
US Olympic athlete files leaked in alleged WADA hack - Udik
http://thenewdaily.com.au/sport/other-sports/2016/09/13/wada-hacking-us/
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supergirl
I'm surprised there is this exception mechanism and nobody brought it up
before. if anything, this leak shows that the list of exceptions should be
public. I assume it isn't already. For example, I would be interested to see
how many exceptions an X time tennis champion has obtained, as I'm sure his
competitors would also like to know.

in any case, this exception mechanism is a slippery slope. is it fair to
healthy athletes? could the advantage of these banned substances be so big
that it could motivate healthy athletes to get sick intentionally? I don't
have any hope that wada will improve after this since now it is so easy for
them to just say russia did this because they hate us. they also did not
improve much after the russian doping scandal, which was only possible because
the whole doping test system is flawed.

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bps4484
The problem with making the exceptions public is you're then making athlete's
medical records public. There is a slippery slope here as well that as drugs
continue to get added to the list of banned substances, an athlete has to
report almost any ailment and it's remedy.

There should be audits of these exceptions and how they're granted, but I
don't think it should be public.

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parennoob
You don't need to make the ailment public. Simply the exception that was
granted.

If it's okay to to report when athletes are banned from a sport due to
substance X in their blood/urine (e.g. sooo many cyclists and EPO), surely it
should be okay to report that "substance X will be found, but this time they
are being given an exception".

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dogma1138
That's the same thing it's like reporting some one is taking a cocktail of
anti virals instead of saying they got AIDS.

Steroids and other banned substances are constantly perscribed for medical
issues and if an athlete takes a steroid cream for something that would appear
on the exception list.

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Udik
I'm sorry, but I think that if you want to run on a track against the best in
the world while everybody else is watching, you have to be willing to give up
some privacy.

Basically the world becomes interested in how your body works and you have to
let them know.

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addicted
TUEs are pretty common in athletics. You cannot exclude athletes from
medication, when they are probably the ones who need them the most. TUEs are a
way to regulate that to ensure they aren't abused for competitive gain.

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Someone1234
Absolutely.

I think this is one of those "devil's in the details" things. In order to
understand the significance of the US's TUEs we need context, and that context
is what other countries are allowing, how commonly it occurs, and exactly what
the process of getting a TUE is (e.g. is it rubber stamped, or a legit medical
need).

For example, if we found out that the US has 50% more TUEs per athlete
competing than the next highest country, that's a legitimate story. But if it
turns out that the US has similar numbers to other countries (again,
normalised per athlete numbers), then it is a non-story for the most part
(except the hack itself).

Time will tell.

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ivan_gammel
I'd say this is legitimate story because of lack of transparency. If it
requires a hacker group to get this data, if it's not clear immediately, was
it the due procedure to get a TUE and how often this happened, this can point
either to mismanagement of WADA or corruption in higher ranks.

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nkassis
To be fair this is sensitive information relating to individual peoples
health. WADA should have been protecting this information to the same level as
healthcare providers have to.

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sandworm101
This brings up the larger question of what is and isn't considered 'normal'
health. Professional athletes do have higher rates of disease. With strain and
injury come health consequences. But there can be advantages. I'm interested
in whether any of the male athletes suffer from "low testosterone", a very
shady diagnosis. In short: if you don't have the testosterone of a 18yo
football star, you are "low". That diagnosis allows docs to prescribe
testosterone sups/patches/gels to the 50+yo men I see at the gym. The drug
industry loves it. But athletes could use that diagnosis to gain legitimate
access to performance enhancers. Some drugs meant to promote healing of
injuries are also, imho, performance enhancing if they allow an athlete to
continue training where a 'normal' person would be sidelined with a minor
muscle or tendon strain.

Similarly, pain killers are near-universal amongst athletes and aren't
considered performance enhancing. I'm going for a run this afternoon. A mild
painkiller would certainly allow me to run faster/longer, and would probably
get me out on days that I am sore and really don't want to run. Perhaps this
database may shed light on the use of painkillers as training aids.

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sschueller
Doping is everywhere and eventually it will be impossible to tell if your
values are genetic or from doping. I think we are very close to that point.

Where do we draw the line? Maybe sports as a competitive event will change in
to more of a entertainment event and who wins will no longer matter.

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turingbombe
Quickly browsing, methylphenidate is a key component of Ritalin. Are athletes
unable to take medication such as Ritalin if they need it for a legitimate
medical issue?

I can see this kind of thing being abused with the "right" doctor etc, but as
far as the rules go, is this illegal?

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eps
Wasn't there a case when German (?) female athletes were using hormonal boost
of the first few weeks of pregnancy as a loophole to dope themselves?

The strive and pressure to win at Olympics make people do absolutely crazy
shit, so it's reasonable to assume guilty until proven innocent when a
blacklisted chemical is detected in a sample.

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icelancer
Soviet bloc athletes, yes, complete with abortions.

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iamben
I'd be kind of interested in seeing a competition where doping was allowed.
How far/fast can the human body go with help from science?!

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mark242
Read up on Todd Marinovich before you ask that question.

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wyager
Sounds like that guy had a serious recreational drug addiction. How is that
relevant to performance-related doping?

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carnegie
Let's not kid ourself that doping isn't rampant in professional sports.

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alexro
Anyone surprised that americans were given preferences?

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nkassis
Not sure where you see that anywhere in the article. TUEs are a normal thing
that athletes from every country receive for taking various medicines deemed
medically needed. Are they possibly abused sure but so far according to the
article nothing out of the ordinary in the leak.

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alexro
I'm not qualified in this, was told by a guy who is that the abuse is against
WADA rules but wasn't prosecuted. For now I don't now, let's wait the wider
discussion

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nerdponx
Since when is prednisone a performance enhancing drug? Should aspirin also be
characterized as performance enhancing? What about alcohol (relaxes muscles
and has psychoactive stress-reducing properties)? What about nutritious food?

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Torai
> Since when is prednisone a performance enhancing drug?

Don't you know what corticosteroids do? Really?

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17805102](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17805102)
"CONCLUSION: From these data, short-term Pred intake did seem to significantly
improve performance during submaximal exercise, with concomitant alterations
in hormonal and metabolic responses. Further studies will be necessary to
elucidate the mechanisms of these hormonal and metabolic changes, and to
determine whether the changes may be associated with the marked performance
improvement obtained."

