drug taking in sport

To be included in the WADA prohibited list a drug must meet three criteria:

1. scientific evidence that it improves sports performance
2. scientific evidence that it poses a health risk
3. its use violates the spirit of the sport

Can't see that therapeutic doses of salbutamol would meet any of these.

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Originally Posted by SloJo

To be included in the WADA prohibited list a drug must meet three criteria:

1. scientific evidence that it improves sports performance
2. scientific evidence that it poses a health risk
3. its use violates the spirit of the sport

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Actually it only needs to meet any two of the above three criteria.

Drugs such as salbutamol that dilate the airways work in exactly the same way as the body's natural systems; they bind to their receptors whch effect the dilation. By working in this way the lmiting factor is not the quantity of drug that you take, but the number of receptors you have for the drug. Once the receptors are saturated, any more drug taken will have no effect on dilation of the airways.

I don't have asthma, so when I run I saturate my own receptors, if I had asthma and I took salbutamol I would only be restoring myself to the same level as athletes without asthma. I dont' have a problem with this, though I can see there is an arguament that sport is about pitting one body against another, so maybe disadvantages shouldn't be negated this way.

I don't know anything about salbutamols effect on the metabolism, but it is a misnomer to suggest that asthma medication increases dilation of the airways when compared with non-astmatics.

GM, the issue here is that Salbutamol (and other beta agonists) have an androgenic side effect i.e. they can, at a suitable dose, cause you to burn fat and build muscle bulk and strength. In other words, they act like steroids. Weightlifters and bodybuilders have known about this for ages and have abused Clenbutarol (a sister drug) to gain strength and muscle bulk/definition. But to get this effect you need to be injecting large doses of the stuff or seriously chugging down inhalers.
Sulbutamol has a much weaker androgenic effect and, at inhaler doses, no proven effect in vivo. Its a theoretical issue only (there's a paper about this in this montyhs British Journal of Sports Medicine). Thats why doctors can sign the TUE for athletes with proven airways reversability (the clinical criterion for bronchospasm)

So what track WRs do people think are drugs assisted?

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Originally Posted by A.G

I personally think the only track WRs that are drugs assisted are the women's ones for 800 and under and 10,000m. The men's distance records have risen fairly evenly through the decades. I think their increase is just due to natural progressions in training and nutrition etc. Regardless of what country an athlete is from, if they are competing at the top level they will be subjected to a lot of tests.

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Originally Posted by A.G

So what track WRs do people think are drugs assisted?

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AJ i cannot comment on track records but cycling wise i doubt whether the forum has enough pages to list all the drug assisted victories

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Originally Posted by daz h

AJ i cannot comment on track records but cycling wise i doubt whether the forum has enough pages to list all the drug assisted victories

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So do you reckon boardmans absolute hour record was drugs assisted?

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Originally Posted by A.G

So do you reckon boardmans absolute hour record was drugs assisted?

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boardman never took drugs but there is even a story about that as well
he was a genious at the hour on a bike but why do you think he struggled at the tour ALWAYS.
he pleaded to his GAN manager and team mates to be taken off the bike, he always maintained he couldnt do these races , his body couldnt take it.
there was a reason for that

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Originally Posted by A.G

So what track WRs do people think are drugs assisted?

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I think you're probably along the right lines,

Women.
100 Florence Griffith-Joyner
200 Florence Griffith-Joyner
400 Marita Koch
800 Jarmila Kratochvílová

Although I'd throw in....
1500 Yunxia Qu
3000 Junxia Wang

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Originally Posted by A.G

So what track WRs do people think are drugs assisted?

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Wouldn't it be quicker to say which ones aren't? :rolleyes: