Armstronglivs wrote:
It is you who doesn't understand what "potential" means in the context in which WADA uses it. It bans substances that are quite often medicines that don't come with a label that says it is a "performance enhancing drug". But the expert advice WADA receives is that the drug is is being used to have that effect - or it wouldn't be put on the banned list. It doesn't routinely ban medicines. By using the term "potential" WADA therefore doesn't have to prove an athlete actually gained from using the drug, and it also removes a possible defence that the drug is arguably not performance enhancing, because it is mostly used as a medicine. It is obvious that even in a discussion about one particular word you don't know what you're talking about.
You go on further about the risk to health from these drugs, postulating that medically unsupervised use poses a health risk. But you don't know how much of a risk and also how much drug use is without medical assistance. But what we do know is that we aren't seeing reported illness as an inevitable consequence of doping - or virtually all of those who have been caught would show this. You, in fact, can name none of those I listed, or any others, who have health issues from doping.
Then we come to your fatuous observation that no one has proved the athletes who doped gained from their doping. As I said, WADA doesn't need to do that because it knows enough about what the drugs can do to ban those drugs. They aren't merely guessing. The athletes also know what the drugs can do, which is why they use them - and so many of them do. If only one or two athletes here or there doped it could be argued there is no real evidence that drugs enhance performance. But when thousands of athletes have doped for decades in a global enterprise that is big business it can be safely surmised it flourishes because it produces results, and not because athletes, coaches and trainers are gullible fools (although apparently not in respect of training methods and equipment).
Waffle, waffle, and more waffle. Can I get some with strawberries and whipped cream?
You understate the power of the weasel word "potential" in its ability to reduce or eliminate any burden for both anti-doping scientists and anti-doping lawyers. Because it removes any burden of proof, any net performance enhancing benefits remain largely unproven -- the stuff myths are made of. It is the uncertainty, coupled with hope and promises, which enables the "global enterprise".
You also overstate what WADA knows about how well these banned substances "work" for athletes, if at all, in real world elite performances, in distance running events. They may be experts in their respective domains, but they are not elite performance experts. This means they are merely guessing, lacking both relevant performance expertise and relevant observations.
You ignore that I already gave you the example WWE (a sport you obliviotly chose), where a "recent 2014 study found wrestlers were 122x more likely to die of drug overdoses, 15x more likely to die from cardiovascular issues, and 6x more likely to die of cancer", as well as the increased heart and kidney issues in bodybuilders.
And you ignore that the list of athletes you gave were subject to anti-doping controls, which reduces the health risks. WWE is what happens when there are no doping controls, and bodybuilding is what happens when there are doping controls which are not effectively enforced.
But otherwise, good story.