Topic: Doping, why bother?

[The Bournemouth Red]

With more athletes being sent home from the Winter Olympics, it made me wonder why they even try and get away with using banned substances, knowing the testing process is so rigorous.

Back in the day (Ben Johnson, basically any female Russian weightlifter) it might have been possible to elude capture, but not today.

So why bother?  Is winning unfairly worth the risk?

[Andy @ Allerton!]

With more athletes being sent home from the Winter Olympics, it made me wonder why they even try and get away with using banned substances, knowing the testing process is so rigorous.

Back in the day (Ben Johnson, basically any female Russian weightlifter) it might have been possible to elude capture, but not today.

So why bother?  Is winning unfairly worth the risk?

Get home early, watching Blockbusters and crack open a tin of Double Diamond?

[rafathegaffa83]

A question that has been much discussed here
https://www.redandwhitekop.com/forum/index.php?topic=295375.0

[Peabee]

With more athletes being sent home from the Winter Olympics, it made me wonder why they even try and get away with using banned substances, knowing the testing process is so rigorous.

Back in the day (Ben Johnson, basically any female Russian weightlifter) it might have been possible to elude capture, but not today.

So why bother?  Is winning unfairly worth the risk?

Most don’t get caught. Reward > Risk. It’s more widespread than you know or think. There isn’t enough testing in football compared with Olympic athletes etc, for example.

There’s all sorts of doping going on because it works (mostly) on maximum thresholds for certain blood markers, so micro-dosing certain substances can give a performance gain while ensuring the athletes remain under those thresholds. Sometimes it goes wrong and they’re caught.