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Ross Tucker

@Scienceofsport

Oct 8, 2018

OK, this may seem really lateral, but bear with me. Here’s a solid study showing that an intensive education intervention in 9-10 year olds does not help prevent obesity & overweight: thelancet.com/journals/lanch… This made me think about anti-doping education, so here’s a short thread

“Education” is often held up as a powerful and effective tool for anti-doping, despite pretty thin evidence that it does anything. If I’m cynical, an over-reliance on education seems to often replace the obligation to test as the thought of most effective deterrent.

That Lancet study in children suggests that even a really focused campaign, that achieves good engagement, doesn’t change behavior, at least in that group. And OK, they’re 9-10 year olds, you could say they’re too young to be ‘consciously impacted’ by it.

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Ross Tucker

@Scienceofsport

Jul 13, 2018

@RogerPielkeJr

The IAAF’s research on testosterone & performance has significant data errors & problems. We (@RogerPielkeJr, @boyeerik & I) have reanalysed some of the events, finding errors that may affect its conclusions and so call for it to be retracted. Story here: nytimes.com/2018/07/12/spo…

To elaborate briefly - in early May, we wrote to BJSM to request the performance data used by the IAAF in the study. This after noticing some strange statistical implications of their reported results, and wondering about methods to exclude duplicates: blogs.bmj.com/bjsm/2018/05/1…

What we were asking for, basically, is which of the performances that are publicly available in results archives had been included, and which excluded? After some back and forth, and lengthy process, we got sent some of the events in early July.

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Ross Tucker

@Scienceofsport

Jun 21, 2018

So…#russia have run the furthest of any team at this year’s #WorldCup18 triggering the inevitable discussion about the suspicion that would already have existed, given many suspicions. I wanted to share a few thoughts on this, so here’s a short thread...

First, whether or not there is doping in football is an unnecessary question. I don’t even understand why people discuss this as a “are they, aren’t they question”. This is as true of Russia as pretty much every team.

Second, had you asked for a prediction of distance run statistics to confirm that Russia were still guilty of systematic doping, you’d have come up with those numbers! However, that may also be circular, a form of confirmation bias. So there is nuance in that data I’d love to see

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Ross Tucker

@Scienceofsport

Jun 20, 2018

Every time a footballer collapses in agony, and forces the game to be stopped, there should be a mandatory 5 min assessment period. The game goes on, no temporary substitution. Make sure that poor diddums is OK, and disincentivize the behavior that characterizes football.

I applaud many of you for realizing the possibility of second order consequences on this. I’d expect nothing less. Thanks for those who have raised them. I had (believe it or not) thought through these possible downsides, and I don’t believe they are insurmountable challenges.

The possibility of cynical fouls to eliminate valuable players for 5 min is an obvious one. I’d say that committing deliberate fouls just severe enough to force a guy off for 5min is asking a bit much. There’s also a disincentive for this which outweighs pros of “maybe” doing it

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Ross Tucker

@Scienceofsport

Jun 5, 2018

This is, for many reasons, a fascinating story. It’s the trigger for discussions ranging from medical/duty of care failure to legal/policy issues. According to US doctors, #Karius is #concussed in this incident, shortly before the 1st of his huge errors. Brief thoughts follow...

First, a too-common reaction is “What a lame excuse, he’s clearly not concussed”, because it doesn’t look like they expect it to. And, hey, you all know I value sound skepticism! But the thing about concussion is that only about 50% of them show present with any of these signs:

So…that leaves about 50% that DON'T obviously look like concussion - no loss of consciousness, no ataxia, no dizziness, no confusion etc. Heck, some only present as symptomatic after matches are completed! So dismissing it based on what you saw on video, probably not ideal

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Ross Tucker

@Scienceofsport

Jun 2, 2018

Next time a voice in your head says “But he/she hasn’t tested positive. Show me evidence”, remember Jama Aden - IAAF followed & observed his group for 30 months, then a hotel raid discovered syringes with EPO & anabolic steroids. Not one of his athletes failed a test in that time

Now Aden is facing 4.5 years in jail for providing 8 types of substances to his athletes, from EPO to corticoids: cat.elpais.com/cat/2018/06/01…

So even a 30 month spotlight, a raid, & focused testing caught 0%. So yeah, you can have your “never failed a test”. I’ll take sense.

Sense might also suggest that a hugely prolific coach of multiple Olympic & World medalists is not just holding a stopwatch & calling out times for Mo Farah, who denied even knowing him until multiple pictures emerged of them in camps & socially. But…”never failed a test”.

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