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"Lance" era of t&f athletics. 800 suspicious samples.
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http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/athletics/33749208

800 out of 5000 athletes, some of them medal winners, having highly suspicious blood values.
I think this only shows the substances which have an effect on red blood cells, so mostly endurance athletes. How about the power and speed side?

Is this what eventually happens for professional sports organizations trying to maintain their image (and sponsorships)? IAAF has to know there is a huge problem cooking here.
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Re: "Lance" era of t&f athletics. 800 suspicious samples. [jezco] [ In reply to ]
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Another report in it here - http://www.theguardian.com/...ng-new-doping-crisis

Sounds like it's endurance events, and that a third of world and Olympic medals won in that period are associated with suspicious samples. Doesn't really say what "suspicious" means though.

Not really in the least bit surprising. Doping would seem to offer plenty of benefits to endurance runners, the money on offer is good enough to justify the risk (especially as so many runners come from poor countries), and the testing regime is less rigorous than in cycling. In fact, the surprising thing would be if two thirds of the medal winners were actually clean!
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Re: "Lance" era of t&f athletics. 800 suspicious samples. [jezco] [ In reply to ]
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I'm not sure why anyone thinks this is surprising or doesn't happen or is not as endemic as its repeatedly proven to be

the value of all these sports relative to the amount spent on testing makes that testing regime barely a rounding error on the sums available

repeatedly governing bodies have been demonstrated to be unwilling to be transparent with respect to doping in their sports - until testing is completely independent of the sports, funding is increased to more accurately reflect the value of the sports these things will continue
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Re: "Lance" era of t&f athletics. 800 suspicious samples. [Andrewmc] [ In reply to ]
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Andrewmc wrote:
I'm not sure why anyone thinks this is surprising or doesn't happen or is not as endemic as its repeatedly proven to be

the value of all these sports relative to the amount spent on testing makes that testing regime barely a rounding error on the sums available

repeatedly governing bodies have been demonstrated to be unwilling to be transparent with respect to doping in their sports - until testing is completely independent of the sports, funding is increased to more accurately reflect the value of the sports these things will continue

This is what I wrote on my friend's FB page on this topic:

WTF is this quote? "According to Ashenden, the files show that athletics is now in the same "diabolical position" as cycling during the Lance Armstrong era. He said it was "a shameful betrayal of (the IAAF's) primary duty to police their sport and to protect clean athletes".

What's the "IS NOW" part. Do these guys have their heads in the sand or do they not realize that the 1500m record has been static since 1995-1998 time frame (El Gherouj and Morcelli) and this was EXACTLY IN THE MIDDLE OF THE PEAK OF THE NON EPO TEST PERIOD WHEN IN SUCCESSION INDURAIN, RIIS, PANTANI won the Tour de France....all pre Armstrong doping kings. It's like Lance takes it for all of them. Sorry, but this is getting ridiculous in the press. It seems like no one knows their history of performance doping in track nor cycling!!!
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Re: "Lance" era of t&f athletics. 800 suspicious samples. [devashish_paul] [ In reply to ]
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Well one thing the IAAF is copying from the Lance era is their PR response is the same as Verbruggens UCI. They seem more focused on "how dare they illegally access our Database" than "Houston we have a problem"

At least Asheden remarked than T&F is where cycling was 10-15 years ago. I've maintained while cycling takes the PR nightmares it's the one sport trying to clean up and over time other sports will turn to cycling for help in battling doping. Christ, at least cycling TRIES!

Ross Tucker's Science of Sport pieces are great. Transparency is critical. And go deep on the outliers.

@rhyspencer
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Re: "Lance" era of t&f athletics. 800 suspicious samples. [devashish_paul] [ In reply to ]
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I know that I can say this comfortably from the middle of the pack, but the reality is, IMO, that at the pointy end of most of these sports, and possibly even not just at the pointy end, drugs are fairly endemic - I'd consider 10% of people taking them to be endemic or indicative of a problem and I suspect its much higher than that

be these professional athletes or 45 year old AG'ers, be it running or Tri or cycling or even gym rats, I think its just everywhere, they're easy to get, cheap and the gains are immediate and thats with no cash incentive, as soon as you're getting paid for it, the incentives a whole different level

what I do think is interesting though, and Michael Hutchinson wrote about it in Faster, is that back in the day, if a 1/3rd of your budget went on PED's and increased your performance by 25% there really wasn't much need to invest in coaching methodologies to the same extent that British Cycling did so when Sky rocked up, its not inconceivable that doping dropped off but didn't disappear, individuals that depended on it had nothing to fall back on and Sky's training methodologies allowed them to surpass them for a while - the obvious question now is - has everyones training caught up or are we now looking at fields that have both better training and better doping programs
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Re: "Lance" era of t&f athletics. 800 suspicious samples. [rhys] [ In reply to ]
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rhys wrote:
Transparency is critical.


Part of transparency is also having a well-defined and public definition of "suspicious." This one seems possibly arbitrary. We know that anti-dopers run at a disadvantage. The disadvantage is that they have to be REALLY sure about a positive before it's acted on. E.g. 0.00-something false positive rate. That leaves a huge margin for samples that are subjectively suspicious yet not far out enough to be "positive." This is probably true across sports. E.g. there could be absolutely no difference here between cycling and track. A few years ago we had the leaked list of riders with "suspicious" values.

The data could be useful in discussions about possibly lowering the bar for a positive test. I've long proposed the idea of simultaneously lowering the bar for a positive while lowering the severity of a penalty. That way you don't destroy someone's career with the increased false positive rate, but you do jack up the careers of persistent dopers.

The penalty might be just be voiding a result and sitting out the next event instead of the usual suggestion of "Ban them for life!!"
Last edited by: trail: Aug 2, 15 7:28
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Re: "Lance" era of t&f athletics. 800 suspicious samples. [trail] [ In reply to ]
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trail wrote:
rhys wrote:
Transparency is critical.


Part of transparency is also having a well-defined and public definition of "suspicious." This one seems possibly arbitrary. We know that anti-dopers run at a disadvantage. The disadvantage is that they have to be REALLY sure about a positive before it's acted on. E.g. 0.00-something false positive rate. That leaves a huge margin for samples that are subjectively suspicious yet not far out enough to be "positive." This is probably true across sports. E.g. there could be absolutely no difference here between cycling and track. A few years ago we had the leaked list of riders with "suspicious" values.

The data could be useful in discussions about possibly lowering the bar for a positive test. I've long proposed the idea of simultaneously lowering the bar for a positive while lowering the severity of a penalty. That way you don't destroy someone's career with the increased false positive rate, but you do jack up the careers of persistent dopers.

The penalty might be just be voiding a result and sitting out the next event instead of the usual suggestion of "Ban them for life!!"
In a round about way this has been done in cycling. They tested before the event, if you haematocrit was over 50% you were withdrawn for several weeks. Amazing how many were on about 49% when normal for an athlete is only about 43% ish.
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Re: "Lance" era of t&f athletics. 800 suspicious samples. [Trev] [ In reply to ]
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Trev wrote:
In a round about way this has been done in cycling. They tested before the event, if you haematocrit was over 50% you were withdrawn for several weeks. Amazing how many were on about 49% when normal for an athlete is only about 43% ish.

How do you know this? Where the statistics published somewhere?
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Re: "Lance" era of t&f athletics. 800 suspicious samples. [trail] [ In reply to ]
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trail wrote:
Trev wrote:

In a round about way this has been done in cycling. They tested before the event, if you haematocrit was over 50% you were withdrawn for several weeks. Amazing how many were on about 49% when normal for an athlete is only about 43% ish.


How do you know this? Where the statistics published somewhere?


Imthinkmits pretty common knowledge how many were close to the 50%. I'm sure the info is still on the Internet somewhere.

There was a bit of a scandal several years ago when one of the Brituish Cycling team was just over 50%. Think there was something published then about how many cyclists were near 50%.


http://www.theguardian.com/...ar/31/comment.sport1
It was the possibility that freedom and responsibility had been abused which gave Brailsford his dark night of the soul last week. It had tainted his week, he admitted, although not his pleasure in the performance of his riders. Too wise to make public claims of Hayles' innocence but privately certain that there will be no case to answer, he is now working to find a method of ensuring - preferably before the team leave for Beijing - that there will be no more nasty shocks.
He is concerned that Hayles' test was an extreme example of a set of elevated haematocrit readings recently taken from other riders in the squad, which he thinks may be due to changes in blood values when they taper off from the highest point of their training in the days before the start of a competition.

"Elevated haematocrit readings recently taken from other riders in the squad"
Last edited by: Trev: Aug 2, 15 8:41
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Re: "Lance" era of t&f athletics. 800 suspicious samples. [rhys] [ In reply to ]
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rhys wrote:
Well one thing the IAAF is copying from the Lance era is their PR response is the same as Verbruggens UCI. They seem more focused on "how dare they illegally access our Database" than "Houston we have a problem"

At least Asheden remarked than T&F is where cycling was 10-15 years ago. I've maintained while cycling takes the PR nightmares it's the one sport trying to clean up and over time other sports will turn to cycling for help in battling doping. Christ, at least cycling TRIES!

Ross Tucker's Science of Sport pieces are great. Transparency is critical. And go deep on the outliers.

Let's just say IAAF is hoping that Bolt can step up and beat Gatlin in BEijing at World's in 2 weeks. If not, they have a PR nighmare on their hand if a 2x doper wins the World's marquis event for the year. Maybe the young 20 year old Toronto kid can surpris everyone, but he needs to take up his start and ordder of magnitude.
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Re: "Lance" era of t&f athletics. 800 suspicious samples. [devashish_paul] [ In reply to ]
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Though, let's remember, Jamaica - in 2014 - conducted *ONE* OOC test in 2014. That's right, they tested one athlete one time. Apparently, they've stepped it up now, but for a long, testing in Jamaica - just like testing in East Africa - was a total joke.

I'm not saying that Bolt is/was doping. But it's hard to imagine that Bolt beating Gatlin really has any impact on IAAF credibility...

Anyone who follows track basically assumes the 100m world champ is a doper. And anyone who just pays casual attention doesn't really care one way or the other.

"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp
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Re: "Lance" era of t&f athletics. 800 suspicious samples. [devashish_paul] [ In reply to ]
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And you believe Bolt is clean?
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Re: "Lance" era of t&f athletics. 800 suspicious samples. [HuffNPuff] [ In reply to ]
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HuffNPuff wrote:
And you believe Bolt is clean?

It does not matter what I think. From a PR perspective Gatlin has been busted twice, Bolt never. So if Bolt wins IAAF are off the PR hook as they want to be just like the UCI Good Ole Boys when Lance kept winning. If Gatlin wins it's like if Ullrich came back after the Puerto bust and won...maybe a bit like Vino winning London gold after a doping bust but on a much smaller scale...100m finals is the marquis event in individual sport in any year that all humans on the planet have done. IAAF is not going to want a busted guy winning.
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Re: "Lance" era of t&f athletics. 800 suspicious samples. [devashish_paul] [ In reply to ]
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Here you have the documentary from German ADR in English
http://www.daserste.de/...ngl-version-100.html
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Re: "Lance" era of t&f athletics. 800 suspicious samples. [devashish_paul] [ In reply to ]
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You might be right...it all depends on how many people perceive Bolt as clean as opposed to having a pharmacist for a coach. http://www.muscleweek.com/...ain-bolt-on-steroids
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Re: "Lance" era of t&f athletics. 800 suspicious samples. [HuffNPuff] [ In reply to ]
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HuffNPuff wrote:
You might be right...it all depends on how many people perceive Bolt as clean as opposed to having a pharmacist for a coach. http://www.muscleweek.com/...ain-bolt-on-steroids

I think the general public views Bolt as the golden guy, unscathed by any drug scandals to date. IAAF will want to market that as much as they can. Probably the worst thing that happened to IAAF recently is the Oregon project association with Mo Farah....note that on the 800 samples Farah and Bolt came away clean.
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Re: "Lance" era of t&f athletics. 800 suspicious samples. [devashish_paul] [ In reply to ]
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Lance never tested positive :)

I always wanted to write that........

I think we know; testing is underfunded, testing doesn't work to the extent that we'd like it to, governing bodies are not incentivised to throw their own stars under the bus and that its almost certainly more widespread than cycling and athletics

I don't for one second think that either pro of AG tri is clean, the argument that there is not enough money in tri to make it worthwhile simply doesn't stack up. Steroid use in the UK is now approaching the same transmission levels as IV drug users (http://www.theguardian.com/...abolic-steroid-users) this for nothing more than looking good

Look at what we have here on a regular basis; female AG'er drafting off / pacing off male team mates to KQ, pro's known as the needle (took about 10 minutes to figure out who that was), drafting becoming endemic, it would take a really twisted sense of logic to convince yourself that drafting is ok but drugs aren't and given the way that individuals view drafting I just don't see them being more righteous about drugs

On a personal level I wouldn't do it, aside from the cheating aspect, I'd actually be more worried about the long term health implications of taking testosterone for example than the thought that I'd be caught and I don't really care enough - I enjoy participating, I'd like to go faster but its not the most important thing in my life but I can see how were I faster, closer to the front and more competitive that I could convince myself that everyone else is doing it, so why not

I suspect that in due course that we will find that swimming is not immune - already huge suspicions about specific individuals and then we have rowing, basically any of the endurance sports, you have to at the very least consider that its a possibility given what we know about how well the drugs work - The Verve were wrong - and the limits of the effectiveness of testing
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Re: "Lance" era of t&f athletics. 800 suspicious samples. [Andrewmc] [ In reply to ]
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Andrewmc wrote:
Lance never tested positive :)

Except he did!
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Re: "Lance" era of t&f athletics. 800 suspicious samples. [devashish_paul] [ In reply to ]
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devashish_paul wrote:
HuffNPuff wrote:
You might be right...it all depends on how many people perceive Bolt as clean as opposed to having a pharmacist for a coach. http://www.muscleweek.com/...ain-bolt-on-steroids


I think the general public views Bolt as the golden guy, unscathed by any drug scandals to date. IAAF will want to market that as much as they can. Probably the worst thing that happened to IAAF recently is the Oregon project association with Mo Farah....note that on the 800 samples Farah and Bolt came away clean.

I always thought the Jamaicans issue was no out of season testing in Jamaica. Bolt can just disappear over the winter to train hard, then show up for marquis events. A lot of the german coach allegations vs the kenyans were along the same lines of out of season testing.
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