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1. Whenever they start competing in a sport.
2. I think you’ll find if people can win without taking them no matter the level they won’t take them until they have to face that decision or they base the decision on breaking a record. Like I said, it’s not systemic a track coaching staff at the collegiate level would need on the order of 10K per year per athlete to make a difference. You are much more likely to see this type of support and systemic doping in friends of the program (alumni and post-collegians) in collegiate athletics and with little knowledge of the coaching staff.
3. Bolt doesn’t run every 100/200m race and it’s about money too. You have to produce results to make money and you need money to get the PED’s.
4. This is true, but under most circumstances athletes who have a progressive training protocol last a long time and produce consistent results and have limited injuries especially if their coach has the philosophy that a hurt athlete is an athlete who should not compete. However, younger athletes can come back stronger from a previous connective tissue injury, after long term anabolic PED use this is not possible, because the tissue loses it’s elasticity due to calcification.
https://www.springerlink.com/content/lu77j40738wn3165/
5. Like I stated in #4, younger athletes don’t have a problem with this if they are still developmental. They can return stronger. So it’s not true for everyone. Obviously if a young person suffers catastrophic injuries to tendons or ligaments they will be compromised, but we are talking all injuries to these connective tissues in general.
6. There are not many sports where athletes use PED’s in an amateur status as compared to their professional counterparts unless their psychological state of mind is they need the PED’s to be able to compete. It’s a zero sum game. If you don’t believe you need them you will not use them, if you believe you do need them you will use them. We could even add the ethical and moral arguments still have the same outcomes. The desire to compete at a certain level of competence is the overriding factor in determining use of PEDs. Secondary is cost-benefit determination. Those 2 factors alone make PED usage rarer at levels that are not professional in nature.
1. That’s pretty broad then.
2. I don’t think that is the case in every event. Sadly, unless we get another 2003 World Champs where people win running 10.0x, I don’t think you’re ever going to see a lifetime clean men’s 100m champ, shotput, etc. $10k per athlete? Gimme a break now. People don’t need to run Tim Montgomery drug plans to get benefits and judging by the fact there are Olympians that still test positive for stanzolol and dianabol, I doubt everyone is using the sophistication you speak of.
3. Unless Bolt, Powell, and Gay are injured or don’t show up, nobody has proven to really have any chance of beating them in a one off race or winning a championship against the three of them, so that doesn’t mean much either unless you want to keep broadening your definition of “winning.” There are guys that make decent money running 10.2s or even slower depending on the country, so that makes a pretty large group of potential dopers.
4. Stop with the nonsense. Acting like every connective tissue injury to older athletes is because of PED use is ridiculous. Hell, my uncle blew his achilles playing volleyball–pretty sure Uncle Todd wasn’t roiding up for a family volleyball game. Injuries happen and we’re talking about people trying to push the limits of the human body if we’re discussing WRs or medals. Even the coaches we consider the greatest here have had a number of athletes at varying levels have catastrophic injuries.
5. Rarer doesn’t mean they’re eliminated and don’t exist in some form. Give me a break man–look at life. People lie/cheat/steal in varying aspects at varying levels, even if it’s only for a minor benefit. Some people don’t leave $.50 for the bagel they take out of the break room at their office, some people embezzle millions of dollars, some people vandalize mailboxes and some people are part of mass murders–life isn’t as clear cut as you want to make it out to be in this respect and attempting to gain an advantage in some way exists EVERYWHERE.