I think we all know what time it is.
/tdf/ - rest day
Henry Bell
Julian Cook
>but they were twice as likely to win medals than non-asthmatic athletes.
>Asthma sufferers win at TWICE the expected rate, meaning the meds are a tremendous performance booster.
This does not confirm any cause, however. At the moment, we know that those with asthma win more.
Let's say, for instance, that those with sports induced asthma are those that work harder. After all, if you're working harder, you're breathing harder, and you may be more susceptible to sports-induced-asthma. So perhaps those with sports induced asthma are athletes that are currently working harder than everyone else. So they are more fit, and stronger, and have more endurance. They would have won without their asthma regardless. The inhalers just remove the asthma and allow them to compete at their higher ability and win.
Of course, this hypothesis is also unproven. All we know is that those with asthma win more, not the reason WHY.
Ayden Jenkins
the track wasn't suited to him, so he held back to conserve strength so he can help the team better.
Owen Foster
That all makes logical sense, but remember Occam's Razor.
In this case, you have a bunch of world-class endurance athletes competing and the ones who have a breathing disorder winning at a higher rate.
You also have those athletes with the breathing disorder being allowed to take a drug that many of the the normal athletes risk their careers in order to cheat with.
On top of that, you also have cycling's need to appear clean and this does not help. Cycling should take the easiest route and ban the drug.
If it were up to me, I'd say, "Sorry, you can have your salbutamol in case of an attack, but not in competition. If you have an asthma attack, puff away and drop out of the race. No different than if you had to drop out because of the flu, food poisoning, or a crash. Sorry you got asthma, life isn't fair."
It'd be no different than when the PGA tells golfers they can't use a cart in competition. Sure, the golfer's knees and back may be degenerating, but the advantage gained from using the cart more than offsets the weakness of fucked-up knees and backs.
Luke Murphy
Rest in peace Birdsong
Adrian Mitchell
Looks like I was right, again