Questions about Cathal

[guiness]

www.sportinglife.com/story_get.dor?STORY_NAME=others/04/08/13/ATHLETICS_Lombard.html

Firstly - how did he pass the first 5 tests this year? Is EPO really that hard to detect? He said he wasn't apart of any really scientific doping schedule so if he can pass the tests with luck then it would obviously be very hard to catch someone doing it the "proper" way. (hate using the word "proper" and "doping" in the same sentence).

Secondly - What would his B sample show up as? It would be very interesting to see if in fact his B sample came up Negative. That would show us that indeed an A sample can be positive and a B negative when we know for a fact the athlete is on EPO.

Thirdly - What would Cathal have run without EPO? I find it hard to believe that EPO would make that much od an impovement. Could he have been a 28:30/ 13:35 guy?

[madm]

13:35/28:30 hmmmmmmmmmm maybe if he got in extremely good training. he was only a 13:58 or 30:30 guy i think before two years ago. TEXT

[Trent Stellingwerff]

EPO, or erythropoientin, is a natural hormone in the body which stimulates red blood cell production. Natural EPO goes up when going to altitude or sleeping in an altitude tent, and then the bodies natural hematocrit (or % of red blood cells) goes up from about 42% to the mid to upper 40% range.

Synthetic, or injectable, EPO does this as well, and boasts athletes hematocrit upwards to 50% and even higher, and is therefore much more dangerous as it can turn you blood very thick and there are deaths every year from using too much.

The problem with the test is two-fold:
1. The current test is very transient, and can only detect synthetic (not the natural type) EPO back 3 or 4 days. BUT an athlete can still have boasted red blood cells for several weeks after taking EPO.

2. It's a very expensive analysis and only done at several spots in the world. I remember reading it costs somthing like $1500 to analysis for JUST EPO!

This leads to not very many EPO tests being adminstered out of competition (ie.. surprise tests) because it's just too expensive...and if you know that EPO has a transient time of 3 days, obviously any intelligent doper would just stop taking 3-5 days before a major comp. to test clean.

The new human growth hormone test can trace back use over nearly 85 days, and is therefore a much more effective test.

In terms of improvement, i've read a range...but anywhere from 1% to a 5% improvement in performance. Well if you're a 14min 5km runner, that translates to a 8.4 second improvement (1%) to a huge 42 sec. improvement (5%). Not all athletes respond the same way either.


Trent

[JKT]

trent, thanks for the post

it really makes you think.........and question who is, and who is not clean

[madm]

you'd be surprised at how few people are clean

[Dave]

Besides cathal and all of the american sprinters who else would suprise me?

[madm]

sorry i am/was just speculating. i've heard there is a former soviet coach in ethiopia right now coaching a ton of athletes in some camp.

[madm]

does anyone find it ironic that a bunch of ethiopians and others are dropping out of the olympics

[Trent Stellingwerff]

When you say a bunch of Ethiopians, which ones are you talking about?

Unless I've missed something, really the only Kenyan or Ethiopian star not going to the games is Berhane Adere.

Trent

[Trent]

Nevermind, just the read the stuff on the possibility of Geb and the Olympic Marathon champ Abere also out.

The interesting thing with the Ethiopians is that they all train so closely together under a unified system and basically similar coaches, trainers and doctors (unlike many Kenyans who are all over the world with different coaches).

so you would think that 'IF' they were indeed doping (I'm not saying that they are here) that they would all be droping out, and not just a few of them.

Guess we'll just have to wait and see how this plays out.

[madm]

well it just reminds me of the regina jacobs routine at alot of the major world class events. she would dip out of competition because of an injury. again this is all speculation, i'm not accusing anyone of anything until they test positive, however it's very suspicious

[testers]

Here's a theory...

The cheaters are part of a systematic doping plan and do their own testing as well (the same way WADA would test). If they can't pass their own tests then they drop out before the competition. If they do pass their oen tests they go on to the competition. This is assuming that EPO or whatever takes longer to get out of the system for detection for different people or at different times and they can't simply dope up a specific amount of time before a competition.

[madm]

true