Not that surprising. There are is a range of valid criticisms of USADA/Tygart.

One of them is not that USADA is corrupt or that Tygart isn't an anti-doping crusader.

WADA absolutely got caught with their pants down in not following the required practice of having publicly published the violation. It should absolutely never have been covered up even if it had been deemed no-fault contamination (which is a whole other very questionable determination).

Well, its China. And you don't argue with China.

point of order mr speaker

CHINADA decided not to proceed with anti-doping rule violation charges against the 23 athletes that were concerned. And as a result of that, there was no basis at that time for them, and still less for WADA, to make any sort of publication about these cases. If WADA had chosen to have done that, it would have been a breach of the code and a breach of the privacy standards.

Im sure you have been over to swimswam, some indefatigable contributors to the comments going there. Check out Slow Breastroker. They have been punching well above the output suggested by their user name.

What a difficult and perhaps flawed system this all is - overlaid with strong and sometimes uninformed opinions from athletes and fans. Unlike the usual system of law in Western countries which is predicated on open justice and open courts, these disciplinary / regulatory arrangements are private and seemingly difficult to understand from an outsider's point of view.

Is that the same as there is no transparency, well I think what is more important is consistency and trust that a reasoned and evidence and fact based decision will be reached.

Tygart is absolutely kicking off over this - but a real bull in the china shop (ha ha ha). Cases of non reported contamination must not be unusual. WADA referenced a 2014 case involving 10 US athletes.

The general counsel of WADA said this at the presser (full press conference - GitHub - BriarWillow/WillowBriar_
:

WADA has never, at least since I've been involved with WADA's litigation since 2010, appealed a case of no anti-doping rule violation in order to obtain a finding of no fault violation; that has never happened. I also want to stress that this case is not without precedent. There are other examples, often involving contamination of groups of athletes, food or environmental contamination. There are multiple examples in the past involving WADA, where an ADO (Anti-Doping Organization) has decided not to bring forward the case as a result of the violation of the law, and WADA, whether or not it would have agreed technically with that approach under the code, has decided not to appeal in order to obtain a finding of no fault.
To give one example — and obviously, I won't give names or nationalities — there was a case involving a significant group, more than 10 athletes, that occurred on US soil in 2014. After investigation, the case was described by the results management authority, and also WADA accepted this, as meat contamination. That case did not give rise to a provisional suspension of any kind on any of the athletes, and also, it was not proceeded with as an anti-doping violation.

Don't be too swayed by USADA as the anti-corruption good guy. They're still 50% funded by the same organization that makes money by producing entertaining competition, which is absolutely enhanced by athletes being... enhanced.

***climbs up on soapbox***

While other nations have systematic doping SOP's in place, the USA effectively has willful negligence as it's primary system of allowing moderated efforts at doping to fly under the radar. Sometimes blatantly willful. In my short 4 years of athletics in the international testing pool, I saw four violations that went unrecorded. The blind eye was very blind (because it was closed!)

1. My wife was supposed to assist in doping control at a national meet. She was asked to pick at random the next athlete to test. She chose the one she thought looked the most doped. She was told, "no, we're not testing her today." That athlete won her weight class by the largest margin at the meet.
   
   
2. My wife went home from the OTC because she was quitting bobsled. She came back to try pilot school, many months later. The doping control officer said they had been looking for her for months. She had missed several tests because she had completely ceased reporting her whereabouts, because she intended to quit the sport. They took her urine sample and never recorded that she'd missed a handful of drug tests. Was their decision ethically/morally right... yeah probably. Are they completely lucky that my wife wasn't a doper? Also yes.
   
   
3. I was located by a doping control officer and her male assistant at my place of work, in the off-season. Her assistant turned out to be a person I'd played computer games with extensively and knew vicariously through a close mutual friend. He was the one who watched me provide my urine sample. I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to be friends with the person you're testing and you're supposed to declare that you know the person if it turns out that you do. I think there might even be something you sign stating that you have no relationship with the person. I believe he signed the form and then I did because I didn't want to waste anyone's time (including my own).
   
   
4. When I left the bobsled team to go train for a year or two back home, they took me out of the International Registered Testing Pool (ITP / RTP). I no longer had to report whereabouts because I was no longer on the national team. I came back the next year and competed on an international circuit without returning to the testing pool and could have been doped to the gills. The process was supposed to be "the only way you get off the RTP is retire. If you un-retire, you have to pass whereabouts reporting and drug tests for at least 6 months before re-entry in to the sport." Yeah, that didn't happen. All I did was not show up for the national team qualifiers. I had every intention of returning to the sport and the national team after some physical preparation and made that very clear to the sport admin. And they still took me out of the testing pool. How convenient!

I think I had a whopping total of 2-3 other drug tests that actually went to protocol in those 4 years. I think that's roughly a 35% success rate for "following the protocol that are supposed to ensure clean sport."

The patterns of taking years "off" in certain sports, by some athletes, smells a lot like conveniently dropping out of the testing pool and coming back after a year or two of doped training.

Either there is negligent oversight, or it's corrupt top-down. I'll choose to believe negligence. But it does leave gaping holes for dopers to exploit the system. </soapbox>

---

Dr. Alex Harrison | Founder & CEO | Sport Physiology & Performance PhD
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
📱 Check out our app → Saturday: Pro Fuel & Hydration, a performance nutrition coach in your pocket.
Join us on YouTube → Saturday Morning | Ride & Run Faster and our growing Saturday User Hub

I almost posted something about this earlier this week but I got busy and forgot about it.

What I was going to post…. Does this change anyone’s thoughts that there isn’t cover ups in triathlon? I for one believe that there is.

---

blog

Agree completely that the system is completely full of holes and athletes know exactly where and how to take advantage. If 75% of the athletes are on PED's, I wouldn't be surprised. I am certain at least that many are on stuff in NFL, MLB, NBA, soccer, NHL, track, and swimming. As ugly as cycling's history has been, it may actually be the cleanest of the sports at the moment.

Which is why is am surprised USADA is going so hard after WADA. There must be another angle that they would be benefitting from all this rather than them being the white knight in all this.

I am sure there is especially IM being the police in their own events. Conflict of interest much?

IM's not their own police -- remember, they use a third party admin (https://ita.sport/) for stuff. It's how the Chartier announcement came.

General reminder for doping threads -- no accusing athletes without first-hand information of illicit behavior -or- a published sanction.

Now back to writing about the upcoming Olympics after being in Paris all week...

---

----------------------------------
Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

If you're going to bring points of order, better bring The Code!

Quote:

If WADA had chosen to have done that, it would have been a breach of the code and a breach of the privacy standards.

Not at all. While they maybe had a legal pathway to not publicly release, it is absolutely not a breach of The Code to choose public release.



Also, athletes can be provisionally suspended during an investigation, and that also involves going public.



Provisional suspensions must be public. You can't secretly suspend someone.

Tygart is arguing both of these should have happened.

It's what USADA does. Here's a very recent example. If nearly two dozen athletes got contaminated with a powerful drug from a hotel kitchen, that's good information to get out there to protect other athletes. I like the call for reform in that USADA release. Sunlight is better to reform rules related to contamination. Secrecy is not a great way to handle mass contamination events - to change the testing rules to not have positives on trace substances or else to instruct athletes how to avoid contamination.

It's also good for the whole thing to be above board in this case.

Edit: Maybe your argument is this was all CHINADA's discretion, and WADA had no authority to question CHINADA's decisions? I admit I don't know the conditions under which a WADA can review or override the decisions of a national results management body.

But it's not a good look that WADA did minimal-to-no review of any of it. Just stamped it and moved on.

Edit: I'm also mildly suspicious of Aldrich Bailey's "ostarine on the leg sleeve." But at least I'm allowed to be mildly suspicious and question it. Unlike with the 23 swimmers.

that is not how i understand the code working. whenever a WADA-accredited lab unearths an adverse finding it must by the code inform 3 entities: the testing authority (whomever ordered and paid for the test); the IF (FINA in this case); an WADA. if there are inconsistencies, as there likely were WADA has the power to: 1) investigate; and 2) decertify an anti-doping authority. what i don't understand - but i haven't followed this - is why the angst is all about WADA while FINA gets off scott free.

---

Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Moved on and appointed a Chinese woman as the VP of WADA. That $2M coming from China seems to have been put to work quite effectively.

there's history here. in 2004, after a long-brewing feud, and a pair of cases brought against IM that the ITU (now world triathlon) lost at CAS the charasmatic, talented, and also vengeful late Les McDonald (then head of the ITU) engineered a vote in the ITU's annual congress that kicked IM out from under the federation umbrella (also getting the boot were Life Time's events, Powerman, XTERRA as i recall). all those race orgs were very quietly embraced back into federation governance 2 years later but during that interregnum IM had to scramble to find a solution for anti-doping at its races, officiating and so on. this is why IM today has an anti-doping staff as well as a staff of officials run by jim riccitello. IM was granted the designation of "IF equivalent" by WADA back in 2005.

anti-doping and officiating at IM do good work. they are accretive to, not instead of, USAT's officials and USADA. IM works fist-in-glove with USADA, contracting out much of the anti-doping mechanics. not all countries are reliable at anti-doping, as we see here with china. but IM is worldwide and so are its athletes. so, IM might contract out to a private entity to manage doping control officers in a country, to bypass corrupt officials. IM can't do any of this if it doesn't manage its own house.

there is one and only one area where IM could reasonably be accused of a conflict and that is in results management. IM could contract that out to USADA as well. background: you can pay USADA just to run all the tests, that is, to arrange DCOs to be at events or to show up at athletes' houses; to get the results to labs; to inform organizations of results and so on. results management refers to what you do with the results. this is the issue with the china thing. what china's NADO did (apparently) was sit on / ignore / explain away the results. this is because the chinese NADO was - like the jamaican NADO several years back - devoted to the performance of their country's athletes, not the fidelity of the athletes. because IM handles its own results management it could, theoretically, make a business decision about an adverse finding. but a lot of people would be in on that secret and there's a terrible business risk to that.

as to tygart, he's absolutely incorruptible. at this point in his life he's willing to publicly challenge WADA. he wasn't always willing to do that.

---

Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Point of order -- IM doesn't internally own results management anymore. That's the purview of ITA.

Quote directly from the Chartier sanctioning release:

---

----------------------------------
Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

But they are in effect their own police aren’t they? Is their budget sufficient for proper testing? The only deterrent is to have a comprehensive out of competition testing programme and it appears to only come from NGBs and National Olympic authorities.

Nearly everyone moving from ITU to Long Course jokes about the lack of testing once removed from the NGBs testing pool. Chrissie Wellington, Jodie Swallow, Leanda Cave all complained about it and that is just the British women from years ago.

One fairly high ranking pro recently commented on a SM post that they have only been tested a handful of times.

Wasn’t that out of competition test as a result of an athlete integrity report by someone to a NGB?

Or I think 3) appeal. I'm reasonably sure that WADA could have appealed 1) the decision to not publicly disclose an adverse analytical finding, 2) the decision to not provisionally suspend. And also 3) the decision to regarding the rapid no-fault finding. Not necessarily asking to immediately overturn the no-fault finding, just asking for deeper review from outside CHINADA.

Quote:

what i don't understand - but i haven't followed this - is why the angst is all about WADA while FINA gets off scott free.

It's complicated. I think FINA has its own anti-doping program through the ITA - like IM does. But I believe this particular event was not that. It was "Olympic" testing under the WADA umbrella, and very possibly FINA was never in the chain of decision making or notification. FINA - her rheisler and IM - may not even be involved in results management for its own ITA testing.

If those things are true - it's probably good. There's ample evidence from the 80's, 90's that sports governing bodies cannot be trusted to drop hammers on their own star athletes. When their star athletes are key to the sponsorship and other deals that fund governing bodies.

I can't recall circumstance.

The broader point is that IM does not internally handle results management.

With regard to the IM testing pool -- Their RTP (which you can find published on their Anti-Doping page on the website) calls out that they specifically look at who is in their respective NADA's programs to make sure they get as many people under their umbrella as possible. It's certainly broader, and more comprehensive, than it used to be when IM was relying on working with the existing NADA framework. Using ITA is an improvement.

Is it perfect? Of course not. But it's progress.

---

----------------------------------
Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

good then. i haven't updated my reporting in recent years on doping. i just found out that kate mittelstadt isn't heading up IM's program any longer (for the past year or 2). maybe her leaving is and IM's move to ITU for results mgmt happened concurrently. i'll investigate. in any case, seems to me this closes the door on IM's exposure to a conflict of interest.

---

Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

it would be news to me that the IF is not notified of an AAF. there are (or were) certain bedrock elements to the code and notification is central to that. i'll ask around on that.

---

Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Help us out here. Give us your (very rough) definition of "proper testing" you think Ironman should adopt, perhaps in a combo of quantity (how many M and W) and quality (PTO Rankings - can't think of an IM equivalent; guess might morph to IM Series standings or last year's IMWC and 70.3WC results).

A lot of the athletes on the ProTriNews RTP list are shown as in the IRONMAN pool/list (as opposed to a national ADO pool). And there are fair few more athletes in that pool who are not T100 contracted or wildcards and thus not named.

Who is paying ITA's bills and salaries? I can't find it online. I know who pays WADA which is why they are a dumpster fire.

Here's my shot:

Athletes sign contract with Ironman.
They lose all federation arbitration/trial rights. Arbitration is exclusively with Ironman.

Ironman requires full transparency of testing, results, TUEs, etc.

Athletes agree to sacrifice privacy and some degree of due process in order to ensure wealthy connected athletes can't escape the system.

What anti-doping funding mechanism is free of any potential issue?

I have a hardish time thinking of one. Governments, "public" governing bodies, private leagues, corporate sponsors. All potential conflicts. A few organizations have tried an "anti doping surcharge" for recreational athletes. I think that makes sense, though is unpopular with some. But I'm not sure how that'd work for elite athletes...once again it'd like be the governing body paying the surcharge for the athletes...with the surcharge going....through the governing body. On paper it's a separate line of accounting. But it's still money going through the governing body.

At some point you just have to trust the process and the people. Or not. The ITA's business model arguably rests on credibility. I haven't heard any suggestion that they've undermined that.

Is Olympic year, and topping the Olympic medal table is a political ideology in some countries.

China is the new Russia. Which is the old East Germany. The only thing that surprises me, is that some people are surprised.

That’s a great point, regarding World Aquatics not being the subject of any where near as much criticism as WADA. I understand that in this case they were notified too.

I am not at a computer today so unable to write a proper response to trails great reply which certainly deserves one, but my understanding is that technically speaking (1) as it was a contamination CHINADA did not regard it as an anti doping violation and (2) WADA have a policy at least for the last decade or so, to not take matters further to CAS to query cases like that which may in the end only obtain a no fault anti doping violation.

So in this case Chinada is the relevant anti doping organisation (ADO) - trail , that is my understanding

I understand that here WADA did their own investigation of the material forwarded to them and in a kind of negatively expressed conclusion did not find anything that could lead them to reject the CHINADA explanation. The independent review going on will be interesting.

obviously there are two issues here - what the current rules say and whether these were followed, and what the current rules should say. In cases of contamination (and potentially this example is not the most clear example or one that universally fills people will confidence) I wonder whether it is right for there to be reforms and public disclosure. It’s hugely damaging to the reputations of all involved.

If you haven’t had the chance I learnt a lot from reading the WADA press release

The case for reform and public disclosure:

1) If athletes consuming TMZ is a risk for them testing positive, athletes deserve to understand that risk so they can seek to avoid it. For example, consumption of some meats has been identified as a possible way to test positive for some substances, such as metabolites of trenbolone - a cattle steroid. How did TMZ get into food (or whatever the method was)? CHINADA appeared to do a very minimal - if any - investigation into that.

2) USADA, at least, seems to be tired of dinging American athletes for likely consumption of contaminated meat. The most embarrassing being dragging a 90 year-old man through the whole process. If the WADA Code needs tweaking to better handle cases of contamination, it may help to bring the issue into the sunlight.

Lastly, even if CHINADA appears provided a plausible explanation, 23 swimmers testing positive is worth some side-eye. Particularly since Chinese Olympic swimming is not new to TMZ (Sun Yang).

I do recognize the Occam's Razor that if CHINADA were truly and fully corrupt, there would have been no notification whatsoever to WADA. No positives. The RUSADA method.

If you're talking about the UFC Partnership, that partnership is over. Ended in October when McGregor re-entered the testing pool, it was gonna get killed off by Christmas I'm sure as the UFC wanted to move to a more NFL like sanction model (be a lot softer) and USADA didn't want to be a part of that. They now contract out to Drug Free Sport International.

---

Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

the lab automatically contacts WADA. it would have to be a totally corrupt WADA lab.

---

Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Nah. The USOPC which has an ARR of half a billion dollars mostly from media deals provides roughly 50% of USADA's $30-40M annual operating budget.

---

Dr. Alex Harrison | Founder & CEO | Sport Physiology & Performance PhD
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
📱 Check out our app → Saturday: Pro Fuel & Hydration, a performance nutrition coach in your pocket.
Join us on YouTube → Saturday Morning | Ride & Run Faster and our growing Saturday User Hub

Point of order: what was said is not what you said.

---

----------------------------------
"Go yell at an M&M"

I wonder if the same is true at slowtwitch: there are commentators at swimswam who are NOT punching above their output.

I mean, sure, there’s a lot of stooges like me (I’m zthomas over there if you ever see the name) but there are also gold medalists and us Olympic team coaches who post.

Do you know who slow breaststroker is? I’ve
tried to keep a tab on this stuff for my amusement.

Fun fact for me: my son has won a swammy (swimmer of the year award given by swimswam.). He tells me I care about it more than him, which is hard to argue.

Confused about your nah....you meant the organization that makes money by producing entertaining competition wasn't a reference to UFC, but OSOPC? I believe TheStroBro's account of the USADA-UFC relationship is accurate.

All elite - and amateur - sport is about producing entertaining competition so I could understand the confusion.

Jesse - I looked your son up on Swimswam and his times are very impressive. I mean, 4:17.8 for 400 LCM at age 12 is just ridiculous. I've included a link to his page for STers unfamiliar with Swimswam.
https://swimswam.com/2023-swammy-awards-age-group-swimmer-of-the-year-11-12/

---

"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Ok, incredibly confused by you here. Without USOPC funding and other NGB funding, USADA doesn't exist and there is no anti-doping agency at all.

---

Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Happy to stand corrected. I was directly referencing the WADA statement.

Is your point of correction that those 10 athletes are not US athletes but just athletes that tested positive (on a contamination ) , as you have some further information, or just that they may not necessarily be US athletes as it just refers to US soil?

The more pedantic and technical the correction the better ; that is just the kind of person I am lol

The official statement you quoted only said that ten athletes were tested on US soil and had AAFs. You said they were US athletes, which may be true but does not necessarily follow from the quoted statement. That's all (that, and poking you about "point of order" :-).

---

----------------------------------
"Go yell at an M&M"

Your logic is impeccable :)

The purpose of anti doping agencies is to give the impression of something being done, whilst doping continues to be prevalent. Unusual cases, such as the Balco affair, where an aggrieved party gave USADA a sample of "the clean", do lead to some anti doping success. If you think I am cynical, bear in mind that during the Bradley Wiggins "jiffy bag" parliamentary enquiry, Nicole Sapstead, head of UKADA, testified under oath that sophisticated drug cheats are one step ahead of the testers.

Top level sport is now about the show and not the integrity. There is too much money involved, and a line has been crossed from idealistic sporting values to mass entertainment. Netflix and Amazon in particular have been accelerating this process.

I grew up believing in the beauty of honest competition, and am disheartened to see how corrupt sport has become. I am also saddened to see that spectators seem to be generally unaware or uncaring about what is going on.

This China cover up story is irrelevant.

It has always been the case, and long before anyone had heard of Netflix.

And, perhaps, spectators have enough going on in their own lives to be overly concerned, and simply want to be entertained?

The jurisdictional arguments around which organization knew what when are very confusing to me. I don't really understand if it's WADA's responsibility to take action regardless of what CHINADA or USADA do? Also, I believe the international organizations (example: FINA) are empowered to take their own action as well, is that true?

Setting the above aside:
1. I believe it's extremely unlikely that 23 elite athletes just happened to all have been contaminated by the powerful performance enhancer TMZ just before testing. I personally don't buy it.
2. Regardless, other similar cases involving TMZ have resulted in suspension even after inadvertant contamination had been proven. Example: Madisyn Cox.
3. This might be an obvious "mild take", but I believe that the only sports that take doping at least somewhat seriously (swimming, cycling and track) are the only ones with doping positives. These sports are far (FAR) from perfect in doping control but at least they've done something. As a result, ironically these sports are seen as "dirty" by the general public. Meanwhile, I believe the big money sports like soccer (football), football (American football), basketball, hockey, tennis etc couldn't care less about doping, don't really test and are very willing to cover up any potential issue. There's too much money involved and there's no benefit to a "tough on doping" policy in these sports.I believe these sports are RIFE with doping.

I didn't mean that the UFC partnership statement was or was not true. And I didn't mean that the USOPC should or should not continue to fund USADA.

By "Nah" I meant: "Nah, I wasn't talking about that UFC partnership."

By the rest of it, I meant: the USOPC is a media-funded corp which funds anti-doping efforts. ← That is what I was referring to when I said "They're still 50% funded by the same org that makes money by producing entertaining competition, which is absolutely enhanced by athletes being... enhanced."

Overall, I was just clarifying that, no, I wasn't talking about UFC, but rather USOPC funding. Sorry for the confusion!

BTW, I make no claim as to how that should change or remain. Just stating facts, neutrally. I'm just calling out where incentives align. Specifically, USADA is 50% financially incentivized to produce entertaining competition that people believe is clean because generally people want to believe that most competition is fair and clean, at least when it is reported on, as such. USADA is incentivized to be a better marketing agency for the success and vigor anti-doping efforts, more than they are incentivized towards highest-possible efficacy of actual anti-doping efforts themselves. :)

For everyone's awareness, I'm not saying whether that's good or bad, necessary or unnecessary, should change or remain, etc etc. I'm not judging it or assessing at all. I'm just stating the incentive alignment. And I also happened to relay 4 personal anecdotes that seem in alignment with their alignment if you 'nom sayin'. Again, I seriously am not making an assessment or judgement here. Complete non-stance here. If my tone is anything but neutral it's purely a matter of personality. :)

---

Dr. Alex Harrison | Founder & CEO | Sport Physiology & Performance PhD
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
📱 Check out our app → Saturday: Pro Fuel & Hydration, a performance nutrition coach in your pocket.
Join us on YouTube → Saturday Morning | Ride & Run Faster and our growing Saturday User Hub

^^^ He said it better than I did. :)

---

Dr. Alex Harrison | Founder & CEO | Sport Physiology & Performance PhD
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
📱 Check out our app → Saturday: Pro Fuel & Hydration, a performance nutrition coach in your pocket.
Join us on YouTube → Saturday Morning | Ride & Run Faster and our growing Saturday User Hub

WADA's response and account of events, as well as FAQ about the case (for those who are interested):

https://www.wada-ama.org/en/resources/contamination-case-swimmers-china-fact-sheet-frequently-asked-questions

 

I don’t know enough (anything) about doping, except what I learnt from reading the Doper Nextdoor. But, from my read of that doc - it doesn’t seem like there was any cover up at all.

What am I missing?

That was my wife's likely take away before she even knew the particulars of the case (she has worked in anti-doping for the better part of 20+ years, not at WADA). When this came out she straight away said:
- Knowing how WADA operates, I would be very surprised if there was any cover-up; If they didn't pursue matters further it's likely there were valid reasons;
- Likely a case where you don't want this to be made public to protect athletes and follow procedures;
- Tygart a bit of an attention-seeker and likely with an agenda.

But we'll see what else comes out of it.

I don't think 'coverup' is the right word.

Because taking the information presented in the press conference at face value, a proper process was followed and WADA are prepared to accept that they cannot disprove this was contamination.

But cynics are asking themselves whether this is the 'perfect crime'. Instead of the old stereotype of the gruff, moustached, coach saying ‘here, these are vitamins’, athletes are now being doped in a way that is not provable and entirely 'legal'.

For example, the cynic may say, TUEs correctly obtained are enabling athletes to use otherwise prohibited medications which give a performance benefit. Those involved can truthfully say they are competing clean and want to root out all the cheaters. Again, using a performance enhancing medication on a drug trial, not currently banned, can also permit the user to be 'clean and want to root out all the cheaters. Or micro-dosing to never be 'glowing' during testing - a bit harder to say you are 'clean' in that situation but still hard to detect.

And the highest risk option if all else fails, food doping where from a process and legal pathway, it appears as though it is entirely possible to plausibly demonstrate contamination of a food or kitchen on a retrospective basis (and in one sense you don't even need to prove how the contaminant got in there, as that is the whole point). And the athletes themselves just do not know.

Just conjecture

Tangent...sorry your post got me thinking.

Is there a good study anyone can point to where they gave PEDs to a cow or pig and then the test subject got it in their bloodstream?

If so, would that cause a performance increase?

If people who innocently use tainted supplements get banned, why don't people who use tainted meat get banned?

And holy hell, we've got all kinds of "professionals" telling us the various antibiotics, vaccines, and hormones they give livestock doesn't affect us on one hand and on the other we see it persists so much that it passes from our digestive system into bbloodstream?

How much of food doping claims is really just cover?

And if it's legit... would it be possible for an athlete to work closely with a small rancher and have their live stock juiced to the gills to impart some benefit to them?

I am not too sure about that but I imagine there could be some ethical issues with running a study along those lines lol

How much of food doping / contamination is cover I am not sure. I really don’t think it would be very common and more of a last resort option, as my cynical theory option from above. It requires too much by way of time and resource to establish for it to be the preferred method.

“ And holy hell, we've got all kinds of "professionals" telling us the various antibiotics, vaccines, and hormones they give livestock doesn't affect us on one hand and on the other we see it persists so much that it passes from our digestive system into bbloodstream? “.

I don’t know what the answer is to that but it’s certainly depends on what you mean by affect us. There is a bit of information out there, although I don’t think it’s very well known, about the significance and volume of antibiotics used and antimicrobial resistance. Some statistics estimatr that 66% of all antibiotics are used in farm animals, not people. Enables the animals, to be kept in poor conditions where disease spreads easily. And then the theory is the modern world will be decimated by a super virus spread from these antimicrobial conditions.

I don’t really see how what I have written is connected to what you have written but there you go