Matt Hart's new Nike book is great - Salazar once tried to kiss Kara Goucher and said Solinsky ran 26:59 because of thyroid meds

For someone who saved so many quotes, here is the original goalpost:

I ruled out "supposed to be performance enhancing" and "just to be able to run faster" because WADA has said otherwise -- arguments about performance enhancement are uncompelling, and this was built into the question.

I ruled out references to Salazar and Brown, because it wasn't about them -- it was about thyroid hormones, something that they were not banned for. Salazar and Brown are red-herrings.

When you strike these out, there is little left.

What is unethical about athletes flying to a corrupt doctor to get a prescription for something not banned and not performance enhancing?

I saw some unverified claims about losing bodyfat -- same question: what is the ethics issue?

I saw a claim that it messes up thyroid -- this looks like an argument about the doctor's ethics, but not the athlete's.

I viewed their transgressions as unrelated to the question. It is only pointless because you can't make a point.

Holy, if rekrunner isn’t a paid Nike troll idk what. Amazing how someone manage to always take the worst possible position in every discussion. Maybe even beats out Coevett for the title of most dishonest poster on the site.

Thank you. I will read this book.

Salazar is banned for sending his runners to lie and manipulate a medical test to secure thyroid hormones.

Dr. Brown is banned for illegally and unethically prescribing thyroid hormones to Salazar’s runners.

You can’t change facts to suit your agenda.

JohnnyS wrote:

Holy, if rekrunner isn’t a paid Nike troll idk what. Amazing how someone manage to always take the worst possible position in every discussion. Maybe even beats out Coevett for the title of most dishonest poster on the site.

Then "ydk what" is the correct answer. I took the starting position of WADA.

The question wasn't about Nike either -- it was about the ethics of thyroid hormone, a substance not banned by WADA, nor considered performance enhancing.

I took WADA's position and offered what I thought should be a trivial intellectual challenge. Recall WADA considers three criteria to determine to ban a substance. If it is not banned, and not performance enhancing, that means WADA considers it also 1) not harmful to the athletes, and/or 2) not against the spirit of the sport.

Attacking me is just another diversion that tells me you also can't answer the ethics question.

winner winner wrote:

Salazar is banned for sending his runners to lie and manipulate a medical test to secure thyroid hormones.

Dr. Brown is banned for illegally and unethically prescribing thyroid hormones to Salazar’s runners.

You can’t change facts to suit your agenda.

Neither can you. I call your bluff.

It is not possible for USADA or WADA to ban Salazar and Brown on the basis of a non-banned substance, except indirectly via an unbanned method, like happened with l-carnitine, and then the basis is the method, and not the substance.

Here are the facts from Salazar's verdict: Salazar's three counts involved 1) l-carnitine, 2) an email about l-carnitine, and 3) testosterone.

I'm less familiar with, and less interetested in, Dr. Brown's counts, but it apparently involves the same counts, plus modifying patient records.

But I'm always prepared to be corrected on the facts -- do you have an official reference besides yourself -- can you point me to the appropriate finding in the AAA Panel reports that confirms the involvement of thyroid hormones in any ADRV violation?

Yes you tried ruling all of that out, but you really can't because a) the athletes did it to become faster, not to cure their thyroids and b) the corrupt Brown was involved in most cases.

And c) recall the source claiming that over 90% didn't need those meds, and that even USADA and UKAD suspect abuse.

Finally you don't have the power, not even on behalf of letsrun, to judge what's unethical and what's not. According to your very words in this thread, you even question whether Salazar and Brown were unethical. Ridiculo.

Remember:

unethical according to dictionary.com

Clearly this applies to Salazar and Brown, who even got banned for being "unwilling to adhere to proper rules of conduct" and acting "not in accord with the standards of a profession", among other things. Unless you want to claim that "trafficking of testosterone" and "Tampering with patient records" is adhering to proper rules of conduct and in accord with the standards of their profession.

Your standards are all messed up.

I really can rule out performance enhancing because WADA did. This was built into the question.

Recall you showed us that WADA found USADA and UKAD had no compelling arguments.

Yet you remain on the side with no compelling arguments, and expect me to be compelled?

Recall also that I did not ask about the ethics of Salazar or Dr. Brown, and neither confirmed nor denied their ethics, but simply acknowledged without contest that it "may be true" that they are unethical.

Since I don't have the power anyway to judge what is ethical, perhaps it's best if I use words like "may be true" rather than attempt to cast judgements beyond my power.

since when is it against the rules to abuse thyroid meds?

Body builders use thyroid hormones as a PED too. It clearly works.

You are trying to find a tiny loophole to exonerate a distance coach and an endocrinologist who colluded to cheat with thyroid hormones. They got caught and banned.

That’s another reason not to take thyroid hormone. Everyone knows you cheated an the only person who will defend you is a moron.

crazy bag lady wrote:

since when is it against the rules to abuse thyroid meds?

It is not against WADA's anti-doping rules.

same same drugg wrote:

Body builders use thyroid hormones as a PED too. It clearly works.

You are trying to find a tiny loophole to exonerate a distance coach and an endocrinologist who colluded to cheat with thyroid hormones. They got caught and banned.

That’s another reason not to take thyroid hormone. Everyone knows you cheated an the only person who will defend you is a moron.

That doesn't mean much. Bodybuilders use it as a masking agent and because the hard stuff they are taking (anabolics, steroids, etc.) completely messes up their metabolism/hormones.

Dr. Brown prescribed the hormones to runners with perfectly normal TSH, ft3 and ft4 levels, but I don't see how they could be performance-enhancing in people with healthy thyroids, if anything there is a risk to mess things up and if they become hyper they are at risk of stress fractures and heart problems.

same same drugg wrote:

Body builders use thyroid hormones as a PED too. It clearly works.

You are trying to find a tiny loophole to exonerate a distance coach and an endocrinologist who colluded to cheat with thyroid hormones. They got caught and banned.

That’s another reason not to take thyroid hormone. Everyone knows you cheated an the only person who will defend you is a moron.

Sorry but I think the real facts can be found in "casual obsever's" earlier posts above, quoting from WADA and the AAA Panel:

- WADA's List Expert Group considers it "not performance enhancing" and that there were "no compelling arguments" to add thyroid hormone to the banned list.

- Salazar's and Brown's ban involved l-carnitine and testosterone. None of the bans were connected to thyroid hormone.

It would be impossible to exonerate the coach and the doctor from anything on the basis of thyroid hormone.

Furthermore, no bodybuilder has run sub-13 or sub-27.

You are right, it is not currently banned. However, athletes are using it, in many sports, as a performance enhancing drug, which clearly works based on the fact that these runners used it:

Salazar

Kennedy

Ritizheimer

Rupp

Solinski

Tegenkamp

Hall

This in any court of law is evidence! And it leads to a logical conclusion!

Just because it’s not currently banned, does not mean it does not work!

Also, you can bet it will be banned in the future!

Athletes are using it to stay competitive with athletes already using it. Which explains why both Nike groups were big abusers of it.

Salazar clearly thinks it works and attributed Solinski’s sun 27 10000m directly to thyroid hormone therapy.

Would you want your kid using it in the way Salazar had his athletes using it?

If you narrowly view current rules and law as final, concrete findings, you are an idiot. Laws and rules change all the time.

Bit of a double standard there. You are both endorsing doping and condemning it.

Messing up your hormonal system is not performance enhancing. We cant move forward with your dopey rhetoric.

Solinsky sub 27 had nothing to do with thyroid hormones. He was a genetic freak. Look at his HS training and progression. He had very strong bones and could handle 130+ mpw as pro all under 6 min pace. Even Tegenkamp said no one in their training group, not a single runner was able to hang with Solinsky on his runs or could keep up his training even for 1 week.

What was a factor in getting sub 27 was that he lost weight for that race, but thyroid medication is a two-edged sword in that regard. Yes, it boosts metabolism but you also get more hungry/eat more, in the end losing weight is just as hard as not taking it.

Thyroid meds don't work to lose weight in all people, a lot even gain weight because of the increased hunger and eating all the time. People blame their thyroids for being overweight and sometimes they actually do manage to lose weight with it, but that can also just be a huge placebo effect.

His hormone profile is on the USADA report, Solinsky's TSH, ft3 and ft4 were all in the norm range (TSH just barely above 2), supplementing thyroid is not going to change anything for him, unless they supplement him with so much that his TSH goes down to <0.3 or even becomes unmeasurable and he gets hyper and actually worse.

It's a shame that USADA and UKAD didn't have your genius insight when WADA told them that their arguments were uncompelling.

WADA doesn't even require that "it works". It would be enough to show "a potential that it works".

In the domain of logic, you can not reach logical conclusions by examples -- even 7 of them.

It's not the first time WADA has looked at banning thyroid hormones. If it has failed multiple times already, and USADA and UKAD were unable to argue the case, I would not bet on thyroid hormones ever being banned.

When the laws and rules change, I will reconsider the ethics. Until then, it would be idiotic to act as if some potential future that may never happen is already in the past.

Who do you think knows about more about using thyroid hormone as a PED on elite distance runners? Salazar who has done actual unauthorized experiments with it on elite athletes or WADA who are restricted to old research using ethical standards on the elderly and sick?

The dopers are ALWAYS ahead of the testers!

I am not the one attributing Solinski’s sub 27 to hormone therapy. It was the world’s leading distance coach and the most knowledgeable person in the world on the effects of hormone therapy on elite distance runners. Alberto Salazar