Latest ridiculous doping incident

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I assume it got at least some national sports press attention, and anyway it sure got a good bit here - maybe because the person involved is from the Denver area.

I refer, of course, to the incident where a cyclist (Jonathon Vaughters, if I remember the name right) in the Tour de France was stung by a wasp just above one eye, and the swelling shut his eye. A single cortisone shot would have likely taken away the swelling, and allowed him to continue the race. But cortisone is on the list of banned substances, so the cyclist in question appealed to the authorities for an exception. No dice. He tried to continue the race the next day anyway, but couldn't see well enough and dropped out.

This is plainly stupid. To be so paranoid about illegal doping as to deny a perfectly legitimate, reasonable, and medically prescribed type of use of a commonly used medical drug defies all bounds of common sense.

If you can can't come up with a sensible set of rules for athletes to follow, then don't be surprised at the scandals which will inevitably surface from time to time. Rules that make a mockery of common sense don't stand much of a chance of being adhered to.

-- Swampfox (wmikell@earthlink.net), July 30, 2001

Answers

I thought he took the shot of that stuff and by so doing he was unable to continue... which leads to the question of how long you should have to wait after taking a banned substance before you can compete again. It certainly can't be made an unreasonable amount of time, I think. Would the intent of the athlete taking the substance be a consideration?

-- Mook (everett@psi.edu), July 30, 2001.


No, he didn't take the shot beforehand. He asked for permission first, and was denied.

-- Swampfox (wmikell@earthlink.net), July 30, 2001.

Vaughters made it about 10 miles into the stage before having to quit. I suppose the rationale is that if you let people take cortisone for perfectly legitimate conditions like this, then they'd go ahead and dose up on steroids, then go out and get stung (or fake it), get a cortisone shot, then when they fail the drug test, they'd just say, "Oh, it was just the beesting remedy, I'm clean". I'm sure that's the thinking of the officials. But it doesn't satisfy me.

-- J-J (jjcote@juno.com), July 31, 2001.

And on that subject, let's not forget that although amphetamines are a banned substance, with some legitimate reasoning behind that designation, so is the related pseudroephedrine hydrochloride. So suppose you run the Classic in the rain, get a sniffle, and take two Sudafed on the rest day. Then when you are successful in the relay and state to the drug testing people that you took two Sudafed the day before, you still get busted and your team gets stripped of medals. Torunn Fossli (NOR), 1993. Everybody else on the planet can take Sudafed. Just not people trying to compete against the best.

-- J-J (jjcote@juno.com), July 31, 2001.

The IOC's list of banned substances is actually not very useful for someone trying to avoid them, but honestly I think most people are unlikely to ingest the banned substances at illegally high levels. If you do take some prescription medicine you can probably go the extra distance to find out about it.

If you want to be very safe you really have to be up on the pharmaceutical industry and its use of many names for the same thing. You have to know what substances are "related" to those on the list. Many medicines and foods won't list their contents fully or will use alternative names for things on the list. The best bet is to avoid consuming anything that comes in a pill (or certainly injections). There are probably acceptable items like vitamin C, aspirin, and vaccines. You can probably eat a few poppyseeds and Mountain Dew every week or two. You can safely live at high altitude or even sleep in a hypoxic tent (because many people do and get away with it).

On a related note I strongly suspect that many of the people who have been accused of doping and have denied it were in fact poisoned against their knowledge by fans, competitors, or their coaches. They may have accidentally ingested something that was contaminated. Sporting authorities may tamper with the tests. There can be money and national prestige on the line so I wouldn't be too quick to brand someone who tests positive as a "cheat".

-- Mook (everett@psi.edu), July 31, 2001.



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