LeBron James and PEDs

One of my friends recently shared this blog post with me on Facebook and asked for my thoughts on it.  Before I start picking through it, I need to remind everyone that the goal of this blog isn't to throw out baseless accusations but rather to have an informed discussion about PEDs and to educate those who want to learn about it.  If I were to spew baseless accusations and say everyone was on PEDs, I would lose any sense of credibility that I might have had.  With that in mind, I'm going to approach this post as a response of the original post that was shared with me and an O.J. Simpson-type "If I were to accuse LeBron James of doing PEDs, this is how I would have done it.

Dec. 9, 2009 - age 17

May 10, 2012 - age 21

The author's main argument about James' PED use is his increase in size since he came into the league.  James has unquestionably gotten much bigger since he made his NBA debut in the fall of 2003, but he was 18 at the time.  Males may continue to grow past the age of 18, or at the very least, their bodies will fill out.  So, the photo comparison of James when he came into the league and now is unfair at best.  To drive this home, look at these two photos of me flanking this paragraph (for reference, my birthday is April 28, 1992).  I am the same height (5'8") and basically the same weight (~175 lbs...I fluctuate) in both pictures.  However, if you look at the one from this most recent season, you'll notice I look a lot bigger and thicker basically all throughout my body.  This is because, as I said, I filled out and I am still filling out.  Now remember that I also go to school and have a finite amount of time to dedicate to exercise and contrast that with the fact that James' job is play basketball (and has been since age 18) and consequently he is paid to be in shape.  It's not particularly surprising that he would bulk up over the course of his career.  The better argument is that because we know PEDs are used mainly for recovery (right?), James has used PEDs to help increase his workload and has undergone uncharacteristic growth since he's been in the league, but that is difficult to prove.

These do not look like basketball players

The second point the author raises, also related to size, is the amount cardio exercise James participates in and how much CV fitness is needed to play in the NBA.  He says that there's no way James could be 6'8" - 275 lbs with his practice and game structure.  Note that James is a light 250 lbs, not 275 lbs, so there's issue #1.  The author continues saying that most basketball players have "natural runners' bodies."  Now, I don't know what runners he's looking at, but as someone who was spent a lot of time with runners and watching runners, I've never come across someone who looks like James, Paul Pierce, or Kevin Durant.  Even the point guards aren't built like runners.  The fact of the matter is, basketball fitness is starkly different than track fitness.  Basketball is mostly about short bursts of speed and explosiveness as well as lateral movement ability.  Track is about sustained speed over longer distances (and yes, 100m is "long").  A basketball court is 94 feet, and rarely are those full 94 feet being run at once.  Basketball players are always starting and stopping.  The types of movements required of a basketball player mean that they have to be larger than runners otherwise they'd never be able to stop on a dime and move the other direction.  So yes, while they are getting CV exercise, it's a different type of CV, and there's a reason why no one runs suicides to lose weight.

If I were to implicate James for steroid use, the angle I would have taken was his playing style.  James is one of the all-time great slashers.  He beats the crap out of his body every night he's on the floor.  Even when he isn't driving to the hoop, many of the shots he creates involving leaning into his defender and then shooting a fade-away.  He's one of the most physical players in the game to the point where one would think his body needs a little extra help to recover.  If a team wins the Finals, that team plays no fewer than 98 games, and it almost always play several more.  With the way playoff basketball works, it's hard to see how anyone could play the way James does every night and not have his performance deteriorate or suffer an injury.  A little HGH would go a long way, especially when gearing up for the playoffs to ensure good health for the championship push.

Cultures of Winning

The 2012 Red Sox season was a disaster.  The team went 69-93 for a last place finish in the American League East and they had the third worst record in the AL.  The 2013 Red Sox, by contrast, currently have the best record in baseball and lead the AL East by 9.5 games.  So, what happened?

The 2012 season came directly on the heels of the apocalyptic 2011 season.  After acquiring sluggers Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford, hopes were high for the team.  The Boston Herald and Michael Holley (somewhat tongue-in-cheek) both anointed them the "Best Team EVER" (2:14 in the WEEI link for the audio).  Mikey Adams predicated 103 wins for the Sox.  They even announced over the offseason that they were aiming to win the World Series, which of course is always the goal, but most front offices don't outright say that.  The season was largely a success and the Sox held a 9.5 game in the AL Wild Card race over the Tampa Bay Rays on September 3rd.  The team, as everyone knows, wound up missing the playoffs due to a 7-20 record (.259 winning percentage) for the month of September.

After this historic collapse, a range of controversial topics emerged.  Manager Terry Francona, whom many consider to be the greatest manager in Red Sox history, was fired, as many thought he had lost control of his clubhouse.  General manager Theo Epstein was traded to the Cubs.  The chicken and beer scandal emerged (it's worth noting that since that article was published, we found out that John Lackey pitched most of the season while needing Tommy John surgery.  I'm willing to give his shortcomings a pass on that basis).  And, Bobby Valentine was hired as the team's new manager, which would later lead to speculation that new GM Ben Cherington was not given his pick of manager, instead being overrode by team president Larry Lucchino.

Despite having basically the same talent as the previous year, the 2012 Red Sox stunk.  The clubhouse was, by all accounts, toxic.  From Bobby V.'s "Nice inning, Will" comment to Carl Crawford constantly complaining that the Boston media was too tough on him, there was not much clubhouse cohesion.  And then, on August 25th, the Los Angeles Dodgers threw the Red Sox a bone.  The Sox were able to trade the Dodgers proverbial turds Gonzalez, Crawford, and Josh Beckett (as well as Nick Punto, who was not a turd) for some pocket lint and a couple of half-smoked cigarettes.

This trade basically let Ben Cherington press a reset button on the team and allowed him to build it from the ground up in his mold.  His first move was, not surprisingly, to fire Bobby Valentine and replace him with former pitching coach John Farrell.  Cherington then went on a binge of signing "good guys": David Ross, Johnny Gomes, Mike Napoli, and Shane Victorino.  The general feeling around the city--and my hunch--was that this group of ball players wasn't talented enough to contend for the playoffs, much less a world title, and that the 2013 season would be a "bridge year" until youngsters Xander Bogaerts and Jackie Bradley, Jr. (amongst others) would be ready for full-time jobs in 2014.

Bridge year indeed.

The Red Sox have reverted some to their 2003-2004 form when they were a bunch of Idiots who rallied behind the slogan "Cowboy Up".  They've stopped shaving as a form of brotherhood.  They breathe baseball and don't want to think about anything else, unlike Josh Beckett's famed "My off day is my off day" golf outing on an injured back the previous year.

Throughout the season, Tony Massarotti has been saying that the Red Sox didn't have enough talent to be a serious contender; that their lack of talent would eventually catch up to them.  And I agreed.  But what both Mazz and I did not account for is the importance of culture in an organization.  That culture can make up for shortcomings in other areas.  The 2013 Red Sox are the prototypical example of this.  Not only do they have a winning attitude, their culture is one of hard work and success.  Career coaches will say that people who work hard are often more successful than those who try to coast by on talent, and the Red Sox have shown us exactly that.

A classic example of over-the-top talent is the original Dream Team.  Coach Chuck Daly was worried that his group of NBA superstars would march into the Olympics thinking they were invincible due to their obscene talent level and might get surprised.  To combat this, he held a scrimmage against a group of college all-stars and through his coaching decisions, he threw the game.  The lesson he wanted to have reach his team was that despite their potential, a poor attitude could lead them to failure.  The rest of the story is history.

Throughout my life, my father has preached to me the importance of culture in organizations.  That establishing a healthy culture in an organization is of the utmost importance and that failure to instill such a culture will ultimately whittle away at the success of the organization.  When I worked at Infinity and asked citizen-owners (Infinity only has employees insofar as they have people they submit W-2s for; instead, they have citizen-owners.  This is a major part of the culture there because it implies that the workers take ownership over the company, their work, and that they all work together as a team) what their favorite part about Infinity was, the unanimous response was the culture.  They said that working at Infinity was unlike any other company they had worked for, and, as a result, they were happier.  A happy worker is a productive worker.  And to circle back around to the Red Sox, the players are happy playing baseball, and who would have guessed that they are now playing baseball well.

I called this article "Cultures of Winning" because there is not one distinct "winning" culture (and "winning" can be more broadly defined as success).  Each organization will be strong in certain cultural areas and weak in others; the organization (both leaders and what I'll call followers) need to work to come up with a culture that will lead to its success.  Once a winning culture is established though, the organization must continue to work to maintain that culture.

David Ortiz is not a Hall of Famer

A recent hot topic on Boston sports radio is whether or not David Ortiz is worth of induction in the National Baseball Hall of Fame.  I don't know what the national perception of Ortiz's career is, but in Boston, most people seem to think he deserves to be in Cooperstown one day.  Ortiz was also reported to have tested positive for PEDs in 2003, but I don't think he belongs in the HOF regardless of PED use.

Ortiz made his MLB debut in 1997 for the Minnesota Twins and played his first full season in 2000.  In 2000, he hit .282, belting 10 home runs and driving in 63 runs.  He had a WAR of 0.7.  For the next two years, Ortiz put up somewhat similar stats (his power numbers were increasing) and he was hankered by a wrist injury.  After the 2002 season, he was released by the Twins.

A little over a month after his release, the Boston Red Sox signed Ortiz.  He entered the 2003 season in a position battle over DH with Jeremy Giambi.  By July, Ortiz had beaten out Giambi for the starting job and his Red Sox career took off.  As we all know the Sox would go on to win two rings with Ortiz being a major driving force.  In 2006, he hit 54 home runs to lead the American League.  He has been a 9-time All-Star since joining the Red Sox and finished second in the MVP voting in 2005.  At the time of writing, Ortiz's Red Sox career has seen a .292 average with 369 home runs.  He's gotten 1613 hits (average of 147 per season) and has a WAR of 41.0 over that time.

So he's got pretty good numbers.  And baseball is indeed a numbers game.  But when I think of what makes a Hall of Famer, I think of longevity*.  Greatness over the span of say, 15 years.  Ortiz has greatness over the span of roughly 10 seasons--not cutting it, in my book.  And I'm not even sure I'd classify Ortiz as "greatness"--more like "really really really good."  There is a difference.  He just doesn't pass the eye-test for me.  Baseball-Reference similar players for every player, and the top 5 similar batters for Ortiz are Lance Berkman, Carlos Delgado, Jason Giambi, Jim Edmonds, and Paul Konerko.  Most people can agree that all of those players are really nice players, but none of them are HOFers.  With the exception of Giambi due to his off-the-field issues (read: doping), those players probably won't even be remembered in 20 years.

*There are, in certain cases, situations where longevity can be replaced by complete dominance and the unfortunate case of a career being cut short.  The obvious example of this is Sandy Koufax, who wins most kitchen debates of "Game 7 of the World Series, who do you pitch?"  I call this being a transcendent talent--a once in every 50 years type of player--and in the absence of longevity, you'd better be transcendent to make the Hall of Fame.  Another more recent example of a transcendent talent would be Ken Griffey, Jr..  While he played 22 seasons, Griffey demonstrated the amazing talent he was in the 1990s before running into injuries.

Now there is also the issue of Ortiz's position.  He is, through and through, a designated hitter.  His job is to hit.  When forced to, he is a below average fielder at first base, he's slow, and I'm going to guess he doesn't have the best arm.  So we're looking at Ortiz fulfilling 1 to 2 of the 5 "tools" that are deemed essential to baseball players.  Based on this, he better be the best hitter of the last 20 years to get into the HOF, but we've already deduced that his numbers don't put him anywhere near this category.  Failing that longevity, he needs to be a transcendent talent, and I don't think anyone will argue with me if I say that he is not a once-in-a-generation type of hitter (he wasn't even the best hitter on his team for a good chunk of his career).

There is something to be said for the best player at each position getting into the Hall of Fame.  Ortiz is certainly in the discussion for best DH, the other major candidate being Edgar Martinez.  There are two issues with this argument: first, the DH has only been around for 40 years, which is a short period of time in the history of baseball and second, the number of players who are only DHs is few.  Teams simply don't sign players to play DH because they aren't that valuable; they're better off signing a good hitter who can also play in the field to platoon with another player (think carrying four solid outfielders).  So saying that Ortiz is the greatest DH of all time is a little bit of a misnomer because there simply haven't been that many players defined as DHs.  Another thing to consider is that Ortiz has never won an MVP, which might be indicative of the way baseball writers value the DH.

Time will tell what the lasting opinion of David Ortiz is.  If he has another 5 seasons in line with what he's been doing the previous five, I could be convinced that he deserves a slot.  But, he'll be 43 at that time, and if he's hitting the way he is now at that age, I think some people will be scratching their heads as to how natural he is (that is, if they weren't already, based on the previously mentioned allegations).  I also am unsure of how the voters will rate post-season productivity: Ortiz's post-season numbers are pretty much in line with his career numbers, but his World Series numbers are better than his career averages (albeit with a small sample size--28 at bats and 34 plate appearances).

Thanks to baseball-reference.com for the stats.

What SI's Oklahoma State Report Has Taught Me About Critical Sports Reporting

On Tuesday, Sports Illustrated's George Dohrmann and Thayer Evans dropped a bombshell on the sporting world with the first of five segments of their Special Report on Oklahoma State Football, entitled "The Money." In the report, Dohrmann and Evans unveiled a slew of allegations against the program under former coach Les Miles -- ranging from cash incentives to academic fraud to a team-run escort service. The report set off an equal and opposite slate of reactions (SB Nation has collected them here, for convenience sake), as Oklahoma State officials scrambled to defend the program and those cited in the report alleged journalistic wrongdoing.

At this point, we have no reliable way of knowing if Dohrmann and Evans actually committed the journalistic no-nos that they are being accused of. To be honest, it seems more realistic that the cited former players simply didn't realize the scope of what they were involving themselves in when they agreed to be interviewed, and I have no problem with that.

As this firestorm continues to unwind though (the second segment was released today), some of the backlash  directed at Dohrmann and Evans' has centered on their motivations for beginning the inquiry in the first place. The most succinct and visible instance has come from an unusual -- but really not that unlikely -- source:

The first and only time that T. Boone Pickens -- oil king, television
personality and Oklahoma State booster -- will appear on this blog

This, I feel no small amount of shame in admitting, is the more interesting question. I also think it's one that merits a consideration of the recent history of investigations into wrongdoing in college football.

With the near-constant turnover of college football rosters and -- increasingly -- coaching staffs, it's very hard for anyone to catch any of these programs actively doing anything wrong. In fact, this might be the closest we're going to ever come. For one, Les Miles is still among the college ranks, which is more than can be said for the other big-name NCAA investigations of the past several years. History has shown that these things take time to unfold and the college game is inherently uncooperative over such large swaths of time. If this is the high-water mark of NCAA action taken against a coach -- a combination of the most brazen violations with a clear and readily-punishable perpetrator -- it remains to be seen if that will actually amount to anything. Even given the involvement of a household name like Miles', the emerging sentiment is that it still looks like there's going to be very little that the NCAA can do about it.

So what's the point of writing pieces like the SI report? Does the unlikelihood of meaningful recourse mean that investigative reporting simply doesn't have a place in college football? These questions are where we are starting to get to the core of the journalistic issues involved in this episode, and where I have to address the uncomfortable feeling I got when I read the SI report for the first time.

There's something inherently unpalatable about witnessing someone being accused of something. While we accept enforcement and uphold it as necessary, there is also an instinctual tendency to scrutinize the accuser's motives, and I think that's a good thing. It seems to me that the case for the SI report being for the greater good of the game is pretty strong -- the rules should be enforced and offenders held accountable -- but in the back of my mind I realize that this need should be balanced out by the necessity of preventing the game from deteriorating into an ongoing public search for cheaters.

The accusation that Pickens and others are making is that this report is a little bit too much a witch hunt and not enough a well-intentioned act of honest journalism. Given the facts, I disagree with that opinion, but I had to sit and think it all out before I realized that I disagree.

When Bryan asked me to contribute to this blog, he was clear in saying that we weren't going to let this turn into a forum to throw out accusations -- baseless or otherwise. I think that's an important point, and one that I need to consciously remind myself of from time to time. The fallout from the SI report has shown me that I am not the only one who has to do this, because -- at the end of the day -- our goal is to improve the games which we write about, not to destroy them.

Photos courtesy of ESPN and Twitter

Grab Bag

Here are some things that have been on my mind as of late that do not merit full posts:

Ryan Braun admits to PED use in MVP season

Surprising no one, Ryan Braun admitted last week that he was using testosterone in 2011, the year in which he won the National League MVP.   For those unaware, Braun was able to get his positive test nullified by claiming that his sample was handled incorrectly, or more specifically, that it was left out of a refrigerator for too long.  Of course, a non-refrigerated sample would lead to quicker degradation of his sample and should, in theory, be beneficial to him.  Upon testing positive, Braun proceeded to attack the sample handler, ultimately costing him his job, and state with conviction that he had never taken a performance enhancing drug.

Braun's teammates have recently said that they will welcome him back into the clubhouse and that the past is past.  I'm obviously not a professional baseball player, but I think the best thing they could have done would have been to not to speak to the media about the issue.  Other Brewers players cannot publicly shame Braun, but he is a cheater who defiantly stated otherwise--I don't think publicly welcoming him back with open arms is exactly the best example.  Other athletes have previously done what Braun his done (read: Lance Armstrong) and they've gotten killed for it.  I'm not sure why Braun isn't getting the same treatment.

Breaking news: Track and field has a doping problem

Okay, so it's not really breaking news.  Athletics has a long history of doping problems; one simply needs to glaze over the list of doping busts in athletics to realize this, and then remember that these only the ones who got caught.  Regardless, last Friday, the New York Times ran a front page story stating that roughly 29% of athletes participating in the 2011 IAAF World Championships in Athletics (WC) had doped in the year running up to the championships.  This conclusion was the result of an anonymous, randomized response survey conducted at the World Championships and the 2011 Pan Arab Games.  The researchers reported over 2000 responses--to break that down, there were 295 T&F athletes at the Pan Arab Games and 1867 participants at the IAAF World Championships.  Based on these numbers, we can infer that most, if not all, of the WC athletes were surveyed.

Who's clean?

Twenty-nine percent is not a stunning result.  It's also most assuredly an underestimation of the actual number of athletes doping.  Despite guaranteed anonymity, some athletes could have motivation to lie about their use, either as a way of lying to themselves to make them think they aren't doing anything wrong or just to protect themselves in case the anonymity of the survey was compromised (note that dopers are notorious liars).  There is not, however, any conceivable motivation that would cause a clean athlete to say that they were dirty.

The article also states that WADA labs found less than 2% of its samples to be dirty.  It's unclear whether this was 2% of the samples from the athletes surveyed or 2% of all WADA samples; regardless, it's clear that whatever WADA is doing isn't doing a whole lot to curtail doping in sports.  Not that we'd ever see the data, but I'd love to know what percent of the 29% advanced out of their heats at the WC (and out of semis, etc.).  It would of course be interesting to see how many finalists are dirty, but I think that many people would be surprised at the number of dirty athletes who don't advanced out of their first rounds.  It would give a nice illustration to the depth of the problem.

Misc.

BOOM.

• Love watching Mariano Rivera pitch.  Always have.  I do my best to catch the end of Yankee games in hope that he might come onto the mound.  Truly a once-in-a-generation player and by all accounts, an even better man.
• With all the drama surrounding Johnny Manziel, I can only notice how screwed up the NCAA is.  The NCAA is supposed to protect its student-athletes when often times it seems like it's out to get them.  There is no easy solution.  Somewhat related, but it's also time to remove football from Title IX funding consideration.  Title IX is literally killing men's collegiate sports (and it hits close to home because often times it's track teams that get cut) and it's time for amendment to address the anomaly that is college football.
• I want Jadeveon Clowney on the Patriots.  Not that it'll ever happen, but  I can't think of many things more frightening than a defensive line of Chandler Jones, Vince Wilfork, and Clowney.  Christ.  Speaking of Clowney, here's a great New York Times piece on him.  Also, because it happened against Michigan, the Hit.
• As a sports fan, the fall might be my favorite season of the year.  Baseball pennant races and playoffs, college and pro football, and cross country are all underway and then in the middle of it all, basketball and hockey start back up again.  Gotta love it.
• Haven't watched a 30 for 30 that I haven't enjoyed.  One of the best things ESPN has done as of late.
• What's the deal with Tim Lincecum?  His arm has bipolar disorder or something--someone tell the Giants' team doctors to give it lithium injections.  Or maybe he just needs his long hair again.
• Alex Rodriguez's suspension hearing has been pushed to November.  Oh well.
• Go Buckeyes.

A Dose in Doping Theory

Why do athletes take performance enhancing drugs?

Recovery.

Why do athletes take performance enhancing drugs?

Recovery.

Why do athletes take performance enhancing drugs?

Recovery.

Got that?  If you take nothing else out of this blog, remember that athletes use PEDs for recovery.  That should be drilled into your head.

Let me first dispel the notion that dopers are lazy and would rather shoot up than work hard.  Simply not true.  Athletes dope so they can do more.  In ESPN's 30 for 30: 9.79* documentary, Ben Johnson said that when he was on anabolic steroids, he could max in his lifts twice a day as opposed to once every 3 days when he was clean.  Ask anyone who has tried to max-out a lift: it isn't easy, and it sure as hell isn't lazy.

You might be able to see where this is going.  Drugs do not immediately lead to more strength, endurance, etc., with the end goal being better performance.  Rather, they enable the user to have a higher workout volume to achieve higher levels of strength or endurance.  The impetus is still on the athlete to work harder than ever, as his/her body is literally incapable of the work naturally.

So, here's how it works, the very crux of doping in non-skill sports (i.e., track and field, cycling, Nordic skiing, swimming...basically sports that don't involve a ball): say you have a 3 month long competition period.  That means you have a 9 month out of competition period where 7 or 8 of those months are spent actually training.  Testing is much more stringent in competition season--out of competition testing is largely lax (or sometimes doesn't happen at all; see end of article).  The probability of getting caught out of season is on the order of magnitude of a fraction of a percent (I can't immediately recall anyone who's gotten busted for an out of season test).  So, you dope up on whatever is the rage of the day, be it anabolic steroids back in the 80s, or EPO, HGH, and testosterone now.  You know how long it will be in your system.  You almost have to be stupid to get caught, seeing as anyone who can consult a calendar will know when to dose and when not to.

Let's take the case of a male distance runner.  The bulk of off-season training consists of running a ton of miles.  Run too much though and his body breaks down, he'll get fatigued and start displaying diminishing marginal returns on his training.  But, take some PEDs (in this case, the big 3 of the modern day: EPO, HGH, and testosterone) and his body can handle more.  Instead of running 90 mile weeks he can tackle 105 mile weeks like no problem.  He can do his long runs a little bit faster.  Instead of lifting twice a week he has the energy to lift three times a week.  Pile this on for six-odd months and this athlete is going to be in the best shape of his life.  By the time workouts start rolling around, he'll be able to handle higher volume and higher intensity in those as well.

Now it's time to race.  Our athlete is what I'll call "currently clean"--that is, his urine won't trigger any positive tests nor is he on any sort of in-season doping regime--I hesitate to call him clean for reasons I'm about to explain.  Nothing can take away the training that this runner has accomplished over the past year.  All those extra miles, faster miles, extra lifting sessions, higher quality workouts, longer workouts are in his legs, his muscles, and his lungs.  Because of this, he'll be able to smash his PRs in a drag race and be able to close like a freight train (this is what a freight train looks like) off of paces where he was previously hanging on for dear life.  When asked how was able to improve so much, all he has to say is that he had a quality year of training at the highest level.  And he isn't even lying. 

Pretty simple, isn't it?  Cycle on the drugs, train your tail off, cycle off, and reap the rewards.  Now, the "currently clean" term I dubbed: the runner in my example is still dirty as all sin.  His fitness level is a result of his drug use.  Without the drugs, his year of training would have been marginally successful instead of wildly successful, all other things being equal.  I would say that his fitness is dirty, even though his pee-cup is saying otherwise.  Thus, he is currently clean, but he sure is not clean.  It's hard to do much about it, except something along the lines of weekly testing out of season, which is near impossible to facilitate (find me the following in rural Kenya: a drug lab, means of sample preservation, certified testers who want to go to Kenya, etc.).

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Recovery is not only important for higher quality training (or in the TDF and others, racing), but also in dealing with injuries.  Rodney Harrison was suspended by the NFL in 2007 for using HGH, which he said he used to accelerate the healing process from various injuries and not to gain a competitive edge (of course, an accelerated healing process is a competitive edge, but that's neither here nor there).  Whenever I hear a report on ESPN that such and such player is making a miraculous recovery from an injury and is months ahead of where doctors thought he would be, I just shake my head and wonder when anyone is going to question why these recoveries are being made so quickly (I'm not making accusations, but here's an example of what I'm talking about).  It just doesn't line up.

Shifting gears a little bit, when baseball's "Steroid Era" was outed in the early 2000s, many pundits said that they didn't think pitchers were doping because they didn't need to be huge in the same way hitters did.  While the part about being huge might be true--you can be as strong as you want, but if your fastball isn't moving, you're going to get hit--the part about them not doping is absolute baloney.  We've established what doping is about (hopefully you remember), and a starting pitcher is a prime candidate for someone who needs to recover quickly.  Every five days, a starter is charged with the task of throwing basically until his arm falls off.  If his arm starts falling off in the third inning, his bullpen is in for a long night his team will be at a disadvantage for the next couple of games.  Come the dog days of August when the pennant races are heating up, a pitcher might need a little help to be at his best each start.  PED use would allow him to be effective through the late summer months and into the fall when the playoffs begin.

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In the five months preceding the 2012 London Olympics, Jamaican track and field athletes were subject to one out of competition drug test.  Not one test each.  Just one athlete was tested once in those five months by Jamaica's anti-doping agency, which is responsible for upholding WADA and IAAF codes.  I'll let the readers make their own conclusions about this, but I will say that mine is not a particularly good one.

Asafa Powell, a 2012 Jamaican Olympian, was recently whacked for doping

Why do athletes take performance enhancing drugs?

Record-Board Loitering

Record are made to be broken.

Koch and Bonds: they have more in common than you might think.

That's the underlying assumption that I'm making in this post and, to be honest, it seems like a fairly safe one. Technology and equipment advance over time, training methods are refined, and -- if nothing else -- the greater number of athletes participating in sports should lead to higher performance ceilings. Take a peek at most any record progression (thanks for the link, Bryan) and you'll see what I mean. So what happens when we notice that certain records are starting to look a little old up there on the board? Or better yet, how do we respond when modern athletes -- for all of their advantages -- can't even come close?

To me, the most obvious cases of 'record-board loitering' (as I hereby dub this phenomenon) in sports are in the women's sprint events on the track, where all of the current world records hail from the 1980s. These cases are particularly noticeable because track is a sport where record turnover is generally near-constant. Let's take a look at these records (I'm throwing in the women's 800m because it's that ridiculous), and at how close the world's best times from recent championship years have been to surpassing them:

So yea, it's bad. Which gets us to the central point of this post: drugs. Most followers of track and field have at this point decided to disregard these old records -- in theory if not in practice -- because of the blight of performance-enhancing drugs which tarnishes the accomplishments of Griffith-Joyner, Koch and Kratochvilova.

Or at least they say that's why they're doing it. My point is that I don't think people would be nearly so quick to dismiss these records were they not so out-of-reach to track and field's current generation of stars. This is an interesting thought, but it's fairly intuitive. We don't denigrate these tainted athletes just because they cheated; we do it because they were so good at cheating.

For a deeper look into just how insurmountable these marks have proven to be, consider a new table:

Thank you, summer internship, for the Excel expertise.

Before I launch into any kind of statistical analysis, I need to cover my tracks here. The world record is not a random sample, so we can't statistically prove anything about the validity of these marks. Based on my rough approximation of a typical rate of record-breaking, though, we could expect a Z-score (difference divided by standard deviation, or how many standard deviations away from the average world-leading time the world record is) in the 1-2 range. Clearly that is not the case. The world-record marks are all more than two standard deviations less than the recent average. In short, this confirms what we already knew: the record times are really fast and nobody has been close to them.

One interesting thing that this table reveals, though, is just how much Griffith-Joyner's 10.49 and Koch's 47.60 stand out. At nearly six standard deviations off the average, Koch's mark is particularly untouchable. But is it the most outrageous record in sports? Just for fun, I ran a comparison of that record to another controversial sports record that isn't going to be broken any time soon: Barry Bonds' 73 home runs in a single season.

Wow. In this battle of chemically-assisted heavyweights, the embattled slugger comes out on top. It's like the Cold War all over again...

While marks like this represent the upper end of the spectrum of unbreakable records, they are part of a trend of record-board loitering that can be seen wherever PEDs have left their mark on a sport's past. And this trend has consequences, namely a decrease in interest going forward as fans become disheartened by the seemingly-disappointing performances of their generation's stars. Women sprinters have been feeling this crunch for years, and the effect will only become more pronounced in baseball as Bonds' record starts to look older and older.

So there you go. It's called record-board loitering, and the next time you find yourself unimpressed by a 49-second dash or a 50-home run season, you'll know what I'm talking about.

Photos courtesy of The Washington Post and Wikipedia

The Case for Usain Bolt

Usain Bolt after capturing 100m gold in Moscow

The IAAF World Championships concluded on Sunday with Usain Bolt claiming his third gold medal of the championships, leading his Jamaican 4x100m relay to victory.  Bolt now has the impressive haul of 6 Olympic gold medals, 8 World Championship golds, and 2 World Championship silvers.  Since his rise to stardom in 2008, Bolt's only championship blemish is his false start in the Daegu 100m final in 2011 (his two silvers were from 2007).

Another GOAT

Bolt is, with little debate, the GOAT (Greatest Of All Time) of sprinting.  Sports fans are quick to anoint athletes as the GOAT, but usually there is some room for debate--there's a short list of athletes whom the general public will not say anything about if they are claimed to be the GOAT.  Off the top of my head, Michael Phelps is the GOAT of swimming and Mariano Rivera is the GOAT of closers.  Beyond that, things get a little dicey: Jordan or Russell?  Was Lemieux more talented than Gretzky?  Don't even get started on the greatest hitter of all time.

So now we're talking about a GOAT on a doping blog.  This is not good news.  What I am going to attempt to do is make a case for why Bolt is not doping.  I am not saying that he isn't, but I'm going to try give some reasons why he might be natural.  Despite these reasons, I'll say that I won't be surprised if he were to get busted, and that there is nothing that would be more catastrophic for track and field right now than a positive drug test for Usain Bolt.

Let's start with the sheer absurdity that is Bolt's athletic career.  He has run 9.58 for 100m and 19.19 for 200m, both of which are world records.  The 19.19 was run as his 8th race of the Championships.  A fresh Bolt, at that time, could scare the 19 second barrier, which is more than I can wrap my mind around.

Ben Johnson: the first man under 9.80

Here's the list of athletes who have run under 9.80s for 100m:
Usain Bolt
Tyson Gay
Yohan Blake
Asafa Powell
Nesta Carter
Justin Gatlin
Maurice Greene
Ben Johnson

Here's the list of athletes who have run under 9.80s for 100m who have not been associated with the use of PEDs:
Usain Bolt

Oops.  In fact, you have to go down to 9.84 before you find someone other than Bolt on the all-time list who hasn't been immediately associated with drugs.  So if we say that the "clean" non-Bolt WR is 9.84, we're thus saying that Bolt is naturally 0.26s faster than anyone in history.  That's nearly a 3% difference in performance (for reference, a 10s 100 decided by 0.01s is a 0.1% difference).  Hardly adds up, right?

Tyson Gay on his way to 19.58.  One of the coolest track pictures I've seen.

Now let's look at the absurdity of the 200m.  On Saturday, Bolt ran 19.66 to win gold.  At first glance, that performance did nothing for me.  Then I remembered that, until recently, anything under 19.60 was hallowed ground.  Five men--Bolt, Yohan Blake, Michael Johnson, Walter Dix, and Tyson Gay--have broken 19.60.  So, in reality, this 19.66 is in itself a fairly spectacular performance, but the point I'm trying to get at is that Bolt's excellence has led us to expect times in the 19.3s or faster and anything slower is a poor day.  But, if anyone else, save Blake and his freakish 19.26, were to run that fast, he'd gather some attention.

We've now established that Bolt is an extreme outlier and that people who are even remotely close to him doped to do so.  Let's defend Bolt a bit.

Bolt has been a sensation in the track world long before he burst onto the scene in 2008 with his 9.72 WR in New York.  For example, here's his 200m progression since 2001:

There's nothing too fishy about that other than the drop from 21.73 to 20.58 between 2001 and 2002, but when you realize that he was 14 in 2001 and 15 in 2002, it makes a little more sense (i.e., puberty happened).  In 2004 as a 17 year old he ran a still standing world junior record at 19.93.  The kid was a star from the moment he stepped on a track.  As a WJR holder, it would follow that maybe someday he would approach the WR.  My point is, he didn't pull a Rashid Ramzi going from a 3:39 guy to 3:30 in one year at age 24.

Athletic freak

Bolt is also a straight up freak (kind of like how Michael Phelps is a freak, although obviously Bolt's characteristics are different).  There is no other way to describe him physically.  He stands 6'5" and weighs a slender 207 pounds.  There's not much on his frame that doesn't need to be there, which means he doesn't have to expend extra energy carrying that stuff around (dear distance runners reading this: eat.  Bolt could put on 20 pounds of muscle in a month but he doesn't need to; that is a whole different league than trying to take off 5 pounds from a 100 pound frame by starving yourself).  His 6'5" stature means his steps are ridiculously long.  The Guardian reported that he took 41 steps in the London 100m final while the average elite 100m runner takes 44.  But, speed is a combination of stride length and turnover (how quickly the legs cycle through between steps).  Traditionally, taller athletes have slower turnover because it takes longer for their long legs to cycle through.  Bolt, on the other hand, has the turnover of a 5'10" guy.  As such, he has a lethal combination of stride length and turnover that makes him the best ever.

Much has been said about the poor quality of Bolt's start.  While his start is certainly not perfect, let's take a moment to dispel the myth that he has a terrible first 30m of his 100m.  The WR for the 60m is 6.39 held by Maurice Greene.  When Bolt ran 9.58 in 2009, the first 60m of that race was timed at 6.31 (w=+0.9).  Even more frightening is that in his 9.69 run in 2008, he had his first 60m timed at 6.32 with no wind (w=±0).  So, he's covering 60m faster than Maurice Greene, who is of a traditional short-sprinter build (5'9.5", 170lbs).

En route to 9.69 and his first Olympic gold

Bolt also has the best technique I've ever seen.  I remember my jaw being on the floor the first time I saw him run--and it wasn't because he was running 9.69 celebrating for 30m.  The whole reason why he's such a clown before races isn't for the attention; he does it to keep his body relaxed.  This optimizes his stride length and allows him to conserve energy.  Without going into the finer details of technique that only I will enjoy reading, the positioning of all parts of his body is worlds better than anyone else.  Sprinters of all ages should spend hours watching his race videos and looking at pictures of him at various phases of his races.  Even having half the technique that Bolt does would improve an athlete's speed tremendously.
(Post-publication clarification: I should note that Bolt's form isn't perfect.  There are certain areas where he could improve, most notably, how he runs the turn in the 200.  His top-end technique, though, is out of this world.)

So there you have it.  Bolt has been an age-group superstar turned senior-level megastar who won the genetic lottery and was born with incredible natural technique.  He's a borderline once-in-a-lifetime athlete.  And let's hope he's done it cleanly.

Why Biogenesis is not a big deal

The Biogenesis scandal is not a big deal.

Read that again.

On August 5th, Major League Baseball suspended 13 players (in addition to Ryan Braun who had been suspended two weeks earlier) for their relationships with Florida anti-aging clinic Biogenesis (particularly, use of HGH).

Source: Wikipedia

Melky Cabrera, Bartolo Colón, and Yasmani Grandal were also named in the report but were not punished because they had been previously suspended for failing tests for drugs provided by Biogenesis.  Gio Gonzalez and Danny Valencia were named in the report but were later cleared of PED use.

On the surface, this looks great (if you want PEDs out of sports, that is).  Thirteen players were suspended!  This is the nail in the coffin of the Steroid Era in baseball!  But it isn't, and here's why.

Nelson Cruz: Body by Bosch

1. None of the suspensions were the result of a positive test.  MLB's testing didn't catch any of these guys; rather, a disgruntled Biogenesis employee leaked company records detailing its clientele.  The fall of the players was a result of legal and investigative prowess, not brilliant drug testing.  MLB did not in any way demonstrate improvements to their testing procedures through this case--the lesson for potential users is, "Don't deal with shady people," when the lesson we want to see from drug-busts is, "The testing is better, don't try to get around it because we will catch you."

2. It's only fourteen players.  At any one time, there are 750 players on Major League rosters.  There are currently 1200 members of the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA).  That is to say, slightly less than 2% of players on rosters were caught and a shade over 1% of due-paying players were caught.  I think most people can agree than more than 2% of baseball players are doping.  Is it a step?  Yes.  But to call it a watershed moment is a little overstated.  For comparison, last week the Turkish Athletics Federation banned 31 of its athletes for doping.  I'm going to hazard a guess and say that there are fewer elite level track athletes in Turkey than there are MLB players, and I'm still not even sure I'd classify the Turkish bans as overly meaningful (more like funny, really).

3. It's only 50 games.  That's a slap on the wrist, although it's fairly consistent with the other major sports' bans.  Clearly the risk of suspension isn't harsh enough to discourage players from using PEDs.  In the case of Cruz and Peralta, they'll be able to join their respective teams for the final week of the regular season in what could be the heat of a pennant race (although the Tigers are sitting comfortably ahead of the Indians at this time).  What's more, they've already been helping their teams throughout the season getting to where they are--WAR aside, it's hard to know where the Tigers and Rangers would be without their All-Stars.  From the financial standpoint, the players do lose money from not playing these games, but they'll still get bonuses if their teams make the playoffs.

So, what do we do?  The first thing I'd advocate for would be stricter penalties.  The punishments need to be severely detrimental to the career of the player, if not career ruining.  Lifetime bans are a pipe dream, but I don't think a 2 year ban inline with current WADA code is unreasonable.  The IAAF just moved from two year bans to four year bans, and that's in a sport that has a much shorter window of performance than baseball (unless you're Justin Gatlin or Dwain Chambers, a four year ban is basically career-ending).  If stiffer penalties are going to be introduced, MLB must begin taking A and B samples to account for false positives.

2012 All-Star Game MVP Melky Cabrera

Teams should also be able to negotiate voiding clauses into players' contracts.  If a player gets suspended, the team should have the option to relieve themselves of that contract, or at least be able to renegotiate.  In some cases, a player could be rewarded with a larger contract due to increased production from PED use.  Look at how Melky Cabrera dropped off from 2012 to this year when he is, presumably, off the juice.  In my mind, it's not much different than a regular person lying on their résumé to a potential employer.  In the "real world," if you get busted for lying on your résumé, you get fired--no questions asked.  Why that isn't the case in baseball (or all sports) is rather baffling.

I'm now going to take a minute to talk about Alex Rodriguez, who has been catching a lot of flak in the media for his decision to appeal his suspension.  There are many, many reasons to dislike A-Rod, and people call him selfish for his appeal, but I can kind of see where he's coming from.  Look at it from his perspective: he's 38 and has a suspension looming that bans him from the game in 2014.  By the time Spring Training rolls around in 2015, he'll be 39 going on 40.  He's due $25 million in 2014, $21 million in 2015, and $20 million in each 2016 and 2017.  What does he have to lose by appealing?  He's getting paid $28 million this year, so every day he isn't suspended is another day where he makes more money (not like he needs it).  I'm not saying I agree with what he's doing, but I get it.

Ryan Braun: fraud

Also, Ryan Braun is the biggest fraud ever.  Everyone knows that his failed test for elevated levels of testosterone in the fall of 2011 was legit (wait, sorry, I forgot that leaving a sample at room temperature instead of in the freezer will cause testosterone levels to increase!  The test must be wrong!) and then in Spring Training the following year he had the audacity to hold this press conference.  He sounds like Lance Armstrong, and that's not a good comparison.  What a clown.

Doping Policies in the Four Major Sports

The four major sports leagues in the US--Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Associate, the National Hockey League, and the National Football League--all have their own banned substance lists, punishments, and testing methods.  This post will summarize the important parts of each sport's policy and highlight important differences between them.

Major League Baseball

The MLB instituted its testing policy for steroids in 2002.  Today, a first positive test results in a 50 game suspension, a second means is a 100 game suspension, and a third leads to a lifetime ban from the game.  The MLB banned substance list includes 8 recreational drugs, 70 drugs it classifies as "steroids" (including testosterone, epitestosterone, etc.), and 55 stimulants.  EPO is not on the list, although baseball players don't do a whole lot of running or anything cardio related, so this is not entirely surprising.  The Player's Association only agreed to start testing for HGH and testosterone, two of the drugs baseball players would benefit most from, this year.

Jose Canseco: noted steroid user turned whistle-blower

The MLB uses urine tests to check for banned substance use (except in the case of HGH, which will be covered later).  All players are tested twice a year: once when they report for spring training and once, unannounced, at another randomly selected point in the season.  Additionally, the MLB will conduct a total of 1,400 other random tests during the year.  A small number (which changes year to year but is published in the Joint Drug Agreement) of these will be in the offseason.

Regarding HGH, each player is subjected to an unannounced blood test during spring training and that sample will be tested for HGH only (so go wild with the other drugs undetectable by urine but detectable by blood).  There is also unannounced, random blood testing for HGH during the offseason that will be conducted in tandem with the aforementioned offseason urine collections.

Failure of a test, in addition to the requisite suspension, results in increased testing (three tests) over the year following the positive test.

There does not appear to be any sort of backup sample or "B sample" to confirm a positive test.

The MLB Joint Drug Agreement can be found here (PDF).

The National Basketball Association

Similar to baseball, the NBA tests for recreational drugs, SPEDs (steroids, PEDs, masking agents, and diuretics), and marijuana (yes, marijuana has its own category in the NBA).  For our purposes, we are really only concerned about the SPEDs.  One failed test results in a 20 game suspension, a second is a 45 game punishment, and a third failure leads to "dismissal" from the league.  I could not find a banned substance list for the NBA, but it probably looks fairly similar to the MLB's.

O.J. Mayo was suspended in 2011 for DHEA use

The NBA tests on a random basis and a "reasonable cause" basis.  Reasonable cause testing occurs when, "the league or players association provides the program's independent expert with information about a player's use, possession or distribution of prohibited substances, and the expert believes that reasonable cause exists to order testing. If reasonable cause is found to exist, the player can be tested without notice up to four times in a six week period."  In terms of random testing, players are tested up to four times in the regular season and up to two times in the offseason.

There is no mention of what kind of testing is done, so I'll assume that it's a simple urine test.  The League and Player's Association are currently "convening a panel to determine whether there is a valid test for Human Growth Hormone (HGH), and if so, to recommend testing procedures. If a valid test exists, the league may commence HGH testing 60 days afterward, up to two times during each season, and once during each offseason."  We'll see what comes of it.

In the event of a failed test, the NBA allows for players to request their B sample to be tested at a different lab from where their A sample was tested. 

I do think it's rather funny how much the NBAPA fought to get marijuana legislated separately from everything else.

Information on the NBA doping policy can be found here.

The National Hockey League

As part of the new CBA in 2005, the NHL adopted an anti-doping policy for drugs on a banned substance list that they agreed to agree upon, noting that the list would be basically the same as that maintained by WADA.  One failure is a 20 game suspension, a second is 60 games, and a third is permanent suspension from the league with the option to apply for reinstatement after two years.

Testing (no mention of what kind; probably urine) occurs twice a year, any time in the year, at random.  One of those tests will occur on a team-wide basis.  Players can appeal a test result but there does not appear to be any mention of B samples.

There is no specific mention of HGH, but HGH is banned by WADA.  Blood testing would be needed though, and there is no mention of that.

The press release regarding the NHL's drug policy can be found here.

The National Football League

Shawne Merriman was suspended in 2006
for violating the NFL's steroid policy

The NFL began its testing program in 1987, many years before any of the other major sports started their testing.  Finding solid information on the League's drug policy is difficult, but a first positive test results in a four game suspension and a second leads to a six game ban.  Only two players have been caught twice, and they both retired.

NFLers can be tested up to six times during the year, regardless of time of the year.  Each player is tested at least once.  The NFL uses A and B samples.

The NFL seems to escape scrutiny for drug use.  Players take their four game suspensions and no one thinks twice when they return to the field.

Chris Davis and the Culture of Assumed Guilt

A familiar sight to baseball fans
over the past four months.

On Saturday afternoon in sunny San Francisco, Orioles slugger Chris Davis hit a baseball 466 feet. Let's just appreciate that for a minute. 466 feet. Damn.

And before the ball had returned from the upper stratosphere to land halfway up the center-field bleachers at AT&T Park, before Davis had stopped watching the thing sail through the cloudless August sky, my viewing partner muttered something under his breath, a word that has buzzed around Davis this season like a swarm of bees chasing an ice cream truck.

"Steroids."

For reasons that should be pretty clear to even the most casual baseball fan, the ever-looming specter of the Steroid Era (a term which means less and less every time Bud Selig hands out another 50-game suspension) has made it impossible for us to look upon a mid-career power surge without cringing. We run through career stats to see whose slugging percentage is up, whose OPS+ has gone through the roof. The bigger the forearms, the more our suspicion grows. And Chris Davis -- with his square jaw and fastball-devouring 33-ounce bat -- is just the culprit we've trained ourselves to look out for.

I say we because I've been thinking it too.

Davis told the Baltimore Sun the power boost is from a revised plate approach and a strict diet. The cynic in me says that everyone has an excuse, be it spinach or dental work, and the general consensus (if that's what we're calling Rick Reilly nowadays) seems to agree. We listened to Big Mac deny it, and Braun and A-Rod, and we've just about run out of goodwill to beam in the direction of sluggers who've let us down time and time again. Sorry, Chris.

But hold on just one second: did I just say excuse? Since when did we start requiring an excuse for
being good at what you do? For giving us exactly what we're looking for?

Call it ironic. Call it a feedback loop. But it's a part of the game now, and not just for the players.

Davis said it himself: the single-season home run record he's chasing is the one set by Roger Maris in 1961. It's as if we all collectively decided that the 1994 strike just stretched on out for the better part of the next decade. It all just never happened. I'm not here to campaign for Roger Clemens' Hall of Fame candidacy or try to humanize Barry Bonds, but I think that it's dangerous to make the jump from punishing proven PED users to vilifying anyone who hits 40 home runs, and that the most dangerous thing about that jump is that it seems perfectly reasonable given the trajectory of the game over the past 20 years.

Call me crazy, but it seems like the only thing worse than a game where everybody is cheating is a game where everybody is suspected of cheating. The 'S' word has become a defense mechanism for fans to engage when we feel the familiar inkling that what we're experiencing is too good to be true, but the flipside of that is that it's also become a blanket rejection of anybody who accomplishes anything unexpectedly great.

In short, we've taught ourselves to hate the very heroes that we catch ourselves longing for.

And that's bad, but not because it's unfair to the players. It's bad because it's undermining our ability to experience baseball as we always have. Every time Chris Davis smacks a ball into the seats -- as he has done a majors-best 42 times this year through Sunday's games -- and our reaction is not one of joy (if you're an Orioles fan) or irritation (everybody else in the AL east) but of speculation as to whether or not Davis has taken drugs, we get farther and farther away from the game, sucked away into a storyline that ultimately goes nowhere. We have no way of knowing if Davis has taken PEDs, so we might as well believe him when he says he hasn't.

That doesn't mean that league official can't or shouldn't take steps to keep PEDs out of the game. The MLB's substance-abuse policy can be tightened. The testing mechanism can be improved. Needless to say, it will all be a lot easier if the Player's Association makes more than a perfunctory effort to make these changes happen. My point is simply that these sidebars should not distract us from the actual game that, believe it or not, still takes place out on the field, far from the speculative minds that haunt the sports-talk airwaves and blogosphere.

If Rick Reilly and others are eventually proven right and Chris Davis is somehow tied to PEDs, then fine. Be as merciless as your instincts tell you you should be. Until then, how about some admiration? The guy can flat-out hit.

Photograph courtesy of ESPN

EPO: Injection to Detection

A few weeks ago a poster on a track forum I frequent started a thread titled "EPO: injection to detection in elite athletes".  This is the text of the original post:

Popular media has suggested there are 80-100 undetectable substitutes for EPO. I know EPO is a naturally occurring hormone in the body but know next to nothing beyond that. I am wondering if someone with a solid background in chemistry, physiology, bio-genesis, etc. can take the time and explain how it all works, injection to detection. For instance, I can't imagine a 3:42.7 guy takes EPO or a substitute the night before and all of a sudden magically runs 3:28.81 on race day.
Unless everyone here is a PhD in biochemistry or a laboratory scientist of the sort I am guessing others are in similar positions. They know what EPO is but not how it works and enhances performance. It would help if examples were catered to the running perspective (ex: effects on training) and wasn't overly loaded with jargon. I am also personally very interested in:

• "gene doping" vs "traditional doping"
• intricacies of testing methods
• why "substitutes" are undetectable

Article: Doping-Undetectable new blood boosters available says expert

For some reason, I decided to write a response to this poster, and I think that it would be worth posting again here.

EPO

As has been previously stated, erythropoietin, or EPO, is a signalling molecule (cell signaling) that eventually leads to the production of more red blood cells (erythrocytes). EPO binds to a receptor on the outside of the cell, causing that receptor to change shape (known as conformation; the change here is a dimerization). The newly changed receptor can then bind and activate another protein (a protein kinase), and then after several more steps, molecules (transcription factors) reach the DNA and causes more production of proteins that are necessary for red blood cell maturation (transcription factors cause increased synthesis of mRNAs that code for proteins required for erythrocyte maturation; this is an example of a JAK-STAT system). Source: Lehninger 443-4.

1. Regarding substitutes.
In chemistry, molecules can be analogues of one another. That is to say, they are structurally basically the same, but have a minor difference that may or may not affect function. An example of this would be sucrose (table sugar) vs. sucralose (Splenda).

Sucrose (sugar) vs. sucralose (Splenda)

These two molecules have the same basic backbone and differ only in three functional groups (they are circled). The hydroxyls (OH) on sucrose are changed to chlorides (Cl) on sucralose. As most of you know, sugar and Splenda taste basically the same but Splenda has no caloric value. Why? The slight structural change leads the body to not uptake sucralose and instead you just poop it out. However, it serves the same function as sucrose.

Now, what does this have to do with EPO? Proteins, as they are molecules as well, can have analogues much in the same way small molecules can. These analogues can have essentially the same structure and function, but small variations in the structure (amino acid sequence) can change their detectability. This is similar to how your body does not "detect" Splenda--you reap the benefits of sucralose, but you don't pay the caloric price of sugar because your body doesn't have the receptors. When you mention that there are 80-100 "substitutes" for EPO, they are undetectable insofar as they have subtle differences that prevent them from being picked up by the test but do not change their overall function. I don't know how synthetic EPO is tested for (other than way back when they would test for plastics found in the bags they were stored in), so I can't give any more insight into where and what these changes are.

2. How EPO affects performance.
As we have said, EPO leads to the increased production of red blood cells. I'm not sure the time between injection and RBC production, but I would guess that it's on the order of hours, and I think I've read that RBC levels normalize after about 3 days. So, one would benefit from shooting up the night before, but it isn't going to take you from 3:42 to 3:29, no way, no how. The strength of EPO, and any PED, comes from what they allow you to do in training. If you have more RBCs, you're going to able to run faster and longer in your workouts, do more miles per week, etc. If you're on the juice for 9 months and your training load is exceeding what you're body can naturally handle, when you come off it, you're going to be in ridiculous shape. You come off the juice, ramp down your training, and race. You'll pass your in-season tests because you're off the stuff, but you've already reaped the benefits of the PEDs because you were able to have higher quality and quantity of training over the previous nine months. The competition season becomes about doing maintenance work to keep that level of fitness. Your body can also probably now handle a higher level of training, but not as high as when you were on the juice. A program like this is probably what lead to Ramzi's stupid drop in time between 2003 and 2004.

It is also worth mentioning that young RBCs are more efficient oxygen carriers than are older RBCs (RBCs have a life cycle of ~120 days). It is thus beneficial to induce the production of RBCs because your body will have a higher percentage of newer and more efficient cells delivering oxygen to the muscles (source). Tyler Hamilton talks about the use of EPO between stages on the Tour in his book (which is worth reading).
See also: http://www.sportsscientists.com/2007...mance-who.html

3. Gene doping vs. traditional doping.
WADA defines gene doping as "the non-therapeutic use of cells, genes, genetic elements, or of the modulation of gene expression, having the capacity to improve athletic performance". EPO abuse is a form of gene doping; as I previously explained, EPO increases the expression of genes important in RBC production. Read more here.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "traditional doping", but if you provide an example of what you mean, I'll try to expand.

4. Intricacies of testing methods.
I don't know too much about how EPO is tested for--I don't think that information is out there. Here are some general testing methods:
-Biologic levels: some PEDs alter the levels of certain naturally occurring compounds in the body. So, while the drug itself isn't being tested for, the effects of the drug are. An example of this is the testosterone/epitestosterone ratio (although this is a little more direct). In normal humans, these are produced in roughly the same amounts (an Australian study found the mean T/E ratio to be 1.15:1). But, when Mary Slaney pops a T/E of greater than 6:1, you know something's up. Sometimes epitestosterone is administered as a masking agent for synthetic testosterone to keep the T/E ratio down. A second example is measuring hematocrit (% RBC in blood) for blood doping. Back in the late 90s and early 2000s, the UCI allowed hematocrit levels of up to 50. As long as you were under that number, you were good to go. If you tested higher, you got popped, as you basically had to be on something to get that level of RBCs.
-Testing for the compound itself: not sure how often this is done, but in the case of a synthetic compound that has a long half-life, a chemist could design a test to look for the presence of the molecule.
-Testing for carrying devices: as I previously mentioned, tests used to be done for the plastics in blood bags. Those aren't supposed to be in your body.

Post by AJ Acosta in the same thread:
Doping programs are incredibly sophisticated and the new rage these days is "microdosing."The idea is that by using a patch or fast acting cream, the steroids or whatever drug you are using is out of the system fast. Remember, the half life of EPO is something ridiculously short like 5 hours, so by microdsoing you significantly decrease your chances of being caught. And as other and smarter posters have laid out, the chemists will change chemical compositions of the drugs to make it even harder for hte drugs to be detected.

My response: Yes. Tyler Hamilton talks about this.

Another post by AJ:
You dont "use" up blood cells technically, although i suppose when you dig in the well a little too deep you start using your iron storage levels a bit.

My response: This sounds about right. My understanding is that stressful exercise can lead to RBC destruction due to depletion of protectants (eg antioxidants).