• Nautalax@lemmy.world
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    6 hours ago

    Let’s be real, the regular Olympics are already doped. Their entire careers are on the line with the pride (and eyes) of the nation bearing down on them and demanding results… and we think they and their teams aren’t taking every edge they think they can possibly get away with? All the time famous athletes of yesteryear are being revealed to have been up to shenanigans when science catches up to retest their samples more effectively or some investigation gets a co-conspirator to spill the beans.

    There’s microdosing below what tests can detect, novel designer drugs that can’t yet be detected, therapeutic use exemptions for drugs that would normally be banned, setting up situations to evade tests unless you are prepared to take them, tampering with the sample, good old fashioned corruption… probably tons of things that would never occur to me but that would to highly motivated teams with vast amounts of money on the line.

  • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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    6 hours ago

    The athletes that openly take drugs to compete in these games will be banned from all other contests, so anyone who is already competitive isn’t going to take part.

    A top-tier athlete without PEDs is gonna outperform lesser athletes who use them.

  • ZpbkPEcaHhIveqdR@lemmy.world
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    8 hours ago

    I don’t know athletes names, and please don’t think I am trying to criticise him, but If he is competing in the enhanced games then there would be presumably no testing for enhancing drugs, so we only really have his word that he doesn’t use enhancing drugs which may not be the same as actually not using enhancing drugs

    • Robust Mirror@aussie.zone
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      7 hours ago

      They still test because the whole framework relies on verified categories, but I’ll admit the optics are hilarious.

      • howrar@lemmy.ca
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        6 hours ago

        I heard (source may not be reliable) that one of the goals of this project is to better understand the effects of various drugs on people, so they would still need to know what everyone’s taking.

  • Drun@lemmy.world
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    11 hours ago

    Let’s not forget the fact that ones who actually used drugs will be banned from any other competitions for many months or even years.

    So, these other athletes are likely not in the “top tier”. It would be good to hear opinion from someone experienced to tell if it’s true.

    • Robust Mirror@aussie.zone
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      7 hours ago

      It’s mostly true. The biggest name from what I’ve looked into is Ben Proud. He won silver at the 2024 Paris Olympics in the 50m freestyle. But you are largely correct it is majority no names.

    • JcbAzPx@lemmy.world
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      6 hours ago

      Was going to say, steroids wouldn’t even help much here, other than speeding up healing from the injuries you get because you’re swimming juiced.

  • csolisr@hub.azkware.net
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    18 hours ago

    The only enhancement he used (but everyone else on the pool was using it too) was a swimming suit so efficient, that it got eventually banned by the IOC for being deemed an unfair advantage. Also, most of the “enhanced” competitors were just returning from retirement, there’s only so much you can compensate with steroids.

    • csolisr@hub.azkware.net
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      18 hours ago

      Oh, and furthermore: jacking up a la Broly is actually a terrible idea for swimming specifically, because the extra bulging muscle is actually inefficient for hydrodynamic drag.

      • SamuraiBeandog@lemmy.world
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        11 hours ago

        I read an article a little while ago about one of the swimmers who was training for these games and it talked about exactly this, how the changes to his body shape and composition were bigger drawbacks than the added strength from the enhancements.

        If this event ends up going for a while and has enough interest I would expect people to figure out an optimal way to dope to find the balance.

        • JcbAzPx@lemmy.world
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          6 hours ago

          The advancements will be to the suit. It will become more like speed submarining than swimming.

      • nomecks@lemmy.wtf
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        10 hours ago

        That’s just them taking the wrong performance enhancing drugs. I would imagine that something that would lead to huge swelling of the hands and feet might be good for increasing how much water they can push against.

        • optimisticturtle@lemmy.world
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          8 hours ago

          something that would lead to huge swelling of the hands and feet might be good for increasing how much water they can push against.

          HGH does that.

        • csolisr@hub.azkware.net
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          18 hours ago

          Yes, generally, but at a certain point, the amount of energy gained from sheer muscle is unfortunately negated by the amount of drag from the muscle’s additional volume. That’s why most swimmers are relatively lean, with good core muscles.

            • csolisr@hub.azkware.net
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              17 hours ago

              Yeah, an energy boosting substance should be more apt for quick sprints. Again, as I mentioned above, most of the “enhanced” athletes are coming back from retirement - giving 120% from a degraded muscle can (and here, did) give less of a payback than giving 100% from a muscle in its prime.

              • SamuraiBeandog@lemmy.world
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                11 hours ago

                Yeah, an energy boosting substance should be more apt for quick sprints.

                The opposite I think, meth doesn’t magically make you stronger or faster (it just feels like it does) but it keeps you going for longer.

                • NannerBanner@literature.cafe
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                  7 hours ago

                  but it keeps you going for longer.

                  Specifically, mentally going. The majority of olympic level athletes are not ‘flagging’ due to not being able to keep their mental focus while pushing through pain/fatigue, it’s due to actual physiological reasons as your energy stores deplete and muscles suffer damage.

    • MinnesotaGoddam@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      i would have thought there’s be like a blood oxygen thingy. or blood something else re- like… what’s it called. sorry, can’t remember the word. too much weed. 4:, uh, 4:57 if you want to be precise 4:20 was a bit ago. when you give platelets. they take the blood out and pull out the platelets, put the blood back in. i’d think there’d be something you could do with iv bullshit, something more intense with APHERESIS HAHA THATS THE WORD. i think that’s the word.

      juice up right before the meet so you can voom. not even with anything that illegal, just with, idunno, making sure your electrolytes are the right balance.

  • RandomStickman@fedia.io
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    18 hours ago

    I first read it as “enchanted” and for a fleeting moment I was in a world of magical swimmers until I read further and realised what it actually was. It was just like when I first came across “fantasy football” and thought it was about orcs and wizards playing American football.

    We need a Blood Bowl of swimming.

    • terranoid@lemmy.cafe
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      17 hours ago

      …this isn’t a weird green text meme?

      Holy fuck, the Enhanced Games are real? And looking into it, it’s backed by Donald Trump Jr and Peter Thiel.

      Holy fuck actual dystopian future

      • optimisticturtle@lemmy.world
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        8 hours ago

        Thiel in addition to being pro-surveillance state is also transhumanism. He was interested in Clavicular of the looksmaxxing community for similar reasons.

      • BlueFootedPetey@sh.itjust.works
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        14 hours ago

        Iv always wanted to watch something like this, but yea knowing who back it, fuck it. Kinda curious how some of the other sports worked out in relation to the non doping counterparts.

        • chocrates@piefed.world
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          11 hours ago

          Right? People dope in all sports, I’m fine with people being allowed to do it openly. I’m sure since it’s Thiel and Trump it’s awful somehow though

          • BlueFootedPetey@sh.itjust.works
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            10 hours ago

            I kinda get most sports and comps not allowing doping, arguments for and against.

            But yea, all the doping, bionics and shit, lets just see what we could do. For funsies.

            • dustyData@lemmy.world
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              10 hours ago

              The problem is that with the potential damage to the body and their career this is exactly what happens. Only the retired or mid performers are willing to actually take on the experiment. Top athletes already use some forms of doping but are very protective, since they have more to lose. Only those with nothing to lose will go all in on the enhancements.

            • chocrates@piefed.world
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              10 hours ago

              I get the reasons for not doing it, but it seems clear that a lot of people are still doing it. Testing is always lagging the new methods of getting around it.

              I’m curious if, with the world going crazy for LLM’s, we will see it used to make novel compositions of existing chemicals that constantly outpace the labs tasked with finding the doping.

  • nexguy@lemmy.world
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    17 hours ago

    He was just doped up on exercise and high on life. Gonna need an asterisk next to that win.