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I've seen a lot of online conversations recently where the default assumption is that every Olympic sprinter, every cyclist or swimmet, basically every elite at

I've seen a lot of online conversations recently where the default assumption is that every Olympic sprinter, every cyclist or swimmet, basically every elite athlete is doping. It's pretty sad that we are in a world where you can work incredibly hard to make the most of natural talents and many people will assume you cheated.

andi999 6y ago
Isnt that even with doping you need to work incredibly hard and make the most of you talents? (since everybody is doing this, it just raises the bar throughout, doesnt it)
- nix23 6y ago
  >hard and make the most of you talents? True, but if your just 0.2% better because of doping your still on the winning side.
- gadders 6y ago
  They are necessary but not sufficient.
- dagw 6y ago
  work incredibly hard and make the most of you talents Indeed, and one of the most common uses of doping is not make you stronger or perform better per se. but to let your body recover quicker so you can train longer and harder with shorter recovery time between training sessions.
- spaetzleesser 6y ago
  That’s the thing. Without doping you can work as hard as you want and still not beat the guys who do it. Even as amateur I have seen how much people improved their physique and performance once they started using steroids or HGH and there simply is no way to compete with that.
nix23 6y ago
>basically every elite athlete is doping. Yes this! You have 3 doping levels from cheapest to really expansive: 3: Silver (the doping that is known and detectable) 2: Gold (known and probably detectable but often combined with additional substance to "wash it out" faster or hide it behind other stuff like "legal" painkillers etc) 1: Platinum (doping that is not detectable in the next 5 years "seal of proof by laboratories?") -------- 3: Is for your little Darling or Bodybuilders ;) 2: For your National-cup 1: For Olympics, World-cups etc..(everything where lots of money is behind)
- orwin 6y ago
  I know for a fact that 3 isn't even used on national-cup event in France, at least for sailing, canoe and kayak events. Or rather, that the club and physical preparators from this club advise against anything other than supplements, and even the French Kayak champion (Joly) only take a few of those, only 1/3rd of a year.
  - nix23 6y ago
    >sailing, canoe and kayak events How much money is behind those sports? Hint...NOT much. We Talk about Cycling, Athletics, Football and so on.. >I know for a fact that 3 isn't even used on national-cup event in France No you don't. BTW: I knew for a Fact that Lance Armstrong was the biggest Cycle Pro ever born and he would never need doping because he was just in another league then anyone else. EDIT: Would you look at that: http://sportscene.tv/paddlesports/2016/07/doping-problem-in-canoekayak-worse-than-reported/ http://sportscene.tv/paddlesports/2016/07/doping-problem-in-... https://www.firstpost.com/sports/rio-2016-doping-scandal-hits-romanian-olympic-kayak-team-as-8-athletes-test-positive-2803736.html https://www.firstpost.com/sports/rio-2016-doping-scandal-hit... But that's the Romanian Team...would never happen in France right?
    - bluGill 6y ago
      There is a lot of money in sailing, but in general most of the gains there are from better boats, so the backers putting money in aren't likely spend money on doping. (doping would help, but every dollar spent on dope is a dollar not spent on boat design)
the-dude 6y ago
This may be partially or wholly true. Athletes and the public have a different interpretation of what doping actually is. The public thinks of doping as taking performance enhancing substances. Athletes think of doping as crossing the specified threshold/limit. I have heard this interpretation on TV from a well connected Dutch cycling journalist ( Mart Smeets ). Every athlete takes performance enhancing substances.
- wildmanx 6y ago
  That's depending on what you consider a "performance enhancing substance". With basic food and drinks, we surely all agree that that's not the case. But the line starts to get blurry with supplements. Whey? Creatine? Caffeine? Supplement stores are full of this stuff, and a lot is really just a waste of money and exists to milk the amateur gym bro cash cow. But some of those things help. And eventually you cross the line into forbidden territory. That line is a clear one. If you take that line, then no, not every athlete takes performance enhancing substances. But if you count, say, caffeine, then yes, most athletes do. And non-athletes too, FWIW.
  - throwaway744678 6y ago
    Well, the line still seems blurry regarding medicines that athletes are allowed to take if they have a specific conditions... For instance, a lot of pro cyclists seem to suffer from asthma (40% vs 8% in the general population)!
    - Someone 6y ago
      “Exercise-induced asthma” is common in many endurance sports, especially winter sports. https://theconversation.com/winter-olympics-why-many-athletes-will-be-struggling-with-asthma-90400 https://theconversation.com/winter-olympics-why-many-athlete...: “Exercise-induced asthma is the most common medical problem among winter Olympic athletes, especially among cross-country skiers. Nearly 50% of these athletes suffer from the condition, closely followed by short-track speed skaters at 43%. For figure skaters it’s 21%, Nordic combined it’s 17%, and for ice hockey it’s 15%. By comparison, around 9% of the UK general population suffers from asthma.”
hnaccy 6y ago
When the top 30 100m times all belong to athletes that have been popped for doping with the exception of Usain Bolt you have to ask yourself is he just THAT amazing or is he amazing plus have the best doping team and protection. You have enormous money and prestige on the line and lots of powerful entities (FIFA, IOC, NFL, countries, athletic wear companies, etc) that don't have a huge incentive to catch their golden boy athletes doping.
- spaetzleesser 6y ago
  I am almost 100% sure that Bolt is taking something. It was the same with Lance Armstrong. Pretty much all the guys he was beating got caught one after the other. It didn’t seem possible that there was one athlete who is so much better than everybody else without doping. It’s already hard enough to win with doping.
- noneeeed 6y ago
  Yep, sprinting is the prime example. If an honest but genetically lucky and hard working sprinter came along today, there would be no way they could convince everyone that they were clean. Not getting caught doping is assumed to mean you are just too good at hiding it. The dopers have basically ruined sprinting and a number of other sports for anyone who wanta to compete cleanly and does well. It's entirely possible that Bolt is clean and is a Phelps like genetic outlier, but there will always be suspicions that can never be disproved, no matter what he does.
  - WalterBright 6y ago
    > genetically lucky Genetic modification will be the next frontier in cheating.
- chegra 6y ago
  Or Bolt is an anomaly? We are talking about a third world country here. There isn't any money to have the best chemist etc. How bolt is different is that he is tall and has the same turn over as a small guy. Chemicals don't get you this, only genetics. It was the long held belief that tall people cannot run short distances. Now, every coach is looking for a tall runner with same turn over as a small guy. Bolt just changed the paradigm.
gadders 6y ago
I guess it depends on what you make of information like this: "Of the 50 fastest men's 100m sprint times ever, only 15 have been run by an athlete NOT banned for drugs. All 15 were by Usain Bolt." https://twitter.com/sportingintel/status/1164654855329329152?lang=en https://twitter.com/sportingintel/status/1164654855329329152...
- LudwigNagasena 6y ago
  What is more important is that he improved his results during a small atypical time period.
- anonAndOn 6y ago
  Don't worry, it will be all 50 eventually. The 100m is often decided by photo finishes and yet, Usain Bolt has had to look behind him AND slow down before crossing the finish so that he's not too far ahead of the others.[0] [0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-urnlaJpOA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-urnlaJpOA
- AtlasBarfed 6y ago
  IIRC, the Jamaicans basically defunded their drug enforcement, hired known pro-doping coaches, basically have a "team chemist". The Jamaican sprinting explosion followed. I want to make clear that Jamaica is not an outlier or "bad guy". Really they are small fry in the industrial olympic sports machine. What they really are is a window into what the big time countries do. It of course helps that sprinting is a national obsession in Jamaica, so the best athletes do sprinting. But that's been true for a long time. Personally, I do not think humans can run faster than 9.90 in the 100m without "aid". or under 20.00 in the 200, or under 44 in the 400m. I do not think a human can run faster than 13:00 in the 5000m, or 27:00 in the 10,000m, or somewhere around 2:08 in the marathon. But those are personal opinions.
xondono 6y ago
If you’ve seen how athletes are raised up nowadays, you’ll see why people say that. There’s an assortment of performance enhancers that are legal in most competitions, and are extensively use by amateurs (think gels in running for example). This things only become doping once a competition bans them, and athletes fight for every advantage. Since competitions are slow to move, stands to reason that all athletes are doping, at least by the standards of tomorrow.
jimbob45 6y ago
In some cases, it’s true though. For example, the NFL didn’t test for HGH at all until 2010 and their test remains inadequate even today. It’s fairly reasonable to assume a majority of players were using it prior to 2010 if their choice was between getting a million-dollar contract and taking HGH.
NikolaNovak 6y ago
Part of it from my layman's perspective is that today, even home exercising frequently involves protein shakes. As you go into even basic body building or training, you start taking more and more "Stuff". There's no clear obvious intuitive big line between "natural talent and hard work" and "illegal chemical cheating". Reading the details of the tests involved a few years ago made me believe the line we draw is thin, porous, arbitrary and ever-changing. The things we are testing for are not so much clear-cut presence or absence, but volumes and concentrations based on statistical curves, and it's a constant race so somebody who was "legit & natural last year" may be "doping and illegal this year" or vice versa; everybody will have SOME naturally or legally allowed amount of tested substance; etc. Which means that I cannot get excited that ANYbody at olympic level is doing it "on their own, unassisted, natural", for whatever definition of above we take.
- nottorp 6y ago
  If you're home exercising and taking protein shakes and stuff, the person you're cheating is yourself.
  - thatguy0900 6y ago
    I'm curious why you take such a hard line. People only take protein powder when they want to be big, and really it only saves you from having to eat such massive amounts of food. If you're skinny and not used to overeating, eating the reccomended gram of protein per pound of lean body mass for muscle growth can really be quite sickening.
- wmeredith 6y ago
  > As you go into even basic body building or training, you start taking more and more "Stuff". This is because there's not a lot of money in telling people to lift heavy stuff that's literally all around us and eat commonly available protein-rich foods. What is there to sell? In comes the gadgets and supplements.
- vokep 6y ago
  How are protein shakes and such 'stuff' at all approaching performance enhancing chemicals? Performance enhancing chemicals make the body do things it wouldn't normally do, directly modifying behavior to be different than it could be without that substance. Protein shakes are just providing nutrients so the body can make full use of exercise. Giving the body a nutrient rich liquid food is very different from a drug. The one that seems a bit borderline but perhaps small enough effect and also already so commonly used by the general population anyways that its not too reasonable to consider it to be "doping" which would be caffeine.
medium_burrito 6y ago
It's hard to assume anything else. If you are not cheating, you are not trying hard enough to win. If you look at a chart of when EPO became available, and all those good knowledgeable DDR sport med docs became available on the free market, there's this discontinuous drop in world records fro pretty much all endurance sports. Notice the discontinuity around 1994: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10,000_metres_world_record_progression https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10,000_metres_world_record_pro... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5000_metres_world_record_progression https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5000_metres_world_record_progr... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_record_progression_1500_metres_freestyle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_record_progression_1500_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tour_de_France_records_and_statistics#Overall_speed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tour_de_France_records_and_sta... You'll see similar changes with the introduction of synthetic testosterone in weight lifting records, and the physical appearance of the top bodybuilders. EDIT: And this ignores "mechanical" doping in cycling- where you stick an electric motor on the bike. We've suspected it for a while at the pro ranks, and got confirmation when a small fry got nabbed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Femke_Van_den_Driessche https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Femke_Van_den_Driessche
- alasdair_ 6y ago
  That mechanical doping suspension was interesting to learn about. The rider wasn’t caught with a motorized bike, instead the bike was found in their pit and (supposedly) didn’t belong to the rider but due to the rules the rider was treated as if it was their bike.
  - chillwaves 6y ago
    Sounds like she was caught with a motorized bike. > Van den Driessche had been taking part in the inaugural under 23 women’s event, which was won by Britain’s Evie Richards. The Belgian and European under 23 champion had gone in as a pre-race favourite but did not feature at the front. She was eventually forced off her bike on the final lap when she was struck by mechanical problems and ended up walking with her bike. > Van den Driessche’s bike was taken for inspection along with several other bikes after the race. It quickly became apparent that something was wrong with her bike and news of the discovery quickly spread; however it is only this Sunday morning that they revealed their discovery. It gives Van den Driessche the dubious honour of being the first rider to be discovered to be using a motor. Incidentally, Van den Driessche’s brother Niels is currently suspended for doping. https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/uci-confirms-motorised-doping-uncovered-at-cyclo-cross-world-championships/ https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/uci-confirms-motorised-dopi...
nabla9 6y ago
WADA estimates that 10% of Olympic athletes are doping. Anti doping agencies are always behind in doping research and many athletes have access to the best clinics there are.
pierrefermat1 6y ago
It's hilarious you think this after such blatant scandals in cycling coming out. If you ever competed at a high level or spent enough time researching commonly available drugs and how testing is conducted it becomes obvious of what's really happening. This isn't even mentioning people with large budgets who have completely undetectable designer ones
- gameswithgo 6y ago
  The person you are replying to isn't saying that he thinks this assumption is wrong, just that it is sad.
  - pierrefermat1 6y ago
    I think he's also implying that it's the natural talent and hardwork that dictates success, but that's just not the case in reality. There's a studying showing people who remain sedentary whilst taking test gain more muscle mass than someone who frequents the gym 3 times a week.
AtlasBarfed 6y ago
If world records were set virtually across the board in all sports with doping, and there are athletes achieving or beating these marks... For endurance sports, the EPO effect is pretty well documented based on its arrival in the early-to-mid nineties. It's multiple percents to perhaps 10% of an advantage, which is basically "game over" for the natural athlete. If there are a ton of athletes performing at levels that EPO athletes were... what other conclusion is there? Blood passport basically exists to keep the cheating out of control (to levels where thickened blood kills people overnight with brain clots), but either the BBC or guardian had a reporter do microdosing and tested with formal testing and their blood passport numbers stayed "in bounds". Steroids is a similar game changer for fast twitch. The current sprinting records are so far above what Ben Johnson was doing. Consider the rarity of high-level cheaters being busted in soccer, tennis, basketball, and American football, where the monetary rewards are 100-1000x more than olympic athlete success. Consider all the hollywood action stars and the efficacy of PEDs in achieving a necessary look for a multimillion dollar role. Is there drug testing in hollywood? And PEDs absolutely have penetrated all scholastic levels of athletics/sport with the easy availability via the internet and the sports-crazed overachievement OCD of athlete parents. Sports are a theatric illusion.
gameswithgo 6y ago
It is actually most likely that they are doping, the history of revelations in these sports indicates that at various moments in the past, it WAS the case that any given elite athlete was most likely to be doping, it is probably the case now too. It is possible to cheat to gain an advantage, and not get detected. People with the drive to become elite athletes in the first place, are very likely to be tempted. Once even 1 athlete in the sport is cheating, others will feel it is necessary to cheat with them to compete. This has happened over and over in every sport I know of.
ilamont 6y ago
I'm old enough to remember the Rosa Ruiz cheating scandal from the Boston Marathon. 40 years ago everyone kind of laughed it off as a one-off thing that could never happen again because of cameras along the route and better safeguards, but it's emerged that lots of people cheat at the Boston Marathon (https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2019/04/22/boston-marathon-cheaters-china/ https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2019/04/22/boston-marath...) and others (https://www.marathoninvestigation.com https://www.marathoninvestigation.com). For me, cycling lost its luster not only after Lance Armstrong was caught and spent years lying to the American public about it, but also after repeat stories like this one (https://www.velonews.com/news/road/cbs-news-12-riders-used-motorized-bikes-in-the-2015-tour/ https://www.velonews.com/news/road/cbs-news-12-riders-used-m...) involving the Tour de France and other high-profile races. The Olympics holds up the ideal of a level playing field for wholesome young athletes from all over the world to compete, but I think everyone knows that it's not a level playing field, even if the strategies used by certain countries to win are perfectly legal such as expensive training programs and granting citizenship to people who have tenuous connections to the new countries they represent (https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2014/02/14/switching-nationalities-olympics https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2014/02/14/switching-nationa...): ... There are several stories of athletes switching countries, including South Korean speedskater Ahn Hyun-soo who became a Russian citizen and changed his name to Viktor Ahn to join the Russian speedskating team, after falling out with the South Korean skating federation. It's a shame, because I want to believe athletes and their coaches are honest people who strive for the highest possible standards, but it's hard not to become jaded after decades of pervasive instances of unfair advantages, corner-cutting, and outright cheating.
- user5994461 6y ago
  >>> The Olympics holds up the ideal of a level playing field for wholesome young athletes The Olympics is first and foremost a political event. Sports come second. It hurts to realize but that's a fact of life. The next thing that's hurting might be to realize that many athletes are likely to be missing because of logistics/visa/costs issues.
HeadsUpHigh 6y ago
Go to openpowerlifting.org rankings and compare the ipf raw records to all of the existing federations. The difference is staggering. Any sport that requires a lot of peak or near peak strength is very likely full of drugs. And that doesn't detract from all the hard work these athletes put into their sport.
borroka 6y ago
It should be the default assumption. It is difficult to believe how otherwise-astute people can fall into the feeling-good traps of "talent can beat everything" or "you need to want it more". PEDs get the user a very substantial advantage, from the ability to train more, to changes in muscles mass, to much faster recovery from injuries and so on. Apart from the health risks we all know about (which are in reality overestimated, relatively speaking, otherwise we would see former professional athletes drop like flies), they make the whole machine way better. Among the many books that have written on this topic, Speed Trap by the late Charlie Francis is enlightening.

andi999 6y ago

Isnt that even with doping you need to work incredibly hard and make the most of you talents? (since everybody is doing this, it just raises the bar throughout, doesnt it)

nix23 6y ago
>hard and make the most of you talents? True, but if your just 0.2% better because of doping your still on the winning side.
gadders 6y ago
They are necessary but not sufficient.
dagw 6y ago
work incredibly hard and make the most of you talents Indeed, and one of the most common uses of doping is not make you stronger or perform better per se. but to let your body recover quicker so you can train longer and harder with shorter recovery time between training sessions.
spaetzleesser 6y ago
That’s the thing. Without doping you can work as hard as you want and still not beat the guys who do it. Even as amateur I have seen how much people improved their physique and performance once they started using steroids or HGH and there simply is no way to compete with that.

nix23 6y ago

>basically every elite athlete is doping. Yes this! You have 3 doping levels from cheapest to really expansive: 3: Silver (the doping that is known and detectable) 2: Gold (known and probably detectable but often combined with additional substance to "wash it out" faster or hide it behind other stuff like "legal" painkillers etc) 1: Platinum (doping that is not detectable in the next 5 years "seal of proof by laboratories?") -------- 3: Is for your little Darling or Bodybuilders ;) 2: For your National-cup 1: For Olympics, World-cups etc..(everything where lots of money is behind)

orwin 6y ago
I know for a fact that 3 isn't even used on national-cup event in France, at least for sailing, canoe and kayak events. Or rather, that the club and physical preparators from this club advise against anything other than supplements, and even the French Kayak champion (Joly) only take a few of those, only 1/3rd of a year.
- nix23 6y ago
  >sailing, canoe and kayak events How much money is behind those sports? Hint...NOT much. We Talk about Cycling, Athletics, Football and so on.. >I know for a fact that 3 isn't even used on national-cup event in France No you don't. BTW: I knew for a Fact that Lance Armstrong was the biggest Cycle Pro ever born and he would never need doping because he was just in another league then anyone else. EDIT: Would you look at that: http://sportscene.tv/paddlesports/2016/07/doping-problem-in-canoekayak-worse-than-reported/ http://sportscene.tv/paddlesports/2016/07/doping-problem-in-... https://www.firstpost.com/sports/rio-2016-doping-scandal-hits-romanian-olympic-kayak-team-as-8-athletes-test-positive-2803736.html https://www.firstpost.com/sports/rio-2016-doping-scandal-hit... But that's the Romanian Team...would never happen in France right?
  - bluGill 6y ago
    There is a lot of money in sailing, but in general most of the gains there are from better boats, so the backers putting money in aren't likely spend money on doping. (doping would help, but every dollar spent on dope is a dollar not spent on boat design)

the-dude 6y ago

This may be partially or wholly true. Athletes and the public have a different interpretation of what doping actually is. The public thinks of doping as taking performance enhancing substances. Athletes think of doping as crossing the specified threshold/limit. I have heard this interpretation on TV from a well connected Dutch cycling journalist ( Mart Smeets ). Every athlete takes performance enhancing substances.

wildmanx 6y ago
That's depending on what you consider a "performance enhancing substance". With basic food and drinks, we surely all agree that that's not the case. But the line starts to get blurry with supplements. Whey? Creatine? Caffeine? Supplement stores are full of this stuff, and a lot is really just a waste of money and exists to milk the amateur gym bro cash cow. But some of those things help. And eventually you cross the line into forbidden territory. That line is a clear one. If you take that line, then no, not every athlete takes performance enhancing substances. But if you count, say, caffeine, then yes, most athletes do. And non-athletes too, FWIW.
- throwaway744678 6y ago
  Well, the line still seems blurry regarding medicines that athletes are allowed to take if they have a specific conditions... For instance, a lot of pro cyclists seem to suffer from asthma (40% vs 8% in the general population)!
  - Someone 6y ago
    “Exercise-induced asthma” is common in many endurance sports, especially winter sports. https://theconversation.com/winter-olympics-why-many-athletes-will-be-struggling-with-asthma-90400 https://theconversation.com/winter-olympics-why-many-athlete...: “Exercise-induced asthma is the most common medical problem among winter Olympic athletes, especially among cross-country skiers. Nearly 50% of these athletes suffer from the condition, closely followed by short-track speed skaters at 43%. For figure skaters it’s 21%, Nordic combined it’s 17%, and for ice hockey it’s 15%. By comparison, around 9% of the UK general population suffers from asthma.”

hnaccy 6y ago

When the top 30 100m times all belong to athletes that have been popped for doping with the exception of Usain Bolt you have to ask yourself is he just THAT amazing or is he amazing plus have the best doping team and protection. You have enormous money and prestige on the line and lots of powerful entities (FIFA, IOC, NFL, countries, athletic wear companies, etc) that don't have a huge incentive to catch their golden boy athletes doping.

spaetzleesser 6y ago
I am almost 100% sure that Bolt is taking something. It was the same with Lance Armstrong. Pretty much all the guys he was beating got caught one after the other. It didn’t seem possible that there was one athlete who is so much better than everybody else without doping. It’s already hard enough to win with doping.
noneeeed 6y ago
Yep, sprinting is the prime example. If an honest but genetically lucky and hard working sprinter came along today, there would be no way they could convince everyone that they were clean. Not getting caught doping is assumed to mean you are just too good at hiding it. The dopers have basically ruined sprinting and a number of other sports for anyone who wanta to compete cleanly and does well. It's entirely possible that Bolt is clean and is a Phelps like genetic outlier, but there will always be suspicions that can never be disproved, no matter what he does.
- WalterBright 6y ago
  > genetically lucky Genetic modification will be the next frontier in cheating.
chegra 6y ago
Or Bolt is an anomaly? We are talking about a third world country here. There isn't any money to have the best chemist etc. How bolt is different is that he is tall and has the same turn over as a small guy. Chemicals don't get you this, only genetics. It was the long held belief that tall people cannot run short distances. Now, every coach is looking for a tall runner with same turn over as a small guy. Bolt just changed the paradigm.

gadders 6y ago

I guess it depends on what you make of information like this: "Of the 50 fastest men's 100m sprint times ever, only 15 have been run by an athlete NOT banned for drugs. All 15 were by Usain Bolt." https://twitter.com/sportingintel/status/1164654855329329152?lang=en https://twitter.com/sportingintel/status/1164654855329329152...

LudwigNagasena 6y ago
What is more important is that he improved his results during a small atypical time period.
anonAndOn 6y ago
Don't worry, it will be all 50 eventually. The 100m is often decided by photo finishes and yet, Usain Bolt has had to look behind him AND slow down before crossing the finish so that he's not too far ahead of the others.[0] [0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-urnlaJpOA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-urnlaJpOA
AtlasBarfed 6y ago
IIRC, the Jamaicans basically defunded their drug enforcement, hired known pro-doping coaches, basically have a "team chemist". The Jamaican sprinting explosion followed. I want to make clear that Jamaica is not an outlier or "bad guy". Really they are small fry in the industrial olympic sports machine. What they really are is a window into what the big time countries do. It of course helps that sprinting is a national obsession in Jamaica, so the best athletes do sprinting. But that's been true for a long time. Personally, I do not think humans can run faster than 9.90 in the 100m without "aid". or under 20.00 in the 200, or under 44 in the 400m. I do not think a human can run faster than 13:00 in the 5000m, or 27:00 in the 10,000m, or somewhere around 2:08 in the marathon. But those are personal opinions.

xondono 6y ago

If you’ve seen how athletes are raised up nowadays, you’ll see why people say that. There’s an assortment of performance enhancers that are legal in most competitions, and are extensively use by amateurs (think gels in running for example). This things only become doping once a competition bans them, and athletes fight for every advantage. Since competitions are slow to move, stands to reason that all athletes are doping, at least by the standards of tomorrow.

jimbob45 6y ago

In some cases, it’s true though. For example, the NFL didn’t test for HGH at all until 2010 and their test remains inadequate even today. It’s fairly reasonable to assume a majority of players were using it prior to 2010 if their choice was between getting a million-dollar contract and taking HGH.

NikolaNovak 6y ago

Part of it from my layman's perspective is that today, even home exercising frequently involves protein shakes. As you go into even basic body building or training, you start taking more and more "Stuff". There's no clear obvious intuitive big line between "natural talent and hard work" and "illegal chemical cheating". Reading the details of the tests involved a few years ago made me believe the line we draw is thin, porous, arbitrary and ever-changing. The things we are testing for are not so much clear-cut presence or absence, but volumes and concentrations based on statistical curves, and it's a constant race so somebody who was "legit & natural last year" may be "doping and illegal this year" or vice versa; everybody will have SOME naturally or legally allowed amount of tested substance; etc. Which means that I cannot get excited that ANYbody at olympic level is doing it "on their own, unassisted, natural", for whatever definition of above we take.

nottorp 6y ago
If you're home exercising and taking protein shakes and stuff, the person you're cheating is yourself.
- thatguy0900 6y ago
  I'm curious why you take such a hard line. People only take protein powder when they want to be big, and really it only saves you from having to eat such massive amounts of food. If you're skinny and not used to overeating, eating the reccomended gram of protein per pound of lean body mass for muscle growth can really be quite sickening.
wmeredith 6y ago
> As you go into even basic body building or training, you start taking more and more "Stuff". This is because there's not a lot of money in telling people to lift heavy stuff that's literally all around us and eat commonly available protein-rich foods. What is there to sell? In comes the gadgets and supplements.
vokep 6y ago
How are protein shakes and such 'stuff' at all approaching performance enhancing chemicals? Performance enhancing chemicals make the body do things it wouldn't normally do, directly modifying behavior to be different than it could be without that substance. Protein shakes are just providing nutrients so the body can make full use of exercise. Giving the body a nutrient rich liquid food is very different from a drug. The one that seems a bit borderline but perhaps small enough effect and also already so commonly used by the general population anyways that its not too reasonable to consider it to be "doping" which would be caffeine.

medium_burrito 6y ago

It's hard to assume anything else. If you are not cheating, you are not trying hard enough to win. If you look at a chart of when EPO became available, and all those good knowledgeable DDR sport med docs became available on the free market, there's this discontinuous drop in world records fro pretty much all endurance sports. Notice the discontinuity around 1994: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10,000_metres_world_record_progression https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10,000_metres_world_record_pro... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5000_metres_world_record_progression https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5000_metres_world_record_progr... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_record_progression_1500_metres_freestyle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_record_progression_1500_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tour_de_France_records_and_statistics#Overall_speed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tour_de_France_records_and_sta... You'll see similar changes with the introduction of synthetic testosterone in weight lifting records, and the physical appearance of the top bodybuilders. EDIT: And this ignores "mechanical" doping in cycling- where you stick an electric motor on the bike. We've suspected it for a while at the pro ranks, and got confirmation when a small fry got nabbed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Femke_Van_den_Driessche https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Femke_Van_den_Driessche

alasdair_ 6y ago
That mechanical doping suspension was interesting to learn about. The rider wasn’t caught with a motorized bike, instead the bike was found in their pit and (supposedly) didn’t belong to the rider but due to the rules the rider was treated as if it was their bike.
- chillwaves 6y ago
  Sounds like she was caught with a motorized bike. > Van den Driessche had been taking part in the inaugural under 23 women’s event, which was won by Britain’s Evie Richards. The Belgian and European under 23 champion had gone in as a pre-race favourite but did not feature at the front. She was eventually forced off her bike on the final lap when she was struck by mechanical problems and ended up walking with her bike. > Van den Driessche’s bike was taken for inspection along with several other bikes after the race. It quickly became apparent that something was wrong with her bike and news of the discovery quickly spread; however it is only this Sunday morning that they revealed their discovery. It gives Van den Driessche the dubious honour of being the first rider to be discovered to be using a motor. Incidentally, Van den Driessche’s brother Niels is currently suspended for doping. https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/uci-confirms-motorised-doping-uncovered-at-cyclo-cross-world-championships/ https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/uci-confirms-motorised-dopi...

nabla9 6y ago

WADA estimates that 10% of Olympic athletes are doping. Anti doping agencies are always behind in doping research and many athletes have access to the best clinics there are.

pierrefermat1 6y ago

It's hilarious you think this after such blatant scandals in cycling coming out. If you ever competed at a high level or spent enough time researching commonly available drugs and how testing is conducted it becomes obvious of what's really happening. This isn't even mentioning people with large budgets who have completely undetectable designer ones

gameswithgo 6y ago
The person you are replying to isn't saying that he thinks this assumption is wrong, just that it is sad.
- pierrefermat1 6y ago
  I think he's also implying that it's the natural talent and hardwork that dictates success, but that's just not the case in reality. There's a studying showing people who remain sedentary whilst taking test gain more muscle mass than someone who frequents the gym 3 times a week.

AtlasBarfed 6y ago

If world records were set virtually across the board in all sports with doping, and there are athletes achieving or beating these marks... For endurance sports, the EPO effect is pretty well documented based on its arrival in the early-to-mid nineties. It's multiple percents to perhaps 10% of an advantage, which is basically "game over" for the natural athlete. If there are a ton of athletes performing at levels that EPO athletes were... what other conclusion is there? Blood passport basically exists to keep the cheating out of control (to levels where thickened blood kills people overnight with brain clots), but either the BBC or guardian had a reporter do microdosing and tested with formal testing and their blood passport numbers stayed "in bounds". Steroids is a similar game changer for fast twitch. The current sprinting records are so far above what Ben Johnson was doing. Consider the rarity of high-level cheaters being busted in soccer, tennis, basketball, and American football, where the monetary rewards are 100-1000x more than olympic athlete success. Consider all the hollywood action stars and the efficacy of PEDs in achieving a necessary look for a multimillion dollar role. Is there drug testing in hollywood? And PEDs absolutely have penetrated all scholastic levels of athletics/sport with the easy availability via the internet and the sports-crazed overachievement OCD of athlete parents. Sports are a theatric illusion.

gameswithgo 6y ago

It is actually most likely that they are doping, the history of revelations in these sports indicates that at various moments in the past, it WAS the case that any given elite athlete was most likely to be doping, it is probably the case now too. It is possible to cheat to gain an advantage, and not get detected. People with the drive to become elite athletes in the first place, are very likely to be tempted. Once even 1 athlete in the sport is cheating, others will feel it is necessary to cheat with them to compete. This has happened over and over in every sport I know of.

ilamont 6y ago

I'm old enough to remember the Rosa Ruiz cheating scandal from the Boston Marathon. 40 years ago everyone kind of laughed it off as a one-off thing that could never happen again because of cameras along the route and better safeguards, but it's emerged that lots of people cheat at the Boston Marathon (https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2019/04/22/boston-marathon-cheaters-china/ https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2019/04/22/boston-marath...) and others (https://www.marathoninvestigation.com https://www.marathoninvestigation.com). For me, cycling lost its luster not only after Lance Armstrong was caught and spent years lying to the American public about it, but also after repeat stories like this one (https://www.velonews.com/news/road/cbs-news-12-riders-used-motorized-bikes-in-the-2015-tour/ https://www.velonews.com/news/road/cbs-news-12-riders-used-m...) involving the Tour de France and other high-profile races. The Olympics holds up the ideal of a level playing field for wholesome young athletes from all over the world to compete, but I think everyone knows that it's not a level playing field, even if the strategies used by certain countries to win are perfectly legal such as expensive training programs and granting citizenship to people who have tenuous connections to the new countries they represent (https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2014/02/14/switching-nationalities-olympics https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2014/02/14/switching-nationa...): ... There are several stories of athletes switching countries, including South Korean speedskater Ahn Hyun-soo who became a Russian citizen and changed his name to Viktor Ahn to join the Russian speedskating team, after falling out with the South Korean skating federation. It's a shame, because I want to believe athletes and their coaches are honest people who strive for the highest possible standards, but it's hard not to become jaded after decades of pervasive instances of unfair advantages, corner-cutting, and outright cheating.

user5994461 6y ago
>>> The Olympics holds up the ideal of a level playing field for wholesome young athletes The Olympics is first and foremost a political event. Sports come second. It hurts to realize but that's a fact of life. The next thing that's hurting might be to realize that many athletes are likely to be missing because of logistics/visa/costs issues.

HeadsUpHigh 6y ago

Go to openpowerlifting.org rankings and compare the ipf raw records to all of the existing federations. The difference is staggering. Any sport that requires a lot of peak or near peak strength is very likely full of drugs. And that doesn't detract from all the hard work these athletes put into their sport.

borroka 6y ago

It should be the default assumption. It is difficult to believe how otherwise-astute people can fall into the feeling-good traps of "talent can beat everything" or "you need to want it more". PEDs get the user a very substantial advantage, from the ability to train more, to changes in muscles mass, to much faster recovery from injuries and so on. Apart from the health risks we all know about (which are in reality overestimated, relatively speaking, otherwise we would see former professional athletes drop like flies), they make the whole machine way better. Among the many books that have written on this topic, Speed Trap by the late Charlie Francis is enlightening.