I didn't know why the 50 ml rule exists. I had no idea. Never paid much attention to the doping code.
Come on people, this isn't that hard. For a long time, I've been hesitant to get Salazar on some sort of technicality on an IV if his stars don't also go with him. It makes no sense to put Salazar in jail for a parking ticket when that ticket has no way of explaining how Mo Farah suddenly became the world's best distance runner and Galen Rupp, who couldn't break 4:00 minutes in a mile for a long time, can now run a 3:50..
But after reading the report, I think Salazar should be banned as it's clear a) he wants his runners to get a chemical advantage that others don't have and b) he violated the doping rules.
You are narrowly defining the spirit of the doping law as being "What is the point of this 50 ml rule?" I'm thinking of it on a macro scale, "What is the whole point of having anti-doping rules? We don't want people trying to get chemical advantages that others don't have that are potential dangerous.
As I said earlier, I don't understand how anyone can read the report and not think he's violating both the spirit and letter of the doping rules. He wanted them to get a drug that no one else had access to as he thought it would take 2-3 minute off their marathon time, USADA said no and he did it anyway. Whether it helped the runners or not is now irrelevant to me. As someone said, if you take a gun into a bank, it doesn't matter if you actually rob the bank or not.
I don't have a problem with people using supplements. I had a private meeting with Salazar in the Nike building a number of years ago. When I left, I thought , "Wow that guy thinks about medicine very similar to me."
Salazar basically believed that he knows more than the doctors about what things are necessary for distance runners to run well. Take ferritin for example. 25 may not be low for most doctors but he wanted it over 100. If I saw a runner I was coaching at 25 sucking when I htought he was a star, I too would want it up.
When I was a competitor, there was an ad out for a supplement for PRO-HGH. I wrote USADA or USATF or someone and said, "Hey, Can I take this?" They looked at it and said I could. I never did. When I was in HS, John Kellogg wanted us to take something called Ginsana.
So I"m not opposed to supplements. I'm opposed to turning running into "who has the best doctor?"
I don't know about labels. I may not label you a doper, but I certainly think you should be sanctioned if it was more than 50 ml. You can't willfully violate a law and not be punished. Ethiopians training in some remote village don't have access to IVs - you shouldn't either particularly when they say it's not allowed unless it's a clinical study or hospitalization. If you are hospitalized, I've got no issue with it.