"Iron Lady" ?doping in swimming

flashback to the German ladies of the 1970’s

Hosszu Katinka sure is having amazing results and a male looking muscular body looks like <10% BF, unusual for a female swimmer

well, maybe its really just a lot of hard work in the gym, but as the article says, where there is smoke, there may be…

http://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/...rmances-being-aided/

http://www.yourswimlog.com/...tinka-hosszu-jacked/

please discuss

flashback to the German ladies of the 1970’s
Hosszu Katinka sure is having amazing results and a male looking muscular body looks like <10% BF, unusual for a female swimmer.
well, maybe its really just a lot of hard work in the gym, but as the article says, where there is smoke, there may be…

http://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/...rmances-being-aided/

http://www.yourswimlog.com/...tinka-hosszu-jacked/

please discuss

Well, she certainly does look extremely lean espec in her abs in those yourswimlog.com pictures, which is highly unusual for a female swimmer. And the Swimming World mag article points out that Hosszu herself said after the 2012 oly games that she thought the Chinese girl had doped since she went so fast on the last 100 of the 400 IM, so one could certainly see how she could feel it was time to “even the game up”. The only thing in the story that does not fit is that she does sometimes seem human, as in her 9th place finish in the 400 free after winning the 200 free at last year’s WCs. So, occasionally she does seem human, but of course maybe her coaches planned that purposefully. Hungary is a former Soviet satellite, and the Russians have admitted recent doping. I hate to think about with Katinka though b/c she has always seemed such a “wholesome” sort of girl:)

say like dara torres at age 40 with corrugated iron abs
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knowing the current political environment in Hungary, I would not be suprprised (if she is doping), that her performance enhancement is sponsored by the highest level of government
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say like dara torres at age 40 with corrugated iron abs

which at age 24, when there is little physiological reason for the ovaries to stop making female hormones to round out the body with nice fat pads (which at age 40 is plausible) makes it even more suspect that Katinka’s extreme lean-ness is not quite natural…

her body resembles more that of a long course male triathlete, than a short course female swimmer…

knowing the current political environment in Hungary, I would not be surprised (if she is doping), that her performance enhancement was sponsored by the highest level of government

Ya, agree 100%. If she is indeed doping, then the Hungary gov is in on it.

say like dara torres at age 40 with corrugated iron abs

which at age 24, when there is little physiological reason for the ovaries to stop making female hormones to round out the body with nice fat pads (which at age 40 is plausible) makes it even more suspect that Katinka’s extreme lean-ness is not quite natural…

her body resembles more that of a long course male triathlete, than a short course female swimmer…

can we assume the multitudes of females competitively participating in crossfit are also doping? Because they look similar. I think as society we are failing to accept in cases that the game has stepped up… cross training, proper eating, rest is required amongst all athletes. You cant get away with just sport specific training anymore. Doping control is better than ever, but there are a few grains of salt.

I wouldn’t look to her physique as evidence that she might be doping. She is very lean and fit, but, not unheard of even amongst some amateurs. I see girls that ripped at my local gym. I know a few girls currently gung-ho on the crossfit train who look like that. I wouldn’t think it’s unheard of for a world class athlete to have that type of physique.

It’s a hard comparison to make to the eastern ladies of the 70’s, who were freakish not in how lean they were, but in their frame size, mass and the fact that, you know, they looked amazingly like large, muscular men…

Her times are crazy fast, but is anyone here pointing a skeptics eye at Franklin or Ledecky?

Her build is certainly achievable naturally (if you picked your parents well, which I’ll assume she did), there are a decent number of amateur females who attend crossfit etc and look like this without anything fishy going on.

The question of whether somebody would end up looking like this through primarily swimming, with gym work only being done to support aforementioned swimming, is a somewhat different matter.

Maybe she is somebody who’s swimming performance responds well to extra gym work, hence the muscularity?
Maybe she is clean and doesn’t do an abnormal amount of lifting for a swimmer, and that’s just how she looks anyway?
Maybe she is juiced after all?

I don’t necessarily believe in the practice of assuming somebody is juiced because they are performing well (even if it’s really well).
We are examining people who are genetically at the edge of the bell curve and really “live” their sport. Of course they are going to achieve a physique that many would find to be unattainable without “help”.
We demand better and better performances from these athletes, but vilify them if they give us too much.

Unless evidence other than her speed comes to light that she is dishonest then I will assume she’s clean. That’s not to say that I am naive to the possibility of her doping, I just don’t think it is a productive way to treat our athletes.

It is common knowledge that the only sport with a rampant doping problem is cycling. Swimming, triathlon, and most Olympic sports where steroids would make a huge difference are pretty much clean. They have testing, and we all know that the testing is not easy to beat. It is not like an athlete can dope but still over years and years pass hundreds of tests. Testing is so comprehensive and so sensitive that it is nearly foolproof.

Everyone needs to relax and stop being so skeptical.

I’m awarding you 100 internet points. A perfect score.

It is common knowledge that the only sport with a rampant doping problem is cycling. Swimming, triathlon, and most Olympic sports where steroids would make a huge difference are pretty much clean. They have testing, and we all know that the testing is not easy to beat. It is not like an athlete can dope but still over years and years pass hundreds of tests. Testing is so comprehensive and so sensitive that it is nearly foolproof.

Everyone needs to relax and stop being so skeptical.

not quite perfect - cycling has also been clean since 2009
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Listen, I get it. I’ve observed sports for a good long time. My brain works the same as yours and the authors. I’ve seen it all go down.

BUT, we are participating in endeavours driven and defined by performance. We therefore should require of ourselves and others something beyond performance before casting aspersions.

I say this as fan, as a coach, and as an athlete who has been accused of cheating based solely on my performance.

That is all.

flashback to the German ladies of the 1970’s

Hosszu Katinka sure is having amazing results and a male looking muscular body looks like <10% BF, unusual for a female swimmer

well, maybe its really just a lot of hard work in the gym, but as the article says, where there is smoke, there may be…

http://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/...rmances-being-aided/

http://www.yourswimlog.com/...tinka-hosszu-jacked/

please discuss

Pretty lame op-ed piece for my time spent. The media loves stirring up stuff…when they don’t have any stories or controversy they go negative I get that.

I’m just not going to condemn her for having a ripped body and getting better as a swimmer, a body I have seen more than a few female collegiate amateur swimmers by the way, until she shows she is guilty of doing something other than kicking the shit out of her competition.

I think it’s her ability to recover so quickly after a race that’s raising eyebrows.

say like dara torres at age 40 with corrugated iron abs

Yup! This.

There are lots more American athletes who who were more deserving of an article about their possible doping than this swimmer, and, quite frankly, there probably isn’t another country in the world that has such a comprehensively bad relationship with performance enhancing drugs. Here in the US, we’ve got doped cyclists, runners, swimmers, and hilariously drugged up basketball players and football players. It’s almost certainly not government sponsored like some other national sports federations, but I’d suggest that only the most oblivious observers and some Americans think Torres was clean.

If it’s a sport where there’s a possibility of financial gain, and people are performing fundamentally differently than what anyone has done before, while their preparation isn’t substantially different, they’re probably cheating.

Nobody really believes Carmalita Jeter was clean either, do they?

I have no opinion as to whether she is or isn’t doping, but one thing to remember is that she is did really well at a mid season World Cup meet. For most folks at that level, it is a training meet, she has consistently done lots of events at her meets, at some wc’s she wins lots, at others she gets beaten. The other thing is that not all of the best are usually at the world cups, it isn’t like winning 6 or 8 events at the Olympics or world championships.

Before completely throwing her under the bus, based on nothing but her physique (lean, but not dramatically different from other elite female swimmers) and performances, it is worthwhile to remember that other swimmers have had similar levels of performance with no accusations of doping.

It is common knowledge that the only sport with a rampant doping problem is cycling. Swimming, triathlon, and most Olympic sports where steroids would make a huge difference are pretty much clean. They have testing, and we all know that the testing is not easy to beat. It is not like an athlete can dope but still over years and years pass hundreds of tests. Testing is so comprehensive and so sensitive that it is nearly foolproof.

Everyone needs to relax and stop being so skeptical.

lol +1

Doping ? Perhaps but , while super lean, she is lacking the bulk/mass and facial changes often associated with doping in women.

One thing for sure: She has a hot body.

OMG I want her abs
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