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Old May 29th 07, 11:51 AM posted to rec.bicycles.racing
Simon Brooke
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Posts: 4,493
Default A more reasonable way of EPO testing

in message Akl6i.2128$9G3.1906@trnddc07, Caroline
') wrote:

For all of these drugs there are easy blood tests to show whether they
are in balance, or "within normal limits." Â*Soooo.... Â*Wouldn't it be so
much easier simply to collect pre-race blood samples from all the
athletes and have them analyzed for whatever may be outside normal
limits? Â*Simply announce that if your blood does not meet "race
standards" you will be disqualified. Â*Period. Â*Then who cares if people
take EPOs? Â*If they take enough to give them an unfair edge, they're out
of the game!


I instinctively dislike your idea, but it does have merits.

I dislike it because it might unfairly penalise people who through
perfectly natural accidents of genetics has parameters which are outside
your 'normal limits' - and, indeed, might penalise them even if their
genetic peculiarity were not 'performance enhancing'. Such a person might
never be able to compete, because it might be impossible to get their body
tuned within the 'normal limits' which had been defined.

However, it would have the great merit of not caring whether your enhanced
haematocrit was caused by physical apparatus (an altitude tent) or
chemical apparatus (EPO). I find those athletes who rail against 'drug
cheats' while using altitude tents nauseatingly hypocritical.

--
(Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

pSchroedinger's cat is blinkstrongNOT/strong/blink dead./p

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