Is the sport cleaner than ever?

rekrunner wrote:

Seriously? Again?

I rounded the numbers, but compare the large discrepancy between 58.4% and 19.8%, 13.8%, and 19.3%.

A potential inflating effect in estimation models: Cautionary evidence from comparing performance enhancing drug and herbal hormonal supplement use estimates

Ricky A. James, Tamás Nepusz, Declan P. Naughton, Andrea Petróczi

DOI: /10.1016/j.psychsport.2012.08.003

“Results

A large discrepancy was observed in prevalence estimates for PED using the UQM (58.4%) and SSC (19.8%), but not for HS (54.9% and 54.0%, respectively). The SSC prevalence estimate for PED was in keeping with the results from social projection (13.8% in own sport; 26.1% in all sports) and network scale up (19.3% for known and suspected doping combined). A clear preference was logged for SSC.

Yes. Exactly. Just making sure that you keep using this 2012 paper by WADA-paid Petróczi as "proof" that the WADA and IAAF approved 2018 follow-up paper is wrong.

And, there was no "cross-checking it with 3 other methods", but rather, "social projection" and "network scale up".

In other words, WADA-paid Petróczi et al. extrapolated in 2012 from other data from other cases in wishful thinking that PED usage is under 20%, and thus "prefer" SSC over UQM. A different conclusion (see intro of the 2018 paper) would be that only in the more anonymous UQM people respond more truthfully. Note that both methods gave the same results when a more innocent question was asked.

Note also that blood-doping along amounts to 15-18%, according to a number of papers. So any methods finding total doping below 20% make no sense.

Finally, why would athletes falsely claim that they cheated? That makes also no sense. See again the discussion in the 2018 paper.

Aragon wrote:

Classic Aragon wants only for people to quote sources accurately taking into account the nuances of the source material, and one quote from the 2011 abstract leaves out relevant conclusions from the actual paper.

I can't quote the whole paper each and every time; and what you call "relevant conclusions" are actually some casually mentioned hypotheses ("We assume" - "would ... most likely been flagged" - "Similarly, we speculate"....).

Moreover, getting "flagged" does not equal getting banned, as you well know.

What does the title of that paper say again?

Aragon wrote:

And I don't see the problem in setting the record straight about Jacques Anquetil non-use of blood doping. Actually you keeping tenaciously using the Joyner-quote after been informed about its inaccuracy for the third or fourth time makes you look - in absense of better terms - like an idiot or an ideologue.

You went to great length showing that Anquetil did not use a blood transfusion. Recall I never said otherwise, rather than calling me an idiot. And recall that the quote mentioned "blood boosting", not blood transfusion. So Joyner was not wrong.

Anyone who's watching the World "Junior" Champs realizes how filthy this sport is.

Really? You are doubling down, arguing against the clear findings of a peer reviewed study? Sorry for the length, but virtually everything you said is nonsensical. Your main objections appear to be 2012 was not a “follow-up” of 2018, and only 2 of the 3 alternative methods count as “cross-check”. Even accepting these objections, all of the main points still stand.

The peer-reviewed published takeaway — which is well summarized in the abstract — something I thought you would appreciate — is that UQM approach conducted in 2011, with a well known delay in publication, in the “2018” paper is not yet proven to be reliably accurate for sensitive questions like doping. Not before 2018, and not after 2018.

In the 2012 “inflating estimate” study, there was a large discrepancy between UQM and THREE other methods which were all part of the same study: 1) SSC, 2) “social projection”, and 3) “network scale up” among the same participants. It’s a different athlete population, so the actual percentages don’t matter, but a 300% discrepancy cannot be ignored, and, if the WADA/IAAF approved “2018” Tuebingen paper came later, this was not addressed in the 2018 paper.

“WADA-paid” is a lame appeal to emotion, not to mention, nonsensical.

“WADA-paid” Petroczi is an author of both papers, and WADA paid for the “2018” Tuebingen study too.

The data from the 2012 “inflated estimate” paper is not extrapolated from other cases, nor wishful thinking, but data generated by and for that study.

Your other words are indeed other words. Your different conclusion is more hypothesis than conclusion, and appears to be something you just invented now for the sake of argument.

For one, UQM is not more anonymous than SSC. SSC has all the features of UQM, including anonymity, plus the added ability of estimating the magnitude of non-compliance. The UQM authors of the “2018” Tuebingen study unfortunately have no way to estimate survey non-compliance — this is the main failing. They cannot measure any form of non-compliance required for all the models they generated, and therefore, cannot determine the bias between the survey result and the true prevalence.

15-18% among IAAF World Championship athletes does not contradict a 19.8% estimate for a different “sub-elite athletic” population in the “inflated estimate” 2012 study.

Furthermore, 15-18% from the IAAF studies is among endurance athletes. It still makes complete sense that the blood doping prevalence among elite endurance athletes would be a similar magnitude as overall doping prevalence for the larger population of all elite athletes for all events.

Are athletes falsely claiming they cheated? That is one naive interpretation. Guaranteed anonymity is supposed to reduce any motivation to “lie”. This is what makes much of the “discussion” in the “2018” paper non-sensical. They talk about the motivation and likelihood to lie based on fear of responding to a doping question, despite recommending and using a method that should reduce that fear to a non-negligible level.

The main answer is apathy — the athletes weren’t being truthful or lying, but simply didn’t care to take the time to correctly participate in a survey according to the instructions. In the Tuebingen study, the authors recommended discarding the fastest 30% of responses, because they were hasty, didn’t read the instructions, and just automatically responded “yes” to all the screens, visibly skewing the results by a significant 13 %-points (31.4% versus 43.6%) — they knew that 43.6% was visibly non-sensical. In the 2012 “inflating estimate” study, they hypothesized that a significant number, rather than answering the sensitive doping question, decided to switch questions after the initial selection, and truthfully answer the birthday question — disproportionately skewing the results towards 50%.

The authors of either study didn’t answer why so many athletes don’t comply, but the refinement necessary is to identify the degree and types of non-compliance, and/or find ways to reliably cancel the effect of non-compliance. As I showed you earlier, even the Tuebingen authors concluded that the UQM protocol used needs refinement.

rekrunner wrote:

The main answer is apathy — the athletes weren’t being truthful or lying, but simply didn’t care to take the time to correctly participate in a survey according to the instructions. In the Tuebingen study, the authors recommended discarding the fastest 30% of responses, because they were hasty, didn’t read the instructions, and just automatically responded “yes” to all the screens, visibly skewing the results by a significant 13 %-points (31.4% versus 43.6%) — they knew that 43.6% was visibly non-sensical.

I bet you cannot prove any of the above. These unsubstantiated claims are all your wishful thinking. On the contrary: these authors - and the ones citing them as repeated on the previous page - clearly see 43.6% (though underestimated) as the real results, as demonstrated countless times.

But good for you that you finally acknowledged that your preferred 2012/2013 study about amateurs came before the 2017/2018 study about elites. That's progress.

OozmaKappa wrote:

Testosterone has more than one application, silly goose. It's not just GRR BIG MUSCLES. It also reduces recovery time, thus allowing athletes to train more.

This is why runners are sometimes caught usings steroids, as well as NBA players, athletes you wouldnt think would have a use for test. It's bc of the enhanced recovery, among other things. Theyre not looking to get jacked.

I couldn't be bothered to read the whole thread so apologies if this point already made.

Pro cyclist, David Millar, who was busted for drug use and now commentates for TV admitted to using steroids for exactly this purpose: train beyond the point of causing injury, then drugs to speed recovery:

I am actually not even debating you here, just informing you that if you keep quoting from the abstract, you will very likely confront the limitation-objection in the future. It is fully up to you to decide how to evaluate the importance of the limitations and the absence of the washout-period ("almost certainly diminished the sensitivity of the ABP component"). Even in their limited protocol, there were actually two cases that almost got flagged ("99.88% for [Hb] and 99.87% for OFF-hr score").

You are entitled to your opinion, but I stand with my initial claim that the abstract (nor the title) "doesn't reflect the reality of the circumstances according to the authors themselves" not knowing whether authors or editors come up with the titles of the papers. I actually vaguely agree with their conclusion that "it is possible for athletes to use rhEPO without eliciting abnormal changes in the blood variables currently monitored by the Athlete Blood Passport".

The "blood doping/boosting"- terminology is always somewhat confusing, but - aside the Anquetil-incident - the paper "Blood Boosting" (author actually Simon Leigh-Smith, not Mike Joyner, mea culpa) is 100 % about methods to elevate total hemoglobin, and the author uses "blood boosting" interchangeably with "blood doping" ("technique has also been previously referred to as "blood doping").

The incident as described by Feargal McKay has nothing to do with elevating total hemoglobin, and McKay accurately questioned how relevant this "blood boosting" was in the history of blood transfusions because the incident reflects no motive or knowledge about benefits of extra RBCs.

Which one is more likely?

1) Leigh-Smith thought that Anquetil blood doped and considered it relevant for his chronology about introduction of transfusions into sports.

2) Leigh-Smith described an incident that had borderline nothing to do with the rest of his paper.

“Prove?” The main problem with UQM is that no form of non-compliance is detectable and the motivation for all of the various forms of non-compliance that they felt important enough to model in their published paper, is not provable, but speculative. The authors themselves have not proved that either the filtered result of 31.4% or the raw result of 43.6% is “real”. I think the word they used was “suggests”. Not sure why you think I should “prove” something that the authors merely “suggested”.

But the evidence of a significant positive bias in the fastest responses, and the speculation by the Tuebingen study authors, of hasty responses, and the recommendation to discard the fastest 30% to remove this otherwise unexplainable positive bias, is not my wishful thinking, but comes from the published study and its published supplements.

In the end, what (you suggest) the authors see (also a suggestion) doesn’t really even matter, if UQM approach they used does not produce accurate estimates for sensitive questions like doping, for reasons that UQM fails to detect, and the authors failed to address.

Aragon wrote:

Armstronglivs wrote:

And so the angels keep dancing on the heads of pins.

I feel privileged to read this insightful rebuttal by a great intellectual with WADA-connections, witnessing his mind working clearly at the limits of his intellectual capabilities.

It's demonstrated the limits of yours as it isn't intended as a rebuttal but as an observation on the sheet irrelevance of academic analysis in response to the question posed by the thread, of whether sport is cleaner today. Dopers don't inhabit laboratories or submit themselves to the studies of researchers.

Armstronglivs wrote:

Aragon wrote:

I feel privileged to read this insightful rebuttal by a great intellectual with WADA-connections, witnessing his mind working clearly at the limits of his intellectual capabilities.

It's demonstrated the limits of yours as it isn't intended as a rebuttal but as an observation on the sheer irrelevance of academic analysis in response to the question posed by the thread, of whether sport is cleaner today. Dopers don't inhabit laboratories or submit themselves to the studies of researchers.

This thread has become appropriated by those think academic discourse can answer the question of whether running is cleaner when no study has been conducted to answer that question - and nor can it. The reason is glaringly obvious. Doping is a black market. It cannot be measured because none of its participants can be identified outside the very few who are caught committing a violation. The closest we have come to an indication of the extent of doping (in championship T and F) is the confidential athlete surveys, argued endlessly on these threads, that the doping apologists seek to minimize or discredit.

What is also glaringly obvious and is the greatest weakness inherent in the academic argument is its inability to take into account human nature. It entails no understanding of how people think - and especially athletes. Anyone with any experience of any recreational activity will have seen how there are some, even of the most modest talent, who will do anything to win. For many in sports, their participation is obsessive. You can see that anywhere and often at club level. They will train and compete obsessively - frequently to the point of injury - and still despite their injuries - and be consumed by how well they fare at their local level. This is from juniors through to masters competitors.

This will be even more so at elite and professional level, where athletes have devoted their lives up to that point to their sporting success. For some it is their living as well as their identity and the measure of their self-esteem. I have even known athletes who have tragically taken their own lives because they have felt they have failed.

It is this psychology, so often observable in human nature, that makes the athlete susceptible to the lure of doping - the thing that may give them the "edge", that will make the difference between success and failure. No academic studies can measure that.

Athletes are not interested in any of the studies relied upon here and so tediously rehearsed over and over. Nor are they pharmacists and laboratory technicians either concocting drugs or absorbed in understanding how they are made and how they work. They simply want to run faster. So they take the drugs they think will help them - and usually with the advice from coaches and trainers invested in their athletes' success.

For those here who argue passionately that their favorite athletes would never dope, it escapes them that those athletes are as committed to their success with just as much emotional attachment as the deniers are to their own views. The passion to deny doping is just as easily found in an equivalent or even greater passion to dope, if it brings the promise of success.

We know that there is an enormous amount of money spent in this doping black market (courtesy of WADA and Al Jazeera) and that there are innumerable drugs available for which there are no tests (WADA again). We know that very few athletes can be caught. We know from experts like Howman that the dopers remain well ahead of the best antidoping efforts and can beat the testers and the biopassport. We know there are countries that conduct virtually no OC testing, which is one of the few brief windows when dopers may be caught. We also know that doping is a commonality in all sports and across all countries at elite levels.

If we combine the obsession of the athlete to succeed, whatever the cost, with the opportunity to maximise their opportunities without incurring penalty only someone with their head firmly stuck up their own rear could fail to see that doping will be an all too predictable outcome. For many. Not a few.

Unless antidoping was able to be a step ahead of doping - and there are no signs of that - there can be no way that there could be any diminution in doping, so the answer must be that "the sport" - whatever it is - will not be cleaner today. But no academic study will be able to tell us that.

rekrunner wrote:

“Prove?”

Yes, for example prove your statement

" they knew that 43.6% was visibly non-sensical. "

and your statement

"In the Tuebingen study, the authors recommended discarding the fastest 30% of responses, because they were hasty, didn’t read the instructions, and just automatically responded “yes” to all the screens"

You can't, because you just made that up too. Same old, same old.

One on hand, you accuse me of not citing all facts, while I am actually the one literally citing facts, and on the other hand, you just make stuff up to troll me.

casual obsever wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

“Prove?”

Yes, for example prove your statement

" they knew that 43.6% was visibly non-sensical. "

and your statement

"In the Tuebingen study, the authors recommended discarding the fastest 30% of responses, because they were hasty, didn’t read the instructions, and just automatically responded “yes” to all the screens"

You can't, because you just made that up too. Same old, same old.

One on hand, you accuse me of not citing all facts, while I am actually the one literally citing facts, and on the other hand, you just make stuff up to troll me.

But he does give "citations" for what he makes up and doesn't know.

The crackhead consistency with which you post day and night about this one topic indicates a fixity of mind and an obsessiveness common to heavy drug users. Methinks Armstrong protests too much and is exactly the problem he rails against.

Heal thyself, druggie.

The only way to unequivocally determine whether or not the runners are clean is to wait 10 years to verify race results. That would work, right?

casual obsever wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

“Prove?”

Yes, for example prove your statement

" they knew that 43.6% was visibly non-sensical. "

and your statement

"In the Tuebingen study, the authors recommended discarding the fastest 30% of responses, because they were hasty, didn’t read the instructions, and just automatically responded “yes” to all the screens"

You can't, because you just made that up too. Same old, same old.

One on hand, you accuse me of not citing all facts, while I am actually the one literally citing facts, and on the other hand, you just make stuff up to troll me.

You want another spin on the merry-go round?

“We then considered the possibility that athletes with very fast response

times might produce unreliable answers as a result of haste or carelessness (as discussed in the

main text of this paper). “

“This leaves automatic “yes” responding as the only remaining possibility. Although this scenario

would theoretically cause substantial overestimates of the prevalence of doping, this is not a serious

problem because our exercise of deleting up to 30% of fast responders (see Section 3) almost

certainly excluded virtually all of the automatic “yes” responders. Thus our “pure” samples of

the remaining 70% of responders would presumably not be vulnerable to error from automatic

“yes” responding.”

This is how the authors described 43.6% — “unreliable”, “theoretical substantial overestimate”, “serious problem” — one they solved by the exercise of deleting up to 30% of fast responders.

You know all this already.

Indeed I know. Nice obfuscating, but thanks for admitting that there was no evidence for "recommended discarding" and that there was no evidence for 43.6% being "non-sensical". You oh so important cherry-picked statements don't even appear in the paper, and are only mentioned in the appendix, lol. In the paper they actually say instead:

Notice the "some hasty" and the "might".

Here are some more actual statements from the actual paper proving you wrong:

That's pretty much the opposite of 43.6% being non-sensical, even you can't deny that. Obviously a bit on the low side, ok, but "non-sensical"? Hahaha.

And here some other considerations that you prefer to ignore:

Get it? Three reasons as to why the 43.6% is lower than the actual prevalence...

In the authors' own words:

But, you will keep rekrunnering, right?

Thereafter, they discuss less likely scenarios:

And what you continue to try to sell as necessary correction, the authors actually describe as "even conservatively assuming" - not exactly describing a necessity:

They didn't have WADA but Ben Johnson still got busted at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.

rojo togo wrote:

The crackhead consistency with which you post day and night about this one topic indicates a fixity of mind and an obsessiveness common to heavy drug users. Methinks Armstrong protests too much and is exactly the problem he rails against.

Heal thyself, druggie.

You've got the argument right that obsessiveness and fixity of purpose is also characteristic of a drug user, but it isn't going to do much for a 68 year old with a double hip replacement. But you get the picture.