there's been much speculation lately about whether various athletes (OK, mainly nina) "would've won anyway" even if they hadn't used performance enhancing drugs.
just curious to see if i'm the only one here who reads Outside magazine. last year they ran a story on PED's, in which a journalist who was also a decent weekend endurance (cycling, xc skiing) athlete voluntarily took a whole buffet of drugs (HGH, EPO, testostarone, anabolics) under medical supervision. most of these drugs are legal but must be precribed - it just takes a dodgy enough doctor, and a competition at which you won't be tested. he wanted to see exactly what these drugs do for an athlete in training.
this man's improvements were HUGE. drugs didn't give him that "extra 1/100th of a second" - they shifted him to a totally different gear. he was putting in absolutely wild training volume - many times his normal - on hot days, etc etc., and recovering like he never had before. racing felt easy. he put on muscle, improved strength and improved endurance. old scars healed. his eyesight improved to the point where he stopped wearing driving glasses. drugs made him a new man altogether.
make no mistake: this is not intended to denigrate nina's performances - she is/was one hell of an athlete and she worked very hard. but taking drugs offers huge, huge performance gains.
for what it's worth, the journalist concluded that he'd never touch EPO or anabolics again - he felt way too 'out of control' on them. he described himself as being possessed of a power he couldn't totally harness. on the other hand, he quite liked the HGH and could imagine continuing low doses, and foresaw taking some testosterone later in his life.
very interesting stuff.
____________________________________
https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan
http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/
just curious to see if i'm the only one here who reads Outside magazine. last year they ran a story on PED's, in which a journalist who was also a decent weekend endurance (cycling, xc skiing) athlete voluntarily took a whole buffet of drugs (HGH, EPO, testostarone, anabolics) under medical supervision. most of these drugs are legal but must be precribed - it just takes a dodgy enough doctor, and a competition at which you won't be tested. he wanted to see exactly what these drugs do for an athlete in training.
this man's improvements were HUGE. drugs didn't give him that "extra 1/100th of a second" - they shifted him to a totally different gear. he was putting in absolutely wild training volume - many times his normal - on hot days, etc etc., and recovering like he never had before. racing felt easy. he put on muscle, improved strength and improved endurance. old scars healed. his eyesight improved to the point where he stopped wearing driving glasses. drugs made him a new man altogether.
make no mistake: this is not intended to denigrate nina's performances - she is/was one hell of an athlete and she worked very hard. but taking drugs offers huge, huge performance gains.
for what it's worth, the journalist concluded that he'd never touch EPO or anabolics again - he felt way too 'out of control' on them. he described himself as being possessed of a power he couldn't totally harness. on the other hand, he quite liked the HGH and could imagine continuing low doses, and foresaw taking some testosterone later in his life.
very interesting stuff.
____________________________________
https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan
http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/