Topic: Testosterone Levels

[glennpendlay]

Jerry, thats something anyone would be a little scared about...  cant say i never thought about it.

fact is, i think everyone knows what i did my masters thesis work on.  hell i even presented the results at an "international" coaching symposium in colorado springs.  theres no way to do research into test level fluctuations over a training cycle and not learn enough about hormones and testing for hormones that you form some sort of opinion about testing, and maybe even ways that they could be beat. there are others, even one on this forum, who i think at this point might, make that probably, be better able than me to engage in this sort of thing if they wanted to.  of course, having the mental knowledge to do something, or even just thinking you do, is a long way from doing it.  first youd have to have the desire to do it, then the money and access to a lab, and even access to epitest.  that is some very, very hard stuff to get.  a person would have to have a lot more connections than i do to obtain it.  and a lab...  thats another story.  all of our testing was done thru texas tech and universty of oklahoma.  its not like you can just submit random samples to them every few weeks.  it has to be part of a study, they have to know why its being done, etc.  if a person tried to run this sort of thing thru a university lab, youd have to be one tricky SOB, and probably have help from a person in the lab, someone working there, who would be risking his or her job, and probably any and all future jobs they could ever get in a university lab.  i know ther are labs outside of the university system, but i dont have any experience with them, i can assume that the controls would be lower but the costs much higher.

in any case, if i have given the impression that all this would just be very easy to do, thats not the case.  IF you had access to testing facilities, and IF you had access to things like aqueous test and epitest, then, yeah, i think that with a little experimentation it wouldnt be that hard.  but i have no idea how, at least in the USA, one could gain access to the neccessary lab/equipment to do it.  knowing the difficulty of all this, i seriously doubt its being done here, or will be done.  it would have to be done by someone with access to a private lab and lots of money.

John, i think in your post, you are assuming that if any greek took a banned substance, then it was with the knowledge and help of the greek federation.  like most i think drugs are used in weightlifting just like all other sports.  i also think that in weightlifting, the use is more prevelent in other countries than in the USA.  But i DONT assume that each and every case of doping is part of a big conspiracy administered by team doctors and government sponsored, like something out of rocky 4.  i think thats a huge, and unwarrented assumption.  im betting that in an awefull lot of countries, the administration people are just as anti-drug as we are here in the USA, maybe not quite as crusading in their fight to eliminate it, but i doubt that in a majority of places they are meeting behind closed doors and discussing how to beat the tests.  if there are differences, its most likely by the societies, including lifters and coaches, of these other countries.  in a lot of places, steroids are legal and over the counter.  there is not a "stigma" attached to them like here in the USA.  take away that stigma, the negative connotations by the society they are in, and you get a lot more lifters and coaches trying it.  we dont know the situations behine any particular lifter getting popped.

and to Chris, you are definately assuming a massive conspiracy.  maybe that was more true in the days of the soviet union and east germany.  i doubt its true now.  i dont have any real evidence to back this up, just my general common sense feelings about human nature.  id be willing to bet that the majority of drug use is by lifter alone, or maybe conspiracy between lifter and coach, and maybe even lifter, coach, and resourses of coach that he has procurred totally outside of the weightlifting federation, and without their knowledge.  im betting that some positives, and a lot of drug use, are occuring in countries that have national offices that are just as against drug use as is ours here in the USA.  for whatever reasons, their fight has not been as successfull as ours.  maybe its society, no stigma attached to the drugs, easy availability, whatever.  maybe its even a much bigger drive to succeed, much more motivation of whatever kind, that pushes individual lifters and coaches to do whatever is neccessary even if it means breaking the rules.  maybe they dont have the rescources we do, money, structure of society, whatever, that make programs like NAN possible or easy.  

im not some polyanna who thinks that the world is perfect, yeah i know that people are cheating.  but we see a couple of positives in china, we hear that the lifters were banned, the coaches involved fired, the teams they were on fined substantially, and everyone screams coverup, they are just trying to look good, throwing away a couple of sacrificial lambs to appease everyone and look good in front of the r est of the world.

what about gonzolas and garcy, the two that i can think of that have been popped here in the USA most recently.  no wait, also dean goad.  is anyone demonizing these three?  have their coaches been blacklisted, was the resident team coach in colorado springs fired when one of his lifters tested positive?  was anyone fined?  all 3 of these athletes have coaches who are either on the board, or employees of USAW.  all three are good lifters, but really no threat to be on an olympic team or be major international competitors.  think about it.  3 lifters who were definately coached by those in the "inner circle" but none of them at the time of their getting popped were capable of significantly adding to our medal winning chances in international competition.  the perfect "sacrificial lambs".

now, you know what?  i personally think, i am very, very sure, that any drug use by these 3 was their decision alone.  im sure that in each case, the most shocked, embarrassed, and disapointed person was their respective coaches.  i dont think the coaches should have been fired or fined or whatever, becasue im sure that any cheating was done without the coaches knowledge.  i know it wasnt a conspiracy.  i know they werent sacrificial lambs to appease the rest of the world.

but, think how this would look to say, lifters and coaches in china if they applied the same standards of suspicion to us as we do to them.  the difference is, obviously that they are winning and we are not.  again, it all comes down to that.  take a country that is winning, and if there are no positives, it proves they are not fighting drugs, that they are supporting drug use and doing what is neccessary for their athletes to cheat and not get caught.  if they catch people, they are just trying to appease the rest of the world, throwing away a few lifters to look good.  every action, no matter what, looks to us like a coverup.  take a country that isnt winning, and if there are no positives, it proves that there is no use, if there are positives, it proves that we are serious about testing and that we are catching cheaters and eliminating drug use.

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

Glenn,

I do not condone anyone cheating, including Americans. I condemn all of it although I don't think I have demonized anyone in particular-just pointing out that we have a broken system of international testing. However, I do believe there is an important difference between getting caught in a domestic or international event. If domestic testing is serious and includes significant out of comp testing, then they should be caught before they are sent to an international meet. This is what happens here. In other places, I believe that domestic testing is conducted in large part as a charade and to help ensure that the athletes sent to international competitions are ready to pass the tests.

As far as a massive conspiracy, if you consider that all weightlifting competitors at the last Olympics were tested before they were allowed to compete to make sure that no cheaters were allowed in the competition, and you consider how many beat that first test and still failed the post competition test, I believe it is quite clear that there is still a massive problem in our sport at the international level. Heck, the IWF itself admits we have a massive problem.

Regards