Good post, but I dont agree with the overall opinion around here that it is okay to fill players with different kinds of medicine just because it is not on the dopinglist or that it is sold over the counter.
Correct me if I am wrong but anti inflammatory is given when people have infections and it should not be given to people every day or it could possible have implikations for your health? I guess that is what got the doctor convicted and what shut the program down in 1998.
It should be clear by now that the Triade explored every possible grey area
that could give us an advantage whether it was ussing drugs or put pressure on referees. Other teams did the same thing and you can always discuss what is allright and what is not, but I really dont hope that our current management is operating in the same manner.
It's incredibly naive to think that any high level sports performance program isn't using every single legal (and in some cases illegal) method available to increase performance. These athletic programs are fighting for results worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Olympic programs, professional sports teams, etc... Everything is explored, everything is used that can enhance performance, by every single team and athlete that can afford to do the research and use it. It will always be this way. If their are severe negative side-effects that very adversely effect athlete health, these drugs and supplements are banned. It's one of the conditions for adding something to the banned substance list.
And no anti-inflamms are not only for infections. They are also used and approved to be used for reducing inflammation due to muscular or ligament injury, and even to help reduce inflammation from muscular fatigue. Should they be used in high doses, every day? Probably not, as it both reduces their efficacy and the body's natural healing process and may have long term side effects that there currently isn't enough research done to know about with certainty. But who makes the decision to say anti-inflamms can only be used in this way or that? There is definitely a use for them in high-performance athletes, and
The point I was making is that it's entirely stupid to assume anything about that article was correct considering the writer doesn't have a clue as to what the drugs referenced actually are, and what possible benefits they provide. The writer is an idiot. Moving the goalposts, implying Juventus was the only doing it, while even making reference to another team using these drugs, etc. They also make the implication that such drugs are similar to Sharapova's drug, but this is obviously not the case, as they have not been banned by WADA, which means WADA does not see any of them as performance enhancing, nor do they see them as dangerous to athlete health.
Not to mention the fact, if Sharapova's drug was over-the-counter, considered legal, than there is absolutely nothing wrong her having used it prior to its ban. It doesn't matter whether she used it for its actual specific purpose or not. A large number of over-the-counter supplements not banned by WADA are not used in the way they were originally. Where do you draw the line of what supplement/drug is ethical to use, and how one can go about using it? Should WADA ban everything that is remotely performance enhancing? Most gym supplements would be banned, many vitamins would be banned... But these things can also improve health. Wintertime supplementation with Vitamin D is a huge performance enhancer for those who live in northern climates. Should it be banned? Creatine has some evidence supporting it as performance enhancing, at least during the training season... it can speed up post-workout recovery and allow you to work out more frequently and for longer periods of time. Should it be banned for this? The heart drug Neoton from the article was just an early version of creatine phosphate, an over-the-counter supplement used by a huge number of athletes and gym-goers round the world. Should we ban it and consider it unethical, because sport performance is not the only nor the original use?
Saying that you aren't using something for its intended purpose so you're being unethical is both naive and stupid. Many substances provide many benefits and have many purposes. If they are not banned, using them for any of their beneficial effects is perfectly fine in my book. Have all of them had enough studies done to determine long term consequence of their use... certainly not. But that's an entirely different argument, and what that takes on the whole supplement/pharma industry and whether testing is stringent enough before drugs get put into production or sold over the counter... Especially the supplement industry for which the FDA and other organizations are absurdly lax. But high performance sport is worth billions and these programs are filled experts in supplementation, nutrition, exercise physiology, and so on. Supplement regimes are created to maximize performance. And that is exactly what they do. At what cost, who knows? But suggesting any of this was exclusive to Juventus in the mid-90s, or isn't going on to this very day amongst all major sporting programs, is disingenuous and retarded.