Excellent topic! (And I don't say that much.) I actually thought about starting a similar thread. My OP would have read to the effect that Al must have been one of the greatest coaches ever given the contrast between the exact same athletes with vs. without him.
I am no big Salazar fan and think he was dirty as a runner and since then. I am reasonably certain I am the most anti-Nike reader of this site. So, I am not applauding when I say this. It's like if you have unequivocal proof that whatever political party you don't like dramatically improved the situation you're looking at. You see the results and, in the interest of honesty, have to say they saved the day. That's where I'm coming from.
The difference between Al - Gold medals and record setting - and not Al - also ran status or even inability to finish a race of any distance - cannot be ignored. Hate to say it (really bums me out I even noticed this), and it might all be the juice, but the lack of results speaks for itself.
I think they could've kept Brazier healthy and he'd be dominating the 800 right now. Kejelcha would probably have a couple more medals, though winning gold would be a tall order going up against Jakob and Cheptegei.
Rupp and Centro were already on the downswing after 2019, though the fall off might not have been as severe. I don't think Engels ever had what it takes to be a consistent contender globally. Murphy might have done a little better, but his peak was probably 2016 regardless. Tougher to say with Koko, but given the eating disorder rumors, we can surmise that NOP wouldn't have been good for someone in that situation.
Epo too. See their two stars on the likely (blood) doping list. Combined that's makes for a triple bang
It is extremely unlikely that NOP used Epo from knowing what we know. Given that they got busted for L-Carnitine and AlSal raved about its bloodboosting performance, they wouldn't be using it in combination with another bloodbooster especially one as potent as Epo as it would send the off-score through the stratosphere, it makes no sense to do so.
Its also an assumption to say that it had to be Epo/blood doping because the fancy bear leak was 3 years after the steroidal profile was added to the BioPassport.
You could actually trigger the Passport with a combination of altitude along with a legal L-Carnitine supplementation and then WADA could come knocking asking why your score is so high. And if you provided repeatable results with those two in combination, you're all clear even if the off-score is 1 in 100,000.
Now I don't believe NOP were clean but EPO always seemed like a massive stretch given what we know and what was released in the USADA report
I don't think Engels ever had what it takes to be a consistent contender globally.
While I mostly agree on this, I think his fall from being one of America's top miles to being almost irrelevant domestically wouldn't have been nearly as fast.
It is extremely unlikely that NOP used Epo from knowing what we know. Given that they got busted for L-Carnitine and AlSal raved about its bloodboosting performance, they wouldn't be using it in combination with another bloodbooster especially one as potent as Epo as it would send the off-score through the stratosphere, it makes no sense to do so.
Its also an assumption to say that it had to be Epo/blood doping because the fancy bear leak was 3 years after the steroidal profile was added to the BioPassport.
You could actually trigger the Passport with a combination of altitude along with a legal L-Carnitine supplementation and then WADA could come knocking asking why your score is so high. And if you provided repeatable results with those two in combination, you're all clear even if the off-score is 1 in 100,000.
Now I don't believe NOP were clean but EPO always seemed like a massive stretch given what we know and what was released in the USADA report
Yes, Salazar's focus on blood boosting is well known, but that may point in a different direction than you think. This l-carnitine might have been a little trick to be able to inject everyone with Epo, even those who were opposed to doping.
You cannot trust AlS and NOP do you? Wasn't he known as the testo coach? Recently wada had introduced a new anabolic steroid passport that tracks abnormal changes in hormones over time. It's on wada's social media page. There was however one video posted under one of wada president's post Witold Banka by some ingenius physics expert and he suggested that there could be a better way to expose drug cheats using the graphical method. Here it is attached.