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this post was submitted on 25 May 2026
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I know nothing about this stuff, but somehow I've picked up on implications that winning "clean" athletes are often those who've used steroids, but then stopped shortly before the competition — just long enough for the evidence to leave their bodies. Is there any truth to this, or have I just been exposed to some conspiracy BS?
I think "clean athletics" is a farce at this point. Tests always lag behind, and the financial incentive to get ahead through some it's-technically-not-cheating-because-the-sporting-body-who-makes-the-rules-don't-know-of-its-existence treatment or drug is just too great. People were taking blood transfusions to artificially increase their red blood cells count, but it was only until the 00s that you were able to test people.
"PED tests aren't drug tests, they're IQ tests" is a common refrain. Some substances take longer to clear the system or have obvious effects that will trigger the average person watching will lose their suspension of disbelief (The Rock's HGH traps for example) but traditional testosterone as a PED has you cycle on and off of it so if you're doing it under proper scheduling rarely will tests prove anything.
Once you're famous enough to get sponsorships they probably fast track you to the personal doctors who greenlight all the sketchy shit you want which every rich person seems to have access to.
Sports is rife with it, realistically. Every couple years you read about how someone was using something years ago, but the testing tech at the time couldn't keep up with it. That's why samples can be stored for up to a decade and retroactively tested in some cases.
Lance Armstrong. Barry Bonds. Alex Rodrigues. Ben Johnson. Russian athletes I can't recall the names of. Marion Jones. BALCO. Biogenesis.
It's everywhere and I just assume anyone but the under-10 sports leagues are using PEDs.
barry bonds was pretty obvious at the time, we all saw his neck
Chael Sonen, ever the story teller, talked about knowing Jon Jones was using PEDs before it ever came out because he himself had "more juice than Tropicana" and still got pushed around in an MMA fight.
Yeah id have to assume PEDs in MMA is rampant, isn't it? I'm not a big combat sports type of guy but with the punishment they dish out and receive, and the required recovery that PEDs would be very in fashion there.
Depending on who you ask, you'd come away thinking its ubiquitous. People pop all the time, for one thing. The UFC dropped USADA and instead went with some less standard testing when Connor McGregor was set to make a return. There was also a fun story about Nick Diaz vs Anderson Silva. Silva, known as a legendary unstoppable monster, ends up popping for PEDs, so Diaz was going to be declared the winner, but it turns out Diaz popped for weed. He was so hot that there was no way he wasn't high during the fight.
Since you seem to know a bit about this, may I ask how much credence you give the "clean" claims here?
I'm adjacent to everything, going so far as to have gotten the mythologized locker room talk about where to find stuff. I keep abreast of discussions about models, athletes, and actors. Even the movie Icarus comes to mind about government agencies overseeing doping programs.
As a rule of thumb 1) I think the world of muscle building can completely FUBAR a person's understanding of what they can expect from natural lifting. 2) you can ask yourself simply: "does this person have a financial incentive to be strong/good looking?"
The idea that you can be afraid of building too much muscle is exclusively in the realm of endurance athletes, someone with a coach and nutritionist, or someone with a very particular and narrow band of self-image.
To that end, I would never be surprised to learn that an Olympic medalist of any stripe was using some kind of designer chemical that mirrors some androgenic effect of whatever testosterone byproduct. It's probably a billion dollar industry and prohibition is simply ineffectual
At least 25%. Probably closer to 4 in 10. I'd bet WADA has some statistics that are probably pretty accurate.
assuming that we somewhat trust anti doping agencies, worst case scenario they stop using them after development period or use designer shit