Since testosterone is a naturally occurring hormone I assume a positive test simply means you have a level that wouldn't have occurred naturally, correct?
I believe that they initially look at the testosterone:epitestosterone (T:E) ratio. If that ratio is several times higher than expected (to account for individual variability), they look for the presence of exogenous testosterone.
when someone at age 45 goes as fast as they did at 22.....in the 200 fly/400im/800free.....yeah right
Why not? We already know the benefits of regular training. And we have better strokes than we did 23 years ago.
Once you come out and say "this person is too fast he must be doping" there is no way for him/her to change your mind, and you poison the well for everyone else. This is my problem with it. If someone doesn't fail the drug test, it's not proof that they didn't cheat, it just means they didn't get caught. So what's the point of the test?
Show me proof of a problem, and maybe I'll support testing. Until then, I'll stick with what I know is true: some people are just whiners.
I am 37 years now and I am doing great with any doping! Doping is against my own ethic code.
I swam last year a personal best in 50m backstroke and have finished on 4th place at the European Masters in my age group in 200m backstroke with a good time (2:18) and I don't really care if some else is doping in my age group or not. I am looking on my results first and try to get better on a legal way. I know one person of my age group who is wondering, why I am getting faster and faster but i don't really care what someone think...
I would never ever considering any kind of doping.
That's the right attitude. You're getting faster because you're training better and smarter and 37 is not "too old". Ervin went faster in 2016 than he did in 2000, why can't we?
I just think that Masters sports in general make this pretty complicated. A lot of people of a certain age require "banned" substances to maintain their health. How do you separate that from performance enhancement? I take a beta blocker for PVC's. Would that disqualify me from archery or shooting? I was once prescribed Prednisone for a short period of time for an inflammatory condition and was an animal in the water! So sometimes older people require medications which might otherwise be considered cheating. I sometimes wonder why so many top-tier masters swimmers are asthmatic, however.
To act as a deterrent.
Without evidence of a problem? Despite the fact that all sorts of swimmers take all sorts of things for all sorts of reasons? Should someone's record be overturned because the GNC is on the way home from work? Should we decline recommended medications from our doctors because we're afraid of drug testing? Do we really want USMS swimmers to have to care about that?
These are hypothetical scandals. We shouldn't go around making rules to solve problems that may not exist.
And yes, I realize you may ask "how do we know this problem doesn't exist?" Well, the burden is on you to figure that out. Don't preemptively punish the rest of us just because you think some 45-year-old is too fast.
If someone doesn't fail the drug test, it's not proof that they didn't cheat, it just means they didn't get caught. So what's the point of the test?
To act as a deterrent.
Unless, of course, USMS doesn't care about it. In which case anything goes.
I am 37 years now and I am doing great with any doping! Doping is against my own ethic code.
I swam last year a personal best in 50m backstroke and have finished on 4th place at the European Masters in my age group in 200m backstroke with a good time (2:18) and I don't really care if some else is doping in my age group or not. I am looking on my results first and try to get better on a legal way. I know one person of my age group who is wondering, why I am getting faster and faster but i don't really care what someone think...
I would never ever considering any kind of doping.
But my real question is: what good will testing do? Will it be a net positive? Of course cheaters exist, but is anyone really concerned that cheaters are getting all the Masters records? Does anyone think they got second place at Nationals because the first-place swimmer cheated?
I don't know. And I think limited testing is doomed to have limited results. To be effective testing needs to be extensive and random, and I really don't think we need to resort to that.
I understand that first place and records aren't important to everyone, but they are certainly important to some. If it is important to you, then you probably want the competition to be fair. It is naive to think there are not swimmers being displaced from records and placing by cheaters. I know I would be upset about that if it happened to me.
