Why are known PED users allowed to compete, ever?

A ban for a first offense is set and a person serves out that ban, they can be allowed back.

Courts have ruled that a lifetime ban for a first offense is unjust.

At least in the case of criminal acts, a lengthy punishment is not as effective as knowing that you will get punished even if the terms are shorter.

Right the odds on getting caught are pretty long and the process to receive punishment can be drawn out as well (largely based on financial resources available). But you could have a one year ban if the odds of getting caught were 95% and it would likely be far more effective at deterrence.

No...not a fan of guilt by association.

So, why are trans women banned while known PED users only have to sit out for four years or so?

No, it's called adult responsibility.

Older athletes have a duty of care to protect young athletes from abuse and manipulation.

All of this 'PED' rhetoric is exactly that. Youre just too naïve to recognise it.

One of the things you realize in life as you get older is there really isn't any accountability to anyone or anything at all, outside of accountability to yourself. Meaning, you can use words like "guilt" or "innocent" and believe some entity out there, as well meaning as they might be, can conclusively assign those terms, but they can't. At least not with any true binding certainty. There will always be arguments about punishments being too harsh, too lenient, just or unjust. Ad nauseum.

So just quite believing in them, all of them, except yourself and what you believe. And if you've determined someone has done wrong in your mind, that should be enough. Because that's all there is, at least here on Earth.

No matter how hard others try, people will continue to not just get away with lying, cheating, stealing, but profit from it as well. For the rest of time. The ONLY thing that matters is when you ask yourself if you've done any of those things, and you can say to yourself no. Anything else is just a fools errand.

Are you seriously saying that Shelby has "unknowingly ingested a trace amount of nandrolone"? Or just asking random rekrunner'esque questions for no reason? Couple of reminders:

The AIU:

“Just to be clear regarding the Houlihan case, this case did not involve trace amounts,” says Julie Burley, the AIU’s communications manager, “and has nothing to do with laboratory sensitivity.”

Dr. Skiba:

There’s an extraordinarily small chance, basically zero, that this a false positive.

Dr. Tucker:

the contaminated food explanation doesn’t stand up to basically any level of scrutiny

Good point. Let’s face it. Most pro runners are doping. They just haven’t been caught. Those that were served their time and now can compete with the other dopers. Let’s not be naive

She already admitted she made up the burrito story on the LRC podcast because her lawyers told her to.

This is done and dusted.

Whether you believe her that she doesnt know where it came from (or that Santa is real) is another thing but tainted pork is 10000000000000% false.

You don't know any pro runners.

IDK - other sports, like the NFL, you can play the same year, you miss like 4 games.
Julian Edelman got suspended for PEDs and won the Super Bowl MVP the same year. He was clearly juicing. Also remember Ray Lewis's antler spray and on and on. Lane Johnson the star LT for the Eagles, got a 4 game suspension then a 10 game suspension for PEDs, has won 2 super bowls.

I think 4 years is fair enough at the point.

Is that true? Can you provide that quote from her, so we can know it wasn't something misheard or misunderstood?

I understood her to say that she didn't really know then, and still doesn't really know today. They went with the greasy burrito immediately, because after reconstructing the food log on the first day, by the second day they thought that it made the most sense. But ultimately she couldn't prove it, because such proofs are difficult for an athlete to provide.

In parallel, they tested all the vitamins and supplements they had, plus some new ones they purchased (along with newly purchased burritos), because they did not have all of them from the batches in December. All of these tests came back negative. She would also be unable to prove it came from a batch that she no longer had any remaining samples of.

It looks like he was asking about the OP.

WADA calls Houlihan's concentration "low". It's unfortunate people focus on "trace amount" as a talking point.

Because trans women are men.

No, because there have been over 400 doping busts of Kenyan distance runners alone. This, despite Kenya not having an anti-doping organization set up until 2016 - less than one decade ago, and even then full of confirmed corruption, such as testers giving advance warning by text of 'random' tests, and taking 'tea money' bribes.

Seriously, if people like you are ever up in court for something with overwhelming evidence to convict you, you'll probably just tell the judge - 'just because I did something you do', and expect him to reply 'oh, well, yes you are right - you can go free I guess'.

Err no - because thay have an absolutely huge pile of busted dopers compared to other countries. You could try simply counting the number of doping busts by nation (assuming you can count).

Yeah OP I wouldn't mind lifetime bans. I think that would deter more than a 4 year ban. The problem is there isn't a ton of money in the sport so the risk/reward is there to dope at the top for however long you can get away with it and rack up as much money as you can. Get your lawyers to create a good narrative to skew public opinion when you get caught. Come back 4 years later.

I think whereabouts should be public for any amount of missed tests. I think individual meets could be more selective about who they invite. If I put on a big, independent meet, I wouldn't invite someone who served a doping ban. But we continue to let those runners back time & time again. Maybe there's some need for shorter sentences for unintentional doping or cases that aren't cut & dry. I tend to think that's garbage but write the law as a lifetime ban and include some exceptions.