auscyclefan94 said:
It particular sports, the athletes which compete are allowed to take pain killers and all sorts of other goodies. Ethically, it is not seen wrong but should it be because it does enhance performance by taking away the pain? Similar to supplements.
What are your thoughts on the use of pain killers, supplements, etc.? Discuss.
About 100 years ago, back around the days of the Dinosaurs, and before Lance or Floyd or even LeMond, the answer was the same as it is today.
The rules are the rules.
No false starts, no interfering with the competitors or putting them in danger (but blood in the pool - 1956 Melbourne - is ok), no mechanical devices, no extra weights in the bobsled (1972 Sapporo), no ex-husband attacking your competitor ('Kardigan'), no fairings on your bicycle, no PEDs.
Before the era of modern drug testing athletes competing at events like the Olympics and Pan Am Games were given a banned substance list. If you were found to have one of those substances in your system, you could be disqualified.
Then, as now, you, the athlete, are responsible for what is in your body.
If you must use pharmaceuticals to compete those pharmaceuticals cannot be performance enhancing.
If the only alternative for you, the athlete, is to use a pharmaceutical which is performance enhancing then you cannot and should not compete.
That may seem harsh, but these are the rules.
Another way to look at it is that if you are in such duress that you require these types of treatment, then you are probably in too much duress to compete.
In 1979 one of our teammates severely sprained his ankle fooling around in the athlete's village. The choice was simple - compete without meds or take the meds and not compete. We wanted the teammate to compete and it was both a team and personal decision to compete with them - without the meds.
Even though this was before the dawn of modern, widespread testing, a control officer appeared immediately after the medal event with targetted testing. The tests were fine.
Dave.