The lifetime ban for doping: Debate continued

Lifetime ban for doping: A debate continued

So as expected, CAS today overturned the BOA policy of issuing a lifetime ban for any athlete who has served a doping ban longer than six months.  This is hardly unexpected, and is a decision that probably owes much to the legal backdrop of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA's) policy which issues a two-year ban for a first time offence.  That the BOA policy then issues an additional sanction was the root of the case heard at CAS, who ruled against the BOA.

I wrote most of what I feel is relevant to this case in my previous post, where I tried to explain that a life-time ban cannot be supported by the current science of anti-doping,  because the science simply cannot guarantee with 100% certainty that an athlete who fails a doping test is actually doping.  That is, it's not enough to fall back on the simple position that "a positive test means you cheated, so off with your head" (which is basically what many people seem to believe).  The corollary is that a negative doping test also does not mean you're not doping, but this is a mindset that I think many have yet to recognize!

In any event, with the news of the CAS decision emerging, I asked earlier for some thoughts and opinions on our Twitter feed and Facebook pages (follow if you haven't - they are often an outlet for passing thoughts and opinion).  The response was interesting.  Very emotive, that's for sure, and predominantly, it seems from those within the UK.

Among the common responses is that this decision to overturn a life-time ban policy is a "massive step backwards in the war against drug cheats", that it "has validated the efforts of the cheats" and that it "takes away the deterrent of a drugs ban and opens the doors for drug enhanced training".

I think much of this is emotive, which is fine, and I completely understand the paradigm and the logic that says that to clamp down on doping, you must increase the punishment.  This is basic economics - disincentivize doping through increased probability of being caught and harsher punishment when caught.

However, a few thoughts, many of which are repeated or reworded from yesterday's post, because I have a feeling the key messages I tried to put across haven't reached their targets!

1. Lifetime bans could produce fewer convictions, because harsher punishment means greater "burden of proof"

First, the reality is that a life-time ban represents the harshest possible punishment for an athlete, for it takes away their livelihood, often without a fall-back plan (ask a 26-year old cyclist what their second career option is, for example).  It is, metaphorically, a case of "off with their heads", because you may as well do this.  Now, in order to do this fairly, you have to be absolutely, 100% certain that you are punishing a person who deserves it.  And sadly, the science is, as of this moment, not able to provide those guarantees, and there is always some doubt if an athlete wants to contest the origin of a doping positive.

(Just an aside here - the lifetime ban applied by the BOA presently applies to Olympic participation, and so there's a distinction to be made between this and a ban from all sports, which is obviously more severe.  I'd argue, however, that the principles and concepts below are valid regardless of where or when the ban applies, and to take the Olympic Games away from an athlete, particularly in some sports like track and field, is unfairly harsh given the uncertainty and legal burden, as I explain below).

So ask the following:  "If there is a 2% chance of a false positive test, then how comfortable are we issuing life-time bans?"  Then ask "If there is a 10% chance of the positive dope test being the result of contamination of supplements, then are we comfortable with a lifetime ban?"

Now, imagine being the decision maker who has to evaluate a legal case where the athlete says "I do not contest the positive dope test, but my defense is that it came from a supplement (or meat).  I was therefore NOT cheating".  Can you confidently judge AND condemn this person as a cheat?

Given the science of anti-doping today, and the complexity of these cases, I'd argue that you simply cannot make this decision, and if your punishment option is to hand out a life-time ban, I'd argue that you're far LESS likely to find dopers guilty when presented with this defense!

Therefore, the first prediction is that if life-time bans were given to doping athletes, far few "convictions" would be the result!

 2. Positive dope tests are not always the result of cheating, even if they're true

Second, one has to consider these possible defense strategies, and how realistic/valid they are.  I'd argue that contamination and inadvertent doping happens a great deal.  10%?  20%?  It's happened four times in two years in SA Rugby alone (I'm not sure of how many "genuine" cheating doping cases there've been, however).  And there were dozens of cases in 2010 for just one stimulant, methylhexanamine.  I don't have this statistic, but just from my reading of the coverage of cycling and athletics, it seems to me that at least half the doping cases that are disputed boil down to the issue of "inadvertent doping", either because of contamination of supplements or some other source of the same doping product.  The other half, in cycling anyway, boil down to a dispute over the biological passport, and that would intensify if a life-time ban were on the table.

Now, under the current system, a person who is inadvertently doping is banned, and rightly so, because the athlete is fully responsible for anything in their system (the so-called strict liability rule).  But this is a two-year ban, sometimes reduced because of extenuating circumstances.  However, if we created a system where the punishment for failing a drugs test was a lifetime ban, you'd be seeing a lot more of these kinds of "inadvertent use" defenses.  If you're that athlete, you'll throw everything at sowing doubt, and a drawn out appeals process would result.  Also, the concept of strict liability COMBINED with a lifetime ban would be very difficult to justify - as it is, strict liability is an extreme policy that many deem unreasonable on athletes.  So how can we make the athlete completely liable AND ban them for life when they make mistakes?  It's just too harsh - you would not find this kind of extreme requirement in any other profession.

Remember, I'm not talking here of deliberately cheating.  This is not an athlete who takes a syringe, fills it with a drug and then injects it carefully to avoid detection. This is an athlete who takes a supplement that is legal and then gets the dreaded call that they've failed the doping test anyway.

The end result of this risk, however small, is that  we'd be seeing a lot more drawn out cases, and ultimately, more reduced sentences.  Why?  Because if the punishment is changed and made this harsh, then the burden of proof, legally, would be much, much higher.  The problem, once again, is that the science cannot, at this moment in time, meet that burden.

In the longer term, drawn out appeals processes and challenges would, I believe, add to the ever-rising costs of prosecuting dopers, and this could ultimately cripple the entire system.

Remember, this is a system already straining under the legal load.  The result is that the introduction of compulsory lifetime bans will mean fewer tests, because federations would find themselves spending more and more money on prosecution of dopers.  Therefore, the second prediction is that if we introduced lifetime bans, the knock-on effect would be that federations would spend all their money in protracted court cases and legal battles, trying to nail down positive test results that somewhere down the line, the money to actually conduct the testing would dry up.  This has already happened in cycling, where the biological passport costs a good deal of money to defend, and it erodes the spending on implementation.

In the short-term, then, lifetime bans may seem a good disincentive, but in the longer term, I'd have grave reservations that the legal process they introduce will force authorities to spend money elsewhere, where it is less effective, and the disincentive to dope would actually increase!  That's not a good situation to be in.

3. The risk matrix approach - however small the probability, if the consequence is severe, it's a problem

Now, I believe that the point of anti-doping is two fold.  Yes, it's there to catch dope cheats, but it's also there to give those competing cleanly an equal chance of success, and "peace of mind".  The problem with life-bans is that it doesn't merely affect the cheats, it puts the innocents on a razor's edge, where they too have the axe hovering over their heads.  And yes, they are innocent and therefore have nothing to fear, but even if the chance of contamination and false-positives are 1%, that's a big risk when the punishment is quite that harsh.

Businesses often use a risk-matrix to try to quantify how serious certain identified risks are.  That risk matrix takes not only the probability of an event into account, but also the severity of the outcomes should that event occur.  For example, the risk of sponsors withdrawing their support for your sports team may be low to moderate, but if it were to happen, it could be disastrous, and so you invest a lot of time and energy in keeping them happy.  To give a more personal example, if you're choosing a babysitter for your only child, the probability of choosing someone psychotic, reckless and irresponsible may be incredibly low, but the impact of that event would be catastrophic if it did happen, and so you make really sure that you're getting a good reference and someone you trust! 

Now, for anti-doping, the probability of falsely condemning someone to a doping ban may be low.  As I mentioned, I don't have a figure, but it may be 1%, 5% or 10%.  But the problem is that if we raise the ban from a 2-year punishment to a life-time, then that risk takes on an entirely different meaning, because the severity is so much higher - for a young athlete, it is a catastrophe.  The risk of a life-time ban is thus just too high.  One athlete whose career is ended wrongly can't be weighed against those who are justly banned - it's not a balance I'd like to try to strike!

The moral case - second chances

OK, so this whole picture is somewhat philosophical, and I'm talking in generalities here.  For most people reading this, the current case will boil down to two names - David Millar and Dwain Chambers, the two men spoken of in the media as the beneficiaries of this decision by CAS.

I'd warn against allowing individuals to personify the case, however.  It's too easy to "like" or "dislike" the specific people involved, and allow that to obscure the big picture and concepts.  But nevertheless, this will happen, but I would steer clear of the specific cases and rather establish a framework for how to evaluate cases like theirs.

However, my personal take is that people make mistakes.  Young athletes, in a team environment, encounter doping and often find that their future depends on becoming part of the "beast".  I'm sympathetic to athletes for this reason - I had neither the talent nor the opportunity to find myself in that situation, but I shudder to think what I would do if my dreams were wrapped up in a web of doping deceit.  I guess, in a sense, I'm lucky I never had to make that call, because for a young athlete on the verge of realizing a dream, it must seem an impossible call to make.  As a result, it's a brave person who condemns a young athlete for doping when they've never been in a situation similar to that themselves. 

So having been the beneficiary of many second chances in life (hands up if you've never had a second chance), I'd say that second chances in sport are right, as they are in life.  I appreciate that sometimes, we don't give people second chances, and yes, we exclude people from doing certain jobs based on previous convictions (theft as banktellers, sex offender as teachers for example).  Those are compelling arguments, without, perhaps, a right or wrong answer.  But my take is that we should give second chances, provided the person involved shows a willingness to work within the system, repent and do things differently the second time around.

Discretion and compromise: Sentences can be independent of verdicts, and move towards a 4-year ban

There is compromise here, of course, and it is two-fold.  First of all, use discretion.  This already happens, of course - the cases I mentioned previously in SA Rugby were all given reduced bans (or no bans) because it was quite clear that the doping was from contamination and that the athletes involved did all they could to ensure the "safety" of their supplements.  So one can argue that life-time bans should be introduced so that in cases that arise where athletes are clearly cheating for an advantage, and show no remorse, they can be banned for life.  Neither Millar nor Chambers fit this category, incidentally, and I think both have earned some aspect of second chance through their reaction to doping bans.

I'd have no problem with life-time bans for some people, however, but I hope people realize that it means that doping cases will go the way of criminal cases, where the sentence exists independent of the verdict.  That is, you're found "guilty" on the basis of the test results, but sentenced on the basis of a host of other factors, including your attitude and willingness to comply with authorities.  I think this is actually a good thing, and it happens to some extent already, with dopers given more lenient sentences for co-operations.  This is a good thing, and if we had the option of life-time bans (as opposed to a rule of life-time bans), expect it to happen much more, with a much higher proportion of "reduced sentences" and "failed convictions", as mentioned.

The second thing that must happen, as I mentioned yesterday, is to tighten up the testing process, to ensure that doping is caught more effectively.  The contamination issue is so complex I don't see it ever going way, but false-positives and better anti-doping can happen.  If it did, then the current 2-year ban might be increased to four years, and that would always cost an athlete at least one Olympic cycle, which is a good thing.  So my suggestion is to move towards this goal - rather spend our energy on having the ban increased to 4 years as a result of better doping controls (which involves many things - more testing, a cleaner list of substances and a wider array of 'weapons' to test with).

The bottom line is that there's a lot of emotive accusation and condemnation going on.  And far be it for me to be a "doping apologist" - those of you who read this site often will know me as a very harsh anti-doping advocate.  But there's a line, I believe, between being unrealistic about doping control and providing the right balance.  I believe that line should be drawn at about four years!

But practically, as of May 2012, I don't believe the science of anti-doping is quite up to the legal challenge that a four-year ban would bring to the table (and to the courtroom), let alone a life-time ban.  The financial and legal implications of harsher punishment can't simply be ignored, for the federations and the innocent athletes who, as small as the probabilities may be, have to be thought of too.  Let's rather work towards better testing, more certainty, and use that as the disincentive, and be slower to shout "off with their heads".  For now, anyway!

Ross

Olympic buzz: Around the rings

Around the rings: Life-time bans for dopers, Kenya's Marathon team and the Olympic mascots under the spotlight

The British Olympic Association vs WADA on its lifetime ban policy: Decision expected Monday

Next week should kick off with a Court of Arbitration verdict that will clear the way for some British athletes to compete in London, despite a British Olympic Association (BOA) policy that hands down lifetime bans for doping offenses.  This in turn invites debate (and some heated emotional responses) on what exactly should be done to dopers - lifetime bans, or the current two year sentence, or some alternative?

In case you haven't followed the story, the BOA policy is that it does not select athletes who have served doping bans of six months or more to their Olympic team.  This means that athletes such as Dwain Chambers and David Millar, having served their bans as a result of the WADA code, were ineligible for selection to the British Olympic team.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) challenged this policy as "noncompliant" with its doping code, since the WADA code hands out a two-year ban to first-time doping offenders.  The BOA appealed this WADA ruling, and the case has now been heard by the CAS in Switzerland.  Ever since the case was heard in March, it has been predicted that CAS will reject the BOA appeal, and thus "force" the selection of these athletes should they qualify for the British team.  

The "certainty" over the decision is due to a precedent set last year, when CAS ruled against the International Olympic Committee in a similar case.  In that case, the IOC had a rule that banned an athlete who served six months or more for doping from competing in the next Olympic Games, but the same panel which heard the BOA case decided that this too amounted to an additional sanction that could not be upheld.  The end result was that it cleared the way for former 400m World Champion LaShawn Merritt to run in London, and it should do the same for athletes like Chambers and Millar (depending on selection criteria, of course).

To give my personal opinion, it seems quite clear that if the global body (WADA) that has been tasked with fighting doping has a rule that bans an athlete for two years, then its global collection of member bodies (including the BOA) must comply with that rule.  One can't have a handful of countries that comply with parts of the global code, but have their own rules in other areas.  Think of the exact opposite scenario to illustrate the concept - an athlete dopes and should receive a two-year ban, but the athlete's national body decides that it's worth only a 1-year ban, or no ban at all.  There'd be an outcry.  The member parties of WADA are tasked with implementing the global code, not modifications thereof, and so it seems fairly clear then that the CAS decision to prevent further sanction is, by the letter of the law, the right one.

However, there is a much larger question in play here, and this is whether the global standard needs to be shifted.  Even the BOA have conceded that while they may not win this particular battle, they may be taking a significant step to advancing the "war" on doping by raising the question of whether dope cheats should be allowed back into the sport so soon?  The case then becomes more about the WADA rule than it does about the BOA selection policy, and that's the bigger picture here.

Doping control has, it must be said, become more and more mired in legal challenges and loopholes in recent years.  The Contador case was an illustration of this, but it was not unique.  The ever rising cost of court cases that challenge doping results threatens to a) financially hamper anti-doping processes, and b) drag doping cases out to the point that athletes can now receive two-year bans that actually last only 6 months (exhibit A: Alberto Contador).

From a scientific point of view, the reality is that the blood and urine tests that we used to think were "foolproof" are now merely the first step towards a sanction, with an often lengthy and expensive court case standing in the way.  This means that more money is required to refine the testing processes and for conducting the doping controls at major events.  Failure to obtain this funding leads to what was alleged in cycling recently, where the biological passport testing declined to a slow trickle rather than a raging torrent it needs to be.  Not only that, but the number of athletes who have admitted to doping without ever being caught highlights the difficult in catching sophisticated dopers, and it also makes a mockery of the "look how many times I have been tested" argument so often put forward to "prove" that an athlete is not doping.

The end result of all this is that doping control is becoming a complex legal battle, and not the clean 'test and ban' strategy that it was perhaps hoped it would be.  Therefore, the discussion over whether a doping ban should be two years, or a lifetime ban, invites discussion over what legal implications this will have given the already murky legal lines that have been drawn.  The reality is that the harsher the punishment, the more certain the verdict must be.  And the problem is that in the current anti-doping climate, the verdict has never been quite as uncertain or shaky.

The reasons for this uncertainty are numerous.  First, tests can produce false-positives and are thus challenged on the basis that anti-doping policies do not conform to statistical standards from forensic science.  Secondly, there is a risk of contamination of supplements - look at the number of cases for the stimulant  methylhexanamine in 2010 and 2011.  Third, and similar to contamination of supplements, is the possibility of banned substances through food ingestion, as was raised by Contador, by shown in this study.  Fourth, there are allegations of cover-ups, stings, corruption that undermine the credibility of the anti-doping process. 

For all the above reasons, it would be difficult to dish out a lifetime ban to a first-time doper.  The 'burden of proof' is simply too high, and while many of the above mentioned factors have counter-arguments (the biological passport, for example, while not foolproof is constantly improving and has numerous checks and balances to ensure that it doesn't unfairly ban cyclists), the reality is that all these factors exist as loopholes.

And any athlete, driven to win (and therefore to dope), is going to be driven to find these loopholes when their career is under threat.  So when Athlete X tests positive they will, inevitably, turn all their attention and often their legal might to have their name cleared.  That's for a two-year ban.  Now imagine the stakes are higher.  Imagine a lifetime ban is on the table.  Then the legal pressure on the authorities to prove, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that Athlete X was doping, becomes that much higher, and I'm not sure this is a pressure that should be invited at this stage.

I think that anti-doping has made enormous strides in recent years, and particularly in cycling, the proper implementation of the biological passport has been extremely positive.  But, the flip side of the coin is the recent discussion that highlights a growing concern that the passport is no longer being used as effectively as it might have been, partly because of escalating legal costs and the time involved fighting back against the attacks on credibility.

So the better solution, for now, is to tighten up testing processes, and improve the science.  Make sure that the process by which dopers are caught is rock-solid, and able to stand up to even the tightest forensic and legal scrutiny, and then let's look at four-year bans, perhaps as the next step towards lifetime bans.

There is of course also a moral and ethical position on this.  An athlete who dopes has (often) gone out of his/her way to cheat, and this means denying other athletes equal rights on medals, money, prizes, achievements (not necessarily in that order).  This doping athlete is effectively fraudulent, and so there's an analogy to business here - if any CEO is exposed as stealing money from his company, or his clients, he is unlikely to be welcomed back into the world of business after serving his punishment.  

And the BOA, in their case against WADA, did argue that when athletes themselves are asked, they are in favour of life-time bans, because they are the ones most affected by cheating.  Their voice should probably be considered as important in that regard.  However, doping in sport has always been a little different.  I don't condone doping - I am very much against it (hence the frequency of critical posts on this subject on this site).  But I can also summon up some sympathy for those caught up in a corrupt and dishonest system that really facilitates doping.  Last year in November, I heard David Millar talk at the UKSEM conference, and he explained how he gradually moved towards accepting doping, because of a culture within the team, by those in charge.  

Others have said similar things, and I am somewhat sympathetic to the plight of a young man or woman who knows nothing other than their sport, and finds themselves at a cross-roads very early in their career (or lives), with guidance coming most strongly from those who are advocating doping.  These are not therefore the CEO-equivalent of businesses, to return to the previous analogy.  They are the junior workers, who are led to doping by CEOs just to keep their jobs, in many cases.  And their choice must seem devastatingly simple at the time - give in and dope because it is often the only way to remain competitive or employed.  Or, resist the temptation and retire to a life of...?  There's often no fallback, other than retirement, or become a painter, as Alex Zulle (I think) once famously said. 

It's a very difficult position.  My current one is that until the science is even tighter, and able to stand up to the inevitable legal onslaught that lifetime bans would invite, the current two-year policy is correct.  The first objective in the "war" should be to extend the ban to four years, thus ensuring that at least an Olympic Games is taken away from a doper.  This requires advances in the science and probably the "investigative process" by which doping is uncovered.  But a lifetime ban, I think, is far in advance.  As for the moral and ethical debate, I'd love to hear your views!

Kenya's marathon team announced: No World # 1 or World Record holder

The other interesting point from last week was the announcement of Kenya's Olympic marathon team.  On the women's side, there's perhaps less controversy, with the brilliant Mary Keitany the first name down, followed by Edna Kiplagat and Priscah Jeptoo.  They showed form and class in London, and perhaps only Sharon Cherop, who won Boston the week before, can feel a little hard done by.

But on the men's side, it was always going to be a mighty difficult selection.  The difficulty is illustrated by this fact:  The current world record holder (Patrick Makau) and 2011's top marathon man (Geoffrey Mutai) are both OUT of the Kenyan squad, and will not run in the Olympic Games.

The three eventually named are:  Wilson Kipsang, who, by virtue of his London win was probably the "easiest" choice to make.  He's joined by Abel Kirui, twice world champion, but only sixth in London, despite running a brave race to follow and attack with Kipsang at halfway, and finally Moses Mosop, who won Chicago last year, but who was pretty handily beaten by two Ethiopians in Rotterdam recently, despite talking up a world record before the race.

Dealing with Kipsang first, he must be the favourite for Olympic gold now.  He won London by over two minutes, with a ferocious mid-race burst, and has won marathons in fast times in the last 11 months, including that 2:03:42 second fastest of all time performance.  So no controversy with his selection.

The debate is around Mosop and Kirui.  And let's be clear - if they go on to win the Olympic Gold, it would not surprise me in the least.  Kirui in particular has shown his ability to race in championships with two commanding World Champs gold medals.  In London, Kirui looked magnificent up to about 30km, but paid for the 14:09 surge between 20 and 25km, and ended up going backwards and 'crawling' home with a 8:33 final 2.2km!  Had he steered clear of the mid-race surge, it's not difficult to imagine that he'd probably have run a 2:05, maybe low 2:06, and that would have made his selection seem a lot more reasonable.  His aggression off a fast pace cost him, and he ended up running outside 2:07, very slow by today's extra-ordinary standards.  Still, I'd have Kirui in my team, because off a slow pace to halfway (think 65 minutes), he's shown tactical experience and quality.

Mosop is the third name.  Despite the talk of a world record in Rotterdam, he not only missed that time, but was beaten into third by two Ethiopians.  Mosop clearly has tremendous speed and pedigree, having won Chicago in a course record, and chasing Mutai home in Boston with his 2:03:06 (which has really been put into perspective by what has happened since).  Before Rotterdam, his coach Renato Canova talked up how nothing but a world record would get Mosop onto the team, and that seemed accurate.

But then Boston dished up a super hot day, with temperatures on the tarmac rising to almost 100F (38 C), and Geoffrey Mutai was the victim - stomach cramps forced him to abandon the race after halfway, and so he failed to stake his claim in the minds of the Kenyan selectors.  His case, then, was his 2011 form, and also his pedigree at the shorter distances - he was the Kenyan Cross-country champion in 2011.  Those credentials would have seen me pick Mutai, I have to say, mostly because of his ability to win non-paced marathons (Mosop has not won a marathon without pacemakers, and has only one win in three starts).  Both Boston and New York in 2011 saw Mutai dominate strong fields without pace-setters.  His New York win, for me, was particularly impressive, and I'd have put Boston down as a bad day, an anomaly perhaps caused by the heat, and gone with Mutai instead.

Makau too failed to finish his "audition", and he dropped out after only 16km in London.  The reason, apparently, is an injury, and I guess that may have played into his omission from the team.  

The other factor to consider, for both Mutai and Makau, is that they don't have a marathon in their legs as we move into the final three months of preparation before London.  That's the other reason I would have picked Mutai - the time frame is a little tight, and the likes of Kipsang, Kirui and Mosop will have to produce another world class marathon on 14 weeks after their last.  This is possible, and we may see athletes perform with even tighter calendar constraints later this year when a lot of Olympic runners also race New York or Chicago, but it's another factor in an intriguing mix.  It may well be that success in the Spring counts against runners come Summer.

At least the question is out the way for Kenya, and the three men who will try to defend Wanjiru's Olympic crown in London.  And as I said, it is quite conceivable that any one of the three can win gold, and that they can sweep the podium.  I doubt it, because the Ethiopian challenge this year is very strong, and even the gold medal will be strongly contested, but it's a super strong team.  I would have chosen Mutai, myself.  Your thoughts welcome, as usual.

On the women's side, in terms of the Olympic race, the fascinating question is to see how Liliya Shobukhova deals with the Kenyans, particularly Keitany.  Shobukhova is actually faster than the Keitany, by virtue of her 2:18:20 in Chicago in 2011.  So her recent form is good, the manner of her Chicago wins is impressive - front-running and very strong second half, like Keitany.  But Keitany must be the favourite, simply because her final 10km in London, in about 31:35, were extra-ordinary.  But that will be a tremendous battle.

Meet the Olympic mascots

We're now into the final 100 days before the Games, so we may as well get to know the Olympic Mascots - Wenlock (pictured right, courtesy Bonnie Ford who conquered her phobia to get this shot!) and Mandeville.  Not everybody's favourite, and there've been some humorous criticism of them, including this photoshop competition to put the two in amusing poses against different backdrops.  But remember, they are for children, so if we don't particularly enjoy them, well, we aren't exactly their main purpose (despite the overplayed "meaning" behind the mascots, which really are only relevant for adults)

Speaking of their meaning, here's a short explanation of the names, the designs and the significance.

The video below is the gold standard for mascots - Berlino of the IAAF World Champs in 2009 (apart from the annoying music - best watched on mute!)

Wenlock and Mandeville have a lot to live up to!

Ross

London 2012: Kipsang & Keitany conquer London

Wilson Kipsang and Mary Keitany conquer the world's most competitive marathon

The London Marathon today wrapped up a spring marathon season that leaves the world's elite nicely poised for the next big Marathon, the London Olympic Games.  If I had to throw out one word that sums the last eight days of city marathons have shown, it's "patience".

2011 was the year that the Kenyans changed the marathon.  They made it look like a track race, destroying fields and racing their way to an astonishing collection of victories and records in every Major city marathon.  Rotterdam and Boston a week ago didn't follow the trend, and neither did London, at least in terms of course records, but it was still super fast - Mary Keitany produced the fastest marathon in the world this year, a Kenyan record, and the fifth fastest of all-time (mixed and women only races) with her exceptional 2:18:36.  Wilson Kipsang almost broke the course record, missing it by (for him) the now familiar time of four seconds in 2:04:44 (you'll recall that Kipsang last year missed the world record by the same margin).

However, their performances are noteworthy for the entirely different manner with which they were achieved.  And it is Kipsang's, or rather the men's race, in particular, that is particularly noteworthy for how it has reminded us of the theme of 2012 - the marathon has struck back.  If 2011 was the year when the Kenyans turned marathon running into something of a prolonged track race, then 2012 is the year when the marathon has reminded us all that it's still a race that requires control, patience and a good deal of respect for how effort is 'spent' over its distance.  An analysis of the men's race illustrates this nicely, and comparison with Keitany's victory further emphasizes this point.

Let's look at both races, starting, for a change, with the women's race.

Keitany - patience and building to an extra-ordinary final 15km


Keitany's record breaking day was built off an extra-ordinary second half after a patient first half.  The last time we saw Keitany in a marathon, she was going backwards in New York after starting at World Record pace.  She would later describe how she felt better than she really was, and followed that feeling to what was really a suicidal pace, for which she paid but still clung on to third place.

There was no early suicidal pace in London today, but she was responsible for a murderous pace at the end, as Keitany ran a perfect marathon against arguably the strongest field of women ever assembled.  Halfway was reached in 70:53, projecting a 2:21:46, which was, at the time, fairly slow given the quality of the field.

It wouldn't remain slow for long, and the graph below, showing Keitany's 5km splits (blue line), illustrates just how the pace ramped up from halfway onwards.  It wasn't the same dramatic surge that we saw from Keitany in 2011 (the red line), where she attacked at halfway and reeled of a 32:10 10-km interval (67:52 half marathon pace), but it would end even more spectacularly, as Keitany ran the second half in 67:43!  And that was with a progressive acceleration, as the graph below shows.

Unsurprisingly, the rest of the women's field was being stretched out by Keitany's pace.  A lead group that consisted of 8 was cut progressively after halfway, and ended up being four women with 10km left to run, the Ethiopian challenge dealt with by 30km.  That's when Keitany's pressure at the front really began to tell, and Florence Kiplagat and Priscah Jeptoo dropped off the back.  This left Edna Kiplagat as Keitany's sole challenger, but Keitany never wavered.  She didn't appear to do anything spectacular - unlike in the men's race, there was no single kilometer that did damage, but rather a gradual winding up of the pace.

That segment from 35 km to 40 km was covered in 15:45, and is the fastest 5km segment ever recorded by a woman in a major marathon (Paula Radcliffe's fastest was a 15:47 opening 5km back in 2005).  By virtue of that interval, Kiplagat's challenge was broken, and the world champion fell back by 40 seconds over this interval alone.  She would eventually hang on to finish in second, with a sub-2:20 of her own, but Keitany just got faster and faster.

Some other extra-ordinary stats about Keitany's second half are:

• The final 12.2 km were clocked at 38:43, which is 31:44 pace for a 10km
• The final 7.2 km were run in 22:35, which is 31:22 pace for 10km
• Her final 2.2 km were timed at 6:50, which is 3:06 per kilometer

The circles in the graph above show Keitany's time gap in 2012 compared to last year's 2:19:19 victory.  You can see that the pace early was slower - 34 seconds lost in the first 5km, then another 8 to 10km and so on.  At the 30km mark, Keitany was 42 seconds slower than in her 2011 victory, but then she started to move.  The 15:45 "record" interval took her ahead of last year's time, and then she closed out the final 2.2km in an incredible 6:50, to run 43 seconds faster than in 2011 (not shown on graph).

The 6:50, incidentally, was better by only three other athletes on the day - Wilson Kipsang who won the men's race, and ran 6:45, and then Martin Lel and Tsegay Kebede who sprinted the finish straight on route to a 6:37!  Keitany was simply untouchable in this strongest women's race ever.  What this does is set up the Olympic Marathon beautifully, with Liliya Shobukhova awaiting Keitany.  Shobukhova last year won Chicago in 2:18:20, and is the only athlete faster than Keitany in the last 7 years but has been beaten by Keitany (London 2011).

Radcliffe, of course, has run faster than both, but there are serious doubts over her ability to produce anything like what we saw today, and it seems that that is what it will take to beat Keitany, who has now shown herself to have learned the marathon and has the pedigree to win Olympic Gold for Kenya.

As a final word, it's interesting to note that the spectacular 67:43 second half by Keitany is still slower than Paula Radcliffe's second half during her 2003 run.  In that race, after going through halfway in 68:02 (2:51 faster than 2012), Radcliffe ran the second half in 67:23!  Testament to the quality of that performance.  But, Keitany's final 10km is the fastest ever for a woman marathoner, as our friends at Letsrun.com have written.

Men's race: Wilson Kipsang wins a race of attrition with an incredible mid-race surge

Now let's look at the men's race, and keep that graph of Keitany's in your mind - she started patiently, ran a steady first half and then got faster and faster, culminating in a record 5km interval from 35km to 40km.

Wilson Kipsang did it differently.  In the men's race, it was all about aggression early.  Not in the first half, because like in the women's race, that was fast but evenly paced.  They hit halfway in 62:12, after 5km segments of 14:36, 15:00, 14:54 and 14:43.  You can contrast this with Emmanuel Mutai's 2011 course record, where halfway was reached in 62:44.  So it was fast.

And then it got faster.  Wilson Kipsang, at least from TV pictures, seemed to be the main aggressor, and as the race reached the halfway mark, he blew it wide open.  The splits would later reveal why - the 5km segment from 20 to 25km was run in a spectacular 14:09.  That's one of the fastest 5km segments ever measured in a world class marathon (Wanjiru in London 2009, Mosop in Chicago 2011 are faster), and it was responsible for creating massive gaps in an incredible men's field (Geoffrey Mutai ran a 14:12 segment in Boston in 2011).  This meant that London 2012 produced the fastest 5km splits for both men and women, though for Keitany, this came at the end, for Kipsang, the middle...

Kipsang was followed, at first, by Worku and Lilesa of Ethiopia.  Abel Kirui was a little slower to respond, but he did bridge the gap, and by 25km, he had replaced Worku in the front three. From 25km to 30km, Kipsang, Lilesa and Kirui continued to work hard on the front, growing the lead over the chasers, who included former champions Tsegay Kebede, Emmanuel Mutai and Martin Lel, to just over 1 minute.  At this stage, the front three looked assured of podium places at least, and it was Kirui who did most of the front running between 25km and 30km, looking very strong and full of running.

Then, the next time we saw the race at around 33km, Kipsang was clear, so a split happened somewhere at about 32km.  The gap at 35km would grow to 15 seconds, and it was created entirely because Kirui and Lilesa's pace dropped, and not by a surge by Kipsang.  In hindsight, this small gap of 15 seconds at 35 km was the first symptom of an impending implosion for both Kirui and Lilesa.

The graph below shows the 5km splits for Kipsang and Kirui (red and green, respectively) as well as Mutai in 2011.  You can see that having been locked together up to 30km, Kipsang held the pace at 14:42 and then 14:43 per 5km, whereas Kirui and Lilesa, still together at this stage, slowed down to 15:00/5km pace.  That was enough to put Kipsang clear, and even though he would also slow down, running a 15:11 from 35km to 40km, his lead grew, because Kirui and Lilesa were going backwards by this stage.

The best illustration of Kirui and Lilesa's difficulties comes from a comparison with Lel and Kebede in the chase.  At 30km, the gap was 1:02, and Kirui and Lilesa were locked in battle with Kipsang.

By 35km, Kirui and Lilesa had lost 15 seconds to Kipsang out in front, but their lead over the chasers had grown to 1:42.  Then it started to come down, steadily at first, then precipitously.

By 40km, Lilesa was only 18 seconds ahead of Lel and Kebede.  He therefore lost 1:24 of his lead within 5km.  Kirui was still hanging on, 51 seconds ahead, so he had lost 51 seconds over the same period.

Then over the final 2.2km, things went particularly badly.  Lilesa took 8:24 for the final 2.2km and went from third to tenth, whereas Kirui ran the final 2.2km in 8:33 and dropped from 2^nd to 6^th.  After losing 51 seconds over the 5km from 35 to 40km, Kirui then lost an additional 1:56 over the final 2.2km.  Partly, this is because he shut it down after being caught, but with prize money at stake, his and Lilesa’s final 7km illustrate how costly the mid-race aggression was.

Kipsang meanwhile was holding the speed a lot better – having run 14:42 and 14:43 between 25 and 35km, he dropped to a 15:11 from 35km to 40km, and then ran just outside 3 min/km to the finish.  Having been ahead of Mutai's record pace from about 16km (see circles in the graph above), Kipsang then drifted outside and just missed the course record, which, it must be said, he probably deserved for the manner with which he beat such a strong field by such a large margin.  

In some respects, this London race was similar to what we saw in Boston last week, with those involved in big mid-race surges paying dearly for it at the end.  It's a lesson in "cost-benefit" analysis of marathon running and pacing!  The difference between London and Boston, of course, is that in Boston, the eventual winner Wesley Korir was very conservative and did not get involved in surges, whereas London was ultimately won by its main aggressor in Kipsang.  However, for Kirui and Lilesa, London 2012 was the same as Boston was for the likes of Levy Matebo and Matthew Kisorio - mid-race aggression has a cost, and the marathon makes sure that cost is paid!

The margins between great and imploding - a fine line

The lesson then, is that the East African strategy of racing the marathon aggressively soon after halfway may exert a heavy price, one that has always existed but that we didn't notice too much when records were falling left, right and centre in 2011.  Today, it was a 14:09 split for 5km that blew the race open, gave Kipsang the victory, but also saw world class runners reduced to speeds of just faster than 4 min/km for the final 5km!  In Boston, the heat made this effect even more pronounced, but it's a lesson in how fine the margins are between extra-ordinary and "mortality".

Today, in London, Wilson Kipsang lived on that line, and managed to produce 'extra-ordinary', winning by 2:07.  Mary Keitany ran under that line until the time was right, and then she produced something truly extra-ordinary.  But for others, like Kirui and Lilesa, the line was too fine and they crossed it and paid.  Having been blown away by the "ease" of the Kenyan dominance of 42.195km in 2011, we are reminded how easily things can go wrong.

For Kirui, then, London was not a good day out.  Had he been more cautious, perhaps not followed the 14:09 surge, he might have come through strongly and finished second, far closer to Kipsang.  These men are racers, however, and are not interested in steady and conservative efforts to finish second when winning is an option, and this makes marathon running so enthralling.  However, Kirui paid for this today.

And the result, his sixth place, means the Kenyan selectors now have to take a "risk" picking him.  The same is true for Lilesa.  Instead, Wilson Kipsang looks to have secured his spot, and now it's a judgment call for the other two places.  Do the Kenyan selectors go with the beaten Mosop and Kirui?  Or do they pick the non-finishing champions of 2011 in Geoffrey Mutai and Patrick Makau? (who bailed at 16km, reportedly with a leg injury).  That's the next big marathon story, and then come the Games, and the clash between Kenya's best three and Ethiopia's best three.

2012 - deep high quality year, despite the lack of records and attritional nature

A final word - despite the 'slow' Boston performances, and despite everyone but Kipsang being made to look a little more mortal today and over the last few weeks, 2012 is still on course to be the strongest year ever for marathon running in terms of depth of performance.  Kipsang's 2:04:44 today was the seventh sub-2:05 time this year, which equals the 2011 record for most sub-2:05s.

It was also the 14th time under 2:06 in 2012, and that is the highest in history.  So while we haven't seen the course records and clusters of men racing to these times in the Major Marathons, we're still seeing the continuation of a revolution in the marathon.  It's just not quite as spectacular as it was in 2011.

Among the women, incidentally, the same is true.  Keitany and Kiplagat went under 2:20 today, making them numbers 5 and 6 this year, the most ever.  Twelve women have broken 2:22 this year, and that's also a record.

Of course, both the men's and women's stats have been helped by that Dubai race in January, where basically half these times were recorded.  So the stats are a little skewed, because outside of Dubai, the Major City Marathons haven't been as spectacular, but history will go on to record 2012 as the deepest year in marathon running, and we're only in April!

That's it for the Spring Marathons.  Busy time, as always, but hopefully you enjoyed the coverage, both here after the race, and also over on Facebook and Twitter.  I don't usually ask, but since it's the end of the season, if you'd like to make a donation to support The Science of Sport and our efforts at sports analysis, please do so at the button on the top right of the page (click here if reading this as an email to be taken to the site)

Until the next big event, which I'm sure is not far away!

Ross

Oh, and one final thing - it was great to see Martin Lel sprinting to the finish to claim second place today.  Lel, a past champion in London and New York, was the great marathon runner a few years ago, but injury, and perhaps age, have caught up with him, and this was something of a surprise return.  He was my favourite marathon runner in around 2007, 2008 and his sprint finish at the end of marathons one of the great sights in running - remember his kick off the final bend to win London in 2008?  Today was a moment of nostalgia.  Lel isn't in the Kenyan squad, he wasn't named to the six man shortlist, but my impartial opinion is that if it was a slow race, I'd have him in it, fitness allowing!

Olympic Games: 100 days to go

The Olympic Games: 100 days to go

One of the best things about the rapidly approaching Olympic Games is the discussion it provokes about the giants of their sports, who have often been quiet for a long time, but emerge for the Games.  Bekele seems back, and how does that affect Mo Farah and Galen Rupp's chances?  The suspense builds.  Usain Bolt blitzed an anchor leg in a 4 x 100m relay last weekend, and then watched Yohan Blake run an impressive 9.90s season opener - the suspense builds.  Paula Radcliffe wasn't as impressive, running 72:03 in a Vienna Half Marathon, the slowest time of her professional career, though it did come off a bout of bronchitis.  And then there's Semenya, Pistorius (for us in SA, anyway), Wariner, and pretty soon, once the Diamond League kicks off in Doha on May 11, a host of other matchups to speculate about and analyse.

Then there's swimming, with Phelps vs Lochte top of mind for now.  There's tennis and the prospect of a grass court Olympic gold, triathlon and a Brownlee vs the rest battle, and many other stories waiting to be written.  And with 100 days to go, all that discussion will accelerate.

So here, to commerate the 100 day countdown, is a video dating back to before Bejing 2008, featuring some of the legends of the Olympic Games.  Beijing gave us a few athletes who belong in this clip, but then there are 100 days to update it!

Ross