Steve Cram - TUE - nothing to see here!

Ps... What do all these people have in common, Paula Radcliffe, Mo Farah, Galen Rupp, Beadley Wiggins, Chris Froome etc.... Seems you have to have asthma to be world class.

What do they have in common? They're greats, that's what. Greats who have become great by training hard. It doesn't really surprise me that these people have trained so hard that they have induced asthma and now need medication.

What does surprise me is that there are fools out there who think a non asthma sufferer is going to get a performance boost from using asthma meds. That doesn't just surprise me, it leaves me dumbfounded. At their stupidity.

What everyone keeps forgetting is that you don't need a TUE out of competition for corticosteroids. These docs are only for in competition... How many greats from the 70's, 80's, 90's had 'exercise induced asthma? And if it's exercise induced why is the defence always 'x has been an asthma sufferer since childhood' for 'x'

The Yellow Jumper wrote:

BBC 5live interview Cram said that people were being frightened away from the sport and that the TUE situation was being exaggerated, he explained that his athlete Laura Weightman suffers from asthma, he said after racing 1500m she 'is really out if breath, and can't talk for a few minutes'.... As a good level athlete who raced plenty of 1500's my experience is that this is normal! I don't have asthma.

I was always a fan of Cram, but I noticed a sudden body change between 1982 and 1983. He just got bigger and stronger all of a sudden, no out of competition testing in those days. Sad to say.

The Yellow Jumper wrote:

BBC 5live interview Cram said that people were being frightened away from the sport and that the TUE situation was being exaggerated, he explained that his athlete Laura Weightman suffers from asthma, he said after racing 1500m she 'is really out if breath, and can't talk for a few minutes'.... As a good level athlete who raced plenty of 1500's my experience is that this is normal! I don't have asthma.

Moran.

Exercise induced asthma is a thing. They have it. You don't. You just suffer from hobby jogging hyperventilation.

Dead Nike Lunar Forever 2s wrote:

The Yellow Jumper wrote:

BBC 5live interview Cram said that people were being frightened away from the sport and that the TUE situation was being exaggerated, he explained that his athlete Laura Weightman suffers from asthma, he said after racing 1500m she 'is really out if breath, and can't talk for a few minutes'.... As a good level athlete who raced plenty of 1500's my experience is that this is normal! I don't have asthma.

I was always a fan of Cram, but I noticed a sudden body change between 1982 and 1983. He just got bigger and stronger all of a sudden, no out of competition testing in those days. Sad to say.

I know, right? People maturing and developing and stuff. What the F?!

Boba Milk Tea wrote:

Dead Nike Lunar Forever 2s wrote:

I was always a fan of Cram, but I noticed a sudden body change between 1982 and 1983. He just got bigger and stronger all of a sudden, no out of competition testing in those days. Sad to say.

I know, right? People maturing and developing and stuff. What the F?!

Exactly. I grew and got bigger when I was 20-22 as well. What a knob.

Well, evidently exercise induced asthma is a thing. But it's a new thing and it's emergence as a thing does seem to have coincided with the availability of a lot of PEDs. I wonder why guys like Shorter, Rodgers, Seko, Bedford,Ryun. etc.. ad infinitum all managed to do all that training without developing it.

I was diagnosed w/ exercise induced asthma back in the late 90s. It's not a new thing. The inhalers helped me because I needed it. I was running slower then my HS school times and had uncontrollable coughing spells after races. That was almost 20 years ago

HRE wrote:

Well, evidently exercise induced asthma is a thing. But it's a new thing and it's emergence as a thing does seem to have coincided with the availability of a lot of PEDs. I wonder why guys like Shorter, Rodgers, Seko, Bedford,Ryun. etc.. ad infinitum all managed to do all that training without developing it.

It's starting to appear that the Brits think they have a special dispensation for doping, and it's been going on for a long time. It's almost as if they feel entitled to use their methods that they don't think it's doping.

Paula thought that EPO was doping, but not blood transfusions. Wiggins acts like cortisone is not doping. And Farah... well, he's with Aden, enough said.

All cheating.

Dead Nike Lunar Forever 2s wrote:

The Yellow Jumper wrote:

BBC 5live interview Cram said that people were being frightened away from the sport and that the TUE situation was being exaggerated, he explained that his athlete Laura Weightman suffers from asthma, he said after racing 1500m she 'is really out if breath, and can't talk for a few minutes'.... As a good level athlete who raced plenty of 1500's my experience is that this is normal! I don't have asthma.

I was always a fan of Cram, but I noticed a sudden body change between 1982 and 1983. He just got bigger and stronger all of a sudden, no out of competition testing in those days. Sad to say.

To my eyes it was between '84 and '85. I'd be more inclined to think nothing of it if it were not for the fact that I recall Cram stating that he never lifted weights.

Cram and Sotherton are the two leading GB apologists - "stop attacking our poor athletes, let's just enjoy the spectacle".

Boba Milk Tea wrote:

Dead Nike Lunar Forever 2s wrote:

I was always a fan of Cram, but I noticed a sudden body change between 1982 and 1983. He just got bigger and stronger all of a sudden, no out of competition testing in those days. Sad to say.

I know, right? People maturing and developing and stuff. What the F?!

Yeah in an event where you want to be as light as possible?

Round Mound wrote:

I was diagnosed w/ exercise induced asthma back in the late 90s. It's not a new thing. The inhalers helped me because I needed it. I was running slower then my HS school times and had uncontrollable coughing spells after races. That was almost 20 years ago

HRE wrote:

Well, evidently exercise induced asthma is a thing. But it's a new thing and it's emergence as a thing does seem to have coincided with the availability of a lot of PEDs. I wonder why guys like Shorter, Rodgers, Seko, Bedford,Ryun. etc.. ad infinitum all managed to do all that training without developing it.

You must be mistaken, my friend! The Letsrun doctors and PED expert historians have stated that exercise induced asthma is either not real or PED related! You, are a doper!

How many of these people have actually had a single asthma attack? Being breathless is no reason to start injecting steroid treatments, taking high dosage inhalers. It's using a tank to kill a fly. It's obvious what is going on, I ran at a national level and at least hslf my competitors were puffing away on inhalers, yet I never ever saw them in any kind of distress breathing, I know people who have severe asthma and they say that generally the only times they would need these kind of meds is in extremely cold weather. These are patients who are regularly hospitalized due to the severity of their condition. Remember, they are only declaring what they are taking at the time of competition, not what they are taking in the off season!

Look, it's basically pretty simple. TUEs have been used by athletes and coaches to gain an advantage. Drugs that would otherwise lead to a ban if found in the athlete's system are legal if the athlete has a TUE. Some of the stuff that some athletes have used TUEs for is clearly performance enhancing - Wiggin's injections for example. I don't think there can be any reasonable doubt about this any longer.

Here in the UK we are as guilty of this as anywhere else. Remember a while ago a British athlete (Emma Jackson? Apologies if the name is wrong) went public with details of how UK Athletics routinely manipulated athlete's thyroid levels so a creative use of TUEs is only to be expected.

But it's not illegal if the correct procedures are followed; it might be against the spirit of the regulations, might be classed as unethical by some - but do such considerations matter much, if at all, in international sport these days?

Please please please wrote:

How many of these people have actually had a single asthma attack? Being breathless is no reason to start injecting steroid treatments, taking high dosage inhalers. It's using a tank to kill a fly. It's obvious what is going on, I ran at a national level and at least hslf my competitors were puffing away on inhalers, yet I never ever saw them in any kind of distress breathing, I know people who have severe asthma and they say that generally the only times they would need these kind of meds is in extremely cold weather. These are patients who are regularly hospitalized due to the severity of their condition. Remember, they are only declaring what they are taking at the time of competition, not what they are taking in the off season!

You stink of a sore loser.

An inhaler WILL NOT give advantage to someone who does not suffer from asthma. If you don't have trouble breathing, your airways can't be dilated further to somehow make your body process more oxygen than it could before?!?!

The steroids are dodgy for sure.

Dead Nike Lunar Forever 2s wrote:

The Yellow Jumper wrote:

BBC 5live interview Cram said that people were being frightened away from the sport and that the TUE situation was being exaggerated, he explained that his athlete Laura Weightman suffers from asthma, he said after racing 1500m she 'is really out if breath, and can't talk for a few minutes'.... As a good level athlete who raced plenty of 1500's my experience is that this is normal! I don't have asthma.

I was always a fan of Cram, but I noticed a sudden body change between 1982 and 1983. He just got bigger and stronger all of a sudden, no out of competition testing in those days. Sad to say.

Cram was always slim, never big. His physical development looked very natural to me. Most people fill out a bit once they hit their 20's. Cram was very skinny and gangly as a teen, but he never looked ripped and I believe that he probably didn't use weights. You don't need to use weights to develop strength.

They had out of season testing in UK from 1981.

The focus on UK athletes taking TUE's is laughable. It is the same for every country. Of course there is the potential to abuse use of TUE's, but I have seen nothing of worth in any of these hacks that suggest cheating.

There have been American sportspersons mentioned and I am not ignorant or stupid enough to start claiming that there is some special dispensation for US athletes. Of course the Russians are going to hone in on UK athletes more because they are pissed off with Coe for banning them from the Olympics.

Too many posters on here are falling into trap that the Russians hoped for.

TUE's are legal, necessary (in most cases) and do not compare to the illicit, illegal and state sponsored entrenched cheating of the vast majority of Russian athletes for a long time, as proven by at least 2 independent enquiries.