Brenda Martinez Doping/Depression NYTimes Article

the clue is in the name - hint, its not something makes your face covering more effective.

Very irresponsible article. That first paragraph is acting like athletes are actually getting suspended for those reasons. (Afaik nobody has actually been suspended when those are the reasons they test positive.)

Also what a picture to use. Don't have one of her running? Gonna lean into the depression/mental anguish the whole time?

Finally, I hate how professional runners are just called "Olympians" like thats all they do. Either the writer isn't qualified to write about track, or the NYT editor doesn't trust the readers to understand anything besides "the olympics".

socialism agitator wrote:

Very irresponsible article. That first paragraph is acting like athletes are actually getting suspended for those reasons. (Afaik nobody has actually been suspended when those are the reasons they test positive.)

Yeah, I agree. So who are these athletes who have been wrongfully suspended?

Is there a way to handle this better? Sure. Was Brenda in any way tarnished by this? I don't really see it. I remember the Letsrun discussion thread when this story first came out and nearly everyone, if not everyone, thought Brenda was innocent.

I saw her run many years ago and knew she was on steroids...Certain physical signs.

runnerboy70 wrote:

I saw her run many years ago and knew she was on steroids...Certain physical signs.

That seals the case against Brenda Martinez, then. Thanks, runnerboy70.

runnerboy70 wrote:

I saw her run many years ago and knew she was on steroids...Certain physical signs.

As I said, nothing but BS from you.

I spent many years around steroid athletes and tried them myself for a brief period..

I know of which I speak.

You're a dramatic flirt. You have a point then make it.

Can someone help me understand why Brenda felt compelled to come forward about her depression to help clear this up?

The author writes "she wishes she didn’t have to tell the world about her mental health history to protect her reputation."

When the story broke, there was no mention of the type of tainted medication that she took, it was just reported as medication that she had a prescription for. Her name was cleared at the time and nearly everyone accepted the outcome as is and the story went away.

I think it's admirable that she came forward to talk about her depression, but I don't see how this incident really put any pressure on her to do so.

she probably did it at least partially to eradicate any doubt that the medication itself could have been a gray-area performance enhancer a la NOP stuff. i don't know much about antidepressants but from my layman's view they seem like they would be a performance detractor if anything. i know a lot of people gain weight and/or have reduced sex drive from them.

fetullah al gulen rupp wrote:

she probably did it at least partially to eradicate any doubt that the medication itself could have been a gray-area performance enhancer a la NOP stuff. i don't know much about antidepressants but from my layman's view they seem like they would be a performance detractor if anything. i know a lot of people gain weight and/or have reduced sex drive from them.

Thanks, makes sense

fetullah al gulen rupp wrote:

she probably did it at least partially to eradicate any doubt that the medication itself could have been a gray-area performance enhancer a la NOP stuff. i don't know much about antidepressants but from my layman's view they seem like they would be a performance detractor if anything. i know a lot of people gain weight and/or have reduced sex drive from them.

Yes indeed some doctor prescribed drugs can be performance inhibiting. Especially if they slow down your central nervous system, sometimes they can just make you lethargic and tired all day.

reuito wirewi wrote:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/13/opinion/brenda-martinez-doping-depression-olympics.html

?

Makes me wonder why you'd ever have to announce violations that were just a "masking agent," especially if you can prove where that came from, like in Martinez's case. Heck, why even ban people for those (it was high blood pressure medication that contaminated antidepressants) if you can't say that they're performance enhancing?

Ah..... the Wilson defense. The steroids in the meat were so potent, they survived getting cooked in the animal..... only to still show up in the urine sample at way above regular levels. Who buys this crap?

reuito wirewi wrote:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/13/opinion/brenda-martinez-doping-depression-olympics.html

?

Makes me wonder why you'd ever have to announce violations that were just a "masking agent," especially if you can prove where that came from, like in Martinez's case. Heck, why even ban people for those (it was high blood pressure medication that contaminated antidepressants) if you can't say that they're performance enhancing?

The article sarcastically asks if the athlete should skip liver and her medicine? The answer is YES.

Get on meds that are approved and don’t eat meat. This is your JOB. Train, compete, and pass drug tests.

Duh.....

runnerboy70 wrote:

runnerboy70 makes an anonymous claim but I wouldn't call it baseless.

Like any absolute specialty (including training at an ultra high level for years surrounded by other elites some of whom are on something), you get an eye-sight for when things are astray. I'm not saying or confirming runnerboy70 has this experience or even saw Brenda run but I won't dismiss out of hand that someone (who claims to have "been there" in terms of upper-level performance), *knowing* when they see someone performing at a suspicious level.

I may be too skeptical myself on things but, with that said, the vast majority of people are way too naive... please stop falling for the smiley faces with the perfect white teeth.

These kinds of articles are stupid. Literally every single person who fails a drug test tries excuses like these. The athletes have every reason to lie, and there's no reason for us to believe them.

Pro runners have a very limited number of years to make money as athletes. The luckiest get 15 years. Why the F**K would you blatantly disregard the rules and go on drugs that aren't approved when you know it can jeopardize your career? I don't buy her excuses, she's a DOPER.

I know nothing about her but HCTZ is definitely not a PED, in fact it may be the exact opposite.

They had me try several different blood pressure medications before I knew HCTZ was banned and HCTZ is either used by itself or in combo with other meds because it makes you shed a ton of water fast.

So yeah you've lost a few pounds overnight but you are also now exhausted because your muscles aren't taking in glucose to match without the water.

From the WADA documents, dopers use it to flush out actual PEDS

There is absolutely no regulation or monitoring of drugs made not only in the usa but everything imported from india, etc. Everything is self-regulated/reported until there's a death. The FDA inspects overseas factories like once a year. So it's plausible any med has some other garbage leftover in it.

But the funny thing is antidepressants can most definitely be a PED, they just won't ban those because it would be inhumane. You might remember one of the first PEDs Salazar ever used was Prozac to win Comrades in like 1978, it rebooted his whole career.

Also T3 thyroid meds are abused like mad and are most definitely PEDs. T4 will only convert so much to T3 by your body so that's acceptable, but if you are taking T3 directly, now you can bypass all the things your body would do to slow/stop erythropoiesis and crank out almost unlimited EPO. You could starve yourself which would normally shutdown everything, but take T3 and no problem you've got RBC cranking away. Train at sealevel year round, but use T3 and it's like you've been at altitude.

Didn't know about this case but I think the article conveys a wrong idea to the layperson.

I would bet that a majority of the people who test positive and claim that a supplement was contaminated are lying. Not saying this is the case but yeah, according to the article looks like there billions of false positive tests it anthletics when if something testing is unable to catch dopers and false negatives are 90% of the problem.

aztec the moronic wrote:

These kinds of articles are stupid. Literally every single person who fails a drug test tries excuses like these. The athletes have every reason to lie, and there's no reason for us to believe them.

Pro runners have a very limited number of years to make money as athletes. The luckiest get 15 years. Why the F**K would you blatantly disregard the rules and go on drugs that aren't approved when you know it can jeopardize your career? I don't buy her excuses, she's a DOPER.

On the contrary, when you say "no reason" and "drugs that aren't approved", this is completely ignorant of the details of the case of Martinez. The reasons to believe Martinez can be found in USADA's press release:

"Martinez provided USADA with records of a permitted oral prescription medication"

"This permitted medication ... did not list HCTZ or any other prohibited substances on the label."

"detailed laboratory analysis subsequently conducted on multiple tablets of the athlete’s medication confirmed HCTZ contamination"

When an athlete argues "contamination", this is not a free-pass given for "no reason". The athelte has a burden to meet in order to give reasons to anti-doping agencies like USADA.

A US Ombudsman estimated that, in the US, 40-60% of doping positives are inadvertent.