The best source of what "rekrunner" points out are posts written by me. Among the worst are posts written by "Coevett".
What I will point out in this 3-year old thread which was bumped:
This whole thread is misguided, by attempting to create a false dichotomy between genetics and doping, and ignoring other factors, like environmental.
"Borderline" is a little confused about marathon history, as when EPO hit the scene, the marathon record didn't move until 1998. It moved a little further with Paul Tergat by 2005 (with a time still unmatched today by any non-African), and a little further again with Haile Gebrselassie by 2008, who showed us what he could still do in the marathon, at the end of a long 17-year career at the top. It was only when younger athletes started skipping the track and going to the marathon fresh in their careers, that this record started dropping significantly, followed again by the introduction of carbon-fiber plated, thickly-soled shoes.
I never looked at Antarctica, nor athletes from outer-Mongolia specifically. I looked at all performances worldwide spanning more than three decades, including the entirety of the EPO-era from a fairly complete dataset. Between 1990 and 2018, I found 9 non-Africans faster than Steve Jones and Carlos Lopes of 2:07:12/13. I also found only 6 North Africans faster, and 3 South Africans faster. If these are clean performances, that means the best EPO performances among these selected groups worldwide over nearly three decades are slower. But presumably, these performances are the upper limit of what EPO could do for most of the world, for three decades, outside of East Africa. The best of the non-Africans then was about 1 minute faster (Brazilian Ronald De Costa from 1998), and North Africans were about 30-40 seconds faster by 2009. Since my look at performances in 2018, the Japanese have pushed this best another 30+ seconds, with Kengo Suzuki running 2:04:56, about 36 years after Jones/Lopes, and about 2 minutes faster, and still 1 second slower than Paul Tergat.
One possibility is that, despite the strong belief as a powerful endurance drug, EPO and blood doping simply wasn't used, with a few rare exceptions, for three decades, across 5-continents, and North and South Africa.
But if you asked me, athletes like Ryan Hall, Sondre Moen, and the Robertson Twins indicate that clean non-East Africans can still do much better than they have, if they can commit to living and training at altitude, not just for 3-4 weeks, but for extended periods lasting months and years.
Word salad. But still your attempt to make doping effectively disappear - like magic.
Is "word salad" code for a concession that you don't understand the nuance?
I only talked about performances. Nothing in my look at the quantity and quality of non-African marathon performances from 1985-2021 prevents you from believing in doping, wherever and whenever you want to believe it exists.
I don't see how the doping cases kenya question the genetic superiority of east africans for runnning.
If their dominance was only due to doping, how do you explain that all other nations in the world combined, (that's like 95% of total human population), can't compete despite having case of doping themselves. Let's say there is a doping culture in Kenya more than everywhere else. Still all the dopers in the world combined is probably a way larger number than kenyan dopers or even east africans dopers. But if you do east africa vs rest of the world in an all dopers contest, they still win everything from 3000m to marathon everytime. And often 800-1500 also.
So what are your explainations? Is doping more sophisticated there? I doubt it.
Also why would only this region of africa be affected by this doping that make them so superior? Why would dirty coachs, agents and scientist not go in other countries in africa that have the same incentives to win money through running, to provide runners with PEDs and have the same success? Why dozens of nigerians would't run 2:06 or faster? Still nothing to do with morphology, altitude, genetics, culture etc?
Sure of lot of them are doping. Now many get caughts, it's not like it's a big suprise. What does it change? Probably we can say they steal money in subelite races by cheating vs non dopers. But in majors races and championships, you think all other competitors from everywhere but east Africa are clean? I bet 90% or more medalists are doper, wherever they come from.
+1 (if you replace "genetics superiority" with "genetics+environment")
Even more telling, putting African uniqueness aside, is that this 95% struggles to surpass their 1980s-era predecessors, despite all the doping and non-doping advances.
Rekrunner uses cherry picked stats, using his own artificially defined groups, underpinned by his nonsensical evaluative woke judgement that all nationalites dope at exactly the same rate at all times everywhere (and it's 'racist' to suggest otherwise), to come up with a conclusion that virtually no scientist takes seriously - that PEDs do not enhance performance. Nor should it be taken seriously given the mountain of contrary studies confirming peds enhance performance, the science that explains why PEDs would work, and the common sense observation that PEDs do work. But his skill as a sophist is such that he goads others into thinking they need to prove to HIM that peds do in fact enhance performance, and that HIS belief is the most science based and rational. This is impossible to do, given that he claims that every study on peds that contradicts his belief system is 'of poor quality' or has some fault to it. Despite this, an ad hoc poll on LetsRun in which a majority of anonymous users, some paid shills, some doping apologists, and no doubt using multiple accounts to vote more than once, is apparently scientific proof that El G was clean as a whistle.
I don't see how the doping cases kenya question the genetic superiority of east africans for runnning.
If their dominance was only due to doping, how do you explain that all other nations in the world combined, (that's like 95% of total human population), can't compete despite having case of doping themselves. Let's say there is a doping culture in Kenya more than everywhere else. Still all the dopers in the world combined is probably a way larger number than kenyan dopers or even east africans dopers. But if you do east africa vs rest of the world in an all dopers contest, they still win everything from 3000m to marathon everytime. And often 800-1500 also.
So what are your explainations? Is doping more sophisticated there? I doubt it.
Also why would only this region of africa be affected by this doping that make them so superior? Why would dirty coachs, agents and scientist not go in other countries in africa that have the same incentives to win money through running, to provide runners with PEDs and have the same success? Why dozens of nigerians would't run 2:06 or faster? Still nothing to do with morphology, altitude, genetics, culture etc?
Sure of lot of them are doping. Now many get caughts, it's not like it's a big suprise. What does it change? Probably we can say they steal money in subelite races by cheating vs non dopers. But in majors races and championships, you think all other competitors from everywhere but east Africa are clean? I bet 90% or more medalists are doper, wherever they come from.
+1 (if you replace "genetics superiority" with "genetics+environment")
Even more telling, putting African uniqueness aside, is that this 95% struggles to surpass their 1980s-era predecessors, despite all the doping and non-doping advances.
The only thing that tells us is that the rest of the world didn't jump on the EPO train like the Africans did, and participation levels and interest in the sport fell off a cliff when doped up Africans began dominating. BTW, not only do the current generation 'struggle' to beat their 1980's predecessors, not one Kenyan today would be able to beat the best Britons at 800 or 1500m from 40 years ago. And why is it that Kenyans today can't get near their predecessors of only 10 years ago since the ABP and proper EPO testing?
You guys are the equivalent of some demented white supremacist who maintained that Harvard University being 90% white was still proof of higher white IQ AFTER a scandal broke that revealed that White applicants had been admitted with inferior grades or such like The only difference is that the demented white supremacist would probably not have the gall to accuse anybody who disagreed with him of being a 'racist'.
Just pointing this out. EPO hit the scene and the world record went from 2:09 to 2:01 in a matter of 20 years. Yet we are supposed to think these athletes are just getting better by magic.
But as Rekrunner often points out, marathon times in Outer Mongolia and Antartica did not improve so rapidly during the EPO era, therefore peds have no effect on performance and the only explanation is that Kenyans are an off shoot of homo sapiens with no sense of time. So unless you were born in the Rift Valley, you need to give up athletics and take up table-tennis instead, as you haven't a chance of competing with these natural born running beasts of nature.
The dullards and deniers here think that because it is difficult to know where a line can be drawn between a doped and a clean performance that doping hasn't overtaken the sport. It has. It is easy to dope. It is difficult to get caught - unless one is careless or dumb. The incentive to dope is always there - and at virtually any level, as we see in both college and senior sport.
You write this but all those Cold War era women’s records are standing firm. Valerie Adams’ lifetime best in the shot put is still just 183rd on the all-time list. It’s almost as if it was easier to dope 20-40 years ago than it is now.
The dullards and deniers here think that because it is difficult to know where a line can be drawn between a doped and a clean performance that doping hasn't overtaken the sport. It has. It is easy to dope. It is difficult to get caught - unless one is careless or dumb. The incentive to dope is always there - and at virtually any level, as we see in both college and senior sport.
You write this but all those Cold War era women’s records are standing firm. Valerie Adams’ lifetime best in the shot put is still just 183rd on the all-time list. It’s almost as if it was easier to dope 20-40 years ago than it is now.
Or 50 years ago. There are 79 (10 indoors) better performances from the 1970s).
+1 (if you replace "genetics superiority" with "genetics+environment")
Even more telling, putting African uniqueness aside, is that this 95% struggles to surpass their 1980s-era predecessors, despite all the doping and non-doping advances.
The only thing that tells us is that the rest of the world didn't jump on the EPO train like the Africans did, and participation levels and interest in the sport fell off a cliff when doped up Africans began dominating. BTW, not only do the current generation 'struggle' to beat their 1980's predecessors, not one Kenyan today would be able to beat the best Britons at 800 or 1500m from 40 years ago. And why is it that Kenyans today can't get near their predecessors of only 10 years ago since the ABP and proper EPO testing?
You write this but all those Cold War era women’s records are standing firm. Valerie Adams’ lifetime best in the shot put is still just 183rd on the all-time list. It’s almost as if it was easier to dope 20-40 years ago than it is now.
Of course doping was easier in the 70s ("controls" basically just started, and only in-competition) and 80s (blood transfusions still legal in the first half, no ooc testing in the 1st half), and federations including ours would still cover up their positive tests in the 90s.
Cases in point: only one East German was ever caught during their state doping, 1:41 and 1:53 during the 80s, Ma's army during the 90s etc. etc.
What's better for the dopers now compared to the Cold War era are the drugs they can use (with caution though), including EPO and HGH.
Rekrunner uses cherry picked stats, using his own artificially defined groups, underpinned by his nonsensical evaluative woke judgement that all nationalites dope at exactly the same rate at all times everywhere (and it's 'racist' to suggest otherwise), to come up with a conclusion that virtually no scientist takes seriously - that PEDs do not enhance performance. Nor should it be taken seriously given the mountain of contrary studies confirming peds enhance performance, the science that explains why PEDs would work, and the common sense observation that PEDs do work. But his skill as a sophist is such that he goads others into thinking they need to prove to HIM that peds do in fact enhance performance, and that HIS belief is the most science based and rational. This is impossible to do, given that he claims that every study on peds that contradicts his belief system is 'of poor quality' or has some fault to it. Despite this, an ad hoc poll on LetsRun in which a majority of anonymous users, some paid shills, some doping apologists, and no doubt using multiple accounts to vote more than once, is apparently scientific proof that El G was clean as a whistle.
Wow -- there's a lot to unpack there. By definition, it is nonsense to argue that performance enhancing drugs do not enhance performance. I would never make such a nonsense argument.
Are there better non-cherry picked stats using non-artificially defined groups that show just how well any PEDs worked in the EPO-era for the best non-East Africans worldwide in the last three decades to improve their best performances?
Recall at the time, I was partly looking at claims that EPO works on Kenyans and Ethiopians like it works on everybody else. This was the motivation to look at the two groups separately -- to see how well EPO could be said to work on "everybody else". I explained that clearly at the time.
Regarding performance doping research, I am in full agreement with scientists who conduct PED research, who qualify in a limitations section that their study observations cannot be projected onto elite athletes and elite performances.
Regarding the quality of PED performance research, with time trials, I compare these studies similar altitude research (e.g. 1997 Stray-Gundersen "hi-lo" study), and find it easy to see major design flaws, and lack of best practice, in the doping-performance studies.
The result of the 1997 altitude study was that "hi-lo" works, and to a lesser extent "hi-hi" works. Athletes world-wide from all nations train at altitude, but also not the same rate at all times everywhere.
I'm a big believer that more non-Africans should take the Robertson twin's route, or Ryan Hall, or Sondre Moen, and spend years living and training at altitude.
".. it is nonsense to argue that performance enhancing drugs do not enhance performance. I would never make such a nonsense argument."(quote)
That is exactly the nonsense you have repeatedly argued, by maintaining it is only "faith" and "belief" - and thus not fact - that drugs enhance performance.
BTW, not only do the current generation 'struggle' to beat their 1980's predecessors, not one Kenyan today would be able to beat the best Britons at 800 or 1500m from 40 years ago. And why is it that Kenyans today can't get near their predecessors of only 10 years ago since the ABP and proper EPO testing?
what are you talking about? Rudisha is Japenese? Kipchoge is Spanish? Kiplimo and Cheptegei are Canadians? All WR holder in the 800, 5k, 10k, half marathon and marathon are east africans, all did it in the last ten years.
They did not get caught doping but according to you they were/are 100% doping because they are East Africans? that is you argument ? While Coe was clean because he is a fellow Brit citizen, right? At this point the probability of being clean/doped is the same for both case.
The dullards and deniers here think that because it is difficult to know where a line can be drawn between a doped and a clean performance that doping hasn't overtaken the sport. It has. It is easy to dope. It is difficult to get caught - unless one is careless or dumb. The incentive to dope is always there - and at virtually any level, as we see in both college and senior sport.
You write this but all those Cold War era women’s records are standing firm. Valerie Adams’ lifetime best in the shot put is still just 183rd on the all-time list. It’s almost as if it was easier to dope 20-40 years ago than it is now.
Those Cold War records aren't standing firm. The only ones that remain from the early '80's are the women's 400m and 800m. There are records that still stand from the so-called "EPO era" of the '90s - when there was no test for the drug. The increase in testing in the last 20 or so years means that doping is more subtle today, through varieties of micro-dosing. (But that isn't the case in those countries that rarely test their athletes). As WADA heads have acknowledged - the dopers remain ahead of antidoping. It is everywhere and in all sports today.
+1 (if you replace "genetics superiority" with "genetics+environment")
Even more telling, putting African uniqueness aside, is that this 95% struggles to surpass their 1980s-era predecessors, despite all the doping and non-doping advances.
The only thing that tells us is that the rest of the world didn't jump on the EPO train like the Africans did, and participation levels and interest in the sport fell off a cliff when doped up Africans began dominating. BTW, not only do the current generation 'struggle' to beat their 1980's predecessors, not one Kenyan today would be able to beat the best Britons at 800 or 1500m from 40 years ago. And why is it that Kenyans today can't get near their predecessors of only 10 years ago since the ABP and proper EPO testing?
It's tempting to think that only East Africans took EPO, to help reinforce your beliefs.
But this attitude looks more like sour grapes coming from non-Africans rather than any rational conclusion based on facts and observations.
One main reason Kenyans today have declined on the track is that money has dried, and Kenyans have moved to the roads. In the last 10 years, Kenyans have been setting records on the road from 5K to the marathon.
But having said that, Nicholas Kimeli and Jacob Krop both ran 12:46 in 2022 in Rome.
You keep looking at 800m and 1500m -- an event which nearly reached its current level pretty much in the '80s, with few exceptions since.
I don't know man, they have tiny skeletal frames with optimal bone/fat/muscle ratio AND they live at high altitude. It's been shown that lots of E Africans dope, but you can't deny they also have the perfect storm of environment and physiology to run well.
".. it is nonsense to argue that performance enhancing drugs do not enhance performance. I would never make such a nonsense argument."(quote)
That is exactly the nonsense you have repeatedly argued, by maintaining it is only "faith" and "belief" - and thus not fact - that drugs enhance performance.
By definition, "performance enhancing drugs" can only include drugs that "enhance performance".
My arguments are much more intelligent than denying tautologies.
They only become nonsense after they make one loop through your brain, and come back out of your mouth.