Tokyo Olympics

[robm321]

That is a good question you pose. I feel bad for the rest of the team. 

[Craig Sawyers]

It isn't just our guy either. There have been three other athletes have failed performance drugs tests at the Tokyo Olympics. And there is discussion underway to remove weightlifting entirely for Paris because of years of systemic performance drug use.

And it goes right back. There was a short period when Chinese distance runners were cleaning up and setting unheard of records. The coach put it down to herbal tea. Yeah. And then they all retired in their mid 20's.

And even further back, there was a Czech woman runner called Kratochvilova https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarmila_Kratochvílová who I swear looked like a bloke. God knows what she was given by her coach, but her 800 metre record has stood since 1983 - the best women runners in the world have not got within a second of her time in the intervening 38 years. The other drug fuelled (allegedly) woman at the same time from East Germany was Marita Koch, who's 400m world record still stands.

So in a real sense it has ever been thus. As soon as a drug can be tested for, new wonder dope comes along which cannot be found.

All that is before we even think of drug fueled cycling. And it wasn't just Lance Armstrong - they were all at it. And in the early days of the Tour de France they used to take puffs of ether to numb the pain, and strychnine - or anything going to help on 400km stages on dirt roads. Chloroform was also used, and horse dope.

Then they got onto Amphetamines. The British rider Tom Simpson died on the upper slopes of Mont Ventoux in the 1967 Tour though amphetamines and dehydration. His last words were "Put me back on my bike".