HeidiC wrote:
Read again, Dave. I did not say what you did was illegal, I said it had a high probability of being illegal. Cortisone OOC is legal, as long as it is out of your system when you race. Whether or not your particular instance was legal or not would depend on the strength of the injection, how quickly you raced after receiving the injection, how much remained in your system, and the WADA allowable limit in the year you raced. The allowable limit was raised in recent years; I have no idea when. It just seems that with your "rules are rules" attitude, you would have gotten a TUE since it very well could have led to a positive test, especially since you were representing Team USA. And, yes, Lance had a cortisone positive. He was able to explain it away with a post-hoc TUE.
Sorry, Dave, I'm not usually this mean on the internet, but the hypocrisy of it all was overwhelming me. You have repeatedly stated that people need to know and follow the rules, medical conditions are not an excuse for the lack of a TUE, and whether you're racing or participating is inconsequential. You can't have it both ways.
Dave, I am with Heidi and others. If you get shot up with cortisone, it is best that you check if you are in violation of the rules per WADA before an ITU WC. You can't have you cake and eat it too, just like people can't get shot up with T because their T values are low relative to their 25 year old youthful self. They need to compete fair and square with their T levels today. Likewise, if you messed up your back, you can't race get shot up with cortisone at the wrong time and still race because it is illegal. It is not a matter of getting caught or not like holding in football, or traveling in basketball where the foul is done in the full view of the refs and the fans. "Fouls" done in private that no one can see have a different degree of levy for a good reason and carry with them a different degree of outrage. This is also why we give Paula Newby Fraser and Tim DeBoom a pass for drafting at Kona, sitting in the sin bin and winning after that. They pushed the zone, in full view of TV, fans, media and refs, got dinged for drafting and sat out. Different scenario than athletes getting shot up in private be it with cortisone to fix injuries or T to jack up T levels, or DHEA which by some accounts can mask other shady activity.
If you can't make it to the start line while playing inside the WADA imposed box (as silly as it may be), then don't race. There is an entire lifestyle of training and pushing yourself with friends in training, in self organized track/FTP/swim workouts that one can enjoy. No one is stopping Lance from doing some killer workouts or pummeling his friends...he just can't race, he can't do a fun run, he can't enter his local masters swim race. That applies to all of us if we are inside the WADA imposed box. If you are taking something that is outside of what they allow, and doing so knowingly, sorry, but your reasoning of not being in the top 10 does not fly. Remember when Jonathan Vaughters got a bee sting in the Tour de France and the only thing that would bring it down enough so that he could see out his eye was illegal? Well, he had to not race the next stage. Why do you think you think you get off the hook for the same reason Vaughters had to sit out? You're banging on everyone to follow the doping rules and then saying that like Kristi, you're fine rolling the dice on a treatment that can pop you? And I don't buy your "this is a hobby thing". Life it not about whether something makes you money or not, it is about what is important to individuals....you're training 2 hours per day every day, all year....this is way beyond hobby. At 2 hours per day, it has 25% of the importance of most people's professional lives (say 8 hour per day) and well beyond "general health". So please don't pull that card.
Hey Heidi, I learned a long time ago, to never say, "I'm out". This is like the inverse of the old Seinfeld episode where Kramer immediately opted out:
