Well at least in bodybuilding they are open about and silently condone PED usage rather than making it a game of who can do the most without getting caught. It does make it so that you need to be doing very large amount of PEDs to even have a chance at winning Mr Olympia though.

I don’t feel qualified to remark on other sports but based on casual observation of the opinions of bodybuilding fans or even wrestling fans/people into Hollywood, it seems most regular people are very ignorant about PED usage as a phenomenon.

There are limits to the rate that you can pack on muscle mass or how much you can maintain at a low body fat percentage which are telltale signs of PED use (not that I judge it, but just to temper my own expectations). I think many people’s ignorance of these signs are fueling body dysmorphia and insecurity. It’s better if people are aware of how common PED usage is in bodybuilding, Hollywood, and “instagram bodybuilders”

With the carbon fiber shoes, there is now essentially mechanical, uh, "assistance" in running.

Improvement of equipment is always a massive gray area. Cycling (aside from electric motors) has aerodynamic bikes, wind tunnel access. XC skiing has environmentally bad teflon wax. Swimming, theoretically the most naked/equipment-less sport, has sharkskin suits and buoyancy aids.

There are other advantages like expensive altitude tents.

Wax and aerodynamic equipment certainly make a difference, but a bucket of fresh Amgen red blood cells is even better- and for cycling at least, works uphill, whereas aero doesn't matter under 18mph.

> If you are not cheating, you are not trying hard enough to win.

I wonder if we're using different definitions of "win" here. To my way of thinking, if a person has cheated, they didn't win, regardless of what the official judges conclude.

(Apologies if I'm misunderstanding the point you're trying to make.)

To paraphrase the only real rule in another famous sport: "The winning player shall be the first player that wins."

If you are the top of any sport, there's money, fame, groupies, etc. There's a real incentive to do it.

Moreover, the audience wants to see superhumans and world records broken. To paraphrase Futurama about women's basketball "good fundamentals, but can't dunk". The governing bodies of all pro sports look the other way.

OK, but then almost no professional or Olympic athlete has won anything in the past 30 years.

> OK, but then almost no professional or Olympic athlete has won anything in the past 30 years.

I don't know what fraction of those athletes cheated. But I consider my definition of "win" to be reasonable regardless of how many competitors cheat.

This reminds me of a famous quote[0]:

> When Abraham Lincoln was asked by a prosecuting attorney, “How many legs does a sheep have?” He replied, “Four.” The attorney then asked, “If you called a sheep’s tail a leg, how many legs would he have?” Lincoln replied, “Four. Merely because you call a sheep’s tail a leg does not make it one.”

[0] https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/11/15/legs/#:~:text=When%...

quoth the late philosopher Mitch Hedburg:

"I just bought a 2-bedroom house, but I think I get to decide how many bedrooms there are, don't you? "Fuck you, real estate lady! This bedroom has an oven in it! This bedroom's got a lot of people sitting around watching TV. This bedroom's over in that guy's house! Sir, you have one of my bedrooms, are you aware? Don't decorate it!"

That mechanical doping suspension was interesting to learn about. The rider wasn’t caught with a motorized bike, instead the bike was found in their pit and (supposedly) didn’t belong to the rider but due to the rules the rider was treated as if it was their bike.

Sounds like she was caught with a motorized bike.

> Van den Driessche had been taking part in the inaugural under 23 women’s event, which was won by Britain’s Evie Richards. The Belgian and European under 23 champion had gone in as a pre-race favourite but did not feature at the front. She was eventually forced off her bike on the final lap when she was struck by mechanical problems and ended up walking with her bike.

> Van den Driessche’s bike was taken for inspection along with several other bikes after the race. It quickly became apparent that something was wrong with her bike and news of the discovery quickly spread; however it is only this Sunday morning that they revealed their discovery. It gives Van den Driessche the dubious honour of being the first rider to be discovered to be using a motor. Incidentally, Van den Driessche’s brother Niels is currently suspended for doping.

https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/uci-confirms-motorised-dopi...

According to [1] it was literally the bike she rode the race on.

Her claim is the motorised bike belonged to a friend, was handed to her in error, and she rode the race on it without using the motor as she didn't know it was there.

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/bike-investigated-technologi...