Doping

It was about her testosterone levels. Casta Semenya has had similar issues, it's a debate that has been going on amongst athletes as to whether naturally elevated testosterone levels are considered an advantage and doping.

How much testosterone do you need in your bloodstream if you want to drive halfway across the country to stab someone in the head?

Doesn't justify attempted murder of course, but it must be fucking shit growing up trans, perhaps finding yourself in sport, then getting pressured out of the activity you love because the very thing that made you an outcast is suddenly deemed an unfair advantage.

I don't believe it's the same as Caster Semenya, however I'm sure no two cases in this area are ever the same.
Jeska had not made anyone aware she had been born a man, and then competed as a women. When she was going to compete internationally all of this was going to come out, and she was going to be stripped of her previous titles.
Caster Semenya, was not, as I understand, formally born a man.
The debate is around those who sit at the edge or across the gender divide. Sport is not well equipped to deal with these sensetive subjects so it's not going to go away.

No winners here at all. It's a tragic tale all round.

it must be fucking shit growing up trans, perhaps finding yourself in sport, then getting pressured out of the activity you love because the very thing that made you an outcast is suddenly deemed an unfair advantage

Pace @Scrabble , sports have tried to equip themselves to deal fairly with trans athletes while also being fair to everybody else.

The problems are likely to come from competitors (who may not understand the steps taken by governing bodies to level the playing field with regard to trans athletes) rather than governing bodies, except in this case where it seems that the athlete in question was cheating by failing to notify the governing body about her desire to compete in her non-birth gender category.

For sure it's a very difficult issue to tackle fairly and there's bound to be some pretty harsh compromises. For example i imagine quite a few trans people born physiologically male but identifying as female might not feel comfortable competing in the male category.

Yes Caster is intersex if I remember rightly

As far as I remember, this has never been confirmed? I haven't followed it much, though.

Well, being a 'former bloke' competing in women's events... I'd be a bit fucked off if I was a woman coming second to her at every race. But there's a whole ethical dilemma that kicks off here. Casta Semenya was born with higher T levels though, no? Having a sex change and then, say, not taking your hormones for a while before a race... that's another fish pie.

Not suggesting this psycho did that but there's been other cases where former men have won stuff - DH races I seem to recall.

Michelle Dumaresq
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelle_Dumaresq

"Since 2004, the International Olympic Committee (IOC), whose rules are used commonly throughout competitive sport, has allowed transsexuals to compete as their reassigned gender if the surgery has taken place at least two years prior to the competition and if the athlete has been on a regimen of hormones equal to that of a person born to the gender."

Josh Edmondson on BBC News right now talking about taking tramadol and injecting with vitamins when on Team Sky. Says Sky covered it up, Sky say he denied it and they were worried about his mental health and didn't report him.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/39293763

I didn't know vitamins were that performance enhancing.

They aid recovery enormously.

The timing of this and the basic exploitation of Josh Edmondson by Dan Roan at the BBC sits uneasily with me. There were rumours at the time that he was having personal issues, and if you look at this in isolation, then Sky did the right thing for the athlete and deserve credit for that. But this is now being used as a stick to beat them with. Which is wrong, imo.

I thought the latest thinking on vitamins was that they simply produce "expensive piss"?

Mind you, I've not had an old skool cold since I started my Vit D regime.

#anecdata.

Interesting. Weird that injection is so much more powerful that oral pills. I have no understanding of the biology of the body.

I feel for josh. I can empathise. It's sad.

And I do wonder if someone thretened him to go public, but have him the opportunity to get out in front of the sorry.

I thought the latest thinking on vitamins was that they simply produce "expensive piss"?

Taking more than you need produces expensive piss (or worse, in some cases). Taking less than you need can slow you down. The difficult thing is knowing how much is enough, for a given individual under given circumstances.

From that BBC article

"Team Sky are renowned for their robust, no-needle, no-Tramadol stance."

Says who?

DB.

It is strange. He's still a young professional isn't he? Why would he of all people admit to the lowest level type of misdemeanour that clearly wasn't led by sky? Think skinny might be onto something about being pressured into it as someone was gonna break the story anyway.

Emperor Palpatine Steve Peters came over really well

He was also injecting L-Cartinine, same stuff that Farah was apparently using too, must be good stuff.

Yeah from reading it Sky come out of it looking good IMO, genuine concern for a rider's well-being and tried to do the right thing by him. He did it independently, was caught, they thought he was doping they find it to be vitamins and decided the mental state of the rider was such that exposing it would have been detrimental to the rider.