"Good lord."
— Norm Macdonald.
-
23
-
Renato Canova wrote:
You think to know what don't know, and for that reason are a "not renowed" charlatan. And I don't wonder that anybody can't take you seriously.
How I pointed out several times, the competition of who has the higher hb and hct doesn't exist, what exists is the competition of who runs fastest, and this is not connected with the level of hb and hct, otherwise it was not possible for Gelindo Bordin to win OG in marathon (Seoul 1988) with 39.7 (Hct) and 12.7 (hb), or for Christopher Koskei, elder brother of Shaheen, to win (the only kenyan winning Gold) steeple in WCh 1999 with Hct under 40 (I wrote about his training and all his blood data in Atletica Studi n. 2 of 1999, analyzing his training and giving data of blood tests carried out in Torino University, on 16.03 when in medium shape, on 8.07 already in good shape, and on 2.08 soon before winning WCh).
I write here his data again :
16.03------------8.07 (9 days) 2.08 (4 days at sea level)
(after 12 days at sea level)
WBC 4.98------------ 5.50------------5.44
RBC 4.45------------ 3.96------------3.86
HGB 13.4------------12.3------------11.6
HCT 42.8------------40.6----------- 38.8
MCV 96.2------------102.4----------100.6
MCH 34.5------------32.0-----------31.4
PLT 366------------388------------328
So, Christopher won WCh in steeple with 38.8 Hct and 11.6 Hb, and Shaheen too never had Hct higher than 42.5.
It's clear that, for athletes at international level, who are able to win or to better WR with low Hct, there is some other value compensating, because the body needs to have a balance between the various values.
One of the data is the total volume of blood, that normally is not considered by the researchers looking mainly at Hb and Hct. Athletes able to compete at max level, with low Hct, are able to increase of 25% the total volume of blood from when are not trained, and this is one of the factor characterizing the talent of this kind of athletes.
Another factor showing the superficiality of people looking at the level of Hct as most important factor : Hct is a number representing a percentage, not an absolute objective data, and is made with the multiplication of the number of RBC per their MCV (Mean Corpuscular Volume). Therefore, you can have Hct 40 because of 4,000 RBC with MCV = 100, or because 5,000 RBC with MCV = 80. Do you think athletes with the same Hct, but so different data regarding the number of Erytrocytes and the average volume, can have the same "way" of using their data ?
In all this analysis, I repeat again : NEVER there is some analysis for understanding the role of proper training, and the limit of proper training. I'm sure there is a limit in the physiological changes that is possible to reach with training, and that can't be further implemented using any type of blood manipulation, that can work only if the training is far from the physiological possible limit.
Thx for taking your time to share this knowledge with us.
41 -
I do remember that your comment was that top athletes living and training properly at altitude would not benefit from EPO. But I see three problems with that statement.
The first is that I've never seen any other physiologist make that claim. The two I asked specifically about this idea, both of whom study runner's physiology, told me the idea is nonsense. But let's say they really don't know. There are two more problems.
Even if the idea is correct it does nothing to tell us anything about the performance of a particular athlete, i.e., if we see someone from altitude and properly trained run a 2:03 plus marathon are we seeing a "top athlete" who cannot benefit from EPO and would run no faster if he used it or are we seeing a "slightly less than top athlete" who might "only" run 2:05 but who's gotten to 2:03 by using EPO?
And the last problem I see here is that you claim to know the properly trained top athletes living at altitude can't benefit from using EPO. There really is just one way to know such a thing. I can only read such a comment as strong evidence that EPO is being used, effectively in some cases and ineffectively in others.
52 -
Renato Canova wrote:
Coevett, the last competition of Kimutai and Kisorio were in 2019. After that time, because of COVID, they didn't have any more contract with any management, and for that reason they quitted running.
Justus Kipkosgei Kimutai : last race in Taiyuan on 8 Sep 2019 (marathon in 2:09:46)
Mathew Kisorio : last race in Beijing on 3 Nov 2019 (marathon in 2:07:06).
Without any opportunity to compete (the only markes for those athletes was China, but in the last two years 95% of marathons were cancelled in the Country), they went back to their main activity : to be FARMERS, and a farmer doesn't have any clue about whereabouts as athlete, when is no longer an athlete.
Different is the case of Morris Munene Gachaga, still in full activity and in younger age.
Anyway, what you continue not to understand is that the different basic situation in Kenya, compared with western Countries, is connected with a totaly different mentality. If you are a Kenyan running 2:07, you are not a Professional Athlete, you are a Farmer.
These are the times of Kenyan athletes for the Kenyan lists in the last 4 years, in position 30 and 50 :
2018 : 2:07:28 (30) - 2:08:43 (50)
2019 : 2:06:59 (30) - 2:08:22 (50)
2020 : 2:10:23 (30) - 2:13:16 (50)
2021 : 2:06:56 (30) - 2:08:25 (50)
In 2020 there were very little opportunities to compete because of the cancellation of the most part of Marathons in the world, and many athletes of medium-high level decided to quit training because no chances of competing (Kisorio and Kimutai among them).
Athletes in top 30 in Kenya are not in any official international whereabouts (WADA and AIU). They are in the National Whereabouts, and with not systemic training (such as happened during the COVID period) don't have the mentality to be "prisoners" of a daily window obliging them to be at home, every day, at the same time. The normal life for a normal person in Kenya doesn't work in that way.
To put these cases at the same level of the case of missed tests of Coleman, sprinters earning millions dollars per year, and leaving in US, is an insult to a normal intellingence of every person, and, because you are not stupid, I kindly invite you to be more flexible, considering which is the real life for those athletes in Kenya, comparing with the life, and the MUSTS, of some European or American athletes able to run their same times, in continents where you are in top 5 with with that level of perfrmances.
Renato, can you help them flee to China?
02 -
Renato Canova wrote:
You think to know what don't know, and for that reason are a "not renowed" charlatan. And I don't wonder that anybody can't take you seriously.
How I pointed out several times, the competition of who has the higher hb and hct doesn't exist, what exists is the competition of who runs fastest, and this is not connected with the level of hb and hct, otherwise it was not possible for Gelindo Bordin to win OG in marathon (Seoul 1988) with 39.7 (Hct) and 12.7 (hb), or for Christopher Koskei, elder brother of Shaheen, to win (the only kenyan winning Gold) steeple in WCh 1999 with Hct under 40 (I wrote about his training and all his blood data in Atletica Studi n. 2 of 1999, analyzing his training and giving data of blood tests carried out in Torino University, on 16.03 when in medium shape, on 8.07 already in good shape, and on 2.08 soon before winning WCh).
I write here his data again :
16.03------------8.07 (9 days) 2.08 (4 days at sea level)
(after 12 days at sea level)
WBC 4.98------------ 5.50------------5.44
RBC 4.45------------ 3.96------------3.86
HGB 13.4------------12.3------------11.6
HCT 42.8------------40.6----------- 38.8
MCV 96.2------------102.4----------100.6
MCH 34.5------------32.0-----------31.4
PLT 366------------388------------328
So, Christopher won WCh in steeple with 38.8 Hct and 11.6 Hb, and Shaheen too never had Hct higher than 42.5.
It's clear that, for athletes at international level, who are able to win or to better WR with low Hct, there is some other value compensating, because the body needs to have a balance between the various values.
One of the data is the total volume of blood, that normally is not considered by the researchers looking mainly at Hb and Hct. Athletes able to compete at max level, with low Hct, are able to increase of 25% the total volume of blood from when are not trained, and this is one of the factor characterizing the talent of this kind of athletes.
Another factor showing the superficiality of people looking at the level of Hct as most important factor : Hct is a number representing a percentage, not an absolute objective data, and is made with the multiplication of the number of RBC per their MCV (Mean Corpuscular Volume). Therefore, you can have Hct 40 because of 4,000 RBC with MCV = 100, or because 5,000 RBC with MCV = 80. Do you think athletes with the same Hct, but so different data regarding the number of Erytrocytes and the average volume, can have the same "way" of using their data ?
In all this analysis, I repeat again : NEVER there is some analysis for understanding the role of proper training, and the limit of proper training. I'm sure there is a limit in the physiological changes that is possible to reach with training, and that can't be further implemented using any type of blood manipulation, that can work only if the training is far from the physiological possible limit.
Give it a rest, cheater
20 -
Fassinatimg wrote:
Armstronglivs wrote:
Fascinating, how cases involving some Kenyan also-rans provokes such debate on these threads about what we already know, that the country has - and still has, it appears - chronic doping issues.
Fascinating how your post added nothing to the conversation.
Thank you for your post and patience, Renato.
True. I added nothing to the relentless protestations of Kenyan innocence.
22 -
rekrunner wrote:
Armstronglivs wrote:
Fascinating, how cases involving some Kenyan also-rans provokes such debate on these threads about what we already know, that the country has - and still has, it appears - chronic doping issues.
Same can be said for many countries.
I'm glad you agree about Kenya. Yes, there are a number of countries where doping is rife. Kenya is amongst them.
11 -
HRE wrote:
I do remember that your comment was that top athletes living and training properly at altitude would not benefit from EPO. But I see three problems with that statement.
The first is that I've never seen any other physiologist make that claim. The two I asked specifically about this idea, both of whom study runner's physiology, told me the idea is nonsense. But let's say they really don't know. There are two more problems.
Even if the idea is correct it does nothing to tell us anything about the performance of a particular athlete, i.e., if we see someone from altitude and properly trained run a 2:03 plus marathon are we seeing a "top athlete" who cannot benefit from EPO and would run no faster if he used it or are we seeing a "slightly less than top athlete" who might "only" run 2:05 but who's gotten to 2:03 by using EPO?
And the last problem I see here is that you claim to know the properly trained top athletes living at altitude can't benefit from using EPO. There really is just one way to know such a thing. I can only read such a comment as strong evidence that EPO is being used, effectively in some cases and ineffectively in others.
In a nutshell.
21 -
Passant wrote:
Kenyan and East African have the advantage of being born and living in altitude.
But there were years where they used others methods to enhance the difference between them and other nations.
Really? Which years? And please give examples of these "clean" athletes from other nations that were denied glory by chemically-enhanced Kenyans.
12 -
Coevett wrote:
Drug cheat Matthew Kisorio, as well as Justus Kimutai and Morris Gachaga, have been handed suspensions for whereabouts failures. Kisorio had already served a four-year doping suspension. Gachaga, a marathon runner started his two-year suspension on March 4, 2022. Results from his races from December 13, 2021, are disqualified.
Athletics fans may recall that Kisorio tested positive for steroids at the 2012 Kenyan Athletics Championships. At the time he admitted to doping. The now 32-year-old made headlines by saying that Kenyan medical staff administered doping to athletes.They were not cheating , they were put in a position where certain regulations may have been unintentionally crossed .
02 -
Armstronglivs wrote:
rekrunner wrote:
Same can be said for many countries.
I'm glad you agree about Kenya. Yes, there are a number of countries where doping is rife. Kenya is amongst them.
Words like "rife" and "rampant" are highly subjective to interpretation.
Whenever we've seen (blood doping) prevalence by country expressed as a percentage, Kenya's "rife" doping is about average.
21 -
HRE wrote:
I do remember that your comment was that top athletes living and training properly at altitude would not benefit from EPO. But I see three problems with that statement.
The first is that I've never seen any other physiologist make that claim. The two I asked specifically about this idea, both of whom study runner's physiology, told me the idea is nonsense. But let's say they really don't know. There are two more problems.
Even if the idea is correct it does nothing to tell us anything about the performance of a particular athlete, i.e., if we see someone from altitude and properly trained run a 2:03 plus marathon are we seeing a "top athlete" who cannot benefit from EPO and would run no faster if he used it or are we seeing a "slightly less than top athlete" who might "only" run 2:05 but who's gotten to 2:03 by using EPO?
And the last problem I see here is that you claim to know the properly trained top athletes living at altitude can't benefit from using EPO. There really is just one way to know such a thing. I can only read such a comment as strong evidence that EPO is being used, effectively in some cases and ineffectively in others.
There are problems with your problems:
1) Has any physiologist actually enhanced the performance of top athletes, including the two you asked, with or without doping? Using your standard, "there really is just one way to know such a thing." Which physiologist would know? You need to poll coaches of top athletes. (See also most papers on doping and performance, and jump to the limitations section, where researchers often concede they don't really know about the performance of elite athletes.)
2) In other words, any athlete can be doped, or clean, and fans like you and others cannot tell which from the performance alone. We could just as easily ask, could Jeptoo and Shobukova have run a few minutes faster, like Paula, without doping, but with enough proper training at altitude? This is because we don't know the relation between doping and top running performance. We don't know if the relation is significant, insignificant, positive, negative, or neutral. This is because decades of doping/performance research hasn't tested the right subjects, and they don't accurately simulated the pre-conditions and conditions necessary to represent the conditions of a 2:03 marathon, normalized to the subjects they do test.
3) Renato didn't "claim to know", but (e.g. see Kelsall's interview) says "I think ...", and often claims he doesn't have proof of his stated opinion.
13 -
Reading these threads and you would think that the running community largely agrees that Kenya has no doping problem, and that anybody who thinks that they do is racist, or at least holding some kind of extreme view.
Thankfully, in the real world...
13 -
Coevett wrote:
Reading these threads and you would think that the running community largely agrees that Kenya has no doping problem, and that anybody who thinks that they do is racist, or at least holding some kind of extreme view.
Thankfully, in the real world...
The issue some of us have with you is you are beyond obsessed with Kenyans doping and yet you deny that the white men from the UK would ever consider such a thing. Or the white men from Norway. If it is not racism could you please explain what the hell it is?
21 -
El Keniano wrote:
Passant wrote:
Kenyan and East African have the advantage of being born and living in altitude.
But there were years where they used others methods to enhance the difference between them and other nations.
Really? Which years? And please give examples of these "clean" athletes from other nations that were denied glory by chemically-enhanced Kenyans.
Sydney 2000. Clean as a whistle El G robbed of glory by Ngeny.
05 -
Heore wrote:
Coevett wrote:
Reading these threads and you would think that the running community largely agrees that Kenya has no doping problem, and that anybody who thinks that they do is racist, or at least holding some kind of extreme view.
Thankfully, in the real world...
The issue some of us have with you is you are beyond obsessed with Kenyans doping and yet you deny that the white men from the UK would ever consider such a thing. Or the white men from Norway. If it is not racism could you please explain what the hell it is?
Massive exaggeration. I am the first and only person online to report in English that the coach of Beyer, Straub, Harold was convicted in reunified Germany of administering illegal substances to a 14 year old female athlete (defended by RekRunner). Last I checked, most people from lower Saxony are white. As are Cacho etc. If Finnish runners taking reindeer milk were winning everything today I would be just as 'obsessed' with them. I even once expressed my suspicion here over David Moorcroft and his remarkable 5000m WR, but it was explained to me about his injury problems and I'm satisfied with that.
Corruption and financial incentives, together with lower standards of testing (still non-existent in Epiopia), mean that doping is likely to be massively more of a problem in East Africa than elsewhere, and that's been proven after 150+ doping cases including multiple Olympic champions and WR holders.
The other thing is that nobody ever claimed that Finnish runners in the 70's were 'natural born runners' or that women from lower saxony in the Cold War had superwoman genes (other than diehard Nazis). I'm a 'racist' and 'obsessed' for pointing out thay the confirmed rampant EPO doping culture in Kenya disproves the 'superman' myth that destroyed a generation of Western children's athletics dreams, and came close to killing our sport.
03 -
Regarding Rekrunner's claim that the lack of Russian distance running champions in the EPO era proves that EPO doesn't work - this just demonstrates your psuedo-scientific manner of argument.
Firstly, Russian women did pretty well if I remember. Secondly, the EPO era ended just as Putin came to power. Thirdly, perhaps you remember a certain men's 800m Olympic Champion whose name began with B? Fourthly, have you ever tried getting in your 100 mile weeks in Moscow or St Petersburg during November to March? Doesn't really compare to Iten. Fifthly, at the 2000 Olympics, Russia finished in second place in the medal table, winning 89 medals in over 20 different sports. Kenya finished in 29th place with 7 medals, all in distance running. Does this make sense to you?
Why would Russia devote resources to men's distance running when Morocco had a state sponsored doping program exclusively focused on men's distance running, and hundreds of Kenyan male distance runners were likely full throttle doping with no testing? Why not just focus on race walkers, shot putters, and swimmers, as they did? Their only interest was in the medal table. If Russia was just a chaotic doping free for all, as Kenya is, then you might see more elite male distance runners.
02 -
Coevett wrote:
I am the first and only person online to report in English that the coach of Beyer, Straub, Harold was convicted in reunified Germany of administering illegal substances to a 14 year old female athlete (defended by RekRunner).
HAHAHAHA you are so wrong! You? The first and only?
Big nope!01 -
Heore wrote:
Coevett wrote:
Reading these threads and you would think that the running community largely agrees that Kenya has no doping problem, and that anybody who thinks that they do is racist, or at least holding some kind of extreme view.
Thankfully, in the real world...
The issue some of us have with you is you are beyond obsessed with Kenyans doping and yet you deny that the white men from the UK would ever consider such a thing. Or the white men from Norway. If it is not racism could you please explain what the hell it is?
Nobody is saying 'white men from UK or Norway would never dope'.
It's just that they're not being caught in bus loads like Kenyans are. If we started seeing positive after positive from British athletes, then you would have to say that there was a problem.
Until then, it's probably best to focus on the countries that can't seem to go a few weeks without another scandal, despite not even having a proper testing program.
21 -
trollism wrote:
Heore wrote:
The issue some of us have with you is you are beyond obsessed with Kenyans doping and yet you deny that the white men from the UK would ever consider such a thing. Or the white men from Norway. If it is not racism could you please explain what the hell it is?
Nobody is saying 'white men from UK or Norway would never dope'.
It's just that they're not being caught in bus loads like Kenyans are. If we started seeing positive after positive from British athletes, then you would have to say that there was a problem.
Until then, it's probably best to focus on the countries that can't seem to go a few weeks without another scandal, despite not even having a proper testing program.
The problem is, no one is looking to test the #89 British marathoner who just happened to retire two years ago, devoting all his time to dairy farming, and can no longer be bothered to file whereabouts.
11
What People Are Talking About On LetsRun
Hot Now
Of General Interest
-
Matt Fox/SweatElite harasses one of his clients after they called him out
-
Sometimes it seems like Cooper Teare is not that good BUT…
-
2024 College Track & Field Open Coaching Positions Discussion
-
Per sources, Colorado expected to hire NAU assistant coach Jarred Cornfield as head xc coach
-
Ingebrigtsen brothers release incredibly catchy Olympic music video (listen here + full lyrics)