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Anyone who hasn't seen the Netflix documentary on Ben Johnson should watch it, yes he took steroids and got popped for it, come to find out he had been taking s
by will_brown 9y ago
Anyone who hasn't seen the Netflix documentary on Ben Johnson should watch it, yes he took steroids and got popped for it, come to find out he had been taking steroids all the time and the tests were easy to beat, the story goes he only popped positive because Karl Lewis snuck a contact into the testing room to spike Ben Johnsons water before giving a sample. Have any doubts watch the documentary and watch Karl Lewis when asked about it and his response, he doesn't deny it at all and suggests that if that did occur it was fair play.
As to Lewis himself being clean, again watch the documentary there were only about 2 runners in that era (regularly making the finals) who were clean, the athletes know better than anyone.
Objectively Lewis was a full grown man and out of no where his jaw grew, displacing his teeth and he got braces to fix it as an adult. Jaw growth and braces were indicative of the steroids used at the time in the 80's and was common place with the track stars, who prior to jaw growth had perfect teeth.
Even in modern times in track what gave Russia's state sponsored doping program away was the simple fact that non doped athletes would be doubled over from fatigue at the end of events and the Russians would be smiling not even out of breath, like the article suggests world class is world class and so like I suggest the athletes will simply be in the best position to know when something is out of the norm.
As to Bolt, what makes him special as a sprinter is his size, once thought to be a detriment (like the article says), but he wasn't/isn't a freak, it is more along the lines of self fulfilling prophecy. Take Russia and China for example where they just pluck kids from school who are identified based on certain physical traits and go into state sponsored athletic training camps. Moreover, When you were a certain size you were just over looked by everyone including the coaches and put into different events, now that Bolt has broken the mold, tons of kids more inline with Bolt's body size are/have been identified and given the proper support and coaching, so in the near future we will see more and more sprinters similar to Bolt's measurements. This will inevitably lead to new world records in the short term without the need for genetic modification or peds.
- mingabunga 9y agoJust to point out, the jaw size increase is from human growth hormone rather than steroids. I recall seeing photos of members of the Santa Monica track club athletes (Carl Lewis's club) and 7 out of 9 of their top sprinters had braces.
- ardit33 9y agoWhile not a steroid in itself, still it is a hormone/PED. Bodybuilders to it all the time for the same reasons (increases muscle and lean tissue mass).
- will_brown 9y agoI'm to far removed from seeing the documentary, but they went into a little detail about the history of steroids or peds, and I definitely could be mistaken but I believe the ped of choice for these sprinters in the 80's was a horse steroid. Maybe some has watched the same documentary and can clarify. Either way its obviously a side note and even if my memory serves correct, that's not to say HGH doesn't have a similar effect.
- icelancer 9y ago>horse steroid They're all "horse steroids," generally, as veterinarians are a common source of grey/black market AAS. Winstrol was likely very common then, as was Deca-Durabolin and Trenbolone. Obviously good old-fashioned injectable Testosterone [insert ester here] was used as well. As for HGH, I'm not sure it was all that common in the 80s, or really even now. The benefits for adult males are... dubious, to say the least; it's not like testosterone which we know how valuable it can be for athletic performance.
- CuriouslyC 9y agoIf a tested athlete used any of those compounds in the 80s they would have been popped for sure. All of those compounds have really long detection periods.
- icelancer 9y agoWatch Icarus or look into any of the state-sponsored avoidance programs. Your answers lie there. Also Winstrol and Test Propionate (or Suspension) have short detection times, HGH didn't have a test until recently, and EPO was in the same boat.
- 9y ago
- jackmott 9y ago>As to Bolt, what makes him special as a sprinter is his size, Maybe.
- mcgrath_sh 9y agoThere was a chart I saw online of the 10 or 20 fastest 100m times in history. Every single one had a line through it (indicating steroids), except for the handful that were Bolt's. Including 3 times directly below his WR.
- brianwawok 9y agoLet's see what our tests in 20 years say. Olympic marathons have have been dropping winners for years and years as tests improved.
- icelancer 9y ago>he wasn't/isn't a freak >without the need for genetic modification or peds He is genetically modified, just in the slow, natural way. As for "without the need for... PEDs," ah.... I doubt it. A friend of mine coached major D1 T&F and also coached 20+ Olympic Games sprint and field events athletes. His words could not be more clear: "No one runs sub 10.0 without cheating. No one."
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- icelancer 9y agoPeople should also watch Icarus on Netflix, which just came out. It goes into great lengths by getting serious sources on record - not anonymous - stating very clearly that drug-testing is a sham and has been for decades. Some countries more than others (Russia being the target of this documentary, but others are just like it).
- nradov 9y agoOutside magazine had an interesting article with a firsthand account of an amateur athlete taking multiple performance enhancing drugs. https://www.outsideonline.com/1924306/drug-test https://www.outsideonline.com/1924306/drug-test
- swimfar 9y agoThanks for posting that. I had that issue and found the article interesting but then lost the magazine (and never thought to search for an online version).
- mrfusion 9y agoDoesn't it seem strange for a sprinter to be named "bolt". Too much of a coincidence? Wikipedia says it's his real name though.
- philwelch 9y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_determinism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_determinism
- SOLAR_FIELDS 9y agoSome people are simply born with the name for the occasion. See Andrew Bird
- flamedoge 9y ago> without the genetic modifications I wouldn't be so sure now that we identified bolt as better "feature"
- paganel 9y ago> and the Russians would be smiling not even out of breath, You're exactly describing Emma Coburn after she had just won the 3000m steeplechase in London at the World Championships, a couple of weeks ago. Truth is the American that came in second place, Frerichs, look tired as hell, but that was because she had just "improved" her PB by 16 (sixteen) seconds. I guess miracles do happen if the correct juices are taken, those ladies reminded me of a certain Lance Armstrong who always seemed to achieve incredible athletics miracles whenever the Pyrenees were coming.