperating and they are putting the systems in place to catch the dopers. This should be a positive message. The next step, maybe more important, is to go after the suppliers, in the case of intentional doping, and education for all the actors, athletes, doctors, pharmacists, etc., in the case of negligent doping.

It's not just about top Africans anymore.

You are also working with old information from 2012. Back in 2017, after the practical experience of Sondre Moen with extended living and training at altitude (223 days), running a marathon in 2:05:48, Canova has expanded his claim to include non-Kenyan runners: "WHY EPO DOESN'T WORK IF YOU TRAIN AT TOP LEVEL IN ALTITUDE (Black, White, Chinese, New Zealander, Italian, there is NO POPULATION out of this rule, WHEN THE PREMISE IS TOUGH AND PROPER TRAINING)".

like the other dude said, let running be only about winning medals and the fame and glory. remove all prize moneys. if companies want to sponsor athletes, cool. if the athlete is caught cheating, let the people flame the sponsor for not making sure that their sponsored athlete is clean.

I’m counteracting Renato’s claim that he never said EPO doesn’t work. Care to address that or are you going to gloss over the quote like Renato does every time someone provides evidence that he actually said it?

Not sure how anyone can argue that EPO doesn’t work.. It works on everyone and we all know it.

It reminds me of when people used to walk around in face masks ‘for the benefit of others’ believing an old rag actually did anything..

It sure is easier to fool some people than convince them they have been fooled.

Fair enough. I appreciate the effort to bring exact quotes into the discussion. Most everyone else tends to criticize him based on their own paraphrased limited understanding, rather than based on a genuine understanding of what he really said and didn't say.

When you compare the two statements side-by-side "EPO doesn't work for Kenyans" and "these drugs, like EPO or CERA, can’t work with the top African athletes", these are two different statements saying two different things. One is a universal statement about all Kenyans regardless, and one is about "top" African athletes, implying a high state of training that has put them on the "top". Renato denies saying the first statement. You are not counteracting his claim, but confirming it.

If you dig enough, you will find posts with Renato explaining that EPO can work for everyone, including all Kenyans, when their aerobic fitness is under-trained, to quickly get up to about 90% aerobic fitness. This can be understood as an advantage, from a WADA point of view, but not one that will result in super natural performances. To go beyond 90% requires proper training and cannot be achieved by blood doping. In the case of top athletes, who live and train at altitude, with a high volume of intense aerobic training, he is saying that EPO and CERA will not bring any further additional benefit, while qualifying that this is his personal opinion based on his personal experience of training top athletes, provided without any proof.

Before training Sondre Moens, his practical experience with altitude training was limited to East Africans, so his stated opinion was limited to his personal experience. This is something that cannot be said for any of his critics. But after the success of Sondre Moens running a 2:05:48 marathon from 8 months of living and training at altitude, in 2017, he expanded this claim to include non-Africans too. Going back in history to what Renato said in 2012, or to 2007, does not reflect this new information.

Going even further (my opinion, not Renato's) this is not something that is exclusive to Kenyans or top-athletes. Sea-level amateurs who live and train at altitude long enough to achieve their own personal "top" fitness, with an optimal training, will reap the benefits that EPO can bring naturally, because the altitude stimulates EPO and RBC production. You can think of living at altitude as micro-dosing EPO 24x7, but in a WADA legal way. We have seen this confirmed in many altitude studies, mostly conducted on non-elite, but well-trained, volunteers, which result in similar performance benefits as blood doping studies.

No one disputes that EPO "works" to increase blood values. The question that remains unproven is whether EPO can produce super natural distance running performances. Is training with EPO superior to all other methods without EPO?

If you want to argue that "it works on everyone and we all know it", how do you explain the disproportionally few and comparatively slow non-African performances worldwide, from 800m to the marathon (excluding women on steroids), for the last three-plus decades? Do you think that the super-rich Kenyans out-doped the rest of the world for three decades? Doesn't "everyone" mean "everyone"? I've seen a wide variety of attempted explanations, so don't be shy.

I find that many people are fooled by "you can't trust authorities, but you can trust me".

Yes. But it’s not the super-rich Kenyans. It’s the super poor Kenyans who dope for purely financial reasons. They have nothing to lose and a fortune (one that can set them up for life) to gain.