LM wrote:
oilklkjlkjlkjkl wrote:
Come on, you don't really believe this, do you? You're not actually this stupid, are you?
It's the most believable version of the story when you look at it in full context. The alternative is that Salazar is such an insane criminal (or at least doping genius) that he has been planting tiny seeds and faking a person for years just to rub a little testosterone on Galen.
And this is precisely what I mean by people's inability to be rational and set aside their emotions. Yes we know Salazar is shady, and we also know he is a major a$$hole. The narrative has long been that he is doping. Under that narrative, it's very easy to reach your conclusion. However, you didn't set aside impartiality and consider the evidence:
1) Salazar has a long history of being a uniquely paranoid individual. This is not an atypical level of paranoid, as it is for most. I think this is hard for many people, because it's difficult to see things from POV of someone else, and they can't relate to someone who is like this, but it's clear Salazar is.
2) Salazar did not express any known concern to anyone, until Galen mentioned something about being rubbed, at which point Salazar flipped his sh1t and expressed sentiment to several members of OPJ about his concern (in publicized report). This is remarkably consistent his history of paranoia. All of the testosterone testing begin quickly and hastily following this.
For this to be doping related, he would have had to be crafty enough to have told Rupp ahead of time to say something to him about being rubbed, in order for him to then have an "alibi" to begin the androgel tests.
3) Salazar immediately ceased testing Androgel when it was clear that any amount rubbing would not cause problems. This is not consistent with someone who is looking to dope his athletes. He would have wanted to have seen just how far he could go, and would have begun applying cream, even if the benefits were not massive.
How did he know that any amount of rubbing would not cause problems? What markers was he using for determining that? Was it the testosterone-to-epitestosterone ratio (T/E) test? Normal ratio for a male is (1/1) with some outliers at (2/1) - WADA allows up to (4/1) before an athlete is flagged and can be consequently banned. Did he also test using the Carbon Isotope Ratio (CIR) test? This state-of-the art test can detect any synthetic T use for up to days after last use (Kenyan Vincent Yator was just provisionally suspended for the presence of synthetic testosterone in one of his samples via CIR). So, was Al Sal having Dr. Brown conduct the testing or did he utilize other lab(s)?
Russian doping doctors/coaches were conducting experiments like that with androgens to determine what amounts would reach the (T/E) ratio as well what the washout periods would be with testosterone & steroids via CIR.