Jessica Hardy tests positive for banned substance, crickets chirp

Just wondering: after the way some media dismissed Gary Hall Jr's comments about doped swimmers at the 2008 Olympic trials, what happens now that swimmer Jessica Hardy has been sent away from training camp for a banned stimulant?

Further, what about the leaking of the story to the media, which is not supposed to happen?

And isn't this going to give some credence to folks in the world who say that our media treats foreign athletes with a double standard (i.e., slamming Pantani and not slamming Landis in the Tour de France)?

Thoughts?

 

Those folks already have credence. Who disputes that the American media is biased toward American athletes?

 

Landis got slammed as did other American athletes who have tested postive.

 

Crickets chirp because 99% of the country has no idea who Jessica Hardy is.

 

I think the main reason it's received barely a ripple is that no one knows who Jessica Hardy is.

Had this been Natalie Coughlin or Katie Hoff, it would have been a big, big deal.

 

I was part of that 99 percent until this thread.

 

Considering the poor air conditions in Beijing, I wonder how many athletes who might actually have asthma or a cold (there always seems to be an epidemic during the Olympics) might get disqualified.

 

Simon Cowbell has no idea why he just smashed his specimen glass.

(Seriously? Never heard of her. Which is why nobody cares.)

 

European researchers will be studying up to 2000 athletes in Beijing to assess the the prevalence of asthma. The estimates are that up to 20% of endurance athletes may have significant asthma and allergy issues.

To use inhalers or prednisone for asthma therapy, an athlete has to fill out an abbreviated one page therapeutic exemption form attesting that the medications are for asthma. I doubt that an "epidemic" exists. Some researchers believe that prolonged exposure to cholrinated water may provoke wheezing and inflammatory lung disease.

 

DocTalk is right, I'm sure, in that there is probably not an epidemic of asthma, per se.

There doesn't necessarily need to be one, either.

There are some conditions -- and sometimes, even just symptoms -- that may be labeled and treated as asthma simply for lack of a better diagnosis.

That happened to me recently when I underwent a full battery of pulmonary-function tests because it was discovered during a stress test that I don't exhale very well. My readings in that respect are apparently well below normal expectation for my age and relative good health, and in the absence of extenuating possible causes like smoking or any prolonged exposure to specific toxins that I know of.

The results of the full tests taken at a hospital turned out to be the same as the preliminary ones I'd taken in the doctor's office, with still no particular cause or explanation for why it was happening.

I was tested for the possible rare absence of a lung enzyme that can be a cause of chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD), particularly in younger people who have no other suggested explanation, but it came up negative, and right in the middle of the scale, so that it wasn't even borderline positive.

And yet, I've never had episodes of unexplained hyperventilating, or fainting, or anything else other than occasional shortness of breath after exertion that probably could also be attributed to a less-than-ideal body weight.

My pulmonary specialist says that this reading, particularly at the significantly abnormal level that I show, is unlikely to be simply the result of a weight problem, and that I'm what they call a non-symptomatic enigma.

Apparently, I've learned to compensate for the problem -- and my body has learned to tolerate it, to the point that I didn't even know I had it -- by, essentially, under-breathing, in a way that has become normal and all but unnoticeable for me.

Nevertheless, I was given prescriptions for asthma medications, one of which I use twice a day and was shown to lead to a slight change in my problem reading. The other thing I got is a rescue inhaler, which I virtually never use. As far as I'm concerned, I don't really need either of the drugs, and even my doctor has said that I don't really have what you'd call true asthma.

But I still got the medications. So, it doesn't necessarily take much.

And, for elite athletes whose physiologies and physical conditions are tested regularly and maintained in tip-top shape, asthma may be an even more-common diagnosis than it is for every-day patients.

Unfortunately, however, it's even more convenient, too.