How do you get an athlete to dope?

If I was a sub 13:30 or sub 3:38 guy coming out of college, I would definitely dope to get to Olympic qualifying levels. No question.

If I were fast wrote:

If I was a sub 13:30 or sub 3:38 guy coming out of college, I would definitely dope to get to Olympic qualifying levels. No question.

What if you run a 4:20 mile as a junior in HS? Do dope and hope to be a 4:07 guy who gets a scholarship?

If I were fast wrote:

If I was a sub 13:30 or sub 3:38 guy coming out of college, I would definitely dope to get to Olympic qualifying levels. No question.

As this post mentions, at some point the reality of what it takes to get to international elite sinks in and an athlete chooses. A reading of the rules, as well as the inaction of federation, lead an athlete to doping.

A determined doping coach is familiar with how much T,HGH,peptides to use and when to use them and still never test positive. That stuff isn't that expensive, and it's not terribly risky. A throwaway needle used below the skin on the stomach. Salazar sends you to the only endocrinologist in America, Dr. Brown. Salazar advises you on how to use a TUE to your advantage. He's not the only one.

The payoff is big if the athlete hits the right combination of dope without much near-term risk. The federation is okay with it. Just win and bring an audience.

Seriously mate? wrote:

It's kind of like how all pornstars get into porn and say I'll never do anal or black guys....then they all end up doing anal and black guys. It's just a natural progression of the profession.

This made me chuckle.

I call them injectable vitamins.

Seriously mate? wrote:

It's kind of like how all pornstars get into porn and say I'll never do anal or black guys....then they all end up doing anal and black guys. It's just a natural progression of the profession.

That is different though, it isn't illegal or against the rules of porn to do anal. You can slowly get on to that too, like gradually widening your @$$hole with toys. You can't do that with doping, there is a clear line between legal and not legal. Some training groups my push the boundaries of these lines into the gray zone, but 1. They know if it's legal or not and 2. They can use all of the supplements they want that are legal, but that doesn't allow you to ease into doping as a natural part of the profession.

My main point is that when an athlete joins a group, there is no way of for the coach or the athlete to know if the other dopes or not. Eventually there is a point to where the elephant in the room gets too big and either the athlete or the coach has to ask the other to dope.

You're missing an important step for many, where the coach or teammates convince the athlete it isn't cheating. Either the peer pressure or logical argument convinces the athlete it is okay.

Phil Gaimon has a story in his book about being sent to a doctor by his coach, the doctor asking two questions "are you out of breath at the top of the stairs" and "do you cough after exercise often." Being a athlete, he said yes to both, was given a diagnosis and prescription for asthma. No testing, or even a stethescope was involved...

(It was his roomate that told him he'd been naive and said it was a ploy)

You have the exact scenario with Cam Levins, for example, who is convinced his asthma medication his legit, but fails to realize that the very facts he describes show that he is treating the effects of training, something that should not be allowed to be solved with medication.

Or Torrence who was told to take vitamins. Or the LM Elite (Hebron) athlete who was given "vitamins".

And its not hard to imagine someone like Trafeh or Fagan who saw so many around them doping, that they decided their own doping just levelled the playing field.