NBTTT: Doping (in general, not just in tennis, which they blatently are).

Did anyone see Catch Me If You Can, the BBC Panorama this week? (The one in which Alan Wells was accused of doping? But that's besides the point for what I'm about to say ...)

The reporter is a really fit guy, but just an amateur athlete. Cyclist and runner. He, in concert with a contact inside the UK Anti-doping organisation, decided to see if he could get away with it. So he bought some EPO off the internet, had it tested to make sure it really was EPO, and started microdosing with it. He did a VO2 test before starting.

Bottom line is that in three weeks he managed to gain an extra 7% performance in his VO2, felt absolutely superhuman, and still managed to beat the Blood Passport testing that WADA do. He showed his results to the head of WADA who basically said "Yes. It's *very* hard to catch dopers."

That's just an amateur guy, with no medical team to back him up and do their own tests to make sure he passes tests etc. Imagine if you had the resources of a professional.

Anyway, it was an eye opener.

Posted By: Arizona Bay, Jun 6, 16:05:21