There are more than a few ‘bad apples’ that take advantage. Gray zone = the new method of doping in today’s sports. Doping through medication. As many posts explained, medications such as the ones in asthma inhalers don’t have a performance enhancing benefit as the airways can only open up so much. But when an athlete takes a TUE for oral or injectable steroid and then competes, that is cheating. And WADA has their hands tied.

I really like the idea of public TUEs for pro athletes, but also recognize the medical privacy issues (sort of). The bottom line is that those with a TUE are using a different rulebook than those without. And, in a perfect world, those TUEs would all be for legit medical conditions, represent the minimal intervention required (i.e. use an allowable drug before moving to a prohibited out of competition drug before moving to a prohibited in completion drug) and never used for situations other than prescribed. Now, back to this planet...

What about making the TUEs public, but athlete-anonymous? IOW, each athlete gets a code number and all of his/her TUEs are disclosed under that anonymous code. If TUEs were also identified by date, sport (that might be tricky for sports with few pro athletes), prescribing MD and compound, we would have a better appreciation for the extent and type of TUEs - and their timing and the longitudinal Rx by athlete - and who is prescribing (maybe the MD's need unique but anonymous codes, too). One interesting upshot of this - and maybe a weakness of this idea - is that any particular athlete could say - 'hey, my TUE disclosure number is 123XYZ and anyone can see that I have no TUEs'. That would put pressure/speculation on athletes that *don't* publicly announce their TUE disclosure ID. Fun times for speculation and witch hunting...

If this is 'too much' and the codes might be cracked, etc., what about a list of TUEs for pros by sport by month and Rx? Again, not to accuse any individual athlete or MD of any wrongdoing, but it would be interesting to know, say, what fraction of all cycling pros have a TUE for an asthma med (just one example of relevance to the OP). I actually seem to recall that such aggregate data exists, but can't point Google to it... Or maybe I am thinking of violations and not TUEs...

So, and please be thorough, how exactly will the public knowing about the TUEs awarded and medications taken by pro athletes change anything?

Asthmatics are twice as likely to win a medal....

https://fbresearch.org/...pecial-guest-asthma/

Come on now, no need for passive-aggressive stuff like this.

Not passive-aggressive, just want to make sure his response isn’t just some platitude about fairness or the fans having a right to know. I truly want to know exactly what he thinks will change if the public is aware of TUEs that pros have been granted.

I see it as dickish...not something you would ever say to someone your were looking eye-to-eye, except as a joke.

When I want to have a really in-depth discussion with someone, I try to treat them as a peer. Not cast myself as a schoolteacher admonishing them to have the proper level of detail.

Not a big deal...quips like that are just a pet peeve of mine as a social media argument tactic.

"As for the origins of the mysterious "asthmatic advantage," the leading theory is that prolonged training, particularly in certain endurance sports, can eventually damage the airways. As a result, the athletes with asthma are generally the ones who've been training longest and hardest -- and thus, are more likely to medal. For example, 17 percent of cyclists and 19 percent of swimmers in Beijing reported asthma diagnoses; those athletes won 29 and 33 percent of the medals in those sports, respectively."


Also, about 70% of the medals went to athletes without asthma. The athletes who have asthma and medal aren't necessarily better off by having asthma.

ETA: It's also worth noting that they're comparing the number of individual athletes vs the number of medals won, and with sports like cycling and swimming individual athletes can take home multiple medals so they're being counted multiple times in the medal percentages.

There are ton of examples where a person with half a brain can determine. I already made my examples with Bradley Wiggins taking IM Kenalog prophylactically before his tours. David Miller and Tyler Hamilton made it extremely clear that was for performance enhancing. If he really needed this he would have no reason to be racing outside his home due to the severity of his ‘flare up.’ Does this make sense? Taking their diagnoses to the next level which is manipulating to cheat.

I am not disputing that there are some that use the TUE system to get an unfair advantage. The question is, how will making the particulars about a specific pro having a TUE public make a difference? It smacks of scarlet letter public shaming.

As for dickish, wonder what ‘trail’ thinks of your “a person with half a brain” comment? 😁

I didn’t call anybody dickish. You are definitely the percentage of people with half a brain though. You are not getting the point. Nobody would shame someone for a long standing albuterol inhaler. But if that athlete decides to compete with a newly diagnosed asthma flare up requiring a TUE for an oral or injectable steroid, that athlete has an advantage in competition over a fully healthy clean athlete. Are you trolling? Where is the confusion?? If a NIKE sponsored marathon runner all of a sudden gets diagnosed with low thyroid. It is NOT because they have a low thyroid. They are over training and stressing their body with severe lack of rest. They should rest and eat rather than get a prescription for thyroid medication. It is all about the short sighted performance gains. Not about their long term health or the fact that they are manipulating the medication for athletic performance. I could train my butt off and stress my body for weeks or months, take hot showers, sit in hot tubs, etc. Yeah my labs will look out whack. My testosterone would be low and I could get a doc to prescribe me androgel. Would this not bother a 25 year old athlete getting beat by a 55 year old guy using his testosterone prescription medication (basically the fountain of youth?) That narcissist 55 year old is basically stealing that 25 year old’s ‘moment in time’ to be ‘the man’ winning races. I don’t think testosterone is ever allowed even with a prescription but I’m trying to make a point.

You’re right, you didn’t use the term dickish. ‘trail’ did. I was referring to him.

Still don’t have any argument with your views on cheating,just don’t see how making TUEs public changes anything.

Fair response and I respect it. Sorry for my comment on half a brain. I might be the one with half a brain for all I know.

It’s all good. I’m pretty thick skinned, and thick headed.

He is probably talking about, for example, the fact that 80% ( or some other unrealistically high number) of professional cyclists are "asthmatic". Which is orders of magnitude higher than normal population. Notwithstanding that his argument is poorly structured, it is no secret that no every pro cyclist with an a salbultamol TUE prescription is really asthmatic. Not saying all athletes are cheating the system, but some likely are.

I remember seeing a study that showed that a silly percentage of olympic athletes are considered asthmatics compared to the general population.

Who knew being an asthmatic could give you such performance enhancing benefits!

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Long Chile was a silly place.

funny, i support this guy. yet today, i did a mile race today in 40* dry cold weather and got an asthma attack, needing inhaler. But my time was far from pro :(

I think what Tri2win352 is arguing (and please correct me if I am wrong), is that public TUE's offer the viewing masses an opportunity to support, or not support, the athletes they feel played within the rules. By making the information public, spectators could indirectly affect athletes (not buying brands or watching races) or directly influence them (write to companies insisting they stop supporting athletes that are clearly cheating).

The ethical question is the one I'm stuck on. Do we have the right to look at private medical records of professional athletes? I think we might. If you believe they chose a career as a public figure, their medical records seem well within the bounds of public consumption.

Trexlera brought up a great point about "troll culture." It's true, the downside of this idea seems to be the inevitable ostracizing of an innocent person. However, if we stop [insert large number] cheats in the process, isn't it still functioning as a deterrent?

Not totally sold either way. But I see the argument.

^^ and the elte athletes who "train harder and more than anyone else", we applaud them without even questioning how most athletes would be broken, their immune and endocrine system not coping with such high levels. Unfortunately there are too many medications not even banned, not safe though, but some athletes and some national bodies encourage their use. It's not just Nike marathoners.

From other poster’s information, your inhaler is not to be frowned upon in anyway as there is no performance enhancing benefit you’d receive over other healthy athletes. Bronchial airways can only dilate so much. Funny as well that I was wheezing in the pool today after each of my intervals. I’ve also wheezed during plenty of road races as a runner when I’d race all out in cold temps. I don’t use an inhaler however. Not because I’m trying to be a hero. I never thought I needed one until I started reading up on all of this.

Precisely!

1) cancel culture is evil
2) no, we do not have a right to private medical information, no matter how public that person might be
3) even if we did, knowing it won’t stop the misuse of TUEs. The organizations that can do something about it already know who has a TUE, as they themselves granted them.