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this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2025
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I don't understand how this is any different than what is done with PEDs in the US, where our professional athletes just blatantly cycle through different types of PEDs depending on what is or is not being tested for, they just do it under their teams supervision as to make sure to not run foul of the regulators. Literally the entire upper echelon of the professional biking world (including the entire US Postal service team) was shown to be doping little more than a decade ago, a better question is why should Russia even care other than to just do the bare minimum to pay lip service to western standards of 'fair-play'?
Is it just because it is unsophisticated that it bugs you?
I would have to say that it's the recency bias that bugs me more than anything. It seemed sophisticated enough for me. They had all the good instruments for a well-equipped laboratory. I would, of course, never play a game of "well at least America..." because it's the greater Satan.
I guess what bugs me is how ubiquitous it is/was. Intravenous injection of PEDs seems like such a hardcore thing and to have everyone just do it like they're taking their fish oil in the morning and then to have an elaborate plan to hide samples and produce false data is so alien. It's an inflamed sense of "everything is not as it appears"
What I mean is that they clearly aren't doing much to actually hide the fact that they don't really care about the samples. Having equipment and testing supplies is not that sophisticated if you aren't bothering with a large public media charade. Hell, I have never even tested positive for THC byproducts on a job screening despite being an avid smoker for the majority of my adult life. People just don't really care as much as they used to about this stuff. It's all very clearly a ruse for rubes and insurance companies.
Not only are they probably aware that many people are doing it, they likely aren't paid enough to care, and if someone wants to slip them more money for something higher risk, why should they care?
Intravenous steroids is not a 'hardcore thing' it is the fundamental basis of pretty much all of amateur and professional body building culture, and much of top-ranked college and highschool athletics. It's basically ecstacy for athletes. Not everyone is on it, but if you are in the scene long enough you will know where to get it if you do want it. Most professional athletic organizations literally have steroid cocktails that they administer to their star players in the event they are injured. It's one of the reasons why ligament and tendon injuries are so prevalent in today's athletes, their muscular development is not in sync with their connective tissue development, which leads to devastating injuries. They are more sophisticated about it than they were before, you will rarely see huge hulking athletes way outside the statistical zones, but they will ride just into the freak athlete territory to be noticed. As well PEDs don't automatically make you a good athlete, you still need to train diligently, especially at a young age, to be really good at the thing you are doing, which is why most players don't really care if you are on them. It's pretty ingrained into athletic culture at this point. It's always 'not everything is as it seems'.
i think a lot of normal people see medically unnecessary needle drugs as "hardcore"
I think it's mostly due to the stigmatization of needle drugs as somehow being worse for you overall than orally or nasally administered drugs, even though they all can kill you pretty easily if you take the wrong dosage. My point is more that given what athletes especially professional athletes out themselves through on a regular basis, needles aren't really considered to be a big deal in the clique.
I never had an opportune moment to say as much, but I came away from the documentary in agreement with that. "Oh, it's just another way to get shit into your body."
It was still more intense because you need technique, it made him bleed a little, it raised bumps, it caused bruising, and you need a clean needle. But it's in the same neighborhood as other ways to ingest things.
I do my combat sports as a hobby. These are, of course, ripe with discourse about enhanced athletes. I don't inject myself with PEDs because they have side affects and I'm not trying to do all that for my $3 medal. There's something disconcerting to the idea that the people I know who fight professionally, the MMA fighters I've worked with, the coaches who teach both, and the ex-fighting coaches were in on some project to secure chemicals and inject them gives me dissonance. Like we were in the same room doing the same thing. When I think about the MMA class where I was getting beat up, it stretches my reality to be like "you're not just a better, stronger, more dedicated wrestler; I think you're using PEDs. I think you and coach are conspiring to invite me over and beat me up!"
To me there's a rift you have to cross to coordinate everything and decide to inject yourself with medically unnecessary needles. But that's a tangent from the point of posting this and an idea I want to explore and develop more.
I'm not too familiar with the combat sports scene, but it wouldn't surprise me if something similar is going on. That said, those guys tend to be a whole other level of insane, so it wouldn't surprise me if they aren't necessarily doing PEDs, especially since technique is such a huge portion of what is going on there. But on the other other hand, even stuff like caffeine before a match could be considered a PED, and fighters do love their little advantages and then covering it up with talk of 'superior genetics'.
I mean the same thing exists for me and workout influencers, since I enjoy working out and keeping limber, and they usually have some decent tips. Again, not all of them are going to be on them, but it is a much larger number than you'd expect. The ones you have to be suspect of are the ones that are constantly breaking their PRs and could be in contention for WR categories, but never seem to actually want to compete, or ones that repeatedly go through aggressive weight-gain/loss regimes. Guys who are slimmer and tend to just stay the same weight over long periods of time, while improving their techniques and flexibility are less sus. But it's the extreme ones that gain the most attention. Even then it's mostly a supplements or training regime scam at the end of the day. I know I will never look like them without PEDs but I know that I feel better when I try, move, do things and eat healthier.
Idk, I think the better thing to do is just to tune as much of it out as possible and just ask yourself, 'Am I having fun? Do I enjoy this, even if the implications are bad?' and if you don't then find something where PEDs will never be as important as just time spent and technique, like dancing, music or other forms of art (including research and writing).