Pistorius vs Oliveira and Technology.  Three quick thoughts on Round 4

Tonight sees the final evening of Paralympic action and it will be highlighted by the fourth clash between Oscar Pistorius and Alan Oliveira.  Oliveira stunned the world when he beat Pistorius in the 200m final last weekend, igniting a debate about the length of his carbon fiber blades.

Ironically, it was Pistorius who supplied the kerosene and the match to start the 'technology bonfire', which has not relented.  Pistorius has, for the last five years, defended his prosthetics and claimed that the technology does not provide any relative advantage.  A first defeat over 200m in nine years, and his first comment was to call out the technology used by a rival, and that has enormous implications for how we perceive the carbon fiber prosthetic technology in the sport for ALL its users.

Pistorius was both wrong and misguided in his explanations and reasoning for his protest.  Wrong, because he claimed that he couldn't compete with Alan's strides, when in fact, it was Alan's stride rate that was the difference (Pistorius had longer strides, by about 8%, it turns out).  If he loses the 400m final tonight, it will be for the same reason, so look for the stride rate differences.  Misguided, because the IPC have a set of rules or formulas in place that govern the length of athlete's blades and Oliveira was comfortably beneath these.  The IPC guidelines allow Oliveira to run up to 1.845m, and he competed at 1.81m.  For Pistorius, incidentally, the IPC allow 1.93m and he races at 1.84m.  More on this later.

In the larger scheme of things, however, what Pistorius achieved was to draw attention to the fact that rule changes may be needed, and I think the implications of that were lost on him somewhat.  I explained more of this in my post at the time.  I'm not sure what rule change they can make, without discriminating against one athlete but not another.  Ironically enough, Pistorius' CAS appeal was against rules that he felt discriminated against one athlete, and now he's effectively asking for a rule change that will allow him to benefit at other's expense.

Every double amputee, at some stage, has the opportunity to "optimize" the technology and specifications of their carbon fiber blades.  For Pistorius, this came in 2007/2008, when he was testing new blades with Ossur, flying to Iceland to try prototypes, and doing all kinds of testing before taking his case to CAS for the right to compete against able-bodied athletes.  Back then, he competed at a height 184 cm when the IPC rules would allow 193 cm, and now is obliged to stay at that height after the CAS decision.  What we should be asking is why he was at this shorter height in the first place?  He had 9 cm to play with back then.  For Oliveira, no such CAS-ruling exists, though it might, but he is the sport's next uncomfortable problem.

The scientific evidence suggests that length is one of a few reasons why the blades do provide a relative advantage.  Oliveira's emergence on the 'blade runner' scene means that we now have two athletes with access to the technology and the skill to use it, and suddenly we don't know which is the better athlete, because the technology confounds it.   Read that previous sentence once more, except replace "Oliveira" with "Pistorius" and you see the problem with the cross-over of amputees into able-bodied events.

Looking ahead to the 400m final. Quick thoughts

In any event, let's look ahead to tonight's clash in the 400m race.

Before their 100m final (Pistorius was 4th and Oliveira 7th), the cameras focused in on the prosthetic limbs of each athlete, further showing that for all the exploits of the athletes in London 2012, the 'stars' of this particular show have become the devices they run on.

In their 400m semi-finals, both shut it down with about 100m to run, so their qualifying times don't tell the true picture.  I think the better "preview" for the race is that they went through 200m in identical times, around 23 seconds, and so except them to be level with 100m to run tonight.  It's sure to be a great race, determined largely by whether Oliveira, just 20, has the strength over the distance compared to Pistorius.

Or will it?  Perhaps the technology will have the greater impact.  Here are three things to keep in mind when this debate kicks off again, as it inevitably will.

1.  Don't look purely at the length of the prosthetic limbs

Much has been made of the fact that Oliveira runs on blades that are 47cm long, while Pistorius' are 41cm long.  Failing to think this through, people claim "Ah, that's proof, the Brazilian has an advantage".  The commentator on the world feed, who is absolutely dreadful for many reasons, the least of which is ignorance, points this out all the time.

The truth is more complex.  Imagine for a second two men, both double amputees, identical in every respect, except for WHERE their amputation is.  One is amputated just above the ankle, the other just below the knee.  That means a ± 15 cm difference in their height WITHOUT prosthetic limbs.

If you now provided blades that are the SAME length to both these men, you'd be putting one on stilts (the above-ankle amputee), the other on 'stubs' (the above knee).  The lower down the amputation, the shorter the blade has to be to create "equality".  This is why, when you compare Pistorius to Oliveira, you cannot simply look at the carbon fiber blades.  Pistorius' amputation is low down, whereas Oliveira's is higher up - you can see this in all photos, just by observing the socket that the carbon fiber blade is attached to.

Now consider two differently sized men.  Here, you have an even more complex situation, because even if the amputation is in the same place, they may require different blades, because one of them is Usain Bolt (tall with long limbs), the other is Tyson Gay, shorter.

The point is, you cannot standardize the length of the blades because a) you have to allow for where amputation is, and b) you'd be disadvantaging taller runners with relatively shorter blades, and vice-versa.

So when the camera zooms in on Pistorius and Oliveira either before after this final, don't just look at the blades, because it's only a small piece of the story.

2.  There are not two different sets of rules for Pistorius and the others

In the aftermath of Pistorius' defeat and protest, a number of people claimed that Pistorius had a point because there are two different sets of rules, that the IPC has one set of guidelines whereas Pistorius is bound by the IAAF to run on his "shorter" blades at a height of 1.84m.

This is untrue.  First of all, in IPC-sanctioned events, Pistorius can go up to 1.93m.  This was quite clear after the IPC leaked a document that shows the maximum allowable heights for all the double amputees.  That is shown below.


So, Pistorius could, if he wished, lengthen his blades for IPC races, just not IOC or IAAF events.  That may be very difficult to do, making the change from shorter to taller, so you can appreciate that he wouldn't do it.  Then again, Oliveira managed, within a few weeks, to get faster on slightly longer blades, so it's not inconceivable.

Secondly, however, we have to go back to 2008 again - the IAAF did not have guidelines in place for the length of blades, because there was no precedent.  So, at the time when Pistorius gave them this question, they borrowed the IPC formulas.  The result is that the IAAF would have the same formula and height restrictions as the IPC, and which you can see above.

The exception (for IAAF events only) is Pistorius, because of the CAS-ruling that "locks" him in at 1.84m, as I explained previously.  The rules are not different for IPC events, and if we go back, then the implications are even more important.

That is, I think there are more pertinent questions that need to be asked.  For example:

• Oliveira has admitted that a few weeks ago, he increased the length of his blades, taking his racing height from 1.77m to 1.81m.  That has made a significant difference on his performance.  The question is, having gone up 4cm, why not go up another 4cm to his limit?  If height was the be-all and end-all decisive factor, he'd have gone there.
• Similarly, Blake Leeper and David Behre are not competing at their maximum allowable heights either
• Third, and very importantly, going back to 2008, Pistorius had 1.93m as his limit, but was already at 1.84m.  As a result, he's now obliged to race at that height by virtue of the CAS-ruling that prevents him from deviating from what was tested and approved.  However, we should be going further back, as I said above, and asking why he was competing so "short" in the first place?

I don't know the answer to these questions with certainty, but I can hazard an opinion, and it's that adding height does not mean a faster overall performance.  It may mean a higher top speed and better finish, but there is a compromise in terms of the effect of longer blades on the start and the bend.  Watch Oliveira's 100m race to see this.  Part of it is that his amputation is higher up, and part is due to 6cm of additional blade length.  Blake Leeper has the same issue because he is also amputated higher up.  My point is that the athletes settle on a racing height that is lower than the allowable limit for a reason - best performance.  Claiming that height is the crucial factor is to overlook all the other factors that affect performance.
What we are seeing in the Paralympic double amputee events is a race where athletes have tested their equipment, found the optimal specifications for OVERALL time, factoring in how much is lost at the start and gained on the straight, and now compete against one another.
Oliveira, for whatever reason, may be better able to manage or control longer blades, still within the IPC limits.  Perhaps in the future, another athlete will be even better.
Just a quick word on those limits shown above.  They are based on measurements of other limb segments in able-bodied athletes, and then used to calculate what the person's maximum height can be before they become "disproportionately long-legged".  That number - the 1.93 or 1.854m - is not the average, however, because you will find that some people have longer legs relative to arms.  So the IPC must work with a range, perhaps average ± 2SD.  Then they add 3.5% to allow for athletes running on their toes.  Interestingly enough, if they took this 3.5% off, Pistorius' limit would drop to 186.4 cm and Oliveira would drop to 179.1 cm.  Presumably, this is what Pistorius considers fair and would accept as a rule change.
3.  Oliveira has allowed us to see the effect of technology
Final point - the only reason this debate is happening is because Oliveira has so publicly allowed us to see how the technology affects performance.  Here is an athlete who is clearly good - even if he is forced back to 179 cm with the removal of the 3.5% rule, for example, he'd be right up there in a Paralympic final, and this at the age of 20.  However, he's gone from good to great as a result of a technological improvement.
I'd argue that there is nothing wrong with this.  You could, playing devil's advocate, argue that Oliveira was running too short in the first place, back when he was at 1.77m, and now he's gone up to where he should be.  Or, continuing along the same lines, you could say that his unique skill is his ability to use those blades better than others, allowing him to use longer blades.
However, the difference between Oliveira and the others is not that he can do this "Formula-1 like" engineering of performance - they all can.  Rather, it's that he did it at a time and in a place where it is so clear for all to see.  It was the visible change that brought it to our attention. Reps for the companies that make the blades regularly help athletes with performance testing, trying out new blades, new materials, lighter mass, thinner blades, different ways to attach the blade to the stump, and of course, length.  They do this in the off-season, and the effects are not as obvious as they were for Oliveira, but they are there.
It's part of the sport, and so within guidelines set up by the IPC, it should not even be questioned provided it happens in Paralympic events only.  If anything, it should be encouraged and celebrated as a symptom of an advancing, improving sport.  In that regard, it's no different to cycling enforcing rules about bicycle specifications, or Formula-1 rules regarding car design, but still driving innovation in the search for a competitive advantage.  We can question those guidelines, but that's only because one person (and the obliging national federation in SASCOC) feels they unfairly prevent him from winning.  
And it is only 2012.  By 2016, there may well be four or five MORE double-amputees, inspired by Pistorius and Oliveira, who are even faster.  In fact, it is not inconceivable that the winning time in the men's 400m T44 final will be faster than the able-bodied winning time by 2016.  It all depends on the technology ruling.
History will judge the athletic ability of both Oliveira and Pistorius, because in future, with the continued growth of the Paralympic movement, times will drop, possibly significantly if the caliber of athletes can increase.  So far, the assumption for both is that they are genuine 21s or 46s 400m athletes.  If that's true, no problem.  If it is not, then some time in the future, a genuine 45s 400m runner will have the same technology and skill to use it, and then it will become obvious.  Time will tell.
Until then, we watch these races wondering if we're seeing the best runner, the most skillful practitioner, the best engineer or the wealthiest athlete win.  And yes, that's sport (think sailing, cycling), but it's never been a dominant characteristic of running.  The whole debate brings attention to the cross-over from paralympic to able-bodied events, and highlights just how complex it makes the sport.  Celebrate them for their differences, but recognize that they're different.
Ross The Science of Sport Dr. Ross Tucker Dr. Jonathan Dugas

Oscar Pistorius beaten, and then invites debate on someone else's technology

Talk about irony.  Within minutes of being upset by Brazil's Alan Oliveira in the final of the men's T44 200m, Oscar Pistorius claimed in this interview that he's "not running a fair race here".  The crux of his argument, which he also stated yesterday before even losing this final, is that his rivals are artificially extending the length of their legs, and he pointed out in this interview that "it's very clear that the guys have got very long strides".

To add to that case, he is quoted after the final as saying the following: "I can't compete with Alan's stride length".

Now, let me start upfront by saying that there is a lot more to running that stride length.  If all it took was big strides, then the running world would be dominated by the tallest men, and shorter runners like Tyson Gay would stand no chance.  What matters is not just stride length, or height, but rather the length of the leg relative to height, and the ground contact length, which is a function of the leg length (partly).  Plus there is force applied to the ground, leg turnover rates and all those things, but let's take one component at a time here!

As requested - a cursory look at the strides

So, since Oscar Pistorius has made it a point to emphasize how long his rivals' strides are (it's "very clear that they have got very long strides", he said), and to say that he "can't compete with Alan's (Oliveira - the Brazilian who beat him) stride length", I watched the race over and did the obvious thing - I counted the strides.

It turns out that Pistorius took 92 steps during the race (2.2m per stride), and Oliveira took 98 steps to win gold (2.0m per stride).  To break it down further:

In the first 100m, Pistrorius took 49 steps (2.0m per stride), with 43 steps in the straight (2.3m per stride).

Oliveira, on the other hand, took SHORTER strides - 52 in the first 100m (1.92m each) and 46 in the second 100m (2.2m each).

So, a simple count shows that Pistorius has longer strides than Alan, and they are consistently longer - on the bend, and in the straight, for those who are wondering.   It's Oliveira who "can't compete with Oscar's stride length".  His faster speed, then, is the result of faster leg movement, because speed, as you will appreciate, is the result of stride length and stride rate.

And here again, let me repeat, there is much more to the debate that simply the stride length, as I'll get to shortly.  But the point there is that once again, you have this misinformation from Pistorius, and the media are too lazy to interrogate it further, they just report and allow the uninformed debate to go on.  Already on Twitter I got numerous responses saying "Look how long Oliveira's stride is"!  And it's not - it's shorter than Pistorius', by some margin!

It's not (just) about the stride length.  And welcome to the slippery slope

Right, so having dealt with that over simplification, let's talk briefly about the issue here.  Is it possible that the Brazilian has increased his stride length as a result of increasing the length of his blades?  Of course it is.  This is part of the problem with the prosthetic limbs, and there's no way to know this unless you go back to the IPC World Championships in 2011 and measure the height of the athlete and compare it to today.

You could count Oliveira's strides and find that his stride length has increased, but now you have another problem - you can't confidently attribute any increase to the leg length.  It may be that he has gotten stronger, and is covering more ground per stride as a result.  If that were true, then his stride length relative to his height would be much greater, with no explanation other than many hours of good training (This is how Pistorius explained his own performance improvements, incidentally)

So, for Oliveira, his improved performance may be due to the blade length, it may be due to his technical skill, it may be due to his improved strength, it may be due to some weight loss.  You see the slippery slope here?  Only if his height was measured and is continuously measured can one know with certainty this answer.

But even then, an athlete may discover that they are a few inches shorter than the upper limit imposed by some rule based on ratios, and they can, quite legally, add to their blades.  What is wrong with that?  I'd say nothing - they are simply correcting and then optimizing what nature did not provide, aren't they?  Their mistake was making their prosthetics too short the first time, and they should be allowed to add height within reason.  Again, welcome to the slippery slope of technology in sport.

So then your response may be to say "Surely there is an ideal leg length for someone's height?".  The answer is that there IS a range, but in elite athletes, the limits have to be wide because ranges that you'd find in the normal population don't apply.  There is pretty substantial evidence, for example, to show that elite runners (Kenyan and West African runners in particular) have disproportionately long legs relative to height, and so this may be a factor that predicts running success.  I'd bet that if you look at the likes of Usain Bolt, Kirani James and Asbel Kiprop, you'll find that they have longer than normal legs for their height.

The double problem in a double amputee is that you don't have a height - without prosthetic limbs, there's no reference point against which to "anchor" leg length.  So then, you can start using arm length and say that the "normal" leg length is a certain factor of the arm length.  But again, that doesn't work because the ranges are large enough that you can "artificially" get longer legs without violating the upper limit of what is found normally.  Again, I'd be willing to bet that in the elite athletic population, you'll find many of the best runners are guys with disproportionately long legs relative to arms.  It's worth checking all the athletes, of course, but the end result of this (and I'm going to get this data for you - it's just that it's 12.44am here in SA) is that the kind of accusation Pistorius is making is pretty baseless.  Not to mention the timing, which is another matter.

As for the fast finish, I'd love to see the splits from the race, measured accurately.  Doing it off the TV set is weak, and it gives splits of 11.1s and 10.4s for Pistorius, and 11.5s and 10.0s for Oliveira.  That's fairly meaningless because you'll see many 200m races with a 0.6s swing.  It's unusual, certainly, for a leader to be reeled in that strongly, but it's the kind of finish that has carried Pistorius to a few gold medals in his time - I remember a Commonwealth 100m race where he gave up about 5m (0.5s at that speed) in a 100m race and still won.  Today was no different, so the claim that you can't win from behind is equally misguided.

The bottom line is that whatever the rules of prosthetic limbs, if Oliveira is within them (and we have good reason to think that he is, given his compliance with the IPC and even Pistorius' accusation is not that he is cheating, but that the rules are wrong), it just re-introduces the same debate - how do we know, with 100% certainty, that we are not seeing the result of some technological battle?

The answer is that we can't.  The leg length issue is an 'advantage' that Pistorius has always had, and we've been watching him compete for years not knowing if he's done the exact same thing as he is now accusing Oliveira of.  Remember, the leg:arm ratio is a flawed way to establish these boundaries for elite athletes.

And it does beg the question - why does Pistorius not just push his length up to the limit if the rules allow it?  If Pistorius is below whatever limit exists for leg length, then he should just increase his length and run a 44s 400m in 2013.  Or, if Pistorius is already there (which I strongly suspect, given the R&D backing he has), then all we've seen tonight is that Oliveira has corrected his length and managed to create an equal race with Pistorius.

The bigger issue is that of technology.  The advantage for Oliveira tonight was NOT his stride length, despite Pistorius' claims.  The advantage was stride rate.  And remember, this is the factor that Peter Weyand concluded gave Oscar Pistorius an enormous advantage over able-bodied runners who simply cannot move their limbs at the same rate, because Pistorius was able to achieve leg repositioning times that no human ever could.  That advantage is still in play, except now we have another runner who is benefitting from it, and possibly exploiting it even better than Pistorius.

Pistorius doesn't enjoy that compay.  I look forward to the emergence of even more of these runners, and perhaps one day, sooner rather than later, we'll be seeing the first even sub-21s 200m time by a double amputee, and then it's matter of time before we see a sub-45s 400m time, and so on.  Are we just seeing the emergence of the next generation of athlete, equally capable of using the technology, but with greater athletic potential than Pistorius?   Have the floodgates opened?  I'd be willing to say that there is already an athlete who has begun training who will beat both Oliveira and Pistorius by some margin and force these same questions, all over again.

If you're wondering tonight about whether Pistorius has a valid argument, then welcome to the slippery slope that is the introduction of technology with no clear answers to the sport.  We've been here for eight years.

Feel free to discuss, I'll get more thoughts on it tomorrow.

Ross The Science of Sport Dr. Ross Tucker Dr. Jonathan Dugas

The Lance Armstrong fallout - questions, denials and doping reactions

Friday last week saw Lance Armstrong release a statement that effectively ended his fight against the USADA doping charges, and accept the stripping of his seven Tour de France titles.  It was a significant day for the sport, if only because it forces a look back to the era of cycling that was so tainted by drugs that between 1996 and 2006, the sport has not had a single champion untainted by doping.  The timeline reads: Riis, Ullrich, Pantani, Armstrong, Landis, and here we sit, seven years later with a big asterisk next to the Tour!

The reaction to the USADA case, and Armstrong's statement, has however produced huge debate.  I've refrained from comment here, but have been discussing it at length over on Facebook and Twitter for those interested in the day-to-day thoughts that come up.

But it's time to address a few of the common questions and positions, hence this post.

The polarized debate

The only thing one can say with certainty about Armstrong's decision is that he felt that he had no chance of winning an arbitration proceeding before the USADA.  That is unquestionably true.  The split happens because you can explain this in one of two ways.  The first is that he felt he had no chance of winning because the court is rigged, the verdict already decided, and the process unconstitutional.  A witch-hunt.  This is of course what he has said, through his statement, and the PR campaign that was launched when the USADA case was first announced.  In fact, it's the same message he has been throwing out for years, as Frankie Andreu pointed out with his reaction, saying it sounded like a "broken record".

The second explanation is that he had no chance of winning because the evidence that USADA had gathered was so convincing, so compelling that he could not explain it away.  There would be no brazen denial in the face of perhaps a dozen team-mates all alleging the same thing, plus the testimony of experts and officials who explained how he'd done it.  The blood values, possibly financial records, who knows what other evidence they had?  Circumstantial perhaps, but there was a mountain of it.  And make no mistake, Armstrong would have known what that evidence was - not specifically perhaps, but he'd know if the evidence existed, and would assume that those witnesses for USADA would have some pretty damning accounts, possibly backed with proof.

Your choice between those two options is largely a function of what you want to believe, or what you believed before the statement was even released.  If you want to believe the Lance Armstrong story, you're going for the former - he was just tired.

Let me state, upfront, that I would opt for the second one, that Lance Armstrong doped, and that his decision not to fight the charges is a tactical decision aimed at trying to keep the lid on that evidence, because he knows it's not worth allowing into the public.  For about 13 years, Lance Armstrong has fought the process, and now, for the first time, he faced evidence, and chose not to fight.  I interpret his decision not to fight as an admission that he can't, not that he shouldn't, and I don't buy the unconstitutional criticism that he has so cleverly sewn into the discussion (as evidenced by how many are outraged at the USADA case).

The problem is, if you choose to believe Armstrong, that it's a witch-hunt, then you are also a conspiracy theorist, because the only way you can explain all the witnesses who are willing to testify is to say that they are part of a massive conspiracy against him.  One that spans the Atlantic Ocean, includes former team-mates, journalists, doctors, administrators, soigneurs, strangers and mechanics.  A few people are "easy" to dismiss - Landis and Hamilton are not credible, that's easy.  But if USADA had ten more lined up, it becomes more and more difficult to dismiss.

The implication of Armstrong's decision not to fight the charges is that it denies a formal ruling on the matter, and also delays the emergence of the evidence.  This was expressed by David Walsh as disappointment, and it was best captured in this excellent piece by Anna Zimmerman, who, by the way, also provided the best coverage of the legal wrangling prior the Armstrong's statement.  She explains how the USADA cases was within its mandate, constitutional and not the 'witch-hunt' that people seem so willing to call it (with more than a nudge from clever PR people for Armstrong).

Two other pieces well worth reading on that particular question are Joe Lindsey's insights here, and this piece on FraudBytes, which I think address the question adequately.   The Joe Lindsey piece on Boulder Report is excellent because it explains how the evidence may still emerge, and why it matters.

Oh and if you have a lot of time, then this is a must-read - it's a four-part rebuttal of the argument that the USADA case is so unconstitutional by someone called "Nerdlinger".  Even if you just read Parts I to IV, it will take you through every claim and PR strategy that has been employed.  Quite brilliant.

Let me now turn my attention to four of the common questions and retorts that seem to have arisen:

1.  "Lance passed 500 tests.  He must be innocent"

This is straight from the press release, because it's been Armstrong's most used retort to the doping question.  Two things:

First, there is no way he was tested 500 times.  DimSpace has compiled a record of all the possible tests Armstrong may have been subjected to, with over-estimates, and it comes to 236. So there's more than a little hype in that number that started at 400, then hit 500, and just like that fish your uncle caught on his summer vacation in 1997 grew in size with every story-telling, ended up around the 600 mark.

Nevertheless, 236 is an impressive number to pass, so how is it possible?  Well, here's a list of names - Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery, Dwain Chambers, Ivan Basso, Jan Ullrich, Valverde.  That's just six names of athletes who also doped for very long periods without failing a test.  Some were caught eventually (Chambers & Montgomery) because a test was developed for a drug called THG based on a tip-off.  It then emerged that Chambers had doped for years, with everything, avoiding detection.  Ullrich went down because of good old-fashioned investigative work that discovered blood bags in a clinic.  Marion Jones was never caught.  The reality is that testing is limited, especially when it happens in-competition.  That's why people say that if you fail a drug test in competition, you have failed an IQ test - it's so simple to manipulate the timing and dosage of your drug use so that you are not tested when you compete.

And remember, the effect of doping lasts long after the drug is gone.  You can take EPO, get the benefit, and compete without the drug in the system.  Micro-dosing allows you to take the drug very close to the event without it being detectable.  In fact, you can dope 12 hours from your race, and as long as you get dosage right, you'll pass doping controls.  The authorities have to be very lucky to test you while you have the drug in your body.

The point is, passing the drug controls is not really all that difficult.

Another point about Armstrong is that his Tour victories spanned a period where the two most common doping methods were not detectable.  First, EPO was widely used without being detectable.  Once a test was developed for EPO, the practice changed, almost overnight, to blood doping, which was also very difficult to detect.  It was only with the introduction of the biological passport that it became possible, because they were looking for the effect of the drug rather than the drug itself.  Armstrong did not compete under that kind of scrutiny - his era was one where doping control was almost 'quaint' by comparison.

It is no co-incidence that upon his return in 2009, when the biological passport was being used, his values were immediately picked up as borderline suspicious (by Damsgard, if you fancy a google search).  And, part of the USADA case is Armstrong's blood values which they say are indicative of doping - we are yet to see that evidence.  But again, this is a sign of a changing anti-doping landscape, that now catches what 12 years ago was impossible to detect.

So, we should not be too surprised at the fact that he never failed a doping test.  One that stuck, anyway - there is the pesky matter of that cortisone positive, and that inconvenient failed EPO test when research testing discovered that his samples were positive from the 2001 Tour.  Here again, Armstrong escaped because doping control had not made the step up to where it is today - today, samples are kept for long periods so that any undetectable drugs can be detected in the future, when the test becomes available.  Had this been the case for the Armstrong era, in 2001 specifically, this claim of "never failed a test" would never have existed.  As it is, it's false because of those test failures, but the absence of a B-sample meant it did not stick.

And then there is also the allegation of bribes paid to cover up positive tests - if USADA has evidence in the form of testimony that can be backed up with records or documentation, then this more than answers the "500 test" myth - why beat the tests when you can pay to make them disappear?

Or why worry about beating them when you know when they're coming?  The latest report suggests that sources within the French lab (AFLD) say that Armstrong was routinely informed of when the tests would happen, allowing him ample time to manipulate the sample.  The "surprise" element of out-of-competition testing is 90% of their effectiveness, and so if this is the case, then you again get a clearer picture of why those 236 tests failed to discover anything.

Here again, the evidence and testimony will either be believed or dismissed as hearsay.  Either way, the "never failed a test in 500" defense is irrelevant because it is a) exaggerated, b) shown up as meaningless by the anti-doping climate of the Armstrong era, c) possibly false anyway.

2.  "This is futile. What is the point of doping controls if they don't catch anyone anyway?"

An extension of the above is the realization that Armstrong was tested many times without failing the convenient test that we have created as a requirement for a doping positive.  People take that to mean that anti-doping is useless and irrelevant.

Not so, for a few reasons.  First, as I explain above, the anti-doping landscape has evolved, and this is a paradigm shift people need to make.  There was a time that we were looking for "smoking guns".  That is, to convict an athlete of doping, we needed a blood or urine sample with the drug in it.  It's the equivalent of needing to catch a thief on camera with his hand in the bank vault or cash register.

That was naive.  Those days are long gone.  The sophistication of doping has forced a rethink, and there has been a paradigm change which many people are sadly unaware of.  The paradigm change really began in the 1980s, when out-of-competition testing was first introduced.  Prior to this, athletes were tested only at events, which meant they could dope liberally until just before the event, and still get the benefit without the risk of being caught.

The advent of out-of-competition testing forced performances to drop almost overnight, and was the first illustration that doping control exists to deter doping as much as it does to catch it.  Take note of that - doping control is there not only to catch dopers, but to deter them from doping in the first place.

If that is working, then you'll see two things.  Fewer people will dope ("We can't get away with it").  And, those who do dope will dope less, with smaller doses ("We can still get away with it, but we have to be extra careful").  That is what brings the performance level down, and hopefully ensures that everyone has a realistic shot of competing without doping.  I'd go so far as to say that the best we can hope for is that doping control is so tight and difficult to avoid, that doping is squeezed to the point where it makes no significant impact on performance.  Even though it happens, it's ineffective.  That would be good enough, in my opinion.

You see this most strikingly in women's athletics - prior to 1987, there were no out-of-competition tests.  Once introduced, performances dropped instantly, and the current record books are dominated by those 1980s performances.  The poor female sprinters and power athletes of the current era cannot get close to their event world records, and that's thanks to better anti-doping control today.

But this doesn't happen overnight.  And in cycling, the 90s and 2000s were affected by a generation of "pharmacological fraud", because the deterrent value was not high enough.  Cyclists doped with EPO and blood doping because they could do so with relative impunity - it wasn't totally unpoliced, but it was certainly not effective.  As I explained above, the tests either did not exist, or were not frequent or powerful enough to catch dopers.

Then came the passport, and the paradigm shift that said "we will look for the effect of the drug, and not its presence".  Now, all of a sudden, it became feasible to catch athletes without finding a banned substance in their body.  Lance Armstrong's Tour wins did not have this obstacle to overcome - nobody did until 2007, and that's when the deterrent qualities of anti-doping became clear, as I explained in this post - when the EPO test was introduced, it "forced" a shift in behavior that saw blood doping take over as the method of choice.  Then the biological passport squeezed doping down to the point that the Tour slowed down.  It doesn't eradicate doping, but it changes the behavior, and that's what it must do.

This is so valuable because ultimately, the point of doping control is to protect those who do not wish to dope.  Those individuals, like Christophe Bassons, who wish to compete without doping, are the purpose of doping control, and so we should not look at catching people as much as deterring them.  Catching cheats is only part of it.

So to those who are saying that this current USADA-Armstrong case indicates the futility of the sport, I would ask that they recognize the bigger picture, and the history of doping control.  We cannot simply give up because we are not yet 100% perfect.  The biological passport is not perfect, and anyone who claims it is wrong.  But it's a step by step process, that has to catch up on years of cheating.  There was a time where the dopers were so far ahead that it was a mismatch.  The cynics may say it still is, but improved sophistication has narrowed the gap, and that has to keep the momentum going.

The short summary in response to that question is this: "Let's legalize doping, make it a free for all, and see what happens".  I don't want that, I don't know that many do, and so therefore, doping control has a crucial place as a deterrent, to protect the rights of those who do not wish to dope.

3.  "If Lance doped, it doesn't matter - everyone else was doping too, so it was a level playing field"

This is another common defence, and it leads to all kinds of bizarre justifications of Armstrong's success and why he should be left alone.  It's also frustratingly wrong, for three reasons.

First, remember that doping was illegal, which means that even though everyone may have been doing it, they were doing it with the pressure of a legal system on them.  That means that some will have been brazen enough to try more than others.  You are not seeing a level playing field because not every athlete is willing to risk as much given that there are penalties for cheating.  And while the testing may have been grossly inadequate, as I explained above, it still forced athletes to take risks and spend more money to get away with doping.  Therefore, the results of the race were strongly influenced by who was most successful at doing the illegal thing, who wanted to take the most risk, and who had the best systems to help them get away with the illegal action.  That in turn is a function of money and power, but nowhere in this does being the best cyclist factor in.  And yes, the playing field is never even, but when money, power and an appetite for illegal behavior affect results more than physiology and training, there's a problem.

Secondly, there is no doubt at all that drugs affect people differently.  You and I may take two aspirin for a headache.  Mine gets worse, you fall asleep 30 minutes later.  Individual differences mean that you cannot assume, even if everyone dopes the same (which they don't - see previous point), that the race is equal.

And third, it's irrelevant anyway.  I'm baffled by this pseudo-justification of Armstrong's doping because other guys were doping too.  They should be viewed as parallel cases, that have cross-threads linking them (they're all in the same race, for example), but how does Ullrich's doping make Armstrong's or Basso's any less wrong?  Surely the moral compass that is the foundation of all sport requires that everyone obey the rules that they have accepted in the first place?

If every single investment banker on Wall Street was dishonest and committing fraud, does that mean that none are in the wrong?  Are Madoff and Stanford less guilty because fraud is widespread?  If a student cheats on an exam to get into University, is that condoned as long as he's not the only one cheating?

Related to this is the idea that Armstrong's titles should be left alone because those who he beat have also been convicted of doping.  As this graphic illustrates, the list of dopers in the Top 10 of the Tour de France is long, and if Armstrong is not the champion, who is?  Ullrich, Zulle, Basso, Vinokourov, Rumsas are names on the podium with Armstrong.  It would be laughable to take Armstrong's titles away and award them to a known doper.

But this is not a reason to do something.  Perhaps the best action is to either leave the winner of those Tours blank, with the statement "No official winner due to doping controversies", or keep the names of the winners with a giant asterisk that acknowledges their place as champions of what was actually just a giant pharmacological experiment.

To defend Armstrong on this basis is symptomatic of the mindset that pushed cycling into this situation in the first place - cheating was condoned on the basis that it was a "necessary evil", "just to keep up".  And believe me, I'm sympathetic to the plight of cyclists who face this decision.  David Millar faced it.  Jonathan Vaughters faced it, and both have written of the conflict they faced.  Not everyone gives in.  I dare say I'm grateful I didn't have to make such a decision, because I don't know that I would've resisted.

That confession out the way, my point is that we know others doped too.  Many have been caught.  To allow an athlete to get away with it for that reason is just not good enough.  If there is a rule, then it must be enforced as many times as is necessary.

4.  It's 13 years too late, why does it matter now?

It matters now for a few reasons.  In fact, it's absolutely crucial now.

First, remember that this was never solely a case against Lance Armstrong.  Yes, he's the biggest name in the case, the media spotlight falls squarely on him, but there were other defendants in what was actually a "conspiracy to dope case".  Johan Bruyneel is the next biggest name, but so too, we care about the doctors, like Michele Ferrari, who oversaw the doping conspiracy.  Armstrong may have left the sport, at least as a competitor, but others are still there as doctors, managers, and if cycling is to move beyond its past, those people need to be removed from it.

Secondly, if you adopt the view that says "it's been 7 years, move on", then you are effectively saying to the current generation that "as long as you can get away with it for long enough, you can have it forever".  And I appreciate that there is a statute of limitations, and it does seem ridiculous at some point to go back.  But given the anti-doping landscape, even from a scientific perspective, if you know that drugs are used today that will only be detectable in ten years, fifteen years, you should recognize that such limitations should not apply.

Is it not a bit ridiculous to change the winner of a sport 12 years after the fact?  Yes it is, but that's still better than never knowing, and never understanding who the true champion is.  Valerie Adams was recently awarded the Olympic gold in the women's shot put after Nadzeya Ostapchuk failed a drug test.  Adams was denied her gold medal ceremony.  The woman in fourth was denied a ceremony at all.  But today, they both know that they are the rightful gold and bronze medalists, respectively.  Would you rather have a silver medal with a ceremony, or a gold medal even though your ceremony was denied?  I believe that a hard line on doping (which is fraud, after all) should see that dopers are told "If you dope, then it doesn't matter how long it takes us to figure it out, when we do, you will be sanctioned".

Take a rider in 2012.  If that cyclist knows with certainty that his samples will be stored for years, and if knows that his victories today will be questioned tomorrow based not only on new tests, but on "non-analytical positives" and the accounts of those who know his illegal actions and secrets, I'd like to think it's a pretty effective deterrent.  For all the negative attitudes in the sport, and the bizarre dismissal of anti-doping authorities' attempts to clean up the sport, those within cycling have to change their behavior when they know that cheating today will be punished, even if "tomorrow" is years away.

A no-compromise attitude to doping is exactly the reason USADA launched the case, and did exactly what they were mandated to do.  Aside from the fact that they were pursuing many people still active in the sport, they also represent an honest effort to clean up the sport.

And, on that note, the reaction from within cycling is very worrying.  This is the best article I've seen written on it.  It's a little difficult to read at first, because of the deliberate use of what I'll call "pirate spelling", but just give it a read and try not to let the spelling affect you (it will grow on your).  It makes the point that those in cycling are arguing that Armstrong has little to do with the sport now, and that it should be left alone.  That's not true - Armstrong is still involved, and his legacy pervades the sport, so it must be addressed.  Turning blind eyes is, to repeat, what put us here to begin with.  Sometimes you have to burn something right down to rebuild it.  Another good piece is written by Gerard Vroomen, who also points out the current nature of those so called "ancient history" actions, and calls for an opinion, any opinion.

Such a sad reaction, given that this was cycling's latest great chance to say "We condemn dopers, and if Armstrong doped, then this is a great day for cycling".  Go further - many of those in the sport KNOW that Armstrong doped, this is the ideal chance to say so, to add to the "image" of a sport that wants to clean itself up.

Yet, that opportunity was missed.  We get deafening silence and "no comments", and I struggle to see what might keep a genuinely clean sport from celebrating the punishment of its greatest fraud.  It is truly bizarre, and for all the hope that I have in the better testing, the media pressure, the sponsor pressure to clean up the sport, this kind of continued silence, the ongoing omerta, makes me very despondent.

And don't even mention the UCI, whose reaction to the USADA case has been nothing short of embarrassing.  Whatever happens next, whether it is the slow emergence of the evidence in the USADA case (which I do want to see more of), or the arbitration of Bruyneel, I hope that more information emerges on how the UCI might have been complicit in the Armstrong era.  Their bizarre, muddled response betrayed an organization at sea, and maybe their involvement in this will be exposed, making that the best possible result of the investigation.

Regardless, I don't see the issue going away.  It may be over for Armstrong according to his statement, but with the possibility that SCA and the Sunday Times are looking at legal action, and the slow trickle of new information, I'm sure the mountain of testimonies will only grow.

Once again, that either means you're going to have an even bigger conspiracy against Armstrong to blame, or you'll have more proof than ever that it was, to quote Betsy Andreu, perhaps one of the very first whistleblowers in this case, "this wasarguably the biggest fraud in the history of sport. Bernie Madoff would be proud. Maybe even jealous"

And, cue opinions! (and the "stick to science" bat!)

Ross

The Science of Sport Dr. Ross Tucker Dr. Jonathan Dugas

London 2012: Men's marathon live analysis and splits

Welcome to the London Olympic marathon.  The race is underway, and over the next two hours, I'll post the 5km interval times and some thoughts on the race as it unfolds.

Live splits

5km - 15:23, projecting 2:09:49
10km - 30:46, so another 15:23 split for the last 5km
15km - 44:58, the last 5km in 14:12. The chase pack is 13 secs back (45:11)
20km
Halfway
25km
30km
35km
40km
Finish

15km

Wilson Kipsang, winner of the 2012 London marathon, has opened a lead of 13 seconds over a chase group of 8.  All the main protagonists are there with the exception of Dino Sefir, who fell out of the group at about 10km.  The chase thus comprises two Ethiopians (Abshero & Feleke), two Kenyans (Mutai and Kirui), an Eritrean (Asmerom), a South African (Mokoka), a Ugandan (Kiprotich) and a Brazilian (dos Santos).

The last 5km were run in 14:12, which explains that huge explosion in the race from 10km onwards.  The time now projects a 2:06:29, but don't expect the next 10km to be run at the same pace, of course.  The Olympic record of Wanjiru is probably still on, however.

Fascinating battle here, because the pressure has been applied by the race favourite.

The pressure has put paid to everyone else - Ryan Hall and Keflezighi are off the back, and they'll hope to run their own race for something in the range of 2:08, and hope that the early pace claims some victims.

12km

Kipsang has actually created a small gap, and we are only at 12km.  Amazing early aggression.  It was expected that Kenya would try to assert control on the race, but to do it this early is very surprising.  They took the lead shortly after 10km, once De Almeida had been caught, and the field split almost instantly.  Sefir and Ryan Hall were the first casualties, but now many have been dropped.

The front of the race has been trimmed to just over a handful, but Kipsang has pulled Abshero clear and there are gaps.  Kipsang is 10m clear of Abshero who is 5m clear of the chase group of maybe six.

Abshero has now fallen back into the pack, and there are now 7 men chasing the leader Kipsang, whose lead has grown to perhaps 7 or 8 seconds.

11km

In the battle of Ethiopia and Kenya, it's first blood Kenya, and that's because Ethiopia's Dino Sefir is off the back of the group.  And so is Ryan Hall.  That's very surprising, because we're only at 11km, and the pace is "only" 2:09:49, yet two of the pre-race favourites are already off the back.

At the front, Kenya have again assumed the lead, with Kipsang pressing the pace.  It certainly seems to have gotten faster, because the front group has been cut to about 12 men already.

10km

There is a breakaway leader, about 50m off the front of the main field.  It's Brazil's De Almeida, but the time for the main group is 30: . That's a 15:23 for the last 5km, identical to the first 5km.  So even paced as can be.

Remember back to the women's race - the pace was very steady for the first half, and then when it picked up, it didn't reach the same kinds of speeds we are used to seeing in the city marathons.  That's a function of the tight turns on the course, and the change in surfaces, which let some of the athletes to call it the hardest race they'd ever run.  That will be a significant factor in the second half of this race.

Right now, it's all rather sedate.

5km

The 5km mark is reached in 15:23, and the Africans are already showing at the front.  Maybe the Kenyans are borrowing from Beijing, where Wanjiru's aggression perhaps changed the way marathons are run.  They're at the front, but the group is big, because the pace is respectable, but not super fast.  Right now, it's projecting a 2:09:49.

Start and preview

The race has been billed as a clash between Kenya and Ethiopia.  2011 was of course Kenya's year - all  20 of the top times were run by Kenyans in an unparalleled show of dominance by one nation.  That included the winners of every single major city marathon, and the world record.

2012 has been more evenly matched - Ethiopia stole the Dubai marathon with a host of fast times, and then also won Rotterdam, and set this race up beautifully.  More on the protagonists as the race unfolds, but it seems that most are forecasting this as a Kenya vs Ethiopia showdown, with Abshero and Kipsang their likeliest champions.  The Americans, in the form of Hall and Keflezighi in particular, may disrupt the battle in the same what that Arkhiopova did in the women's race.

My initial thought is that Ethiopia should be favoured, because their athletes last raced in late January in Dubai, compared to the Kenyans who raced in April in London's city marathon.

For example, Ayele Absehero and Dino Sefer of Ethiopia have had 198 days since their last marathon, whereas Wilson Kipsang has had 112 days.  Those 86 days matter in a race this competitive.  (Thanks, by the way, to Wayne Do Rego for the numbers - I'll do a proper post with his analysis after the race!)

This, plus the fact that it has been a very poor Games for Kenya lead me to think that Ethiopia hold the cards here.  Kenya's athletes have, to me, seemed over-done and tactically poor.  They've been run out of medals in the women's 800m and men's 1500m and 10,000m races, and have seen their big favourites settle for minor medals.  Turning that around will be difficult.

We are coming up to five kilometers, however, in a big group, so let's get the projections going!

Ross


The Science of Sport Dr. Ross Tucker Dr. Jonathan Dugas

London 2012: Women's 800m perplexity, analyzing Semenya's race 

On Thursday night, David Rudisha led home the greatest 800m race we've ever seen - he pulled the field to a world record for every single finishing position, 7 personal bests and three national records.

Tonight, Mariya Savinova led home the women's 800m final, but it leaned more towards the curious and peculiar than the spectacular.  That is primarily because of the manner with which Caster Semenya, South Africa's flag bearer, ran to win the silver medal.  Savinova was, as usually, tactically superb, fast and timed her effort perfectly.  She won in 1:56.19 to add to last year's World title.  The real story, at least for me and all those discussing it on Twitter, was Semenya, and so let's talk about that a little.

If you saw the race, you'll know what I'm referring to - she dropped into 8th place by 300m, and stayed there for the next 300m.  At the bell, she was 1.38s behind the leader.  Down the back straight with 280m to go, when Pamela Jelimo made the race's first move, Semenya was perhaps 12m back, in last place, and not even close to responding, as you can see in the screenshot below.


With 200m to run, Semenya had moved into 7th, picking up a tiring Niyonsaba, but was still well off Jelimo, a pre-race favourite.  Meanwhile, Savinova had by now begun to make her move too.  This was the move that Semenya must have known would determine gold and silver, and in her semi-final, she'd shown the ability to respond to those tactics.  Tonight, in the final, she was distant from the action.


With 140m to go, Savinova was making the race's decisive move, but still Semenya had not responded - she was by now up to 6th place, however, picking off the fading Jepkosgei.  I kept waiting for a move, because she'd shown in her semi that she was not tactically unaware, but it just never came.


Savinova would go on to open a commanding lead, and with 50m to go, the race was over.  Only Poistogova and Jelimo went with her coming off the final bend, while Semenya was still in 6th.


Jelimo's legs imploded around 60m from the line and she went backwards.  By now, finally going forward was Semenya who would move incredibly rapidly through the field and close down everyone in front of her with the exception of Savinova.  Semenya ended with a season's best of 1:57.23, marginally faster than the 1:57.67 she ran to win her semi-final, but it was a race run in a totally different manner.

This led Sports Illustrated's Tim Layden to tweet the following immediately after the race - Semenya was "disengaged".  He's not accusing her of anything, but it's not difficult to see where the next step lies, and that's exactly what has happened since the race.


History repeating itself with Semenya - a common allegation

Unfortunately, this kind of speculation is becoming all too familiar for Caster Semenya.  Last year in Daegu, the race strategy was different, but the result was identical (Savinova-Semenya), and the speculation after the race was the same.  There, Semenya was attentive and ran near the front, before moving into the lead with 180m to go.  Savinova followed, but Semenya looked strong enough to win until the final 30m, where she suddenly slowed and Savinova swept by to win.  The forums were soon buzzing with allegations that Semenya had lost on purpose.

This year, the same has happened basically every single time Semenya has run in the European meetings.  At Diamond League meets, she was often seen languishing at the back, looking "disinterested" but running solid 1:59 to 2:00 times while her major rivals - Jelimo and Fantu Magiso in particular - were running 1:56 to 1:57.  People were accusing Semenya of running slowly on purpose, so that she avoids too much scrutiny, that she is 'scared' to win because of the intense allegation it may bring.

Semenya - evaluated differently because of her past

You see, Semenya is not "judged normally" in athletic circles, and that has everything to do with the sex verification controversy involving her after she exploded onto the world scene in Berlin.  Since being questioned, she spent nine months away from the track, before returning amid much secrecy and with slower times than before.  The speculation bandwagon kicked off, and when she was winning, she was accused of cheating, when she was losing, she was accused of not trying.

She was, and remains, in an impossible situation, because every result and every move is looked at through a filter.  It is a filter that colors her performances according to male vs female, cheating vs throwing it on purpose, and when she produces racing performances like tonight, that filter is rather vivid.

The prevailing "allegation", ever since her return in 2010, is that she is running slowly to stay under the radar, avoiding winning and the questions this would undoubtedly bring.  If that's the plan, then it sure isn't working, because what we saw today (and in Daegu) draws more allegation than a "typical race", in my opinion.  But more on that shortly.

Possibility # 1: Semenya may simply not have the speed

The current speculation (and before accusing people of ignorance and stoking the fires of controversy, just have a look at the forums and Twitter to see the reaction to Semenya's race) is thus fueled by Semenya's history.  Within the ten minutes of the race finishing, I got 34 tweets asking whether she'd "thrown it", or "tried to avoid winning gold".  One person demanded a full investigation into why she was jogging. Another said that he'd never seen someone look so "aerobic" at the finish of an 800m race.

Of course, this may all be a totally misplaced accusation.  Maybe Semenya just didn't have the physiological capacity to run the race tactics people are accustomed to seeing.  Maybe she was just not good enough to go with that early pace, and to respond to those surgest.  Perhaps there is nothing to her performance other than that she runs a more even pace than her rivals.

A comparison between her semi-final and this race is interesting in this regard.  In that semi, she went through 400m in just over 58 seconds, 600m in about 1:28 and then closed the final 200m in 29.5s, looking like she had something in reserve.

Tonight, she went through 400m in 57.69s, then through 600m in about 1:27.1, and then closed in a touch over 30 seconds.  My point is, her performance in the final was slightly faster at every stage than the semi, until she closed slower over the final 200m.  To finish SLOWER than she did in the semi implies that she has little reserve and that she is closer to the limit than she looks.  She wasn't actually that fast over the final 200m, it's just that everyone else was very slow!

It's possible that she doesn't have the speed (or psychological capacity and confidence) to be able to run a 56-second first lap, or a 28 second 200m split, regardless of when in the race it happens.  If you look at Semenya, her running style is very laboured - the commentator described her as "lumbering" and that's about right.  She lacks a knee lift, and her heel-flick is also very limited, so it is possible that she lacks the ability to change pace much, and so I have to put forward the possibility that she may not actually have the capacity to respond to surges, and maybe a 28-29-29-30 race breakdown is as fast as Semenya can go.

The rest of the race, incidentally, went 27s to 200m, then 29s to 400 (56.3 at the bell), and then 29.2s for the next 200m, and closed, for the most part, in 32s.  So, you have Semenya with a 28-29-29-30 (57.69s & 59.54s), running against everyone else with a 27-29-29-32 (Jelimo, for example, was 56.66s & 60.93s).  In this regard, Semenya actually didn't finish the race fast, as much as everyone else finished it really slowly.  The one exception of course was Savinova, who closed the final 200m in just under 30 seconds (57.29s and 58.90s halves).

The rest, Jelimo in particular, were terribly slow over the final 200m.

Not that I'm trying to say that Semenya ran a good race - you simply cannot allow the moves of your two main rivals to go completely unnoticed, but I am saying that it's possible that Semenya does not have the ability to run the race any other way - she may well be at her limit and unable to run those 28s 200m splits mid-race.  The fact that she looks so easy doing it is neither here nor there.  Go on YouTube and look up her race at the World Junior Championships in Poland in 2008.  She finished second last in her semi-final, and looked the same as she did today.  That was long before any controversy, or any need to avoid scrutiny.  Semenya is just a very 'casual', disengaged runner.

The other speculation - let the guesswork begin

That said, there is still much to be debated about the case.  Once you have dealt with that possibility that her apparent "throwing it" and "sandbagging" tactic may just be that she can't match the speed of the first 600m in the race, then you get on to dealing with the other speculation.

I'm going to simplify my answer as much as I can, and then try to go into detail to explain some thoughts and insights.  The simple answer is "I don't know what happened.  Your guess is as good as mine.  And I understand the questions, but there are no answers, we just do not know".

Right, now, having dealt with that, let's discuss the current discussion!  For this, a brief history lesson on her case, which most of you will know, so jump ahead a section.  If you're new, read on.

The history and secrecy fuels speculation

Since day one, Caster Semenya has presented an insoluble problem for the sport.  The biggest problem, aside from the resolving the obvious debate about her performance, is the secrecy which has surrounded her story since the case first broke.  I suspect there is no satisfactory answer to this story, at any level.  Even going back to 2009, when debate first began, it was impossible to say what should be done.  Did she have an intersex condition?  That part would be easy to find out - the science and biology is not that complicated.  In 2010, I wrote a scientific review paper on the subject with geneticist Prof Malcolm Collins, summarizing the history, the physiology and performance implications of sex verification in sport, for those interested.

But, does the condition provide an advantage?  And if it does, should that be the basis for excluding her from competition - it's a natural advantage, after all?  That's a whole lot trickier, and it's an ethical, moral and social debate for which I think there is no consensus.  Each will have their own opinion.

However, the debate still exists, and rather than allowing radical speculation, I hope it is helpful to consider the story in a thoughtful manner, hence my thoughts below.  
A point on context - being in South Africa, I'm exposed to more news and speculation about Semenya than perhaps most, and so my views are kind of informed by years of conversation with people, reports, information from people connected to the case etc.  But I want to stress upfront that just like the rest of the world, with maybe a few exceptions, we are all guessing here.
If you were to right the summary version of this history, it would go as follows:  Q:  "What happened to Semenya in 2009/2010 to allow her to compete?"   A: "We don't know".  Next question: "How do we explain the huge variability in Semenya's performances in 2011 and 2012, where she goes from the back of the field in a Diamond league event and struggling to break 1:59 to being utterly dominant in the major championships?"  Answer: "We don't know.
The short version is that we just don't know anything about anything, and so we speculate as much as possible, maybe in an informed way, weighing the possibilities, but very few people know the truth, and they are not talking.  Should we speculate at all?  Probably not.  We should, in theory, "trust" the IAAF, who were involved in the process from Day 1, and say that if they have cleared her to run, then we should just accept that.  And officially, that would be the correct position to take.
Significant improvements in a short time ask the questions

However, the reality is that just as we SHOULD question performances that we regard as suspect, I think it's naive and 'deliberately ignorant' to ignore the questions that arise from Semenya's case.  Here, it is her performance that asks the questions, not the history of her case.  That history tells us that the IAAF worked with Semenya, cleared her, and she should be treated as any other athlete.  The case is closed, it was resolved and is in the past.  The problem is that the performances re-open that door, and because nothing is known, it leads to speculation and accusation.  The root cause is the secrecy around the case.
The first problem arises out of the sudden improvements Semenya makes at championships.  Or put differently, it's how well off the pace she is in European races, before she arrives to championships looking close to unbeatable (by all but Savinova, it turns out).  This year, Semenya had been "stuck" in the 1:59 to 2:01 range since April, and had run half a dozen races where she was unable to get faster.  Then suddenly, she runs 1:57 looking rather easy, and it is going to cause questions.  
Remember, this is exactly the same thing that was done for Ye Shiwen of China and for Makhloufi of Algeria - they improved significantly in a short time, it was deemed "peculiar" and the speculation of doping began.  Semenya's improvement is similar, if not larger in magnitude over a shorter period, and so the same logic leads to questions.  The difference is that once asked for Semenya, the question will not have us zoning in on doping as has happened for Ye Shiwen or Makhloufi, it will return to the gender controversy, and we will unfairly make accusations about gender, all over again.  Is it right?  No.  It is understandable?  Yes.
The secrecy - the root cause of speculation

And the reason it's going to happen is because of the failure in management of the message, not only by the IAAF, but by Semenya's camp.  To explain, the two key points, which I think are more important than the performance:
1)  The case should never have been leaked in the first place.  Obviously.  That was a mistake for which Semenya will "pay" for the rest of her career, and it has exposed her to the most invasive scrutiny I think anyone can imagine.  I think it is remarkable that she has continued to compete, and how she has stood up under that kind of pressure.  Most would not cope at all, let alone resume their athletic careers.  She's done that, and she was rightly given the honor of being our flag bearer, and the courage and character she shows to run at all is amazing.
2)  Having said this, once the story broke, and the athletics world knew there was a question, then in my opinion, it had to be followed through to its conclusion and made known what the outcome was.  And simply clearing her to compete many months later is not the same as saying that the matter was concluded.  People are notoriously mistrusting of sports governing bodies, and they're even more mistrusting of athletes.  There are too many dishonest athletes to believe what we see with no small dose of skepticism.  So, when Semenya resumed her career in 2010, I felt that it would be important for her to make some kind of announcement to say that the matter had been resolved, and how.  Perhaps this should have been done by the authorities.  But it should have been done by someone, to at least control the message.
But what happened instead was that a veil of secrecy fell over the story, and all of a sudden, nobody was saying anything.  The secrecy grew and grew, until she began running again.  But she was not dominating - having destroyed the best in the world in 2009, she was now 4 to 5 seconds slower, looking sluggish and losing races.  Her subsequent performances was gone up and down wildly and it has been absolutely impossible to predict what is coming next.
Everyone can see this unusual situation, they know that they are seeing 'abnormal' variations in performance, but nobody can say why.  And so they speculate.  The problem is that when you fail to tell people the truth, they tend to make up the truth.  And the made up truth is almost always worse than the reality.  And so now, we sit in a situation where people will either allege that:

1. Nothing happened in the first case, and she is still a man (this is ignorant, because that clearly was never true to begin with - the biology of sex is far more complex than this), or 
2. She got treated but it's not working, or
3. She got treatment but is able to manipulate it to optimize her performance whenever she wants to - it slows her down in a predictable way, so she can use treatment as she pleases to find those improvements, or
4. She is deliberately losing races to avoid suspicion, as is happening after the Olympic Games

To repeat, we simply do not know what transpired, and therefore we cannot know whether any of the above options is true.  If I were forced to give my thoughts, I'd say that option 1) is impossible - we know something happened.  Reading between the lines, based on the time it took, I'd fairly confidently speculate that she received medical treatment, and probably still is.  Thus, the next three options are possible.  I don't know what treatment might involve, or whether she can manipulate it.  I suspect that it would be possible, just as any doping is possible.  But I'd be surprised if it was this simple.  
I simply cannot see option 4) being true - why would you try to avoid detection by going from last to first?  The contrast in performance is just so enormous that people will notice it EVEN MORE!  If you are going to fly under the radar, then your approach would be to look as normal as possible.  Going from nowhere to dominating is not "normal", and so if they are deliberately slowing down to lose races, then it's a strategy that is not only bizarre, but also foolish.  I just can't see it as being possible.
Unfair, but understandable suspicion and speculation

There is also a fifth option, namely that nothing is wrong, and that she's just getting her training right when it matters, and that her "bizarre" race strategy is nothing more than typical even-paced running, as I explained above.  But people won't make that allegation.  Why?  Because they don't know anything, and they are driven by mistrust.  Therefore, they will settle on one of the four options that 'feeds' their mistrust.  
So they'll go with option 3 or 4 as most likely, and Semenya will face accusations that she is either cheating by manipulating her "advantage" through medical means, or she has been deceiving everyone for months leading up to the Games, and continues to NOT win on purpose. 
Both are unfair, and, I suspect, incorrect.  As I explained earlier, I think it's plausible that Semenya is running as fast as she can, and that 1:57.2 is the "limit" for her, in a more or less even race.  Maybe with a little more confidence, she'll be able to get her fast lap down into the low-57s range and break 1:57 for the race this year, but it's not impossible that a 57.69s and 59.94s is Semenya at her limit.  The sudden improvement in performance is more difficult to explain, but like any other debate based on performance, we must recognize that performance alone is not sufficient to reach a verdict!
It's also not difficult to see why people think differently - they don't know any better.  And that's because of the secrecy around the whole thing, and it forces people to speculate.  We shouldn't.  We should accept the control of the IAAF and trust that they have identified and managed a potential problem. In an ideal world, that would happen.  But I think it's naive to expect that of people.  Until people know, they'll make it up and everyone loses in that equation.  
If Semenya is to win people over, as she should - look at her interview after winning silver in Daegu, and tell me that this is not an athlete who is warm and genuine and worthy of positive sentiment - then the secrecy must be lifted.  Easier said than done, of course.  But what the future holds with these wild variations in performance, given the history of Semenya in the sport, is just not something to look forward to.
The marathon to close it down
The marathon tomorrow - join me at 11am London time for live splits and comments as it unfolds.  It's Kenya's last chance to rescue what has been a miserable Games, highlighted (in a big way, of course) by Rudisha's golden world record and Kemboi's gold.  They'll want gold in the marathon, but Ethiopia will be a stern test.
My money is on the Ethiopians - I think the Kenyans, who raced more recently, will struggle on the twisty course, and Kenya will regret not picking Geoffrey Mutai.
But join me tomorrow to see what transpires!
Ross The Science of Sport Dr. Ross Tucker Dr. Jonathan Dugas

Rudisha lights up London with a world record. And more 800m thoughts

The London Olympics saw its first World Record on the track tonight, and not surprisingly, it came from David Rudisha, who ran from the front, gun to tape, to become the first man in history to break 1:41.  His time was 1:40.91, and he pulled the other seven men to the fastest, most spectacular 800m race that we have ever seen.  More on that below, along with some other thoughts on his race.

1)  Rudisha's race strategy

The question ahead of the race, for many, was not whether Rudisha would win, but what the margin of victory would be.  There has been no greater favorite in an athletic event at these Games than Rudisha. His form this year has been spectacular, he has won paced and unpaced races, he has run from the front and looked peerless.

The biggest question was perhaps around the tactics he would employ in the Olympic final.  Front-running is the logical choice to most, because when you're about two seconds faster than the next fastest guy, you would want the pace to be beyond them.  Why allow a final 200m sprint, where a different type of physiological attribute can determine success, when you have such dominance over the whole race?  The problem in a final 200m sprint is that when the spread of runners is relatively narrow, the first 600m does enough "damage" physiologically that the person who is running with the greatest "reserve" is not guaranteed to win.  The ability to close in say 25 seconds is not a function of that reserve, which means that a 1:44 man can beat a 1:41 if they both get to that position together.  In Rudisha's case, I suspect he is so superior that he'd win anyway, but it becomes a far more open race than it might otherwise be.

So front-running was the option, and Rudisha was wise enough that he actually started to do this in his European races leading up to London.  We have seen many times how athletes become so accustomed to paced races on the circuit that they seem all at sea during a tactical race - the Kenyans in the 1500m looked this way earlier this week.  But Rudisha seemed ready, he had familiarized himself with the front-running pattern in a few races, including the Kenyan trials, and so everyone expected this approach.  Once he led after the break at 100m, it was clear that he was going for it.  It is easier said than done, however, largely for psychological reasons - putting yourself out as a pace-maker is never easy in an Olympic final.

It takes confidence and conviction, and Rudisha was good enough to do it.  He led the field through the bell in 49.28s, and then began to open the gap with 300m to go.  That's not surprising, because everyone in the race was running above themselves just to reach the 500m mark at that pace.

At 600m, which was passed in 1:14:30 (25.02s for the 200m split). Rudisha was clear, and on course for the record.

He slowed in the final 200m, covering it in 26.61s, but it was enough to break 1:41, and claim Kenya's second gold.  The manner of the win, plus the bronze for Timothy Kitum, will be some consolation for the nation that expected more than they have won to date.

2) The race was spectacularly deep and fast

Rudisha was chased home by a host of sensational performances.  In fact, every single position in the race set a world-place position.  Second went to young Nijel Amos of Botswana (a surprise) in 1:41.73, fittingly equalling Seb Coe's old world record), and then a further three men went under 1:43.  They included the two Americans, Duane Solomon and Nick Symmonds, who would surely not have believed that they'd break 1:43 and not even win a medal.  Even in last place, Andrew Osagie ran 1:43.77.  Only Abubaker Kaki of Sudan, who eventually finished 7th, did not run a personal best.  Three national records were also set.

It was just a spectacularly fast and deep race, and while everyone who was in it might feel stunned at their times without medals, they were part of something truly remarkable.  I suspect many would be wondering if a step up to 1500m might not make more sense, however - Rudisha is only 24!

3) The pacing - a pattern in the 800m

One final point about the race, and it relates to a peculiar pacing pattern that you see when you look at the best ever performances in the 800m event.   Part of my PhD looked at the pacing strategies used in all the world records from 800m to 10,000m, and there's a pretty constant pattern in long-distance races.  The 800m race is different, however, and is paced differently from other middle- or long-distance races.

However, I'm going to hold back on this discussion, for now, because David Epstein of Sports Illustrated will probably introduce it in his piece on the race.  I'll provide you that link, as soon as it comes out, and then I'll add the detail once his article is up.

So that's for tomorrow, a discussion on pacing in the 800m event.

There is much more to be said about 800m running, but on the women's side.  The semi-finals took place tonight, and they introduced us to a controversy that is just waiting to erupt when the finals happen on Saturday.  Semenya is back, having battled all year for half a second here and there in the range of 1:59-2:00, she tonight won her semi, looking incredibly easy and in a time of 1:57.  That's a 2 to 3% improvement, after a long season of many reasons 'stuck' at 1:59.

Cue yet another debate on "unrealistic" performance improvements, like those we saw with Ye Shiwen and Makhloufi.  Except this time, it's not doping that will be discussed.

But that may be for another day, keep your eyes open for the debate.

Until tomorrow, which brings some relay finals, and the women's 5000m, the second part of a Tirunesh Dibaba double, perhaps?

RossThe Science of Sport Dr. Ross Tucker Dr. Jonathan Dugas

London Day 10: 400m success for the islands, and disqualification (doping?) debate

Quick thoughts on last night's action:

1) The 400m events were a Caribbean parade. As were the 100m sprints.  Is it the genes? Or the training?

Last night saw both 400m events - the flat and the hurdles, and both were dominated by Caribben islands.  Add this to the 100m sprints for both men and women (where Jamaica won four of the six medals - gold and silver for men, gold and bronze for women), and it's clear where the epicenter of world sprinting now lies.

Here's the finish results for the men's 400m, for example:



The same was true of the 400m hurdles final later, won, amazingly, by Felix Sanchez eight years after his Athens triumph.  That race had a strong American presence (three men), whereas the 400m race was the first time in the history of the Games that the USA did not have at least one runner in the final.


Then here's a graph (source: Sporting Intelligence) showing gold medals won per million people (on the y-axis) and per billion GDP dollars (x-axis) back in 2008, in Beijing.  Zimbabwe did well GDP-wise (thanks to Coventry, who won all four of their medals, but Jamaica and the Bahamas feature well in both categories.  Grenada now have their first gold, the Dominican Republic won two last night, with Sanchez's gold complemented by Santos' silver.  These Caribbean islands made up nine out of the 16 finalists in the two events, winning five of the six medals.  The same debate can of course be had for distance events, with a focus on Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda as your main protagonists.




Of course, this invites the common debate about training vs talent.  Are these tiny nations, like the Bahamas and Jamaica, so successful because of a deep gene pool, which is somehow related to an accelerated "survival of the fittest" concept, as was discussed in a recent documentary featuring Michael Johnson?  Or is their success a function of their excellent school sports systems, their "culture" for sprinting, their investment into the sport and excellent training programmes?  David Epstein of Sports Illustrated described some of these factors in his report on Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce after her 100m gold.

I won't go into the whole discussion of training vs talent, and the 10,000 hour concept of deliberate practice.  Rather, I'll refer you to these two articles I wrote a while back, for those interested in more and who feel like a longer read:

1. A review of the 10,000 hour concept: Is it valid, even for non-sport activities?
2. Some of the evidence for genes, and why they matter

Unnecessary polarization

But for now, I will say that the polarization of this debate is unnecessary and wrong.  Why does it need to be one or the other, rather than both?  Why do we insist on discounting the role of genes?  I am sure that most of you reading this already agree, and probably wonder what the fuss is about.  Well, in popular media, in particular, the likes of Malcolm Gladwell and Matthew Syed have propagated the idea that genes don't matter, that it's all in the training, as I described in those previous posts linked to above.

So no, it's not just the genes.  And no, it's also not just the training.  We know that genetic factors influence performance, both in terms of the starting physiology, the adaptations that occur in response to training, and in all likelihood the ultimate ceiling that can be reached.  There's evidence from Bouchard et al, for example, that 21 distinct single nucleotide polymorphisms (or SNPS) affect how our VO2max changes in response to endurance training - if you have 19 or or more of the "right" SNPs, you respond well, whereas if you have 9 or fewer, you are a non-responder.  If you want to be an elite athlete, it's a pretty sure bet that you need to be on the high responder side of that spectrum.  That's just in terms of VO2max, and we know that endurance performance is made up of far more than just VO2max.

The point is that genetic factors clearly affect performance.  More in some sports than others - the "physiologically limited" sports like rowing, running, cycling etc may be more affected than say table tennis, archery, or even sports where a greater range of physiology can succeed (think football, and Messi vs Drogba).  But genes matter, and for speed and endurance, dismissing them is to dismiss scientific evidence

What has NOT been found is a single gene that explains it.  There was a prospect, when a specific variant of the ACTN3 gene was found to be associated with sprint/power ability in a group of European athletes.  That same gene is not associated with sprinting ability in other populations, but that's because of interaction effects and genetic differences between populations that I won't claim to be able to explain to you in sufficient detail.  But this failure to find the gene is often cited as evidence that there is no gene.  I'd argue that the scientific approach to the question is wrong, for two reasons.  First, it's far more complex than just being one gene - if 21 SNPs explain training response of VO2max, then you won't explain something so complex using a single gene approach.

And secondly, the question should not be whether there is a specific gene that some groups have that others do not - this is why geneticists and anthropologists get worked up and annoyed, because this kind of question leads to generalizations that are almost certainly wrong.  If you try to argue that Grenada, or Jamaica, or people of West African descent have a gene that makes them faster, then have a problem when someone NOT of that descent wins.

(As an aside, this discussion also opens a can of political correctness that I've never truly understood - I'd have thought it would be complement to be identified as "superior" in some task.  Obviously, if you're accused of being inferior, it's different, but that's not what's happening when we celebrate the world's fastest sprinters and distance runners.  I guess for every winner there is a loser, but it's funny that the "winners" are the ones who usually pull out the PC-stick! And it certainly doesn't diminish the achievement - it's not to say it's 'easier', because the training is still absolutely vital.  Anyway...)

For example, when Galen Rupp wins a medal in the men's 10000m race, you have to explain why he did, when clearly he isn't of east African descent.  If your position of "it's all in the genes" was based on heritage, it now looks weak.  But it was, in my opinion, the wrong position to adopt to begin with.  It shouldn't be about this population or that population, this descent or that descent.  I would say there is still a chance that some genes that affect performance ARE linked to descent, but for now, that's not even needed to explain why genes matter.

It should be whether the prevalence or frequency of the "favorable genes" is higher in some groups than others.  When you try to find a gene or SNP that you think Jamaicans may have that no other people do, you doom yourself to a negative finding, because that gene might be present everywhere.  You're asking the wrong question.  You should rather be looking to find whether that gene might exist in more people in certain groups, and thus whether the probability of producing a champion athlete there is greater.  This scientific question has yet to be answered, but may hold the key.

If this were the case, then the end result would an enormous difference in final performance because of the additive effect of having more to choose from, plus the system applied to choose it.  Does South Africa possess athletes who could challenge the Kenyans or Jamaicans?  Yes, of course.  But I'd hypothesize that we have a lower probability to begin with, and we don't maximize what we do have.

Based on this, I'd conclude that it is the application of the training system and culture to the right population, where the prevalence of whatever genetic factors determine success, that enables such dominance by a small population group.

That's my conclusion, for today.  The rest is the explanation, but here is a paper I co-authored with a geneticist, Prof Malcolm Collins, recently, where we explain how BOTH genetic and training factors are crucial for success.  Bottom line is that while Gladwell and Syed's fairy-tale that you can achieve anything if you practice sounds good, the reality is far more complex.

2) Track gets its own version of Ye Shiwen in Taoufik Makhloufi

Last week, the action in the pool produced a side debate on the Chinese swimmer Ye Shiwen.  The 16-year old won the 400 and 200m Individual Medley, and because of her age, her world records and the fact that she is Chinese, was deemed suspicious as a possible doper.

That story has no resolution, but now athletics has its own case, in the form of Taoufik Makhloufi of Algeria.  He won his 1500m semi-final, beating defending champion Asbel Kiprop and a host of other athletes, in pretty amazing fashion.  His last lap was 52.5s, with a final 800m of around 1:49.  He also improved substantially in the last year, about five seconds for 3:30.8 this year.  And he comes from a nation that is regarded by most within the sport as being 'suspect'.  In the same way that China is deemed suspect in swimming (and track, for that matter), North African nations have the same stigma.

Apparently, commentator Steve Cram said "That's unusual to see the Algerian run this well. ... I'm not sure what I'm watching with Makhloufi there ...", and the forums on athletics sites kicked off with debate and accusation over the possibility that he was doping.

So once again, you have a debate where some will say it's an unfair generalization (which it probably is), but others will point to history and how we've been fooled before.  Learning lessons from history is often the basis for generalizations, but applying them correctly is a difficult concept!  And once again, as was the case for Ye, looking SOLELY at performance leads to all kinds of conclusions that ARE certainly not fair.  For example, it soon emerged that there have been a few performances where the final 800m have been quite a bit faster than Makhloufi's, and they've often been in faster races.  Big improvements are also not unusual

So judging someone as a doper based on performance is just not feasible.  It was the same for Ye.  Some would say "she's young", but others could easily point to other young swimmers who were not suspicious.  They'd say "she improved by 7 seconds in a year", and others can point to even bigger improvements in non-accused swimmers.  Ultimately, performance doesn't cut it.

The performance does however ask the question, and given the history, it's right.  It's unfortunate for the individual, but history means it's his turn in the spotlight.  The only way to answer those questions is through testing, comprehensive and long-term.  Then, if the athlete doesn't get caught and doesn't slow down, then we must accept it.  If they don't get caught and slow down, we have a hint of an answer.  And sometimes they get caught.  If the testing is done properly, then time will provide the answer.  Of course, the problem is that the testing is not trusted either, because we've learned that it's too easy to get away with doping and not get caught.  But the more the better, it's the best one can hope for.

3) Makhloufi finds himself in a second, unrelated controversy

Then amazingly, the same athlete whose performance was hotly debated, found himself in a second, totally unrelated controversy when he was first kicked out of the Games and then later re-instated, after he was found to have deliberately under-performed in the men's 800m heats.

You'll recall the badminton players who got expelled for deliberately trying to lose to set up more favorable draws in the quarter-finals.  You'll also recall that Japan's women were instructed not to beat South Africa to get a better draw, and you may remember that a British cyclist confessed to crashing on purpose to force a race restart in the men's pursuit (he later retracted the 'confession').

So this has been the Olympics of "slower, lower, weaker", in some respects.  In the case of Makhloufi, he lined up in the heats, the morning after his 1500m semifinal, and presumably wanted to save himself for the final.  So he jogged slowly for 200m, stepped off and was done.  In response, the IAAF expelled him from the Games.

It was a bizarre sequence of events. Three quick thoughts:

1. There's no consistency in the sanctioning of athletes for "not trying hard enough".  Some are expelled, others are not.  At least get the same method for all.  I realize they're subtly different, in the same way that an athlete who jogs in to qualify in fifth place in a 5,000m heat is different from one deliberately losing a heat like Makhloufi allegedly did.  Playing a weaker team to rest key players, or playing at 90% because you don't care to win a match, is different from deliberately manipulating the result to lose or draw, I'd argue. When you pre-determine the outcome, you're fixing the result, but the format of competitions and the rules sometimes facilitates this.
   
   
2. I can't believe his federation would make him run the 800m heats knowing that he is a realistic medal chance in the 1500m.  The final is a day later, he's already limped off after his 1500m heat (unless he was laying the groundwork for his excuse a day early, that is), and so why push him to run a race that compromises his chances?  I presume the athlete didn't want to run the race, and that the Algerian Federation refused his request to withdraw.  We had a similar case in the swimming, where Chad le Clos had actually qualified for the final of the 200m IM, but withdrew because he wanted to focus on the 100m butterfly event as a better medal chance.  That was not sanctioned (rightly), and seems the common sense approach.
   
   
3. Why does the Olympic programme not enable the 800m-1500m double by at least separating them?  Remember Coe and Ovett?  Their double attempts were a highlight of the Games.  Kelly Holmes won the same double in Athens.  Did those heats overlap with the finals of the other event?  They have done, in which case, I'll take this one back (no time to check, sorry!).  But it seems that it would be reasonable to enable the double with a schedule change.

In any event, he has now been re-instated for the 1500m final.  If he can produce the same 250m as he did in the semi-final, maybe that will provide more 'fodder' for debate on the forums, and another "Is he doped?" debate.
Should be interesting. That final is later this evening!
Ross The Science of Sport Dr. Ross Tucker Dr. Jonathan Dugas

Usain Bolt defends - 9.63s beats Blake into second

It's been a long day, with a fast finish in the form of Usain Bolt defending his 100m title in emphatic fashion, in a time of 9.63s, ahead of Yohan Blake (9.75s) and Justin Gatlin (9.79s)  A full recap tomorrow, but here are three very quick (Bolt-like) thoughts on the men's 100m:

1) Bolt second half was dominant

I hope someone will produce a statistical analysis of the race, with 10m interval speeds, as was done for the 2009 WR, because the structure of Bolt's race would make a fascinating comparison.  He was trailing over the first 30m in London, and so I'd love to compare this Olympic race to that WR from 40m onwards.  Was his first phase tonight slower than 2009, or were Gatlin and Blake better than the 2009 field?  Remember, when he set the WR in Berlin, Bolt actually reached 20m first! His start and drive phase were pretty good then.

Tonight, he was behind, but good enough to put himself in a position to capitalize, which he did emphatically.  His reaction time, incidentally (since I know this will come up) was 0.165s, which was faster than both Blake (0.179s) and Gatlin (0.178s).  But this is only a small part of the start - how you react is followed by how you drive from the blocks, and that's where Bolt has been found out before - he needs to get those long legs out of the way first.

Once that happens, he's unmatchable.  There was a moment tonight where Gatlin was holding Bolt off, but from that crucial 50 m mark, where most men begin to hit top speed before slowing down, Bolt just has so much more than everyone else.  He moved past Gatlin and Blake so powerfully, and those numbers would be very interesting to see.  Top speed and best 10m interval comparisons would be revealing.

Missing the world record by 0.05s suggests that it might not have been quite up to the top-end speeds we saw in 2009, but if the start was worse, it'll be close.  I'll look out for the numbers and report on them if I find them.  And obviously, if you have them, do let me know!

2) I'm surprised at the margin of victory

0.12s is a big win in a final that was so split before it happened - look at the spread on predictions, it was so evenly divided between Bolt and Blake that a win that size surprised me.  In Beijing, the margin was larger, of course, but Blake threatened to make this closer than it ultimately was.  Blake's 9.75s matched his performance from the Jamaican trials, and with the peak of the Olympic Games, plus all the talk of a fast track, plus the fact that the wind was a pretty decent 1.5  m/s tailwind, he might have expected to go a little faster than he did then.  Admittedly, it was cooler, which is not ideal for fast times, but I'm surprised Blake didn't go a little closer.

Nevertheless, he confirmed his standing as the challenger to Bolt, and the 200m event later this week should be another fabulous race.

3) A world record would have been a huge surprise

If you think about it, we hadn't seen a sub-9.70s clocking since 2009 and the Bolt world record in Berlin.  Prior to 2008, the best performances were in the mid-9.70s, and occasionally, a performance in the low 9.70s would light up the world of track and field.  When it did, it was usually a world record, like Powell's 9.74s, or Bolt's 9.72s in 2008.

Then came Beijing - 9.69s with a celebration.  Then followed Berlin - 9.58s.  We were taken into an era where track fans were eagerly looking forward to the fall of the 9.50s barrier.  Then, almost as quickly as it arrived, that era seemed to depart.  Since then, 9.75s has been the standard once again, and the world leader is a low 9.7-something.

And so going into these Olympic Games, the prospect of jumping from 9.75s all the way to a sub-9.60s was just beyond belief.  No track surface or reasonable following wind was going to allow it.  The times this year, from the big four (Gay included in the list) have frequently been around 9.80s, but never faster than the 9.72s that Bolt carried into Beijing four years ago.

Therefore, it seemed reasonable to assume that even if Bolt (or someone else) peaked for the Games, and produced the same kind of spectacular performance we saw in Beijing, he'd run somewhere in the mid-9.6s.  That Beijing performance, incidentally, was slowed by his celebrations, but we worked out at the time that he probably would have run around 9.64s - 9.65s had he not begun his dance while at the 80m mark of the race.

That was the basis for my prediction of a 9.68s winning time ahead of tonight's final (over on Twitter).  I didn't think Bolt would quite be in his Beijing form, which would have put him at 9.61 to 9.65s.  As it turned out, he was, and ran 9.63s.  But a prediction of 9.5-something, or even faster than that, was the result of being "spoiled" by 2008 and 2009 - we are back on the constant improvement curve now, and this performance is probably exactly where the "normal" would be.  Not that anything about Bolt is normal, of course!

Full recap of day's events tomorrow

I'll do a proper recap tomorrow, including some talk of the women's 400m, the men's steeplechase, and whatever other random thoughts enter my mind overnight!  Right now, I'm Olympics-ed out!

Ross

P.S.   Another stat that always seems to come up is number of steps taken.  I'm not sure you can read too much into this, because you need to know contact times, contact lengths, and force applied to the ground, but here are the numbers for those who are interested:


Bolt - took 41 steps 
Blake - took 46 steps
Gatlin - took 42.5 steps


All that really means is that Bolt has longer strides.  Looking at the height of the three men, you'd have predicted this, but people enjoy that stat!

The Science of Sport Dr. Ross Tucker Dr. Jonathan Dugas

Women's Olympic Marathon: Live splits and comments

Welcome to my attempt at live splits and coverage of the Women's Olympic Marathon from London.

Below are splits, and comments beneath as the race unfolds

Splits and projections

5km - 17:20. Projects a 2:26:17
10km - 34:46 (17:26).  Projects 2:26:42
15 km -

Comments

First 10km

At 10km, the lead group is still large, about 20 women, but there's still no real split in the race.  All the big names are there - three Kenyans, three Ethiopians, Shobukhova and the two American's featuring prominently at the front.

The early pace is no surprise - unpaced marathons rarely go out hard, and with the stakes as they are, and the field as deep as it is, expect a cautious game until just after halfway.  It is not inconceivable that the second half might be in the range of 69 minutes, depending when the attacks come, because the first looks likely to be in 73 min.

The biggest factor so far has been the weather - it has been wet since the start, with period around 5km where it poured down.  Women were jumping puddles.

The Kenyans are known to dislike running in the rain more than most, and so this may well prove to be an equalizer of sorts.  We'll know after halfway, as that's where the increase in tempo is likely to happen, at least based on Keitany's marathon past.

The other news is that of a few significant drop-outs.  Mara Yamauchi of GB pulled out with what appeared to be a leg injury, and the USA's Desi Davila pulled out even earlier, having carried a hip injury into the race.

15km

Not much change, literally.  In fact, the pace has been almost identical the whole way.  The first 5 were 17:20, then 17:26 and now 17:24.  So nothing to speak of yet.  The rain has relented, leaving only wet roads to contend with.




The Science of Sport Dr. Ross Tucker Dr. Jonathan Dugas

London 2012 Day 8 recap: Great Great Britain, Men's 10,000m and the fastest woman in the world

Five very quick thoughts after an amazing Olympic Day...

1) Great Great Britain

What a day for the hosts. In track & field, they got three golds in an amazing hour, first with Ennis, then Rutherford in the long jump, and then Farah in the 10,000m.  That followed two gold medals in the morning's rowing and another track cycling gold medal, and Great Britain was in a frenzy by the time Farah kicked to gold.  They lost a penalty shootout to Korea in the football, but little will dampen the enthusiasm.

2) Ennis delivers under pressure, and with style

Jessican Ennis carried with her the expectations of everyone, as she was made the face of the Games in the year leading up.   She produced a spectacular performance, filled with PBs and charisma.  Her medal ceremony would have raised the roof on a closed stadium, and must be among the all-time highlights for a host nation.

3) Farah wins the 10,000m gold, with Rupp in second, for the worst African showing in decades

First of all, the gold went to a deserving champion in Mo Farah.  He may have been denied in Daegu last year, but he has been the world's premier distance runner for two years, and he duly bagged the gold that his status warranted.  He did so in a peculiar race, at least by my watching.

Going in, everyone had seen the movie before - go slow, wait to the last lap, and watch Mo Farah sprint away from you.  Kenenisa Bekele had seen it more than once, and though it was not always Farah out-kicking him, it was someone, and so he needed to avoid a re-run.  Yet that's exactly what happened.  The first 2km were painfully slow - 6 minutes.  It got better, first with Zersenay Tadese and then the Ethiopians pressing the pace into the 2:40s per km.  But in truth, all they were really doing was dangling off the front, and 5km was reached in 14:04.

After that, it was clear that Bekele and the Kenyans (well, everyone) needed a even faster pace to disrupt the 'script' that Farah would have been hoping for before the race began.  It never came.  Ethiopia tried, sort of, but again, they had men on the front, but the pace stayed firm but unspectacular.  The laps counted down and the opportunities to change the script were ticked off one by one.  By the time the bell was reached, there were still 11 men in the lead group.  I don't recall ever seeing a group that size at the bell in a championship 10km.  It was testament to the lack of punch at the front of the race.  And if it was not doing damage to ten men, then Farah, comfortable with a considerably faster pace, was certainly not going to be put into difficulty.

Farah was, of course, unmatched in the final sprint, winning it easily with a lap of 53.48s, and a final kilometer of 2:28.  Those are fast, but not eye-poppingly quick numbers.  I suspect that in the end, nothing anyone could have done would have beaten Farah - a 26:50 and he would have won, a 27:30, and he did win.  But the second half of this race was done in 13:26, so for all the "front-running", it was just a really tepid tactical effort.  Perhaps the east Africans just didn't have the weapons to change the structure of the race, because Bekele was clearly not at the kind of level to be aggressive off the 64 to 65 seconds per lap pace that was set for most of the race.

In the end, then, it was the other Bekele, Tariku, who got closest to Farah, but even that challenge faded, and in the home straight, it was Galen Rupp who came through for the USA's first medal in the event since Billy Mills in 1964.  That will no doubt inspire almost as much celebration in the USA as Farah's win for GB, and it will be interesting to see if either can grab a second medal in the 5,000m.  Farah looks a good bet in that event, and with Dibaba looking like a women's double winner, we may well have a repeat of Beijing, where two double golds are seen.  The difference is, it won't be Bekele.

4) Fraser Pryce defends

In the final track event, Shelly Ann Fraser-Pryce defended her 100m gold with a dominant performance of 10.75s.  She had a tailwind (1.5m/s) in cool conditions, and used her explosive start to set the race up.  Carmelita Jeter challenged, and came close, with a 10.78s good enough for silver.  Veronica Campbell-Brown took the final medal in 10.81s.  It was a fast, deep race, with six sub-11 second clockings.

The track is clearly fast, then, which augurs well for the men's race tomorrow.  There, all the big names got through, and possibly saw the addition of a 'new' name to the mix, in Ryan Bailey.  He is of course the third American, and you don't get into that team without having real aspirations on a medal, but it was a surprise to see his 9.88s PB in the heat.  Admittedly, he ran all the way through the line, whereas all the others - Bolt, Blake, Gay, Gatlin, Powell - were able to coast for at least part of the race.  Bolt seemed to barely break out of a fast stride, looking in his heat like Fraser-Pryce did in hers.  Blake also looked mighty impressive, and tomorrow's sprints should bring the times down into the 9.80s for everyone.  Whether Bailey has a "jump" will be tested.

While on the matter of times, I thought I'd throw out a predicted time for the men's final - four years ago, Bolt won in 9.69s, but he cost himself between 0.03 and 0.05s with his celebrations.  So call it a 9.65s time.  One year later, he ran 9.58s, but has since returned to the 9.7-range.  So too have other men - Blake is in the low 9.70s, Gay seems to be capable of getting there.  Back in 2008, Bolt came to Beijing off the back of a 9.72s world record.  That is slightly faster than the times we've seen this year, though the big contenders have not shown their hands just yet.

However, given the trend in sprinting in the last few years, it's difficult for me to see a sub 9.60s clocking in London - a performance jump of 0.15s (which is more or less what it will take) seems too large, given that three years haven't produced anything under 9.70s.  The fast track is making me reconsider this, but then the cool conditions in London by 21h30 mean slower times too.  So if I had to guess right now, I'd say that a time of 9.68s will win gold tomorrow night.

Then again, I may be totally wrong! I hope I am, and I hope we see a record.  What I do know is that we'll see an incredible race - like the men's 10,000m, it has so many story lines in the race.

5) Tomorrow's action - a women's marathon to kick off

It's been a good games for defending champions.  Given how rare it is to defend an Olympic title, to have seen three in the first eight events is quite something.  Bolt will be aiming to be the fourth, although Ezekiel Kemboi will be hoping to do that when he races the steeplechase just before tomorrow's programme closes with the 100m final.

Also tomorrow, the women's marathon, and what should be an incredible race.  Here's a good pre-race preview, courtesy Letsrun.  My pick, for the sake of it, would be Keitany, followed by Kiplagat, in a repeat of London this year.  Shobukhova's performance will be fascinating, but I think the racing aggression of the Kenyans wins the top medals tomorrow.

RossThe Science of Sport Dr. Ross Tucker Dr. Jonathan Dugas

The Science of advantage: Oscar Pistorius

Oscar Pistorius has just made his debut in the Olympic Games, finishing second in his heat, with a season's best of 45.44s.  It puts him into the semi-finals in joint 16th place, and ensures that the hype continues for at least another day.

Much has been said about Pistorius and the question of advantage.  No new thoughts on this from me, but rather links to what's been said in the past, and elsewhere, as well part of the Science of the Olympics Presentation that deals with the science of Pistorius' advantage.

In case you're new to the site, my take on the science, written a year ago, can be found in the following three articles, dealing with the science (get comfortable, they're long pieces because there is so much context and explanation):

1. Theory for the advantage and the IAAF testing - the hypothesis and first finding
2. Pistorius is "Metabolically similar" to long distance runners - how bad/dishonest science was presented to CAS to have Pistorius cleared
3. The full evidence on Pistorius - the mechanical advantages that explain physiology and performance advantage

If you're more in the mood for a brief summary, then this piece, by David Epstein, which was published  yesterday, tackles the mechanical issues in perhaps the clearest piece written on it so far.  It has a video to explain the concept that gives Pistorius the advantage, and explains the characters beautifully.  If you read between the lines, there's much there to make you wonder about the case and how it was eventually "won" - my three articles above go more into that detail.  I highly recommend it for anyone of you who is wondering, or being asked, or debating whether he has an advantage.

The evidence that was NOT presented. You should be asking 'why'?


I wish the media would produce more of the same quality investigation as this, instead of allowing itself to become the platform for the aggressive PR and dishonest claims made in the other direction.  Much of what you've read is an outright lie, much of it is clever obfuscation designed to make the science seem much more equivocal than it really is.

The comparison of Pistorius, a 400m sprinter, to elite and sub-elite long distance runners in the research by Herr et al is one of the best examples of this.  They did have data on sprinters - it made Pistorius look physiologically and metabolically different, and would thus have confirmed the IAAF finding to have him banned.  And so they presented instead a comparison between Pistorius and distance runners.

Those scientists who went to CAS on Pistorius' behalf also failed to disclose the finding of a mechanical advantage so large that the world's leading authority on sprinting concluded that it would provide a 12 second benefit.  Even though the magnitude of this advantage is debatable (I think it was an over-estimate, and the adjustment should have been more "aggressive", which gives 5 to 6 seconds), the theoretical basis for an advantage it is true, and it should have been disclosed when making a decision.  But, when their science has been commissioned with the sole purpose of clearing his name, why would Pistorius' scientists do this?  Especially when one of them has had his designs commercialized by the same company that make Pistorius' controversial blades.

The science on this issue is, I believe, very clear.  The disadvantages, which certainly exist, primarily in the first 30 m of the race, cannot possibly overcome even a cautious adjustment of the mechanical advantage, which would provide a 5 to 6 second advantage.  Emotion, massive commercial backing and PR always make science look frivolous, however.

Pistorius science: Part 3 of the Science of the Olympic presentation

And then finally, since this is the topical story of the day, below is PART 3 of my presentation on the science of the Olympics.  You'll recall that last week, I did a talk to the public on some of the scientific stories at the Games.  Pistorius is clearly one of them, and below, you can see a presentation that takes you through the issues.  Again, without the context and the explanation it may not flow perfectly, but I think it complements what David Esptein has written, and those three posts I wrote a year ago, fairly well.

Here is that presentation:

.prezi-player { width: 470px; } .prezi-player-links { text-align: center; }
Science of Olympics: Oscar Pistorius on Prezi
Usain Bolt and the 100m men are up shortly.  Enjoy the action, and reviews later!

Ross

The Science of Sport Dr. Ross Tucker Dr. Jonathan Dugas

London recap: Dibaba dominant, a fast track, Pistorius science and a great men's 10,000m looms
Apologies for missing a day on the recaps - trying to follow the Olympics and work has left me feeling a little like Ryan Lochte began looking in his last few events in the pool.  And he has gold, silver and bronze medals to show for it!

But here are some thoughts from the track.  I still will comment on South Africa's rowing gold medal, because this is perhaps the most significant medal we've won at a Games.  And yes, I'm biased, but I'll tell you the story of why this is the case at some stage!

But for now, track and field kicked off last night.  Here's a look back, and forward:

1)  Track and field - Dibaba dominates, Ennis on track and Pistorius in SI

Last night saw the first track medal awarded, and it went to arguably the greatest female distance runner we've ever seen in Tirunesh Dibaba.  The Ethiopian destroyed the field with a 2:10 final 800m, a 62 second final lap, and won by an enormous six seconds.  Most remarkably of all, she really did look as though she had it in her to go quite a bit faster in the final few laps.  Earlier this year, she covered the final mile of a 5,000m race in 4:22.  According to Letsrun.com's recap of the race, her final mile tonight was 4:33.  Different distance and race leading up, of course, but it shows the capacity she has to finish and so it's difficult to see anyone beating her in a championship race.

Before the race, we all thought she would be pushed to the limit, because facing her was Vivian Cheruiyot, last year's dominant distance runner, who had gone unbeaten in just under two years.  She ended third, with Sally Kipyego splitting her and Dibaba.

Dibaba defended her 10,000m title from Beijing (a first), and added to her four world titles on track, two previous Olympic titles (an unprecedented double in Beijing - she may match that here), and four cross-country world titles.  She wasn't listed as a member of the Ethiopian 5,000m team, but surely it would be beauracracy gone mad to leave her out.  Cheruiyot would be a more difficult proposition over 5,000m, and Meseret Defar would also challenge, but Dibaba was so dominant tonight that you'd have a tough time betting on anyone else.

The guys at Letsrun.com have the race brief and analysis here, including post-race quotes from a satisfied Dibaba and a disappointed Cheruiyot.

2)  A super fast track

Also in track action, the first round of the women's 100m produced some noteworthy performances.  Normally, the first round of the short sprint is a non-event, as everyone shuts down with 50m to go and does what is necessary to qualify.  And that is more or less what happened yesterday, but it still managed to produce some incredibly fast times.  A 10.83s for Jeter, a 10.93s for Okagbare and 10.94s for Veronica Campbell-Brown were the fastest times.  There were national records and personal bests everywhere, and nobody really looked like they were extending themselves.

Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce was ridiculously comfortable winning her heat in 11.00s, looking as though she was doing a light stride rather than a 100m race.  The performances did have a following wind, but it wasn't that significant, and so it seems the London track is incredibly quick.  We will get further confirmation of that in a short while when the men run their first round (though I believe it may be raining), and then the women's semi-finals and final tonight will confirm that for sure.  With so many women so comfortably under 11.00s, it should be an incredibly fast race later.  Expect fireworks.

3)  Ennis on course

Also in action later is Jessica Ennis, the favorite for the heptathlon and the face of the London Games, at least its track programme.  She got off to a great start, with PBs in the hurdles and 200m, to take a pretty solid lead heading into day 2, where she has to confront a javelin event that has been a weakness before.  The talk was that she's focused on it to the point that it is no longer a huge weakness.  If that is the case, and if she can stand up under what is some pretty massive pressure (ala Cathy Freeman in Sydney), then a good long jump in the morning might well put her into an almost unassailable lead, and lead to gold for the local heroine.

4) Pistorius starts his campaign - David Epstein on the science

This morning's track action will be dominated by the 100m men who make their first appearance, and then Oscar Pistorius, who runs in the 400m heats.  His presence, while inspirational, is also debatable, and the question around advantage will persist.  As it should - the process by which the "science" cleared him was so dubious it was untrue, and his PR-machine has made people think it cleared him, when in fact the science says something else entirely.

David Epstein of Sports Illustrated has asked some of those questions, and produced this brilliant article summing up the views.  If you're watching the race, you'll probably be debating his presence.  This article is recommended reading before you do.

5) Farah vs Bekele vs Kenya vs Rupp - the men's 10,000m tonight

Jess Ennis' gold medal may be part of a golden double for Great Britain, because immediately after the women's heptathlon concludes with the 800m, Mo Farah will attempt to win the 10,000m gold against a field that is stacked with intrigue.  He takes on a field that includes Kenenisa Bekele, who, if he wins, joins Dibaba in achieving an unparalled defense of his title, with one exception - he'll have defended twice.  Haile Gebrselassie tried and failed to win a third Olympic 10k crown, and now Bekele has that shot.

Bekele has improved his times, but not his positions, in all his major 5,000m races so far this year - he started with a very slow 13:14, then jumped to 13:01, then a 13:00 and 12:56.  That's encouraging, but he was always being comfortably out-kicked in the final lap.  His 10,000m form has been more impressive, and of course last year he bounced back from not even finishing the Daegu 10,000m to run the world's fastest time of 26:43.

This all points to his likeliest tactic is to make sure the pace is fast and building in the final 3,000m.  His agent earlier this week mentioned that Bekele was over-raced and over-trained during that season of 5,000m races, and so having gone away to prepare with a single-minded focus, you wouldn't bet against Bekele arriving in London in at least the same kind of shape, being able to run 26:40.  However, that may not be the kind of shape needed to win a championship 10,000m, and that's where it gets so interesting.

In much the same way that Ethiopians wound it up in the women's race, Bekele needs to avoid a final 400m dash.  For Dibaba, I suspect it would not have made a difference anyway, but for Bekele, it would.  Mo Farah and even Galen Rupp have beaten him handily over 5,000m, always in the final lap, and he can't afford to be an extra in that storyline again.  Farah in particular is dangerous, and will in all likelihood win a final lap sprint.  Last year in Daegu, I felt that Farah took the pace on too early, kicked from too far out, and found Jeilan of Ethopia just too quick in the last 300m.  This year, there's no Jeilan, and Farah will be more prepared, or more astute, too.  He'll also be motivated by what is likely to be incredibly home support.

This is all a departure from previous Games, because we've always spoken of what others need to do to shake Bekele before the bell lap, and now the roles are reversed.  Farah will be defending until the bell, Bekele attacking.

Into this tactical intrigue, you have the Kenyan challenge.  It lacks a "legend" in the form of a Paul Tergat or even a credentialed 10,000m track runner, but it still has a balance that might just be perfect for the race.  Wilson Kiprop won the Kenyan trials, which makes him a contender, but the reality is that his best performances have come on the roads.  He is coming down in distance for this race, and so his approach, like that of Bekele, will surely be to press a long way from home.  In a final lap, it's easy to see him finishing out of the medals.  To win gold, he goes early, and that means the chance of an unlikely alliance between a Kenyan and Ethiopian, as this is exactly what Bekele probably needs.

The other Kenyans are Moses Masai and Bidan Karoki.  Karoki in particular is interesting, as he's shown aggression in previous races, and might provide even more spice in an already intriguing race.

And then there is Rupp.  Before last year, few would have picked him to be a contender, but his final lap speed has improved so much in the last year that he now becomes a very good chance.  He also has the ability to run a sub-13 5,000m, so a slow start, with a strong second half is not a huge problem.  Nor is a slow race to 9,000m.  And so he's almost certain to be in contention, and that means the chance of a first non-African medal in the event for a long, long time.  Farah, of course, is the other non-African, though he was of course born in Africa.

It promises to be a fabulous race.  I am completely undecided as to how it will go.  I think Farah, with his speed and the home support, is probably the logical favorite...just.  But having watched Dibaba last night, I just have a feeling that the Ethiopians have arrived in London with exactly the right form.  Bekele has done this before, knows what is required and history shows that he's able to round into excellent condition in less time than he's had here.  The only question is tactical, and whether he can get them right.

Right now, as I'm writing this, I'll predict that Bekele wins this from Farah, but in an hour from now, I'll probably think differently.  However it goes, it could well be a classic, because not only is the winner in question, but the manner is so open, and there are so many options for how this race might develop over the 27 minutes that it takes.  A highlight of the Games, for sure.

Join me later for insights!
RossThe Science of Sport Dr. Ross Tucker Dr. Jonathan Dugas

London Day 5: GB on the golden board as Sporting Giants bears fruit and other thoughts

Two very quick thoughts on medal-stories from the day's action

1)  The "Tall and talented" programme bears fruit

So the hosts got on the Gold medal board today, courtesy Heather Stanning and Helen Glover who absolutely dominated the  women's pair rowing final at Eton Dorney.  It was the cue for relief and wild celebration for the home fans, with an announcement on the London Tube one of many ways the word got round.  One has to say that the home support has been incredible - just look at the support for the cycling time-trial today and you see an Olympic Games that has truly been embraced by its hosts.

But apart from the obvious, the gold medal is significant because it represents the first Olympic delivery of UK Sport's Sporting Giants programme, which was created five years ago to identify future medal winners for Team GB.  Entry criteria - you had to be tall - 180cm for women, 192cm for men.  At least, that was the start.  Athleticism helped, of course, and Helen Glover met those standards, applied and found herself undertaking a journey that culminated in gold today.  Her story was already being held up as an example of targeted talent identification - I first heard of her (and the programme) at a sports science conference in the UK some years ago), and it's sure to be even more well-known after today.

Some of the programme's numbers are laid out at the end of this article, and it's interesting to see that the next phase is already in place, with the creation of a plan for Rio to build on 2012.  That plan takes a systematic approach to a) characterising the success factors for different sports, and b) identifying where "weak" sports may exist.

It's a cold and calculating approach to sport, it has to be said.  Last year in London, I attended a conference ahead of the Games, and one of the more interesting concepts was that the UK employed a "horizontal jumps specialist".  A PhD in engineering, his full-time job was to deconstruct long-jump and triple-jump performance, to ask what determined the length of the jump, and then knowing what would be required to win medals in London, how best to advise coaches when working with athletes.  It's a comprehensive approach where every percent matters.  But that's the kind of approach that produces results, though of course it's expensive and intensive.

Those of you who watched the Tour de France this year were watching one of the many outcomes of this approach, because systematic and logical "deconstruction" of cycling performance was one of the factors that drove Sky to the title for Wiggins.  They spoke of "marginal gains", which is another term bandied about in the conversation around high performance management.  It works, and it is impressive, and Glover is testament to that.

What is also intriguing is the cost-benefit analysis, and I have no idea what that might be, without knowing exactly how much money goes into it.  Comparing this programme to the alternative is equally challenging (that is, if you didn't spend X million on Sporting Giants, how would you spend it?).  But it's a fascinating illustration of one area that sports science is being applied, and there are sure to be more athletes who fly its flag in the next 9 days, starting tomorrow with another rower, Vicky Thornley in the women's eights.

2) The doping story that will not go away

All day, the emails have come in regarding Ye Shiwen's performance, not least of all because news outlets like CNN and VOA seem insistent on continuing the discussion. I must confess to being a little tired of it now - it's an issue that will receive no clarity, and is only creating tension between those who have a cynical view and those who do not.  Racism enters the picture, the debate is clouded and it ends up being a losing situation all round.  I am sure there will be a need for more thoughts on it, but for now, let me try to wrap it up and then focus on the upcoming athletics in future posts, rather than this draining discussion.

Take a look at the following two articles.

First, here is an article that points out that GB's Rebecca Adlington and Australian Ian Thorpe have done similar kinds of performances, with respects to finishing laps and improvements, as Ye Shiwen.  It makes some good points - I don't think they're all relevant, but what they do highlight is that this is a debate where one person can say X, and another can just as easily come along and say Y.  You'll recall that the Guardian recently ran a lengthy interview with a swimming insider John Leonard where he said pretty much the exact opposite, and the article linked to above takes his quotes and "exposes" them as insufficient in the current debate.  Fair enough.

It's just too easy to counteract each argument, each "reason" with one of your own, depending on which side of the doping-accusation divide you stand to begin with.  The point of giving the counter-view, then, is to show that this debate really shouldn't be polarized in either direction.   Unfortunately, the media have done this in a big way already.  I tried to analyze her pacing the other day, purely because it was an interesting physiological concept, and that too was turned into proof that she was doping, even though the relationship is indirect at best - the "hunt" leads to mass confusion, helping no one.

Truth is, if you are taking up a position at the extreme, whether you're the side of those saying "She must be doping", or whether you're on the side of those who say to leave it altogether, you're probably wrong.  This is a debate that calls for a comfortable seat on the fence, and then we can wait it out (it's not often I'd say that, but it's true here!)

This is also the reason why performance analysis will never constitute proof.  Let me repeat that - performance analysis will never constitute proof.  Put differently, in case you missed it - you cannot analyze someone's performance, be it their age, their improvement, their splits, and infer that they are doping based solely on these observations.  Why?  Because performance is too complex, and we have neither the sensitivity nor the reliability to make a strong conclusion.

So, what performance analysis can do is ask questions.  That's all.  The questions are asked based on what we see, but they are answered based on what we can find.  I'm all for questions - I think that questions drive transparency, and transparency is the key to cleaning up sport.  If you ask the hard questions, you force people to reveal more, or you show them to be liars who are trying to cover things up.  I, for one, WANT to trust the system, but history has made me hesitant.

If you are new to the site, then you'll have missed it, but for the last four years, every July, we spend hours dissecting cycling performances, because every year there are allegations of doping.  They're often allegations without "proof", but they're not unreasonable, because cycling has shown itself to be suspect.  If you wear yellow, you are under the spotlight. It doesn't matter whether you're Spanish, French, English, Italian or American.  Wear yellow, someone will ask you.  It's a magnet for anti-doping speculation.  Sad reality.

More broadly, anyone who succeeds at sport is also under a spotlight - if you want to find a "suspicious athlete", just look for who is wearing a medal!  OK, that's extreme, and I'm being over-cynical to make a point (I don't really believe this, by the way), but that's the climate of sport.  When Bolt, or Blake, or Gay, wins the 100m title on Sunday, you know that people are going to wonder.  Winners are marked as 'questionable'.

Unfortunately, some winners are more questionable than others.  That too is valid, albeit harsh on some, because it's largely historical.  And those in sport have been lied to too often to just believe denials.  In this second article, Craig Lord asks some harsh questions of coach Denis Cotterell, who has vehemently defended Ye.  He is on one extreme, in the same way that some media have adopted an extreme view that "she must be doping", he's gone the other way.

My point, again, is that neither extreme is right.  Let's ask questions, but let's seek answers over time, with proper testing.  The only answer will come from testing, but not in-competition, and not even the sporadic testing that is done.  "Aggressive" longitudinal testing, the kind that 'scares' athletes into less doping, the kind that changes behaviour and which forces doping to levels so low that it may not discernibly affect performance, that's what is needed.  If that means that some swimmers are affected more than others, good.  If it means the entire sport slows down, then even better.

But that's where the answer lies.  The question is found in performances, in history, and while these can easily become generalizations, they are not bad, in and of themselves.  The answers, however, lie in "detective work", and testing.  Stop looking for "smoking guns" - you will not find them.  Rather accept the challenge faced by anti-doping authorities, and push for transparency, so that we can all trust the performances.  And focus instead on the gold-medal wining performances, not racist allegations and retaliations.

In any event, athletics is on the horizon, and that is where the Games get really interesting.  Previews will come soon, along with recaps.

Ross The Science of Sport Dr. Ross Tucker Dr. Jonathan Dugas

Science of the Olympics presentation, part 2: Doping

So the other day I showed you the first part of a talk I gave to the general public, and it covered technology in clothing, specifically the swimsuits.
Today, it's part 2, and it deals with doping.  I tried to explain the biological passport concept, how it evolved out of the realization that traditional anti-doping methods were relatively ineffective, and that our insistence on finding a "smoking gun" in order to detect doping was compromising the fight against doping.  That is, we were naive to think that simply testing for a substance, either in or out of competition, was going to catch cheats and dissuade potential cheats.  It's just too easy to avoid detection, and the effect of drugs persists long after the drug is gone.
So, we have a paradigm shift in doping control, and it involves longitudinal testing in the form of a biological passport.  The concept is that rather than try to find the substance in the body, we can find its physiological effects.
The talk covered the basics, and then gave some examples of how the practice changes behavior, and more promisingly, performance.
It's by no means foolproof, and it's by no means the finished article.  And the evidence is part of a massive jigsaw puzzle, of which the slides below capture only a tiny part.  Of course, in my presentation, I explained much of the context, and so without that, the slides may seem incomplete.  The context includes, for example, our recent discussions on cycling performance, and on the legal process behind the passport - I couldn't get it all into the visuals.  Search the site for "biological passport" to find those pieces if you're hungry for more!
But it's hopefully a nice visual way of introducing the ideas to you.
More to come in the next few days, including the science of Oscar Pistorius.

And of course, Day 5 is underway, the recap comes later!
Ross The Science of Sport Dr. Ross Tucker Dr. Jonathan Dugas

London Day 4 recap: le Clos pips Phelps, Phelps claims the record, a badminton farce and more on Shiwen

Four thoughts on yesterday's Olympic action

1)  le Clos wins gold by 0.05s from Michael Phelps in the race of the Games so far

South Africa is celebrating a gold medal today, after Chad le Clos and Michael Phelps produced one of the great races of the Games in the 200m butterfly.  It was le Clos, and not Phelps, who claimed the gold, ending Phelps' reign in the event and giving South Africa a second gold.

The race was expected to be a coronation for Phelps, as he needed only one more medal to equal Larissa Latynina’s all-time Olympic medal haul of 18.  And for 199m of the 200m race, it seemed he would do so with gold.  But in the final 1m, in a sequence that was astonishingly reminiscent of the 100m butterfly final from Beijing, the lead changed hands, as Phelps found his last stroke too short of the wall, and his long glide left the door open for le Clos to snatch a dramatic win.  Four years ago, Phelps was the beneficiary of Milorad Cavic's long glide, winning by 0.01s.  The role was reversed last night as the greatest swimmer the sport has ever seen lost out by 0.05s to the South African debutant.


Having earned a favourable center-lane for the final, le Clos had the opportunity to measure his effort off Phelps the entire race, and he stayed in touch throughout, turning reaching 150m only 0.58s behind Phelps.  It was the perfect position, and he ate progressively into Phelps’ advantage over the final 30m.  Still, Phelps looked certain for gold until that very final stroke.  It was a reminder of the margins between gold and silver at the Olympic level.
Phelps’ “failure” at the finish was the talk of the commentators on the broadcast, which is understandable - the historical context of the race, Phelps' dominance of the event in the past, and hey, it is Michael Phelps, after all, were the reasons that the talk was more of the silver medalist than gold.
This did something a disservice to le Clos’ performance though.  But being South African, you'll forgive me for looking to Lane 5 and not Lane 6 for some thoughts, at least at first.   It has to be said that Le Clos did exactly what any Olympian, particularly in their first Games, aspires to do – he got faster and faster, race by race, and ended with an enormous personal best.  He was comfortable in the heats (fifth fastest), then swam a personal best and African record in the semi-finals to earning his favourable lane, and then he went even faster in the final.  He ended with a PB of 1:52.96, over two seconds faster than he brought to London.  One cannot ask for more from a young swimmer.
Of interest too, is that le Clos’ winning time is faster than Phelps swam in the World Championships last year (1:53.34), and it is faster than Phelps swam at the US trials only a month ago (1:53.65).  Phelps himself was faster last night than he was in either of those races, and so it certainly cannot be said that Phelps did NOT produce a good swim in the final – he may have felt that he should be even faster, and certainly his 400m IM performance still suggests to me that something is not quite right, especially over the longer distances and in the second half of his races.  But Phelps didn't lose the race overall, as much as le Clos managed to elevate his level when it matter.  The "loss" by Phelps came in that final stroke.  
And that finishing “error” could well be put down to fatigue.  Even 5% more in Phelps' stroke length, and he finishes on the wall.  But as a swimmer fatigues, his stroke becomes shorter as his body position becomes lower in the water.  The result is that he's left with 1m to glide, rather than 50cm, for example, and that's worth 0.05s, at least.  Phelps held a fairly large lead over le Clos with 50m to go (0.68s), and the final 50m saw a stronger finishing le Clos get the final stroke right.  The result is a deserved gold medal for le Clos.
It was an unexpected gold, not only for the rest of the world, but dare I say it, for South Africa.  Chad le Clos is a name we'd all do well to remember, however, because he has the ability to go on from this and forge one of the great swimming careers.  He came into London carrying the "burden of potential", in the sense that everyone who has seen and followed his rise recognizes his future ability.  However, even he would not have predicted the gold medal in his strongest event.  He was quoted before the Games as promising to do his very best, but that a medal would be a bonus and the real target would be Rio in 2016.  My picks for London had le Clos as a "medal hopeful", rather than a "medal expectation", because I felt he needed the perfect day to win a medal.  He produced that, and then some, and the result was not just a medal, but the gold one.

So le Clos is ahead of his own curve now, and leaves London with that prized gold medal, and a personal best and African record that is about 2 seconds faster than anything he'd ever done before for the event.  And there may yet be more to come - the 200m individual medley is next, though he may not be the favorite, with both Lochte and Phelps in that race...but we've seen how that billing has played out once already.  Then there is the 4 x 100m medley relay, where South Africa's outside chance seems to have become a lot stronger, thanks to Cameron van den Burgh in the breaststroke, and now le Clos in the fly.  That happens later in the week. 
2) Phelps first equals and then beats the all-time medal record
Now, a word about Phelps.  The 200m butterfly produced a silver lining in more ways than one - first, he won silver in the event.  And secondly, while he'd have been disappointed, it took his all time tally to 18 medals, equal with Larissa Latynina.  
In the aftermath of the race, during the medal ceremony, Phelps showed tremendous class and true champion attitude in the manner in which he spoke with and engaged with le Clos.  It was, on a night of drama, perhaps the most rewarding sight, because he was magnanimous in defeat and honorable towards le Clos.  He earned a silver medal, but should also have earned enormous respect for that.  More than a record medal haul, it underlined Phelps' status for me.
If there was any disappointment (and there must have been), Phelps came out shortly after the medal ceremony and channeled it into the swim that would take him to sole position of the all-time medal list.  This time, it was a gold in the 4 x 200m freestyle, with Phelps producing the second fastest leg of the race (Yannick Agnel, the individual 200m champ, was fastest at 1:43.24 compared to Phelps' 1:44.05)
That took Phelps to 19.  15 are gold - this was already the record, the two bronze from Athens and the silver last night making up the collection.  Phelps has three events remaining - a leg in the 4 x 100m medley relay where it is very difficult to see the USA not winning gold, then the 200-IM where perhaps Lochte is favored, but Phelps should medal given the shorter length, and then the 100m butterfly, where he probably is favorite.  It's likely that Phelps will end his career on 22, with possibly 17 golds.  An amazing collection from the all-time greatest Olympic medal winner.  Cue debate about how 22 swimming medals compares to say, 5 rowing medals, where the multiple hauls are simply not possible. Regardless, Phelps is an undisputed Olympic legend.
3) Badminton farce as teams throw matches to avoid one another
Then a less than savoury story emerged from the Games yesterday, as eight badminton players were charged with "not using one's best efforts to win the match".  I didn't see the matches (following the Olympic Games is an Olympian task), but it was the talk of Twitter and obviously big news.  The story is summarized here, but basically, teams that had already qualified want to get themselves favourable draws and so they tried not to win the match.
There are some sports where this is easier than others.  Running and cycling, for example, lend themselves to slowing down just enough to lose.  Technical sports, it's not as simple, because when an elite player repeatedly duffs a serve or simple shot, even a non-discerning fan will spot it.  As they did - fans jeered, the match officials warned players and then disqualified them, only for the DQ to be overturned on appeal and the match continue. 
The players should simply be expelled from the Games.  No questions asked.  Obviously, the act of deliberately under-performing is the reason, and this is one of the most disgraceful things an athlete can do, surely?  Doping is terrible, but at least it's for the right reason!  There is also a part of me that thinks they should be expelled because from all reports, they didn't even play badly well (if that makes sense). If you're going to defraud the event and public, at least do so convincingly...but that's a bit tongue-in-cheek.  
Of course, proving it is very difficult - suspicion is obvious, proof is not!  The Badminton World Federation will be dealing with the matter.
4) Shiwen in the spotlight, still: My one-tweet summary below...
And then speaking of easy suspicion with difficult proof, China's Ye Shiwen remains a talking point in London.  She won the 200m IM last night, to go with that 400m IM title that created the controversy in the first place.
I was contacted by a few media yesterday, and will even be talking to CNN later today, and so I've been giving the story and speculation a great deal of thought.  If you missed my initial thoughts on the subject, you can find them here, and then also see what has been said about her from other sources.
It's such a polarizing debate, because the idea of "targeted testing" or suspicion based solely on whose flag an athlete competes under is so easily turned into sports' equivalent of racial profiling.  There is no doubt that Shiwen is MORE suspected and questioned because she is Chinese.  Is that right?  I'm ambivalent.  There is a reality that can't, and shouldn't be ignored, and that is that Chinese athletes have a history of doping.  I quoted figures the other day of 40 Chinese swimmers failing tests, three times more than the next nation.  Yesterday I received a tweet saying it's 57, a shade over twice the next nation's numbers.
Regardless, it's clear that Chinese athletes have "earned" the mistrust that accompanies them.  That's just a fact.  What is unfair is for that to be turned into an immediate accusation against every swimmer from China who does well.  For example, Shiwen is NOT actually based full-time in China - I believe she is in Brisbane a good deal of the time (if anyone can confirm this, let me know).  It doesn't mean there's no link to a state system in China, of course, but it does force us to reconsider the generalization and image we probably have of young swimmers doping in rural China where no drug tester can go, right?  So guilt by association is a bad idea - we'd all be guilty of many things this way, and with no recourse.
So let me wrap this discussion up (for now), with the following quick thoughts:
I think the main point that needs to be made is that in sport, history has taught us to be skeptical of anything that is remarkable.  It's a sad state of affairs, but we've all been made fools of before.
In that light, the performances of Shiwen compel people to ASK questions,  But I think it's very important to understand two things:

1. Asking is not the same as accusing.  We should be quick to ask, but slow to accuse, and before accusing, should seek facts and information.  Asking the question applies pressure, it helps to change behavior, it adds to scrutiny.  It's good.  The more transparency we can "force" onto the system, the better off the sport.  The knee-jerk reaction to a young swimmer dominating in that fashion is to accuse and reach judgment, and that's not fair.
   
2. Recognize that she is not the only one from whom questions should be asked.  Any swimmer who wins an Olympic gold medal is already remarkable.  To do so with a world record is even more so, and to do so with huge improvements when so young is a final piece of what is a remarkable story.  But Shiwen is not unique, and so she, along with other swimmers, should be placed under the same scrutiny.
   
3. The scrutiny should take the form of doping controls - you cannot "convict" someone of doping just because they are performing well.  It's unfair and unnecessarily cynical.  What you can do is use performance to establish a targeted testing programme, because performance gives context to drug testing.  So all swimmers, but particularly those who produce "uncertain" performances, should be the target of testing, some perhaps more than others.

The reality is that only drug testing can answer the question.  The question is asked based on performance, but answered based on testing.  I was earlier asked to sum up my view in a single tweet, so here goes: I'd say "unfairly judged and accused, but worthy of question. If that's unfair, hey, welcome to elite sport"
Lots more action to come on day 5!  Stay tuned
Ross 
The Science of Sport Dr. Ross Tucker Dr. Jonathan Dugas

London 2012 Day 3 thoughts

Three quick thoughts on the third day of action from London:

1.  More on Shiwen from a former coach: "brings back awful memories"


Yesterday I discussed the performance of Ye Shiwen, China's 400 IM gold medalist, in the context of her final freestyle leg being equal to that of Ryan Lochte when he won the men's event.  This issue was debated at length today, on radio and in media.  Then the Guardian came out with this piece, featuring detailed thoughts by John Leonard, the executive director of the World Swimming Coaches Association.

Among other things, Leonard says the following:
"The one thing I will say is that history in our sport will tell you that every time we see something, and I will put quotation marks around this, 'unbelievable', history shows us that it turns out later on there was doping involved. That last 100m was reminiscent of some old East German swimmers, for people who have been around a while. It was reminiscent of 400m individual medley by a young Irish woman in Atlanta."
The Irish woman he refers to is Michelle Smith, who surprised the world by winning the 400-IM in Atlanta before failing a dope test four years later.  The East Germans, well, they need no further explanation.

Leonard goes on to say: "I have been around swimming for four-and-a-half decades now. If you have been around swimming you know when something has been done that just isn't right. I have heard commentators saying 'well she is 16, and at that age amazing things happen'. Well yes, but not that amazing. I am sorry." "No coach that I spoke to yesterday could ever recall seeing anything remotely like that in a world level competition," Leonard continued. "Where someone could out-split one of the fastest male swimmers in the world, and beat the woman ahead of her by three-and-a-half body lengths. All those things, I think, legitimately call that swim into question." "You can't turn around and call it racism to say the Chinese have a doping history," Leonard said. "That is just history. That's fact. Does that make us suspicious? Of course. You have to question any outrageous performance, and that is an outrageous performance, unprecedented in any way, shape or form in the history of our sport. It by itself, regardless of whether she was Chinese, Lithuanian, Kenyan, or anything else, is impossible. Sorry." Those are fighting words.  In fact, given the climate of "political correctness" around the issue, I'm surprised that someone in a position of public authority would actually say them.  Not that I necessarily disagree, and as I tried to explain yesterday, asking the question is NOT the same as pronouncing someone guilty.
Regarding the Chinese, an interesting stat I saw today is that since 1990, China has produced 40 failed doping tests in swimming.  That is three times more than the next highest country.  The latest of those positives comes earlier this year, when a number of junior swimmers tested positive for EPO.  
And so history has given us reason to be skeptical.  It's just the way it is.  That, combined with her age, and combined with the rapid improvement from someone who was already at the world-class level (she was 200-IM world champion and fifth in the 400-IM when the seven second improvement occurred), gives pause for concern.  A big improvement for a 15-year old is not by itself a huge problem.  When that improvement moves a world-class swimmer to a level never seen before, then it's a little different.
And related to that, the same standard should apply to any young swimmer.  Tonight we saw a 15-year old huge outsider complete a remarkable series of races to win the 100m breast-stroke gold, when Ruta Meilutyte beat off Rebecca Soni.  I'd be asking the same question about her, though her story may be able to answer those questions, I'm not sure.
I think at this early stage, what can be said with certainty is that Shiwen's performances are "unusual".  That may go on to be seen as a synonym for 'exceptional' - I certainly hope it does.  However, history has taught us that in sport, this kind of unusual often means something else.  Speaking of Shiwen, she broke the Olympic record in the 200-IM last night, which is sure to provide more polarizing opinion.  
2.  The results from the pool haven't gone entirely to script

The results from the pool have been dramatic for reasons other than we might have expected.  First, the anticipated showdown between Lochte and Phelps in the 400IM didn't quite materialize, as Phelps had an off-night and finished fourth.  The race very nearly didn't even happen, with Phelps only just squeaking into the final to begin with.

Then on Sunday, the Australian 4 x 100m freestyle relay team failed to live up to their favourite tag in the relay final, finishing outside the medals in fourth, and swimming only 0.66s faster in the final than they did in the heat (with a supposedly stronger squad for the final).  That squad included James Magnussen, who came to London the favourite for the individual race, but found himself beaten on Leg 1 by Nathan Adrian in a relatively slow time of 48.03s.  How he responds in the 100m free later in the week will be intriguing, but the form of Yannick Agnel (46.74s split with a 'flying start') would have everyone worried.

Then Lochte, admittedly in a weaker event for him, lost a 0.55s lead to the fast-finishing Agnel to give the USA a silver in the 4 x 100m freestyle relay.  France claimed their first gold in the event.  Lochte's London continued with a fourth-place in the 200m freestyle tonight, again losing out to Agnel, with Sun and Park dead-heating for silver.

And then there is Phelps, who was always going to attract the attention in the pool.  His campaign began with the 400IM 'aberration'.  He bounced back with the second fastest leg in the 4 x 100m freestyle relay, and then looked solid, if not spectacular in the heats and semi-final of the 200m butterfly.  He swims that final tomorrow evening, entering the final with the fourth fastest time.  He controlled his semi, so perhaps is still the favourite, but the doubt remains, as it will until he wins a race with an exclamation mark.

There are others who have been "upstaged" - Soni was a red-hot favourite, but was beaten by 15-year old Lithuanian Ruta Meilutyte in the 100m breaststroke.  Emily Seebohm broke the Olympic 100m backstroke record in the heat (58.23s), then went slower in the semi-final (58.39s) and then even slower in the final (58.68s), to finish with silver, when the time from her heat would have won the gold.  She was beaten by an amazing double-act from Missy Franklin, who swam the 200m freestyle, jumped straight into the diving pool to swim a few laps, and was back in the 100m backstroke final almost immediately to win gold. So that's a billing that lived up to the hype.

So an interesting swimming meet, showing that past performance is no predictor of future performance, even over the space of one day.  The media often coronate Olympic champions in the pool based on the results of the US and Australian swimming trials.  So far, 2012 has shown that the pool is a little more globalized than we tend to think!

3. Paula Radcliffe withdraws from the marathon

The other big news, the impact of which will only really be felt in a few days' time is the withdrawal of Paula Radcliffe from the marathon.  Radcliffe's Olympic marathon story is a long and painful one.  Two failed attempts in Athens and Beijing had led to the home performance, but as the months have gone by, it has been clear that Radcliffe just could not put together a consistent series of performances.  Whether it was illness or injury

Radcliffe's decision, which she announces in this statement, must have been an agonizing one to make. Having been burned by two Olympic Games, the second one by injury, she would have been mindful of history, and one can hardly blame her.  Especially because NOT finishing her home marathon would bring the British press and public down on her.  Judging from the post-Athens reaction, that's a cruel experience that most would wish to avoid.  She may yet have a Games in her, but one feels that this may be the end for the world's fastest female marathoner.

Her statement here is well worth a read.

And a final thought for SA readers - tonight sees our next medal chance in Chad le Clos in the 200m butterfly.  He qualified in second for the final, beaten only by Matsuda.  You have to think that Matsuda can go even faster, and then Phelps, who qualified in fourth, must be the favourite.  Which means that unless le Clos can find another big improvement, he's in strong contention for bronze, at least.  That will be hotly contested, with four men within half a second of one another.  Le Clos broke the Africa record to get lane 5 for the final, and so he is on the right trajectory.  It should be a fascinating race.

For the global audience, it's the race that really should see Michael Phelps tie Larissa Latynina for the all-time Olympic medal record of 18, and he may become the first man to win the same event at three consecutive Games.

Recap later (or tomorrow, depending on Olympic fatigue!)

Ross






The Science of Sport Dr. Ross Tucker Dr. Jonathan Dugas

The Science of the Olympic Games, Part 1: The technology effect

Last week Friday, at the Sports Science Institute of South Africa, I gave a public presentation to welcome in the start of London 2012.  The presentation covered four topics - technology, doping in sport, Oscar Pistorius' advantage and South Africa's chances of 12 medals, in the context of Olympic economics.

The talk was aimed at the general public, to give them some insight into the 'hidden side' of the Games, and the scientific stories they'd be seeing and perhaps hearing about over the next two weeks.

Over the next few days, I'll share segments of that presentation with you.  Of course, without narration, it may lack the context to be fully understandable, but it is mostly (I hope), self-explanatory.

The first segment is on technology.  Beijing produced a clearance sale on swimming world records thanks to Speedo's LZR swimsuit, and introduced to us the concept of "technological doping".

So far, London has been interesting in this regard, because records are falling, but at nothing like the rate we saw in 2008.  So far, with eight events completed, we've seen three world and six Olympic records.  Compare this to Beijing, where 32 events produced 66 Olympic and 25 World Records.

One interesting observation you might want to make from home as you watch the swimming, is to note how often a swimmer is AHEAD of world record splits at the first turn (50m), and how rarely they stay ahead.  One possible interpretation is that the first 50m has improved disproportionately, and that seems, at least to my eye, to be partly due to modified and improved starting blocks.  The addition of the second block at the back, to allow a forceful horizontal push from the back leg, seems to have made the starts faster.  The result is that many are going out faster, not because of a faster swim, but a faster start.  They are then slowing in the second half.  Or maybe it's just an interesting observation that says more about pacing than equipment, who knows?  Time will tell!

But for now, this is a look back to a section of a talk given on Friday, dealing with technology, before the swimming events began.  Later this week I'll post the section of the talk looking at the war on doping.

Oh, and the Day 3 recap of London is yet to come.  Later tonight, after the swimming finals!

Ross
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Science of Olympics 2012 Part 1 on Prezi The Science of Sport Dr. Ross Tucker Dr. Jonathan Dugas

London day 2: Women faster than men in the pool, and SA's first medal is gold
Day 2 in London produced some great racing, including the much anticipated men's 4 x 100m freestyle relay, which always seems to produce one of the races of the Games.

2012 was no different, and it was France who exacted revenge for the drama of Beijing, where Jason Lezak came from behind in the dying meters to hold off the French challenge to keep Phelps' dream of eight alive.
This time, the situation was reversed, and it was France who hit the water behind the USA for the final leg.  Lochte for the USA led Agnel of France by 0.55s at 300m, but Agnel's brilliant swim (a 46.74s performance, the fastest of the race by a considerable margin), first reeled the American in and then passed him for the win.  Lochte, for his part, closed in 47.74, exactly one second slower, and the USA took silver.
Speaking of times, Phelps actually produced the second fastest split of the race, a 47.15s.  Notwithstanding the fact that the lead-off swimmers don't get the benefit of a flying start, Phelps will be greatly encouraged by that performance after his poor showing last night.  It suggests that Day 1 was simply an aberration, and that he'll be back for more medals in events three to six.
It's the upside of a silver medal that might have been gold, were it not for a brilliant last leg by Agnel, who gave the USA a taste of the feeling they had in Beijing four years ago.
Some other quick thoughts from around the Games, beginning in the pool
Ye Shiwen's final 100m freestyle leg - a talking point
One of the big talking points in the media and over on Twitter was the observation that Ye Shiwen, China's 16-year 400 Individual Medley champion, swam the final 100m freestyle leg of her world record (4:28.43) in 58.68s, compared to the 58.65s by Ryan Lochte when he won the same event last night (time of 4:05.18)
The doping accusation
Much can (and has) been made of this, and for many different reasons.  The first, and the one that I will deal with right upfront, is what it implies about doping.  It should come as no surprise that people will be suspicious.  It's not just the fact that a world record was broken that arouses suspicion.  It is that the record breaker is only 16 years old, and has improved her time in the event by 7 seconds since last year's World Championships where she finished fifth in 4:35.
Also, and this has to be said, we regard swimmers from China with more suspicion.  There are a few reasons for this and some of them, I do not condone.  However, I do appreciate the suspicion - remember, this is the nation that produced a host of world-class runners almost overnight in the early 1990s.  They came, they saw, the smashed world records that are yet to be challenged, let alone broken, in the women's 1500m, 3000m and 10,000m.  Then they vanished almost as quickly.
In the pool, history teaches us to be equally skeptical.  Just this year, a 16-year old Chinese swimmer tested positive for EPO.  In the 1990s, the same thing happened for swimming as happened for running - came, saw, conquered.  But in that case, they got caught and then disappeared.
The doping allegations of the 1990s were largely confirmed by officials and sources who reported that doping within Chinese swimming programmes were widespread and institutionalized.  That, in turn, would come as no surprise to students of the sport and doping.  The practice of institutionalized doping began east of the Berlin Wall in the 1960s, and when the Wall fell, it just went further east. 
The result is that Chinese performances will always be viewed with suspicion.  In exactly the same way that a Tour de France leader is suspicious because of the history of that jersey, a Chinese world-beating athlete is going to face questions and suspicion. 
So I will be upfront here - when I see such remarkable a) performances; b) improvements in a short time and; c) pacing strategies in a 16-year old, I too am skeptical.  It's human nature, conditioned by human behavior in sport, and I think anyone who follows the sport understands the thinking process here.
However, that is NOT the same thing as condemning someone as a doper, and I would not do that based solely on performance.  I would, however, be asking the same question I think many are, and I think this is only right.  We should be suspicious, because history has shown us up more than once before.  And the thing about generalizations (they're Chinese, they must be doping, for example) is that sometimes, they become generalizations because there is an element of truth in them!  Does anyone who knows China's ethos and attitude towards Olympic sport actually believe that they would NOT deliberately dope their young athletes to win medals?  If your answer is no, then I'm afraid you're naive, just as we'd be naive to believe that any athlete, regardless of nationality, faces huge temptation to dope.
That doesn't mean they do it though, just that they might, and so what we need to avoid is to paint everyone with the same brush, and so let's ask, without reaching a verdict.  Just yet.
But let's just talk about the pacing, and the fact that this young Chinese swimmer can finish a medley as fast as Lochte did.  It has some really interesting implications, and I'm going to talk about those instead of doping for now.
Shiwen's race "structure" - why a fast finish implies a huge "reserve" capacity
I'm a "student" of pacing strategies - they were a significant part of my PhD, and so I read a great deal into the physiology and implications of how athlete's pace themselves.
So truth number 1 - our ability to finish fast is a function of how much "reserve" capacity we maintain during the race.  If we are racing maximally, at world record pace, for example, then we do not produce super-fast sprint finishes.  Think of a 5,000m runner at world record pace with one lap to go.  He is not going to blast a 52 second final lap.
Now consider the same runner, same distance, but running 30 seconds slower in a tactical Olympic final.  They can run 52 seconds for the final lap, because they have a physiological reserve.  The point is, our finishing speed is a function of the difference between our best performance potential and what we are actually doing - the closer we get to our best, the slower we finish.
Overall, the best performance comes from making sure that reserve is as low as possible.  That is, you will perform your best when you have the least reserve at the finish.  Put differently, if you have a big reserve at the finish, your overall performance is NOT as good as it might have been.
So, that's a long-winded explanation, let's look at what it means for Shiwen.
First point, we're talking about a medley here - 100m each of butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle.  Because there are different strokes, any comparison we make between Shiwen and Lochte may be affected by the relative strengths of the two for the freestyle stroke.  You might be comparing an exceptional freestyle female swimmer in Shiwen to a fairly mediocre male freestyle swimmer in Lochte.  If that were true, then similar times at the end would be no big deal.
But that's NOT the case here - Lochte is a good freestyle swimmer.  An hour ago, he did a 47.74s 100m relay leg.  It didn't win gold, but it's right up there, at most only a second off the very best on the day.  Shiwen, on the other hand, is clearly an exceptional freestyle swimmer, but is not in their relay teams, and nor does she do any individual freestyle events, so she's not at the kind of level that would destroy world records (which is what it would need to be to make the comparison invalid).  I'd argue that they're probably very similar, relative to their peers, at that stroke.

So I think it is safe to say that at best, Shiwen may edge Lochte for relative strength in the event, but not by much, and so she is comparable to Lochte for the specific stroke. Therefore, a direct comparison between Lochte and Shiwen for the freestyle leg is not invalid - it can be made without the confounder of relative freestyle strength.

Next, you look at what it "typical" in the 400IM race.  For men, the best swimmers typically close in 57 to 59 seconds (check splits from London). This is about 19 to 23% SLOWER than the best men finish in an isolated 100m freestyle.

For women, the TYPICAL (excluding Shiwen) final 100m freestyle takes 61 to 64 seconds. This is 18 to 22% slower than the best females swim 100m freestyle.

So the sport shows that you have a normal pattern, a typical ratio of medley freestyle to best freestyle - they SHOULD BE between 18 and 23% slower at the end of a 400m IM than in a 100m freestyle by itself.

Yet Shiwen is not. She does a 58.68 s final leg, which is only about 10% off the best 100m freestyle swimmers.  The conclusion that I would draw from this is that her 100m freestyle leg is disproportionately fast not only by comparison to Lochte, but also to her peers, and to the best 100m freestyle swimmers.

The only way to interpret that is to recognize that the physiology of a fast finish tells us that she must have a significant reserve for that final leg.  It says that her first 300m was an extremely conservative effort. The simple question is "Under what circumstances does a female have the capacity to finish a race as fast as a male?"

To answer this, think back to the key concept - finishing ability is a function of how close we are to our potential.  To finish as fast as Shiwen does, relative to an unfatigued, isolated 100m freestyle, implies that she has a lot more potential in the event than was realized with her world record.  The fact that Shiwen could close as fast as Lochte suggests to me that her efforts over the first 300m of that final took very little out of her.

If that is true, then her overall performance is a significant underperformance.  The allocation of energy over the course of the race might be debated, but what physiology suggests is that it should probably be more even for Shiwen, and it would allow her to swim quite a lot faster than the 4:28 that she did.
Now, at this point, many will say "maybe it's just her way to finish fast", and that may be true.  You'll find examples of athletes who just had more at the end, and of course you get ranges.  But the range is 18-23% off the isolated performance, not 10%.  That's too big, and it's not the optimal way, based on everything we know about performance and pacing.  I suspect that Shiwen would probably be 2 or more seconds faster if she went out harder and pushed to the point of fatigue.  It would force her final leg to be slower, maybe 62 instead of 58.6 seconds, but the gaps would have been created early.

Scary thought then that there is a "reserve" there that would see her get even better.  It would only cause more questioning though - imagine a strong world record of 4:30 lowered by 5 or 6 seconds by a 16-year old?
Interesting times.  Again, to stress the earlier point, this is an interesting discussion.  And the doping aspect is important (don't shy away from the question just because it's politically incorrect - look where that got sport before), but this doesn't prove anything.  So let's wait and see.
South Africa's gold - van der Burgh delivers
In other news, on the local front, South Africa has its first medal, and as expected, it is gold.  Cameron van der Burgh hinted at the possibility in the semi-final last night, and did the job tonight in spectacular fashion, winning the 100m breaststroke in dominant fashion.
A world record of 58.48s was the bonus for van der Burgh, who showed class and poise before and after the race.  A genuinely deserving champion, he was as emotional as anyone about the death of perhaps his greatest rival for the gold, Norway's Alexander Dale Oen, earlier this year and will dedicate this medal in part to his memory.
van der Burgh was always going to be SA's best medal chance.  I actually picked him to win silver, mostly because in the past, he has always been so much stronger in the shorter, more explosive 50m event, and the short-course races.  His 100m history is good, make no mistake, but it's not the dominant one he has in the shorter distance.  
The question then, was always going to be whether he could translate his power and speed into a longer event, and produce 100m of racing.  He did exactly that - perhaps the fact that the 50m event is not on the Olympic programme meant his training focus changed enough to allow him to work on the second half, unencumbered by the need for speed, made the difference.
But he swam the perfect race for a man with the best 50m credentials.  He got the fastest start, building a lead and putting himself 0.60 seconds under world record pace at the halfway mark.  Then he worked brilliantly off the wall, opened that lead even more, and the race was won at 75m.  He lost some of his advantage over the final 25m, as the more endurance-based swimmers began to come back, but the work had been done and his margin in the end was impressive.  The script could not have been implemented more perfectly, and he took the necessary step to move his 100m history from silver and bronze to a dominant, and well deserved gold.
More to come tomorrow, of course.  Join me then!
Ross
The Science of Sport Dr. Ross Tucker Dr. Jonathan Dugas

Day 1 thoughts: Phelps vs Lochte R1, cycling coverage and SA's first gold?


I wait three years and 50 weeks for these next two weeks - the Olympics are the highlight of the sporting calendar, and I can't think of a better platform to showcase not only the human spirit and the most talented athletes in the world, but also the science of performance.
I gave a presentation at the Sports Science Institute yesterday, which I'll put up soon (check in on Monday for installment #1), where I tried to describe how it's the margins between winning and losing, between gold and silver, between legends and other elites that is most fascinating to me.  The Olympic Games are the microscope that allows us to see those margins.  The "space between" is where I find fascination in sport (credit to Dave Matthews), and Olympic Games give plenty of opportunities to go there!
So for the next two weeks, join me for a look at the day's action, both in review and preview, as I look at some of the interesting aspects, scientific and management related, of London 2012.
The place to follow it is either on Twitter or on our Facebook page - that's where the regular updates and quick thoughts will go out.  When there's anything to say in a hurry, that's where it will be said, so if you haven't followed yet, jump over now for ongoing comment.
Then I'll do my best to get some quick thoughts on the site daily, when work allows!
Let's start that now, with three quick thoughts on Day 1:
1.  Phelps vs Lochte: The duel that nearly didn't happen, and then the duel that, well...didn't
The hype around day 1 was the anticipated battle between Phelps and Lochte in the 400m IM.  In the end, Lochte dominated and Phelps just didn't "arrive" that the biggest news was not the win for Lochte but the failure to medal for Phelps.
Phelps only qualified in 8th place for the final, a mere 0.07s away from missing it altogether.  Once there, he got lane 8, which meant the head-to-head was now more like two separate races, with Lochte racing out of Lane 3.
Phelps was never in it - his strongest leg, the butterfly, was the first sign that things were not right, as he ended it in third place, behind Lochte and early leader Chad le Clos of South Africa.  Phelps fell further and further back over the backstroke and breaststroke legs, and turning for the final 100m freestyle leg, found himself in fourth, out of the medals.
With 50m to go, he was 0.4s behind Japan's Hagino, but even here, a "normal" day would have seen Phelps at least claw his way back onto the podium, and possibly even into second (the gap to Perreira was 1.3s. By this stage, Lochte was way gone, fully four seconds ahead).  However, even that was not to be, and Phelps finished outside the medals in an Olympic Games for the first time since his debut as a 15-year old in Sydney.
Just an early observation on this performance:

Almost exactly a month ago, Lochte narrowly beat Phelps in the US Trials in Omaha.  Here are those performances:
Lochte 4:07.06 vs Phelps 4:07.89
In London today, Lochte swims 4:05.18, an improvement of 1.88s.  Phelps?  He does a 4:09.28, slower by 1.39s.  That's a 3.27s swing in a month.
Now, this may be an off day - it happens.  But that trend, where one is getting faster, the other slower, is the kind of thing that really worries a swimmer and a coach, because it may be a sign of something else.  We won't know whether that is the case or not until another event or two has been swum.  It will be interesting to see whether Phelps can bounce back and return to his US Trials form (which would indicate that the 400IM was just a horrible, once-off day to write-off), or whether this decline (about -0.6% which is big for this level of athlete) continues, suggesting something else is amiss.
Watch this space - events 2 to 6 will tell the story.
2.  Men's cycling road race
The men's cycling road race was won, surprisingly, by Alexander Vinokourov.  There is much to be said about it, but others will say it better than I can.  Truth be told, I didn't watch too much of it, though as you will know if you watched it, that probably wouldn't have helped anyway!  There was as much talk of the poor quality of the broadcast as there was of the actual result, which saw pre-race favourite Mark Cavendish's hopes of home-gold disappointingly disappear as Sky...I mean, Team GB...failed to close down a break and deliver their self-proclaimed unbeatable sprinter to the line.
The BBC even expressed their frustration at the TV coverage, even placing blame, because it turns out that the Olympic broadcast is outsourced to the Olympic Broadcasting Services, which was described by @inrng as "a cosy company with monopoly TV rights granted by IOC. Directors include ex-UCI boss Hein Verbruggen".
The problem today, apparently, was a technical one where the GPS data was not provided and so there were no time-gaps available for commentators or viewers to understand how the race was unfolding.  This is of course a significant part of following the race, and when a break is clear, and the favourite is in the main group chasing, the frustration was overwhelming at times.
I felt that the lack of information was one of many aspects that could be improved, including the commentary.  All round, the standard was not what a regular cycling watcher would have been accustomed to from events like the Tour de France (any ASO event, in fact).  And perhaps more unfortunately, it was certainly not good enough to turn a newcomer to the sport of cycling into a fan!  It was a race that had drama and intrigue, but it was missed entirely as a result of the lack of information.
Ultimately, while the broadcaster is responsible for the failure, accountability rests with numerous bodies, including the UCI.  The broadcast deals for these global sports events is always a nightmare of contracts and kickbacks and networks and relationships (having worked in sports sponsorship and media rights for a while, I know it's a minefield...), but the necessity of getting it right cannot be over-stated.  The opportunity to get the sport to a global audience on the Olympic platform is just too big to 'mess up' with poor coverage.
And so in an ideal world, what should happen is that the broadcaster, even if it is the "cosy" OBS, should be benchmarking coverage against the best standard in the world, the Tour de France.  If that means paying the relevant people to assist, then it must be done.  If that means that additional costs are incurred, then the UCI should be willing to contribute to offsetting them, because it's their "product" that is effectively on the shelf.  Ultimately, politics gets in the way, and the serious fan, as well as the casual observer, pay for it. 
Oh, and there was a bike race, won perhaps unpopularly by Vinokourov.  As I said, others have written the story, and so if you missed it, three pieces here:

• The race report
• Mark Cavendish gives his thoughts after a valiant but unsuccessful attempt by GB to control the race
• Vino credits lack of race radios for his win

My three final thoughts:

1. If you are GB, you cannot expect rival teams to help and then criticize for not helping because a) you've claimed for weeks that you have an unbeatable sprinter.  Why would any other team help you deliver him to the line?  Besides, this is not even true - Eisel was riding as a GB member most of the day; and b) having dominated the Tour de France just a week ago (different name, same team - that was the whole idea behind Sky, right?), who wants to help you win another major title?
   
2. Smaller teams and no race radio means less control, and that means more exciting racing.  It's a blue-print for GC Tours in future, perhaps?
   
3. Vinokourov will be an unpopular champ because of his doping past, and his lack of repentance for it.  That's fair enough.  I'm all for second chances, but I like to see some admission, some acknowledgement and some action to show that you're not simply re-running the same script the second time around, and refusing to discuss the past with denials and stony silences.  Everyone deserves the benefit of some doubt, but it's a two-way street, this trust thing, and there's not much of it left for some athletes.  In any event, gold is awarded, race over.  Insert joke about waiting for doping control here...

3.  South Africa's first gold medal looms tomorrow
And finally, for local followers here in South Africa.  Cameron van der Burgh was always going to be South Africa's best chance of a medal, and it seems we may not need to wait too long to win it this time around.  It also seems like a very likely gold, thanks to a brilliant swim in the 100m breaststroke semi-final this evening.
The final is tomorrow, and van der Burgh goes into it as the Olympic record holder and the fastest qualifier by an enormous 0.61s.  The manner of his win suggests more to come, particularly if he improves the final 10m where he wasn't perfect.  So van der Burgh gets faster, and everyone else is looking for 0.7s or more just to get him off the top step of the podium.  Few things in sport are certain, but I suspect a medal for South Africa is one of them.  Whether it's gold or not, perhaps it's better to be a little circumspect, but the signs are there.  
I confess I actually picked him for silver - I thought Kitajima would be a little better, but that seems conservative now.  So maybe by this time tomorrow we'll be celebrating in SA (we take every one we can!)
Regardless, I'll be commenting.  As mentioned, I'll do my very best to get quick thoughts on the website, even if it's a short post two or three times a day.  But if I can't, I'll definitely be active on Twitter, so follow the discussion there if you feel the need!
Oh, and finally, I know there's a lot of discussion about the sensational swim of 16-year old Ye Shiwen who smashed the 400 IM world record tonight.  Some of it is, as expected, ominous as a result of the huge improvement in the last year - about 7 seconds.  I'll wait on the 200 IM and then comment further on that.  I know that Mark Foster was openly questioning her performance, and perhaps that's the first of the "smoke" that so often indicates fire.  Or maybe she's just a new sensation.  Time will tell, I hope. More to come, either way.
Enjoy Day 2!
Ross The Science of Sport Dr. Ross Tucker Dr. Jonathan Dugas

The Tour hits the mountains: Power output thoughts
The 2012 Tour de France has reached its first rest day, and with it a chance to catch our breath after a frantic few days that have taken the peloton into the mountains, then to a time-trial, via a press conference which generated just as much interest as either of the Tour's first "shake-up" stages.  If it's the mountains, then it must mean power output analysis, and so below, I look at some of the limited data from Saturday's mountain finish, and ask whether it flags anything "suspicious"?
First, the press conference.  In case you missed it, it featured Bradley Wiggins, leader of the Tour de France, fielding a question about doping accusations from skeptics on social media with the following answer:
“I say they’re just fucking wankers,” Wiggins said. “I cannot be doing with people like that. It justifies their own bone idleness because they can’t imagine applying themselves to do anything in their lives. “It’s easy for them to sit under a pseudonym on Twitter and write that sort of shit,” Wiggins added, “rather than get off their own arses in their own lives and apply themselves and work hard at something and achieve something. And that’s ultimately what counts. C**ts.”  (Did I mention that this post is rated R for profanity?) Many have commented on this already, and far more eloquently than I can.  The best of those, and well worth the 5 minutes it will take to read, is this by Joe Lindsey, who addresses all the key points.  The bottom line is that cycling's history puts its current champions squarely into the doping spotlight, and so this is a question that owes its origins to fifty years of deception.  Given this, a more nuanced response would be welcome, and a stronger anti-doping stance celebrated by those who share Wiggins' apparent frustration with doping (and here I exclude the snipers who will never be satisfied, but they're really not worth spending energy on)


To understand the perception of cycling from its fans, there is no better expression than this, written on a forum by a fan, and it says what I think many who follow the sport closely are feeling.


Some thoughts before getting onto power outputs.  First, I would start by highlighting that I would like to believe everyone wants the same thing - a drug-free sport.  I think Wiggins (based on his and Sky's history), those asking the question and those who are now a little concerned and perplexed by his answer share a common desire.  And given that desire, they come to the debate WANTING to believe.  The fans who matter (again, I exclude the outright snipers who just want to tear things down) want desperately to believe that after years of false flats, we've finally reached the end of the hard slog uphill and can enjoy a free ride into a doping-free sport.


Let's face it,  for at least 15 to 20 years, cycling has made fools of its fans.  Just go back and look at the top 5 of the last 15 Tours de France and allow yourself to reminiscence about the excitement you felt watching the race, discovering a new star, cheering your rider to victory, only to later discover the deceit.  I know I have.


Therefore, it is not unreasonable for people to be skeptical, particularly when every one of those champions has vehemently protested their innocence before their fall.  So when the latest champion (and a man who after today's TT looks more likely than ever to be a huge champion) doesn't give the response they crave, a negative reaction is expected, however unfair it may be for us to want a specific anti-doping response (another debate).


Having said that, I can also appreciate that to a rider who has reached the summit of the sport without doping (let's assume this to be true here), and who has invested so much time and effort into that dream, the nagging questions will be frustrating, even angering.  So in the midst of "battle", perhaps one should make allowances for emotional responses.


Here's the thing though - that anger and emotion should surely be channeled and directed towards the people responsible for the question in the first place - the dopers.  The "irksome, annoying question" that triggered Wiggins wrath surely owes its origin to the actions and deceit of previous generations.  Someone asks it in 2012, sure, but the question is planted in the 90s and 2000s by the generations of Mr 60%, Pantani, Ullrich, Armstrong, Landis.  Wiggins has famously shown his contempt for dopers before, including once calling Christophe Moreni  an "idiot" for the doping offense that saw Wiggins' Cofidis team withdraw from the Tour in 2007.


That is the type of response fans applaud - they want their riders to share their anger, to condemn cheating.  They cannot understand why a clean rider, who loses out to dopers, would not join them in the fight AGAINST doping, rather than becoming a passive observer (and 'victim') of a dishonest culture (as an aside, the psychology of silence among clean riders in the peloton would make a fascinating thesis).  Can you blame them?

But for too long, cycling's champions have been perceived to be leaning more towards sympathy to dopers than condemnation.  Wiggins' response is viewed by those people as being yet another example of this.  Further, Sky have crafted themselves as a team that prides itself on its anti-doping stance, and their vocal attitude against doping has rightly been hailed as leading the way into a new era for the sport.

So when their star rider, the man who is identified as a custodian of the sport by virtue of the yellow jersey he wears, suddenly turns that anger and wrath against the fans, I can appreciate the disappointment.  This is the greatest opportunity for clean riders to show the world that the sport has moved on, and swinging in the opposite direction, against the detractors, only fuels their skepticism and ultimately, invites more of the same doubt.

It doesn't help that Sky hasn't entirely broken ties with all doping baggage, as they still have ties to doctors known to have worked in teams with doping tolerance.  This doesn't mean they are doping, and even the doctors can change, but perception is reality, and people who view the sport from outside, who dream of a dope-free Tour, need a stronger reassurance than this.

In any event, more time may be required, and hopefully, anti-doping stance will not be discoloured by a yellow jersey.

Now, onto the power outputs.

6.2 W/kg for a top 10, 6.5 W/kg for the lead group


So, unfortunately, we have a scarcity of top rider data, as is often the case, but we do have Jani Brajkovic's SRM file to play with.  I've taken it from the TrainingPeaks Tour analysis site, and zoomed in on the relevant section, the Les Planche des Belles Filles.


The climb took Brajkovic 17 minutes to complete, and he lost 46 seconds on the stage winners (16:15 for the fastest time of the day).  His power output was reported as 351W, which gives him 5.8 W/kg (remember that relative power, expressed to body weight, is crucial for climbing, and it also allows comparison to other riders).

Note that there is about a minute's worth of missing data in the file, in the first quarter.  Jani actually tweeted me himself to point this out, and obviously some technical gremlins affected the SRM.  If one attempts to "normalize" these sections, and push them up towards the range of 400W that the power was at the time, then the average power output jumps from 351W to about 375W, and the relative power output is around 6.2 W/kg.

So, in terms of what that means for Wiggins and co at the front of the stage, it predicts about 6.4 to 6.5 W/kg.  Over 16 minutes, that's not at all unreasonable.  To give you some context, calculations of climbing power output in the Tour de France in the 1990s and 2000s often estimated that top riders maintained power outputs of 6.4 to 6.5W/kg on the Tour's HC climbs, most of which take over 40 minutes to climb.  So in other words, there was an era where the best riders were maintaining similar power outputs to what we saw on Saturday, for three times the duration.  Put differently, all those riders would probably have been a minute clear of this current generation on this climb...

Another point is the physiological implications of this performance.  I try to explain this every year, but every year it seems to invite the (obvious) criticism, of which I'm well aware, that assumptions have to be made.  Every year, I try to explain that if you control the assumptions, and make sure you always take "best case scenarios", you get a very clear and accurate picture of the physiological requirements behind a performance.  So we'll try this again...

I've written before that I believe a sustained power output of above about 6.1 W/kg on the longer (40 min or more) climbs is not physiologically 'plausible'.  I know that this is a view that Aldo Sassi shared (independently, I might add), and the reason for it is that to produce that kind of work, there are physiological requirements.  Think of them as specifications in a car, and unless you have a certain engine, you can't achieve certain speeds.  In cycling terms, the performances of 6.2 W/kg and higher simply cannot be met by any plausible combination of VO2max, cycling efficiency and thresholds.  I describe this theory and the assumptions in this post from back in 2010.

Back to the 2012 race, the assumptions one might make for a 17 min climb are that a rider with efficiency 23% (high case assumption) can sustain 90% - 95% of maximal intensity for this short duration. Then, you can estimate that riding at 6.2W/kg (again, this is Brajkovic), the VO2 on the climb will be 77 ml/kg/min.  Given the 90-95% of max estimate, this rider has a predicted VO2max between 81 ml/kg/min and 85 ml/kg/min  (I realise there are 'errors' in the assumption, but I compare across generations to illustrate a point)

If you take lower case assumptions (efficiency of 24%, which I think is probably a more reasonable assumption), then the estimated VO2max falls to between 77 and 81 ml/kg/min.

Obviously, you can infer from these numbers what the implications are for the top 5 on the day, and you'll see that they're not too different.  You're predicting physiology that says that the world's best cyclists have a VO2max of 85 to 87 ml/kg/min, that they're 23% efficient, and riding at 90% of maximum.  Or, they could be 24% efficient with a VO2max of 81 ml/kg/min.  That is, on paper, normal physiology for the best cyclists in the world in peak condition.

The "abnormal" physiology of years gone by came from guys who were sustaining 6.4W/kg for 45 minutes.  That points to a human that has a VO2max of 97 ml/kg/min on the bike, or an efficiency of  28%, or can sustain 95% of max for 45 min at the end of five hours of racing.  That just doesn't happen.


There's a risk of running away with physiological implications here.  Let's simplify it into the obvious metrics - power and time.  The difference between the current era and previous eras is startling.  In the last four years, none of the Tour's decisive HC climbs have been done at greater than 6 W/kg.  Even the Contador-Schleck showdown on the Tormalet, with the Tour title at stake, was ridden at 5.9 W/kg.  


The graph below was put together by Alex Simmons, and it shows the time on the famous Alp d'Huez climb as a function of power output.  There's a lot of data there but slide your finger across from a time of 38:30.  That's the kind of performance (or faster) we saw in the previous generation.  Then consider the more recent times - Frank Schleck did 40:46 in 2006, the first time in 12 years they didn't break 40.  The best performances in the last 3 years are all slower than 41 minutes.  That fits well with what I've added to the graph in blue and yellow - those are the equivalent performances to two climbs in the 2010 Tour, where riders simply don't get above 6W/kg anymore.  Not even once, let alone repeatedly during the race, as they once did.






Chris Froome, when coming second in the 2011 Vuelta TT (47km) rode at 5.8 W/kg for 55 minutes.  That's likely to be close to what he and Wiggins produced in the Tour today, and is yet another indication of where the "ceiling" for that duration of effort lies.


So that's what we're all getting at when we say the Tour is getting slower.  It is, and it's a good sign, because it brings everything back into the realm of expected physiology.


Now, an important disclaimer.  None of this disproves doping, and none of this proves doping either.  When a rider produces performances that have "alien" physiology implications, it's a strong flag for doping (I'm gratified to read that cycling's governing bodies are actually looking at this approach now). But when the physiology is "normal" or at least, not suspicious, then it doesn't necessarily vindicate the rider.  Why?  Because doping helps with far more than on-the-day performances - it also aids recovery and thus enables consistency. 


So we can't rule anything out this way.  All I will say, and I'm very confident in saying this, is that what we saw on the slopes of Les Planche des Belles Filles did not have me thinking "That's just not right, there's something not adding up".  It adds up.  It's exactly what you'd expect, just as I expect that when we do hit the longer HC climbs later this week, we'll see the top men ride at 5.9 to 6 W/kg, just as they have done for the last three years.

It will be fascinating to see what develops in the high Alps and Pyrenees over the next two weeks.  Hopefully, we'll have some data to chat about.  And a press conference or two!


Ross

The Science of Sport Dr. Ross Tucker Dr. Jonathan Dugas