Alberto Salazar Talks about Drugs

Anyone who is in this guy's "circle of friends" deserves to be looked at with a skeptical eye. Al is the Trevor Graham of US distance running.

Damiano Cunego has a license to compete at a hematocrit over 50 (his natural level is 51-52). He has had high readings since being a youth cyclist (Italian Cycling Federation tests riders every 45 days to look for abnormalities). In addition, his parents and his siblings have very high hematocrit levels. I seriously doubt that his mom and dad are on EPO. 50 is just an arbitrary number that doesn't really mean anything. I think that track and field should implement blood testing, rather than relying on urine samples.

Alberto's circle of friends have nothing good to say about him. They would contradict the following Al Sal lie in a heartbeat.

"I, naively, did not know the extent of doping in athletics and believed that it was a problem

primarily in the sprint and weight events, as compared to distance running, where muscular

power rather than endurance and cardiovascular ability is crucial to an athletes' success.

Other than blood doping, which was rumored to have been used successfully by the Finns,

there were not any prohibited practices or doping methods that were clearly beneficial for

distance runners, or I did not know about them."

When Alberto lived in Eugene, his friends have told me that Alberto was obsessed with drug and "nutition" talk to the point that they just wanted him to shut the f*** up. For Salazar to claim he was naive is a lie on the scale of "I didn't have improper relations with that woman."

Get off the thyroid meds stuff....I'll put it this way, if thyroid meds were a miracle drug that make you run faster....then I want my money back, b/c they sure haven't made me super fast and improved my times...

Educate yourself before you start spewing nonsense.

But, Steve if everyone followed your advise, then 90% of the posters on this board wouldn't be able to post.

Occam's razor sez: wrote:

How many NOP people have thyroid problems?

Anybody have the answer to this question?

It would be interesting to see what %age of these guys had thyroid medication prescribed and compare that to the population in general. Or perhaps new evidence could show that intensive endurance exercise raises the likelihood of hypothyroidism.

At the risk of sounding paranoid or overly conspiratorial, even if thyroid medication has no positive effect on running performance for the person with normal thyroid function, how do we (or they) know that the drug these runners are taking is indeed thyroid medication? How do we (or Rupp) know what was in the syringe that delivered Rupp's "prednisone" shot?

Sports are a filthy mess. It seems like drugs are everywhere. Maybe drug use isn't so rampant after all, but it's getting really hard to avoid thinking of these "Spy vs. Spy" scenarios.

bumper cars

Lolololol @ Magness posting on here in 2006 ... how fitting.

And saying that he tried to use thyroid medication to boost his performance

Dirty is as dirty does. Uncle Al has been runnin' dirty for a long time.

It is interesting to see how many people were in denial back then and also that certain individuals suspected that something was up nearly 10 years ago.

Salazar already had his lab rat, Rupp, for a few years by time this thread was started. The super-boy program was well under way in 2006.

Actually Magness has a genuine medical need for his thyroid treatment. He explains it in detail on his website.

Hmmm magness wrote:

And saying that he tried to use thyroid medication to boost his performance

about 10 or 15 yrs ago I asked a friend of mine who is a coach ... how bad is the doping thing. He said without much hesitation: about 80% of all T&F guys. I was astonished and speechless. I had not been involved in T&F for 30 yrs or so. And he was/is a college coach - not HS, but I'm sure less connected that AS. What a mess. A challenge to undo, I'm sure. I guess a certain percentage think that will be next to impossible.

media coverage wrote:

Well, perhaps the best way to go is like the Tour de France whereby they don't give a rat's ass what you do or take as long as you come to race with a hematocrit of 50 or less......the anti-cheat factor is built into this as most scientists believe that the highest natural hematocrit is 50....anything higher gives a runner, or cyclist, an unfair advantage. So if you want the money at the New York Marathon you test the top 20 or so elite guys and if their crits are under 50 they can step up to the starting line...

This seems to be the best option if we want to limit PED use, you aren't going to stop doping and you don't want to create too many rules that overcomplicate things, create a gray area and possibly create loopholes. Have a set standard like within 24 hours before a race you have to take a test like this and if it is over 50 or whatever the scientifically determined number is, you are out and the punishment is handed down.

Personally I think athletes should be able to take anything they want, including EPO, HGH etc. No one will stop it. But make the athletes sign a waiver that if they do this, they are doing it willingly and cannot sue later in life when you are a medical mess and did early.

"My desire to win, no matter what the physical pain I had to endure, would be very

hard to ignore in the current age where many athletes feel it is impossible to be competitive

against the best in the world without doping. I believe that it is currently difficult to be

among the top 5 in the world in any of the distance events without using EPO or Human

Growth Hormone."

Shades of Gray?

Locating the Line Between Acceptable Performance Enhancement and Cheating

Alberto Salazar

Dren wrote:

Shades of Gray?

Locating the Line Between Acceptable Performance Enhancement and Cheating

Alberto Salazar

Salazar has deemed himself emperor of where the line is drawn. Only Salazar and his top performers (Rupp, Farah, Centro) know where the line is. The line changes from day to day, depending on upcoming competitions, and it regularly goes above line limits--so many DNSes.

It's interesting to see the difference between the boldness with which he dissembles when he feels free to speak unfettered versus his quasi-restraint when he knows he's under the gun.

He would never go so far now as to say he was unaware that distance runners were doping when he was in his prime. He probably wouldn't claim to have held the WR in the marathon, either. There are dozens of people involved with the sport today who know the first of these claims is comically false, and a simple trip through the Internet reveals the latter as a falsehoid as well.

I also see that he never got around to taking remedial English in the past nine years, but when you travel with nine suitcases full of syringes and vials and pull bottles, it leaves little room for textbooks.

sjm1368 wrote:

Get off the thyroid meds stuff....I'll put it this way, if thyroid meds were a miracle drug that make you run faster....then I want my money back, b/c they sure haven't made me super fast and improved my times...

Wait. What Steve??? You take thyroid? You were one of the star witnesses in a program 9 years later that implied using thyroid meds was cheating and drug abuse.

Educate yourself before you start spewing nonsense.

Interesting. You seem pretty well educated but you still like to spew nonsense.