Athletic and PEDS

I watched some of the World Athletic championship last night and my immediate thought was Richardson who won the womens 100m sprint doesn't look natural.

I might be way of the mark here and no doubt they are all tested but she doesn't look right.

I watched the Icarus documentary about doping in cycling/sports and the take away is it's all too easy to get around testing with the right help.

Like I say I migh tbe wrong but something doesn't sit right.

To me she looks like a female sprinter no different to the body shapes of other female sprinters. She has failed a drugs test in the past and was sanctioned for it but it wasn't performance enhancing as far as I am aware - see below.

wikipedia - paraphrased wrote: Sha'Carri Richardson 23 year old American track & field sprinter .... rose to fame in 2019 as a freshman at Louisiana State University, running 10.75 seconds to break the 100 m collegiate record. This made her one of the ten fastest women in history at 19 years old.

In April 2021, ran a new personal best of 10.72 seconds, becoming the sixth fastest woman of all time (at the time).

She qualified for the 2020 Summer Olympics after winning the women's 100-meter dash with 10.86 in the US Olympic Trials. On July 1, it was reported she had tested positive for cannabis use following her 100 m final at the U.S. Trials, invalidating her win & making her ineligible to compete in the 100 m at the Olympics. After successfully completing a counseling program, she accepted a one-month period of ineligibility that began on June 28, 2021 ...

mountain man wrote:I watched some of the World Athletic championship last night and my immediate thought was Richardson who won the womens 100m sprint doesn't look natural.

I might be way of the mark here and no doubt they are all tested but she doesn't look right.

I watched the Icarus documentary about doping in cycling/sports and the take away is it's all too easy to get around testing with the right help.

Like I say I migh tbe wrong but something doesn't sit right.

Icarus is a brilliant documentary and does highlight how easy it is to circumvent the doping procedures.

The biological passports do help but think it's naive to think they eliminate doping, they just make it harder to go undetected. I've had long held beliefs about certain countries and certain athletes (all sports), no basis aside from a hunch but history tends to suggest hunches are often right in these instances.

As for failing a test for cannabis, in a manner of speaking it can be performance enhancing, at the right dose it can reduce both anxiety and muscle tightness.

The ABP's main purpose is limiting the advantage that an athlete cold get by doping, rather than by total elimination of PEDs.
Now, how effective it has been is a matter for debate - certainly anyone who is a cycling fan cannot help but be suspicious of the overwhelming dominance of one team through the Grand Tours this season; obviously no proof that there is any wrong-doing, but history suggests that there's a fairly high likelihood that they have found something to give them an advantage. Might not be doping, but it would be naive to not at least consider the possibility.

In a similar way, track and field athletics has a long history of doping, in particular there are certain untouchable world records in the women's side that date back to the era of Communist Eastern Europe, that we now know undoubtedly involved the use of a huge amount of steroids. And finally, after 30-40 years the top performers are closing in on these records.
Distance running is an interesting one, as there are possible issues with a lack of testing being carried out in some areas, particularly east Africa, where there have been strong rumours over continued heavy use of EPO, but there is also the technological advancement of the new generation of shoes with regenerative springing, which provided a legal performance enhancement (although I would be unsurprised if these shoes go the same way as the 'supersuits' did in swimming about 15 years ago - considered too expensive and potentially giving too much advantage to those that could afford them).