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Ah interesting.
So why wasn't meldonium 'banned' then. It was clearly performance enhancing and it was being tested for?
skinny-
It was clearly performance enhancing
Clearly? There doesn't seem to be much evidence.
To get on the proscribed list it has to meet two of these three criteria:
- Potential to enhance or enhances sports performance
- An actual or potential health risk to the athlete
- Use violates the spirit of sport (outlined in the Code)
It takes time to properly evaluate the criteria. The monitoring programme is part of that - if a drug turns up a lot (out of all proportion to the therapeutic use in the general population) and it is potentially harmful, it could be banned even if there is little or no evidence of performance enhancement, because the monitoring programme shows that it is being widely used by athletes who believe it might enhance performance, and that is probably sufficient to meet criterion 3
- Potential to enhance or enhances sports performance
gbj_tester
They're not banned by name, but there's a catch-all ban on anything which has the same effects as something which is banned by name. If you invent a new molecule which binds to the erythropoietin receptor, it's banned even though it's not the same molecule as any of the previously known molecules which bind to the erythropoietin receptor.