Not Buying It wrote:
Bad Wigins wrote:
1.5% of 206 seconds is 3.09 seconds; 3:26.00 - 3.09 = 3:22.91
But anyhow, how can a study really understand the potential of dope use if they're not fully aware of how it's used at the top level? The athletes who do it most effectively aren't likely to volunteer as subjects.
They nearly all had short careers, with 1 or 2 years at their peak, and retired young.
A lot of their careers were shortened due to injuries because they didn't have the advances in sports medicine technology available today.
And because it was just too costly to travel around the world competing for no money throughout their twenties. They had to get a job. Guys like Bannister and Snell had to put down their spikes and their amphetamines and start their distinguished careers in medicine etc.
It's fair enough that if the top athletes were only using amphetamines in Olympic finals or the really big races, it might not have done them much long-term harm, especially in short careers. But surely (if usage was widespread as Bad Wiggins claims) some elite runners would have gone the full hog, as in the EPO era, and used the stuff to grind out insane training sessions every day for years? And surely, not only would their health be destroyed, they would develop hardcore addictions to the stuff?
Wouldn't there also be some visible signs of athletes being on amphetamines, such as being wide eyed?
There's a video of Douglas Lowe winning his second 800m Olympic gold in 1928 with an astonishing kick, and you can imagine that this is the kind of look after the race that somebody pumped up on stimulants would have (I don't think he was on anything, just pumped at winning gold).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4iIka_QQ24