Leaked IAAf report on doping

conavitzky · 11-08-2015 09:11AM

john.han wrote: »

I'm just highlighting what I consider the dirtiest part of athletics. You'd have to be naive in the extreme not to recognise that the likelihood is that the other areas have similar problems. There are far too many spectacular performances and improvements on too regular a basis for the sport to be clean. Anyone should be able to recognise that Radcliffe's improvement from a good at best 10,000m runner, to the greatest female marathon runner of all time is massively suspicious. When stuff doesn't make sense it usually tends to turn out to be too good to be true.

Im sorry I don't agree here. She lost many of her finals on the track due to a fast last lap where the Africans rule the roost (many African athletes have been known to get close to their fastest 400m time in the last lap of a 5,000 or 10,000 race). Brendan Foster went as far as to say that if Radcliffe had been allowed to come onto the track for the last 400m not having ran she still wouldn't have won.

conavitzky · 11-08-2015 09:18AM

john.han wrote: »

The "good at best" reference was in a world context, she was amongst the top table, but short on being categorically world class. But then suddenly is able to run marathons in times that are arguably beyond what should be possible. How many 10,000m races did she fade dramatically in and end up 4th? She struggled with stamina at various points in her career but then went on to dominate marathon running... if you can't see why that's suspicious then I'm not gonna try and argue. The petty blow in stuff is childish too, says a lot that the best way you see fit to defend the sport is to fling crap at other sports. (For the record I reckon Rugby is riddled, soccer has had some remarkably suspicious stuff going on and the GAA has to take a serious look at the massive physical increases in the sport in the past decade, no sport is 100% clean but if you want to turn it into an irrelevant athletics vs. other sports argument, you'll never win, history has shown us that time and time again)

Yet again I don't agree here. She was an excellent XC runner where stamina is tested to the limit. Some people don't have natural speed and never will no matter how hard they work. I have one club colleague in particular who has serious "stamina". His marathon time is almost the equivalent of 4x his best 10k back to back (plus 2K).
Unbelievable over long distances but cant even kick over a 5k race.

walshb · 11-08-2015 09:22AM

The whole stamina issues relating to Paula are nonesene. A 10 K elite race is run at a considerably faster pace than a marathon. Paula is not a particularly fast athlete. It was speed/endurance that may have seen her fade/fail in her 10 k races. The pace of the race got to her. This is not stamina alone. The marathon distance is a race that suited her better, hence her superb achievements in this race.

I am sure there are many runners across all levels that can run very good long distance times, and when asked to spit out fast shorter splits will blow up and fade. They have excellent cardio engines, but not particularly a fast leg speed or turnover. They could, for example, run a 5 k @ 4 min k pace, but would really struggle to spit out 2 ks at 3:45 pace.

Sacksian · 11-08-2015 09:45AM

I always thought Paula Radcliffe was an awkward-looking track runner - and I remember she used to frequently run at the front and then, as Conavitzky says above, just get taken apart on the last lap.

As for her pedigree before she turned to the roads, she did win the 1992 world xc junior race. Ironically enough, given this discussion, in second position that year was Wang Junxia - a year before she ran 3:51.92 for 1500m and 2:24 for the marathon (at 20!).

Chivito550 · 11-08-2015 09:47AM

conavitzky wrote: »

Im sorry I don't agree here. She lost many of her finals on the track due to a fast last lap where the Africans rule the roost (many African athletes have been known to get close to their fastest 400m time in the last lap of a 5,000 or 10,000 race). Brendan Foster went as far as to say that if Radcliffe had been allowed to come onto the track for the last 400m not having ran she still wouldn't have won.

Yeh she lacked any sort of a kick on a track. The only time I saw her out kick somebody (other than in a marathon) was when she beat Wami in the World XC. XC is completely different to track and is more about strength than speed. I'm pretty sure that if she raced Tulu over a 400m race she'd lose by 5 seconds.

Krusty_Clown · 11-08-2015 09:48AM

john.han wrote: »

The "good at best" reference was in a world context, she was amongst the top table, but short on being categorically world class. But then suddenly is able to run marathons in times that are arguably beyond what should be possible. How many 10,000m races did she fade dramatically in and end up 4th?

Not defending her or anything (not that she currently has anything to defend), but she has the 6th fastest ever 10,000m time on the track, and currently holds the world record for 10k on the road. Her track 10,000m PB would be within a couple of seconds of the WR, were it not for some Chinese intervention in the early 90s (in fact if you discount that Chinese result, Paula would have held the WR until 2008). She is unarguably one of the best female 10,000 (and 10k) runners in history.

Chivito550 · 11-08-2015 09:53AM

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

Not defending her or anything (not that she currently has anything to defend), but she has the 6th fastest ever 10,000m time on the track, and currently holds the world record for 10k on the road. Her track 10,000m PB would be within a couple of seconds of the WR, were it not for some Chinese intervention in the early 90s (in fact if you discount that chinese result, Paula would have held the WR until 2008). She is unarguably one of the best female 10,000 (and 10k) runners in history.

Exactly, laughable that people think she "failed" at 10000m. Shows how little they know. Also she has run 14:29 for 5000m, and 8:22 for 3000m, which are both insanely fast times. All her best track times came in 2002.

Her best over 1500 was 4:05 though. And I doubt she'd have much more than 57/58 speed over a 400 (that's a complete guess).

TRR_the_turd · 11-08-2015 10:29AM

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

Not defending her or anything (not that she currently has anything to defend), but she has the 6th fastest ever 10,000m time on the track, and currently holds the world record for 10k on the road. Her track 10,000m PB would be within a couple of seconds of the WR, were it not for some Chinese intervention in the early 90s (in fact if you discount that Chinese result, Paula would have held the WR until 2008). She is unarguably one of the best female 10,000 (and 10k) runners in history.

+1

Besides having PBs of 14.29 5k and 30.01 for 10k, a world record 10k on the roads a world half marathon best. A 10k world champs silver, European gold over 10k and commonwealth gold over 5k, 3 individual gold medals at world xc and 3 individual golds at euro xc, 3 golds at world half marathon champs. Besides all of this what sort of pedigree does she have? I never thought that somebody with such a paltry CV could run an absolutely amazing marathon time. Even if she spent 4 hours a day running and 4/5 hours getting rehab from Ger Hartman and doing strength and conditioning.

Of course I'm being ironic. I'm not naive enough to think that all athletes are clean but she really did push back the boundaries of marathon running. My hope is that it was done within the rules. I'd also argue that her XC pedigree is a better indicator of marathon potential than anything she ever did on the track

walshb · 11-08-2015 10:41AM

If it turned out that Paula had intentionally doped I would consider it the biggest surprise/shock in sports history.

Giruilla · 11-08-2015 10:48AM

walshb wrote: »

If it turned out that Paula had intentionally doped I would consider it the biggest surprise/shock in sports history.

It wouldn't come as a shock for a lot of people.

ThisRegard · 11-08-2015 10:50AM

walshb wrote: »

If it turned out that Paula had intentionally doped I would consider it the biggest surprise/shock in sports history.

You laying down the foundations for the contaminated steak defence already

walshb · 11-08-2015 10:54AM

ThisRegard wrote: »

You laying down the foundations for the contaminated steak defence already

I know athletes are responsible for what goes into their bodies, but there has to be plenty of failed tests that were cock ups, and not at all deliberate or intentional. Plenty that are and were intentional. It's just that almost all the athletes that get caught will claim ignorance and make out that it was a slip up and bad call, not an intention to cheat.

I do believe some get caught for non intentional cheating. I believe Tyson Gay. I believe the man is/was a superb clean sprinter that is/was capable of sub 9.8 times clean.

walshb · 11-08-2015 10:56AM

Giruilla wrote: »

It wouldn't come as a shock for a lot of people.

You being one?

Many people out there simply won't accept brilliant achievements or endeavors or results. Some still think 10 seconds for 100 metres is not humanly possible without PEDs. You will never please these kinds of people. I believe that there are many honest and good and morally good athletes out there who are at the top through talent and hard work. Beating everyone, including drugs users. It is possiboe that clean athletes can still be ahead of the cheats, and clearly ahead. People place too much emphasis on the efficacy of PEDs in sports.

Pherekydes · 11-08-2015 10:58AM

walshb wrote: »

...non intentional cheating...

Oxymoron alert.

Giruilla · 11-08-2015 12:15PM

Paul Kimmage has effectively confirmed on twitter who the British athlete is.

menoscemo · 11-08-2015 12:21PM

Giruilla wrote: »

Paul Kimmage has effectively confirmed on twitter who the British athlete is.

Indeed, in response to a Robert Harting Video protesting against doping he posted the following:

https://twitter.com/PaulKimmage/status/630851368241229824

demfad · 11-08-2015 04:06PM

The poster "Race Radio" (Kimmage, I believe) has a good few comments from the linked page on the IAAF report that named "a top UK athlete" with suspicious blood scores.

http://velorooms.com/index.php?topic=798.msg180813#msg180813

I actually like and admire her. But the female marathon world record is the outlier of outliers. It shouldnt be a shock to anyone if it turns out to be too good to be true.

Clearlier · 11-08-2015 04:20PM

Retrospective testing - Most are not competing any more.

No names yet and I imagine that this announcement is at least a partial response to the recent media allegations in that they probably would have kept their powder dry if they hadn't felt the need to prove that they were doing something.

While it would be better to catch athletes when (or even before) they compete at major events and (presumably) win medals I still think that storing samples to allow for retrospective testing is a sensible thing to do.

robinph · 11-08-2015 04:34PM

demfad wrote: »

But the female marathon world record is the outlier of outliers. It shouldnt be a shock to anyone if it turns out to be too good to be true.

That would only count if everyone else 3+ minutes behind was clean. Drugs still would not explain that massive gap in times, unless everyone else has been given the wrong stuff or was taking it wrong?

You are still left with a massive unexplained outlier regardless of if drugs are part of the equation or not.

walshb · 11-08-2015 04:35PM

demfad wrote: »

The poster "Race Radio" (Kimmage, I believe) has a good few comments from the linked page on the IAAF report that named "a top UK athlete" with suspicious blood scores.

http://velorooms.com/index.php?topic=798.msg180813#msg180813

I actually like and admire her. But the female marathon world record is the outlier of outliers. It shouldnt be a shock to anyone if it turns out to be too good to be true.

Could that not be applied to all records? The difference between the men's and the women's marathon records is about 10 percent. Isn't this roughly the same difference across many other disciplines? That would then lead us to say that all records are not believable, no? Plus, the farther the distance probably sees the records come closer together percentage wise. It is no doubt closer to the men's record than other comparisons, but nothing unbelievable.

BTW, for me the 10.49 of Flo Jo is the most dominant of all the records man or woman! It's only 9 percent slower than Bolt's record. Closer to the male record than Paula is to her equivalent.

Chivito550 · 11-08-2015 04:52PM

walshb wrote: »

Could that not be applied to all records? The difference between the men's and the women's marathon records is about 10 percent. Isn't this roughly the same difference across many other disciplines? That would then lead us to say that all records are not believable, no? Plus, the farther the distance probably sees the records come closer together percentage wise. It is no doubt closer to the men's record than other comparisons, but nothing unbelievable.

BTW, for me the 10.49 of Flo Jo is the most dominant of all the records man or woman! It's only 9 percent slower than Bolt's record.

10.49 was wind aided. It should never have counted. The wind meter wasn't working right as it recorded a 0.0, and you can see from the video how windy it was. A triple jump recorded a 5.0 wind at the same time. It was in a quarter final heat of Nationals. She wouldn't have even been trying all that hard in an early round heat. That record is a complete sham, for 2 reasons. I don't need to spell out the second reason.

walshb · 11-08-2015 04:58PM

Chivito550 wrote: »

10.49 was wind aided. It should never have counted. The wind meter wasn't working right as it recorded a 0.0, and you can see from the video how windy it was. A triple jump recorded a 5.0 wind at the same time. It was in a quarter final heat of Nationals. She wouldn't have even been trying all that hard in an early round heat. That record is a complete sham, for 2 reasons. I don't need to spell out the second reason.

I am not arguing the record, just saying that for me it's more dominant than Paula's.

Paula's WR is amazing, but one could apply that word to many WRs. They are meant to be amazing.

Chivito550 · 11-08-2015 05:03PM

walshb wrote: »

I am not arguing the record, just saying that for me it's more dominant than Paula's.

Paula's WR is amazing, but one could apply that word to many WRs. They are meant to be amazing.

Yes, but it's not a legit record. It shouldn't count. Hence there's no point in mentioning it when comparing how close a men's time is to a woman's. Use her 10.61 instead.

Giruilla · 11-08-2015 05:05PM

Numerous people have gone on record about Flo Jo.. can't believe it's even in doubt. Victor Conte as recently as today

He said sprinter Florence Griffith Joyner, heptathlete/long jumper Jackie Joyner-Kersee and 400-meter hurdler Andre Phillips — three marquee gold medalists — all tested positive for PEDs in the South Korean capital, and “they were all covered up.”

He also had this to say

So here’s what Dick asked me to do: He said I want you to give me a list of six athletes and coaches that you believe are using performance-enhancing drugs and what tests you would do, and how you would approach this. In other words, if you were king for a day what would you do with anti-doping? That was a specific question he asked me.”

Conte complied with Pound’s request. He named the following: coach Alberto Salazar and distance runners Galen Rupp and Mo Farah; sprinter Carmelita Jeter and hurdler Jason Richardson under John Smith; and Jamaican speedsters Usain Bolt and Yohan Blake and their coach, Glen Mills.

“Here’s what I specifically advised that they do: Go back to the (urine) samples that were collected that are frozen for these athletes, you take a look at these performances, as an example, you isolate Usain Bolt and Yohan Blake,” Conte recalled. “You look at what they did in 2008. You look at what they did again at the world championships in Berlin in 2009, when the world records were set that still stand, both the 100 and 200 meters by Usain Bolt, and look at these times when Carmelita Jeter was running 10.64 (seconds, in the 100, at the 2009 Shanghai Golden Grand Prix) and all these extremely crazy times, and the same thing with Mo Farah . . .

“. . .Collect their samples before these championship races where they ran very fast and you do the carbon isotope ratio test for synthetic testosterone.”

As planned, Pound submitted the just-cited information to David Howman, WADA’s director general, stating, in the words of Conte, that “they could target these frozen urine samples and they could do these tests.”

The idea was rejected.

The reason?

“Basically, Dick Pound was told, ‘Are you kidding me? You think we want to destroy the entire Olympic movement?’ We’re not going to do those damn testings. So they showed no interest whatsoever in this,’ ” Conte recalled.

walshb · 11-08-2015 05:06PM

Chivito550 wrote: »

Yes, but it's not a legit record. It shouldn't count. Hence there's no point in mentioning it when comparing how close a men's time is to a woman's. Use her 10.61 instead.

Fair enough. I reckon a 10.6 would have been the time had the wind been correct. Didn't she run a 10.54 in Seoul? Was that legal?

Looking across the board Paula's record is probably the closest to the male record, but just about, and the farther the distance will likely mean that the records will be closer. I don't see Paula's as being so clearly the outlier. They are all comparable and close.

demfad · 11-08-2015 05:19PM

robinph wrote: »

That would only count if everyone else 3+ minutes behind was clean. Drugs still would not explain that massive gap in times, unless everyone else has been given the wrong stuff or was taking it wrong?

You are still left with a massive unexplained outlier regardless of if drugs are part of the equation or not.

That's in part why I admire her. Her training indicates that she managed to do the high volume of Ingrid Kristiansen but at the intensity of Grete Waitz (most 'easy' runs at the intensity just below marathon effort). I guess it took many slow years to slowly transform her body to be able to handle that work volume.
She was dedicated like no other. No other female athlete has managed that work capacity. That for me explains some of the gap back to her competitors but not all of it IMO. I do hope I'm wrong though.

TRR_the_turd · 12-08-2015 10:14AM

pretty good synopsis by JTG

http://jumping-the-gun.com/?p=10136

walshb · 12-08-2015 10:21AM

TRR_the_turd wrote: »

pretty good synopsis by JTG

http://jumping-the-gun.com/?p=10136

Like I thought. A non story. The IAAF have nothing to answer for here. They have done nothing wrong. The findings show and prove nothing. They are a nothing!

theboyblunder · 12-08-2015 10:27AM

TRR_the_turd wrote: »

pretty good synopsis by JTG

http://jumping-the-gun.com/?p=10136

Great article. Should be the end of the thread IMO

demfad · 12-08-2015 03:50PM

walshb wrote: »

Like I thought. A non story. The IAAF have nothing to answer for here. They have done nothing wrong. The findings show and prove nothing. They are a nothing!

Below is from IAAF's response to the Sunday Times article.

"It is important to be very clear that a large proportion of these blood samples were collected in a period before the implementation of the Athlete Biological Passport (ABP) and cannot therefore be used as proof of doping. The IAAF quite rightly operates within an anti-doping framework, provided by WADA, where suspicion alone does not equal proof of doping."

http://www.iaaf.org/news/press-release/statement-response-ard-sunday-times-anti-dopi

They are not denying that 800 athletes (out of 12000) showed abnormal (suspicious) blood values including one third (I believe) of distance medalists from London 2012. They are saying that they did everything they could within doping protocols to address this. An abnormal reading is one cited as having a less than 1 in 100 chance of being caused naturally (i.e by dehydration, altitude, pregnancy).

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/03/us-athletics-doping-idUSKCN0Q80A420150803

To me the report indicates that about 1/3 of distance medals won at the London Olympics were won by athletes who had doped at some juncture. Whether IAAF did enough to address this is another argument.

What JTG said about the British athlete is true. One of the results could have been caused by dehydration after a race. What they didn't say was what the chances were of this being the case combined with the chances of the other abnormal readings (for other reasons I believe) actually all being 'normal'.

Maybe that's not enough for an athletes reputation to be shredded. Innocent or guilty I would also be taking a super injunction out on my name being associated with 3 abnormal blood results.

It is enough for very serious doubt though.

Leaked IAAf report on doping

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