Athletes and the public have a different interpretation of what doping actually is. The public thinks of doping as taking performance enhancing substances.
Athletes think of doping as crossing the specified threshold/limit.
I have heard this interpretation on TV from a well connected Dutch cycling journalist ( Mart Smeets ).
Every athlete takes performance enhancing substances.
That line is a clear one. If you take that line, then no, not every athlete takes performance enhancing substances. But if you count, say, caffeine, then yes, most athletes do. And non-athletes too, FWIW.
“Exercise-induced asthma is the most common medical problem among winter Olympic athletes, especially among cross-country skiers. Nearly 50% of these athletes suffer from the condition, closely followed by short-track speed skaters at 43%. For figure skaters it’s 21%, Nordic combined it’s 17%, and for ice hockey it’s 15%. By comparison, around 9% of the UK general population suffers from asthma.”
Now all competitors will take additional hormones to reach, but not cross said level. As long as this works, they think of themselves as not doping and levelling the playing field. But they are taking hormones.
World Athletics Female Eligibility Regulations on testosterone levels https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Athletics_Female_Eligibi...
Case of Caster Semenya https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caster_Semenya
If you now answer that it's unfair that the person with naturally occurring higher levels can have it but those with lower levels can't "level" the playing field, well, tough luck. That's just the lottery that gives some people an advantage in certain sports. We all accept that some people are naturally tall and therefore have advantages in basketball. Or some people have naturally stronger VO2 max and thereby advantages in endurance sports.
The competition is how far you can get with the _natural state_ of your body, plus training. Not how far you can get as long as everybody pumps some substances up to a previously-agreed-upon threshold. Those thresholds are just the sad plan-B solution of anti-doping agencies if they can't directly measure doping substances and need to resort to measuring the effects instead. That actually disadvantages those with naturally higher effects.
Nobody would think of restricting maximum leg length, and as long as your legs are not longer than that it's fine to surgically extend them.
It’s worth noting here that the first Olympic doping suspension was for drinking a beer.
No. I was one and I didn't. And I knew a lot of athletes. I know how most of them were thinking. What you said is simply not true.
Do I think every professional athlete is on PEDs? Yes. Does it make what they are doing any less super human? No. It's like your typical person looking at a bodybuilder and saying, I could look like that if i did steroids. Which is total bullshit.
EditAdd: I did know people who were fascinated about EPO-like medication, and asthma medicine when used without actually having asthma. That was when they were quite young, and that's also a long time ago. I never ran into any of them actually using anything, and they were in the minority - I met just two, and sadly one of them died in a traffic accident before he got to a professional level.
In fact, less commercialized sports are much more interesting to watch and participate because they are not just full of over-hyped over-payed over-celebritized evening-entertainment shows designed to milk the audience of most money possible.
If "athlete" ends for you at what's on pay TV and on ads at bus stops, sure. But that's a very limited view of sports. And quite sad, frankly.
The example I know best is steroids. A younger athlete, before getting into high-level competition, or during the offseason, does a "cycle" or two of steroids. The effect is to build more strength or size. When the athlete ends the steroid cycle some, but not all of the strength or size is lost, assuming they continue training.
What this means is that they have a foundation to build on that's already above what the athlete who doesn't use steroids has. A year or two down the road, there's absolutely no trace of steroids in the athlete's system, so they easily pass drug tests. However, the benefit was already gained.
So for athletes the limits are time-bounded, not dose-bounded.
