447 Unfair Competition (1/2)

A lot of people misunderstand and think that performance-enhancing drugs are only temporary. That using it before the competition would only yield a short-term boost.

In truth, as technology advanced, performance-enhancing drugs were more like a drug one consumed to fight against chronic diseases. Athletes had to use it every day, and since the daily intake amount was very small, the body would quickly absorb it through metabolism.

Performance-enhancing drugs were also no longer used during the competition or match period. The effects built up during the entire process, from training to competition. For example, using performance-enhancing drugs before training would help reduce the fatigue during training, allowing the training to last longer and improving the effects of the training. As the effects of the training improved daily, through months of accumulation, the personal ability of the athlete would naturally improve drastically.

It was just like losing weight; as long as one lost a little weight daily, after a long time of accumulation, a lot of weight would have been cut.

In the beginning, when the International Olympic Committee started going against performance-enhancing drugs, they were divided into four primary categories, but as technology advanced, different kinds of drugs were developed. When Dai Li agreed to train Alexander, there was a total of seven categories.

The earliest type of performance-enhancing drug was the stimulant. This type of drug stimulates the central nervous system or the muscles to improve the performance of the athlete. Things like caffeine, amphetamine, and ephedrine were all categorized as stimulants.

This type of performance-enhancing drug fundamentally has a half-life lifecycle. As long as it remains within its half-life period, it can be easily detected using a test strip. With amphetamine as an example, its half-life was between two and 24 hours. The fluctuation of the time period is because the metabolic rate of each individual is different and the variations in dosage.

In the last century, athletes in China used to employ methods such as eating watermelon or drinking a lot of water to facilitate urination and increase metabolism to remove the drugs from their bodies to avoid being detected after using this type of performance-enhancing drug. During those times, a lot of watermelon farmers delivered watermelon to sports teams specifically. A larger sports team solved a lot of livelihood problems for a lot of farmers.

However, as technology advanced, these stimulants were becoming easier to detect. Thus, stimulants became the lowest-level performance-enhancing drug. Now, no high-level athlete would be dumb enough to use stimulants.

The second type of performance-enhancing drug were the Anesthesia and Analgesia, like morphine, heroin, cocaine, etc. These were already considered drugs, and even normal people had to stay away from them, not to mention athletes. Besides, there was no legitimate way of purchasing these things, so no athlete would use them.

The third kind of performance-enhancing drugs were the diuretics. The diuretics don't really stimulate the central nervous system or the musculature of the human body; at most, they only enhance the rate that the body excretes water, reducing weight as a result. But using diuretics increases metabolism and reduces the metabolite residue left behind by other performance-enhancing drugs, helping athletes avoid detection as a result. As such, the diuretics were always used in coordination with other performance-enhancing drugs.

The fourth kind were the beta blockers. They could selectively integrate with the beta adrenal gland, and stimulate the body. More than a decade ago, the beta blockers were rarely used in sports, but more and more athletes began using them later as the beta blockers could treat high blood pressure and arrhythmia. An athlete only had to produce a diagnostic report that stated that the athlete had heart problems to be able to apply for the approved use of drugs with beta-blockers with the International Olympic Committee.

The fifth kind was the endogenous peptide hormone, such as the human growth hormone, insulin, erythropoietin, androgen, etc. These were all hormones produced by the human body. Since the body originally had them, if the dosage wasn't high, it was impossible to detect. But if the dosage was too low, then these hormones wouldn't produce the desired stimulation effect. So the dosage for this sort of drug had to be high, which made it easier to detect.

The sixth type of performance-enhancing drug was blood stimulants. It was also known as blood doping. It was conducted by transfusing blood to the athlete, thus increasing the ability of the blood cells to carry oxygen. In the eighties and nineties of the previous century, there was a golden age of sprinting and new world records for sprints were being set continually. The number of exceptional sprinters kept increasing, and many of the athletes back then used precisely this technique.

The seventh kind of performance-enhancing drug were the synthesized steroids. It was the most varied and widely used performance-enhancing drug. It was also the most technologically advanced, as well as the hardest to detect. Athletes who used this type of performance-enhancing drug were nine times out of ten from countries with highly developed biotechnology, such as the US, Great Britain, Australia, etc. Countries with weaker technologies didn't even have the research capability to develop such high-level performance-enhancing drugs.

This was the type of performance-enhancing drug that Justin Alexander had used.

...

”Is what you are saying true? You mean to say those reputable track and field coaches are actually using performance-enhancing drugs on their athletes?” Dai Li asked with a bemused expression.

”Is that odd? Not just the United States, but a lot of countries in the world are like this,” Blake said with a calm face.

”Of course it is odd. I've been a track and field coach before, and I was even in the national team of China. At least back then, I never found any coach using performance-enhancing drugs,” Dai Li said.

Blake smiled. ”I think it might be the gap in technology standards. The technological standard of the US is top notch globally, and when it comes to pharmaceutical research, a lot of technology companies and research laboratories in the US like to play on the edge. Even more, they prefer to utilize their technological advantage as a sort of time gap.”

”Take a biological lab for example. Their technology is more advanced than that of the Anti-Doping Committee, so they can use this lead to continuously provide new products to the athletes. And as the Anti-Doping Committee lags behind in technology, they are unable to detect the new performance-enhancing drugs.”

The underlying meaning behind Blake's words was that the technological level of China was too low, so they didn't have the research strength to develop pharmaceuticals that couldn't be detected by the Anti-Doping Committee.

”Perhaps there is also another reason,” Dai Li suggested. ”Our country's coaches are supported by the government; they are considered civil servants, and they have stable jobs, stable incomes, and stable welfares. Even if the results of an athlete aren't good, they don't have to worry about losing their jobs. At most, they receive a lower bonus, and their career advancement opportunities diminish. Although it can't completely remove the usage of performance-enhancing drugs, the number of people willing to take risks is relatively lower.”