Olympics 2024 - discussion thread

[sndef888]

The majority of top competitive swimmers from the five eyes countries are "asthma sufferers". Googling "asthma in olympic swimmers" will get you tons of "inspirational" stories about such athletes. Somehow these "inspirational asthma sufferers" all ended up in a sport where efficient lung functioning is of the utmost importance. It can't possibly have anything to do with the fact that these "inspirational asthma sufferers" all have therapeutic use exemptions for asthma medications.

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White countries are the best at legal cheating, kind of like how America legalised bribery

 

[MortyandRick]

They are probably cautious about the story being Chinese swimmers missed a drug test through refusal. Western propaganda will give 24/7 coverage to say ‘see Chinese swimmers refused a drug test’. It’s all about perception and dirtying up their rivals using media campaigns.
Remember the story of Sun Yang was that he was drug tested and the official doing testing didn’t have proper WADA accreditation to show him. So he destroyed the blood that he had given because he couldn’t trust them with his blood. Then the story in the Western propaganda became ‘Sun Yang destroys his blood vial in WADA drug test’. Chinese team is aware of these cheap and dirty tricks. I bet the International Doping Control Organisation is full of China hating Anglos and their vassals.

I think they don't have to refuse drug tests but make sure other competitors are tests the same way.

If they always care that much about western media, then frankly china wouldn't be able to do anything.

The US can just use cheap media points to do anything they like. I feel an official protest is needed at least to make sure it's made to the Chinese public. Make it trend on Weibo, make lots of new articles about it if these drug tests are only done on Chinese swimmers at these hours.

Promote talking points about how the west cheats to get ahead. Chinese medical propaganda is less powerful than western propaganda but if still can have some impact. Better than sitting back and accepting it.

 

[Proton]

It's not just Simone Bile. ADHD is said to be very common among American gymnasts. What a coincidence that so many American athletes just happen to suffer from medical conditions that are the most detrimental to their sport discipline when left untreated.


You would need

1. A colluding national doping agency willing to hand out therapeutic use exemptions like candies on Halloween.
2. Lots of parents who are willing to pump their kids full of drugs starting from a young age.

Neither of these conditions are likely to be ever met in China, particularly the second one.

I imagine anyone being drilled to become a top gymnastics athlete is under a lot of stress and will often experience symptoms that aligns with ADHD. Add a social parameter where the athlete is surrounded by others with an ADHD diagnosis and you can get a personal conviction. Sure, some doctors would dismiss the symptoms as stress-induced, but chances are you can find someone who will recognize the condition you're convinced you have.

Asthma is a bit more problematic as it would require you to knowingly manipulate a spirometry test. But there's no real difficulty to it.


I just don't get why such medications are allowed at the top level of sports. Yes, it's sad that people fall outside of the 99th percentile or so who can realistically compete based on their inherent traits... But that's simply the nature of sports - it's a hierarchical pyramid where only a select few can ever get to the top.

 

[Lethe]

My experience was different.

I used to be in the pool for about 10 sessions a week, maybe 25~30 hours a week. My asthma was a constant problem. I had to take Singulair (not WADA restricted) to manage my use of the restricted Asthma drugs. The air may be moist but I'm pretty sure it's laced with a lot of stuff - eg. Chlorine?

Now that I've stopped, my asthma (and skin) is a lot more manageable and actual use of medication (restricted and non-restricted) is practically zero.

My swimming experience is nothing like yours in terms of frequency, duration, and no doubt intensity, but anecdotally I have been frequenting an indoor pool these past few months while my preferred outdoor pool is closed over winter. The indoor pool definitely uses more chlorine than the outdoor pool, and I notice that recently I seem to have acquired a more pronounced (but still very mild) level of "baseline" airway constriction, such that I am using a reliever inhaler more frequently. I would not be at all surprised to find that the change in pool environment has something to do with that. My outdoor pool will soon reopen, so I will see if things improve when I switch back...

I was asthma free as a child in Asia. I spent a few years in Australia (apparently the asthma capital of the world) as a young adult and ended up with asthma. Something in their air, water or diet? I suspect the pollen ... so it's not just the animals and insects trying to kill you, even the flowers there are trying to kill you. Blardy Australia.

That's interesting indeed, particularly given that asthma is most often diagnosed in childhood...

I found the

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the Reuters article references. Some excerpts:

Swimming is practiced by all age groups and has been prescribed as a recommended form of exercise for asthmatic patients for many years by respiratory and family physicians because swimming was thought to be less likely to trigger asthma symptoms1 and is considered a safe and healthy activity.2, 3 However, evidence exists that implicates the aquatic environment itself as a cause of asthma/airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR) through exposure of the airways to irritants, such as pool chloramines.

The presence of asthma in elite swimmers seems multifactorial. For the competitive swimmer, high ventilation rates and volumes during training are implicated in the development of asthma through airway remodeling caused by chronic inflammation, epithelial damage, or both.6 Furthermore, exposure to the indoor aquatic environment might pose an increased risk of AHR through inhalation of chloramines, a byproduct of chlorine.7, 8, 9, 10 Inhaled chloramines are believed to induce disruption of the epithelial lining of the lung, promoting allergen sensitization.11 Allergen exposure in sensitized subjects results in release of inflammatory mediators and sensitization of airway smooth muscle, leading to development of airway remodeling.12 Airway remodeling can also be seen in swimmers without evidence of AHR and is thought to be the result of fibrogenesis induced by prolonged training in a chlorinated environment.

Commencing in 2002, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) instituted legislation requiring all athletes competing at the Olympic Games and using inhaled β2-agonists to provide objective proof of AHR.28, 29 In 2004, all inhaled β2-agonists, including salbutamol, salmeterol, formoterol, and terbutaline, were placed on the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Prohibited List requiring pre-event medical demonstration of asthma/AHR to approve a TUE. Objective tests to establish a diagnosis of asthma/AHR included demonstration of reversible airway obstruction obtained based on a bronchodilator response (significant increase in FEV1), a positive bronchial provocation test (BPT) response, or both (Table I).30

The predominant finding of a high prevalence of TUEs for inhaled β2-agonists (IBAs) in swimming compared with the other aquatic disciplines is consistent with published data demonstrating a higher prevalence of asthma in swimmers than in the general population [....] The high prevalence of asthma/AHR in swimming relative to the other aquatic disciplines points to an etiologic factor other than environmental exposure, such as training intensity, type, and/or duration. This finding underscores the necessity for further research to determine the etiologic mechanism of asthma/AHR in swimming. A longitudinal study would be useful to ascertain the distinction between athletes with asthma who self-select to swimming and those who have asthma as a result of exposure to endurance-training practices.

TUE data might underrepresent the actual prevalence for athletes who do not have access to respiratory diagnostic facilities or to sports physicians knowledgeable of the WADA TUE program. On the other hand, there are published data to suggest that TUE data might overestimate the diagnosis of asthma/AHR. Published data demonstrate that BPTs according to the WADA TUE criteria identified AHR in asymptomatic swimmers.18, 25, 36, 37 It is postulated that exercising in the warm, humid ambient environment of the swimming pool might mitigate the triggers of asthma symptoms.37, 38

Although there are differences in the prevalence of asthma/AHR in different geographic locations in the general population globally because of environmental influences and varying medical awareness and practices, the findings of this study raise questions for the elite aquatic athlete that warrant further evaluation.39 Is the lower prevalence in Asia and Africa due to a lack of access to diagnostic equipment, or does it represent a geographic variation in medical practice? Is there a racial genetic protection for asthma/AHR that correlates with athletic performance? Another explanation is that there might be geographic variations in pool environmental regulations for chlorination, thus resulting in geographic prevalence differences. A final postulate is that the lower prevalence of asthma/AHR in Africa might be due to the fact that Africa has a lower participation rate in elite aquatics (except for South Africa); however, this postulate is not applicable to Asia, which enjoys a high participation rate in elite swimming.

An interesting finding of this study is the increased prevalence of TUE applications during the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China. This spike in prevalence was likely due to an increased awareness among the medical staff of the relatively high levels environmental air pollution in the region, prompting concern for extraneous environmental triggers for asthma, an increasing familiarity of the TUE process, or both. Why then does Asia have a relatively low TUE prevalence in comparison with other geographic regions when air quality is a concern in the region? Anti-doping rule violations for IBAs during this time period were rare, resulting in only 2 for terbutaline from France (2007 and 2009) and 2 for formoterol in 2009 from China and Australia, demonstrating that athletes were not being treated for asthma/AHR without valid TUEs.40

Findings from this study demonstrating the high prevalence of asthma/AHR in endurance versus nonendurance sports are consistent with those of previously published studies showing that endurance training itself is an etiologic factor in the development of asthma.6, 30, 41 This finding raises the question of whether prolonged endurance training leading to the development of asthma has a negative effect on performance. A study evaluating athlete performance with a TUE for IBAs in the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games showed that the 5.7% of athletes with a valid TUE for IBAs were responsible for winning 7.2% of the medals. Likewise, in a study of TUEs in the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, McKenzie and Fitch42 demonstrated that 4.2% of all athletes with a TUE for IBAs won 5.4% of all individual medals. Fitch29 looked specifically at swimming results in the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and reported that the 19.3% of swimmers with a TUE for IBAs won 32.9% of all aquatic medals. Clearly, asthma/AHR in the elite swimmer does not have a negative effect on performance; indeed, this study demonstrates that athletes with TUEs for asthma/AHR perform better.

There are many possible theories for why athletes with asthma perform better than athletes without asthma. Is this phenomenon due to a longer training period, resulting in the development of asthma along with more efficient swimming skills? Does this represent a genetic predisposition for asthma and superior aquatic performance? This also raises the question of whether the use of IBA or inhaled corticosteroid therapy is performance enhancing. Kuipers et al,43 Kinderman,44 and Pluim et al45 have shown that neither substance, when used in therapeutic doses, is performance enhancing. Could there be a perceived placebo effect of performance enhancement with IBAs? Couto et al46 demonstrated that the prevalence of asthma/AHR declaration decreased by half when the mandatory objective measures required by WADA were implemented, suggesting that before the WADA TUE requirements, athletes were using IBAs without an accurate diagnosis of asthma/AHR, potentially for the falsely perceived performance benefit of the drugs.

Again I think this is an interesting topic that is worthy of attention. I'm not sure that framing it from the outset as a matter of deception leading to unfair advantage via abusing therapeutic use exemptions is the most productive way to explore it.

 

[Jiang ZeminFanboy]

If you've played table tennis you'll know that switching out racket right in the middle of a tournament is like switching out your shoes in the middle of a marathon. It might be fine for amateurs but its a huge difference for professionals.

And he just got eliminated. You can't leave anything behind or to a chance, western stooges will find anything to sabotage you.

 

[henrik]

And he just got eliminated. You can't leave anything behind or to a chance, western stooges will find anything to sabotage you.

They should have several rackets ready. They should have picked some other players for mixed double, rather than the top players.

 

[ACuriousPLAFan]

The US is such an absolute sore loser.

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[Randomuser]

How on earth did Wang Chuqin lose to some lower ranked swede? It's not like he lost to some top 10 guy

 

[azn_cyniq]

I don't know a single thing about rowing, but it seems that there is a Chinese team in the final of the women's quadruple sculls. Apparently China won that event in 2020 so it seems like there is a good chance that China will win a medal in this event.

There are also two Chinese women in the final of the women's BMX freestyle park, but I don't know anything about BMX. Does anyone know if they are strong contenders?

 

[Lethe]

Why did Xu Jiayu

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in the 200m backstroke heat? He won Silver in the 100m backstroke.