This intriguing announcement by the ITF regarding drug testing plays right into some of the darker thoughts I've entertained these past few months, while I watched the doping Argies flush right down the toilet the budding reputation of Argentina as a legitimate tennis power.
I haven’t expressed this reservation before, but I’m now even more suspicious of what seems to be a trend in the pro game: players taking long stretches off from the tour, usually because of “injury.” And now, perhaps because of "fatigue."
But I have been wondering if players could work the system in a way that enabled them to benefit from performance-enhancing drugs while they were off the tour, while being reasonably certain that they wouldn’t test positive when they returned to tournaments.
The money question: Do the effects of a PED work longer than its traces are detectable in your system?
At least one of my well-positioned sources had a very intriguing answer that made me feel foolish for not having figured it out myself.
If you take off a load of time and train while using PEDs, you can accomplish two very important things: endure far longer and more productive workouts and, as a result of that, enhance your foundation (aerobic capacity, etc.) in a way that would be beneficial for quite some time after traces of the drug vanished.
In other words, PEDs are different from recreational drugs in a key way. The high of a recreational drug wears off long before evidence of the drug is purged by your system. But PED's may enable you to build a fitness base worthy of Superman, which you can exploit for long after traces of the drug have vanished.
I’ve never been a conspiracy theorist , but I can’t help but suspect that the ITF had some specific reason to change its policy at this point.
Is this just fine-tuning, part of the normal attempt to keep up with the dopers’ ever-evolving abilities to evade detection, or a response to a specific, previously undetected flaw in the system that enabled cheaters to flourish?
It's funny, but I used to think tennis was a very clean game when it came to PEDs. Now, I suspect the opposite.
I’m going to try to get more definitive answers, for the record, and post on the issue again sometime in the near future.