Dara just one the national title in the 100M Freestyle in 54.4 at the ripe old age of 40. Simply Incredible. :applaud: :woot:
If that's not inspiring I don't know what is.
Parents
Former Member
I think there's another potentially interesting issue here. What if, hypothetically, it were possible to achieve the same benefits of steroids by utilizing a team of a half dozen dedicated support staff that did all sorts of intensive massage and stretching, specialized strength workouts, completely customized workouts, etc.. Perhaps even utilizing some sort of hypothetical highly instrumented suits and all sorts of expensive monitoring equipment. None of this would be against the rules but it could enhance the performance of an athlete that had all that versus one who did not. Certainly historical performances are going to suffer in comparison. During the last Olympics there were some stories about athletes that had support teams like this to varying degrees and the advantage they gained. It seems to be the direction that Olympic sport is going in. If people tend to dismiss a performance as drug-enhanced, will they eventually start to dismiss performances as technology/support team assisted? Already one can argue that reaching the Olympics requires "freakish" genetic gifts, certainly we're at or past the point where an ungifted person can hope to compete through a good work ethic alone.
I think there's another potentially interesting issue here. What if, hypothetically, it were possible to achieve the same benefits of steroids by utilizing a team of a half dozen dedicated support staff that did all sorts of intensive massage and stretching, specialized strength workouts, completely customized workouts, etc.. Perhaps even utilizing some sort of hypothetical highly instrumented suits and all sorts of expensive monitoring equipment. None of this would be against the rules but it could enhance the performance of an athlete that had all that versus one who did not. Certainly historical performances are going to suffer in comparison. During the last Olympics there were some stories about athletes that had support teams like this to varying degrees and the advantage they gained. It seems to be the direction that Olympic sport is going in. If people tend to dismiss a performance as drug-enhanced, will they eventually start to dismiss performances as technology/support team assisted? Already one can argue that reaching the Olympics requires "freakish" genetic gifts, certainly we're at or past the point where an ungifted person can hope to compete through a good work ethic alone.
