Asbel Kiprop, former Olympic and three-time World 1500m champion, has been banned for four years for doping. Here are my insights on the Final Decision and some concepts it raises about anti-doping.
Running
Short Thought on Sport: Asbel Kiprop’s “positive test” and a chance for the biological passport to shine (or not)
I’m back with a short thought on sport! Turns out these haven’t always been short enough to allow me to do them as often as I’d have liked, apologies. But let’s see how this one goes! So Asbel Kiprop is due to hear his fate any day now. On March 23rd, I read an article […]
The aging of elite performance: “Geriatric champions” and have the rules for getting older changed?
Yesterday, I was sent this link. It says that Dwain Chambers, he of THG and a doping ban in 2004 (!), is making a comeback, hoping to qualify for Team GB at the European Indoor Championships. At the age of 40. Well, almost 41. My first thought was “Of course he is”, and then upon […]
Letter to BJSM reinforcing call for retraction of IAAF research on testosterone in women
Along with two prominent scientists, we have recently called for the research study on testosterone’s effects in women athletes to be retracted. This research is part of the IAAF’s policy on hyperandrogenism in athletics, but we have analyzed aspects of the study, and discovered significant and numerous errors. This article describes those errors, and calls for scientific integrity and transparency from both the IAAF and the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
The physiology of the cold: Why might women out-‘survive’ men?
Boston 2018 was one for the archives. A brutally cold, wet and windy day made for incredible, unpredictable elite races, and a whole lot of DNFs! There’s a theory that women did better in this regard than men, and this post explores cold physiology, and what factors MIGHT explain why women MIGHT be able to handle the extreme cold better than men