[quote author="Winnesota" date="1213147527"] Still, you know that those athletes are constantly bombarded with banned lists and are aware that they need to be VERY careful with what they take. I’m not sure that there is much of an excuse for that.
This was simply not the case at the time Carl tested positive. I don’t know whether he used intentionally or not but I do know that banned drug lists were NOTHING (either in scope or distribution) like they are today. I agree that today there is no excuse for pro athletes testing positive for OTC drugs but 24 years ago was a different story.[/quote]
This isn’t true. I was competing in powerlifting in the late 1980s. We had a long list of banned substances including stimulants. The standard excuse (there was an Olympic rower) was cough medicine, but that was BS even then. Everyone knew what could and couldn’t be taken. People were taking ephedrine plain and simple.