OED wrote:
I’m responding to the shotgun tactic you employ in every doping/Renato thread that you respond to. Don’t create the problem and then cry about how it affects you. Also you do know doping includes more than EPO, right? I assumed you would but your arguments strongly suggest otherwise.
Nice of you to continue to ignore the fact that the Times report only applied to in competition testing.
You seriously misunderstand the nature of doping especially pre-2000. The drugs didn’t come with a manual explaining in exact detail how they were to be used to enhance performance. That was something separate groups did individually through their own trial and error (think of Salazar and his micro-dosing efforts later on only much more primitive and with far less info available). As such, there was a huge risk that you would be caught if you didn’t know exactly what you were doing, especially in countries with serious out of competition testing programs. Kenyans didn’t have that. They were playing by a different set of rules than everyone else, which they used to their advantage.
Oh and your continued reliance on Ngugi’s suspension as definitive proof that testing in Kenya was the same as everywhere else during that period is laughable. Here is a good article explaining the unique difficulties in trying to test Kenyans including the fact that for years officials have had to give advance notice they were coming in order to ensure the athletes would appear. This was the situation long before the date of the article. Additionally, because of just how difficult it was to test athletes in a country without a lab, it happened far less often and to far fewer Kenyans. Show me one other country in the world that enjoyed the same privilege. There is a whole lot you can get away with when you can plan ahead and when the odds are low you will even be tested.I will say this. Huge props to AK for taking this somewhat seriously now.
I'm crying about a problem I created?
I do know doping includes more than EPO, but if the discussion is about whether "EPO works" (weren't we talking about Renato's claim?), then EPO is the topic under discussion.
I don't think it is a fact that the Sunday Times reporting only applies to in-competition blood testing. On the contrary, for the blood collected by the IAAF between 2001-2009, researchers wrote that it included out of competition blood samples: "A total of 7289 blood samples were collected from 2737 athletes out of and during international athletic competitions." And "About 5% of the athletes had been tested at an altitude higher than 2000 m. Most of these tests were performed out-of-competition, while the athletes were living or training on the high plateaus of East Africa." And "the 3-week precompetition whereabouts reported by the athletes who were tested during the 2005 and 2007 World Championships in Athletics, 4% were locations with altitudes above 2000 m."
Regardless of the nature of doping, before 2000, there was no risk of getting caught with EPO -- worldwide. Nor blood transfusions.
Like so many others, you don't really seem to make any distinction between OOC blood testing (logistic difficulty transporting blood samples to a lab within a short time frame) and OOC urine testing (no such logistic difficulties). Your SI article is about blood testing -- something that was only relevant after the ABP, for about 8 years between 2010 and 2018, when the Nairobi lab was opened, and not for 35+ years and certainly not before 2000. This was a problem, but a small problem considering most positive tests come from in-competition urine tests.
My reference to Ngugi as far back as 1993 is about OOC urine tests, which have existed in Kenya like everywhere else, including OOC urine tests from 2002 for EPO. From your SI article: "Advance notice is only given in Kenya for some ABP testing, Barber said. Athletes get no advance notice for all other anti-doping tests, including the collection of urine samples, that don't have to reach labs so quickly."