Boxing and PED's

I think the usage of steroids became popular from the late 80's onwards and has been going on ever since.

 

Realistically, some boxers would have been using steroids back in the 1960s.
It's not even necessary that it would have been considered a big thing. It would normally be just something the doctor gave them. There are probably a lot of fighters who took steroids who don't even know it.
People think of "PEDS" being "modern" and "high tech" but when they first came along they were just another pill or injection, (very few people outside of Eastern Bloc and bodybuilding culture believed they were a wonder drug). I doubt it was unusual for managers, trainers and boxers to put their trust in the doctors to provide medicine to help recovery, ease injury or help build strength, without too much expectation.
Boxing writers back in the day seemed to have little interest in the medicine, so it's hard to say who was taking what.

 

It would be very hard to prove anything from past eras unless you had guys admit they did which is unlikely given the stigma attached to it today but Vikki LaMotta said in her biography that Jake was using steroids in the 1950s after he lost the title. She said this is one of the reasons he bloated so bad, had such difficulty making weight, etc. I personally think Steroids are much more prevalent than the layman realizes. I also think they were being used in the sport much earlier than most people think they just werent as widely spread.

 

This… they were thick as thieves when I was competitive in the late 80's and early 90's… and at all levels. They have been around a lot longer than most realize. It wouldn't surprise me if many of the guys from the 50's and 60's were on rudimentary regimes. That era was the advent of "better living through chemistry"… mother's little helper, pep pills and the like. It was the general zeitgeist of the era.

 

They wouldnt have tested for steroids back in the 1950s. It wasnt really on anyones radar and they werent even illegal. Vikki didnt seem to think Jake benefitted from them because at the time general knowledge of them was nil and she kind of insinuated that he didnt know how to use them and as such he caused himself more harm than good.

Here is what she says about it:

"And for Jake there was an added problem. After he'd won the championship, he'd been approached by a doctor who'd told him, 'I have an injection from Italy made from the Pollinas of a bull. You know how strong you are now? If you take these injections, you'll be fifty times stronger.'
Jake heard this- pollinas of a bull; stronger than I am now- and right away, he was taking the shots. One time, he overdosed. His face turned blue; his feet were like ice. But he wouldnt terminate the injections; and of course, what he was putting into his body was a precursor of today's steroids.
Throughout his career, Jake had always had difficulty "making weight." Once he started taking the injections, the problem grew worse. At one point, I read a newspaper article which said there were new substances called sythetic hormones that might cause cancer. I was worried and went to another doctor information. The doctor told me that these hormones were new. No one was sure exactly what they did, but one thing was certain; they caused a person to gain weight and become bloated with water."

I think shes a little bit confused about something. She said the injections were "pollinas of a bull." I looked this up and find no mention of it. She stated that the injections came from a Italy. Pollina is a town in Italy and if I had to guess her memory was hazy on the subject and thats where these injections came from via a European channel to eastern Europe. The doctor was problem talking about a bull as an allusion to masculinity, Jakes Nom de Guerre or possibly saying they synthesized the hormone from bull's testes.

 

I'm from a track background primarily. Competed on the national/international level as a junior and briefly as a senior. Was only tested twice that I recall tho was warned testing was possible many times. I didn't use at all but it was everywhere... even when I was 16 years old in the late 80's! Guys openly admitted it.


According to what I have read, the old school Winstrol types were around since the early 60's. In bodybuilding there was stuff around in the late 40's onward. Athletes are always looking for an edge. It's not really anything new...

 

One of my old training partners was on the Bulgarian Olympic team. He told me flat out that anyone who gets caught (this is going back to the 1990s) is either stupid or trying to get caught. The way these things work is that you start taking them months in advance of the contest. You build up that muscle and endurance and then stop taking them short of the contest. They will be out of your system but your body will still retain the muscle and endurance for the race. This is how they get around testing but still maintain that high performance level. Your body doesnt simply shrink up, get weaker, and lose that endurance the instance you stop taking it and the detectable traces of it leave your system very quickly. Of course this a broad generalization because there are several different things athletes do to enhance performance from EPO to steroids to HGH etc. He freely admitted that steroids make you a superman and that the vast majority of athletes competing at the top level of sports today are taking something. As an example he talked about how for decades records in so many sports stood and then suddenly they started falling and did so seemingly yearly. Evolution doesnt work like that and while sports nutrition and exercise science have come a long way they havent come that far to account for those kinds of statistics. Fans dont want to believe their heros are cheating. Thats understandable. So they are more willing to look the other way or let themselves be fooled. But the reality is that these guys are constantly looking for any edge they can get to achieve. These are extremely driven people and often convince themselves that there is nothing wrong with it. Throw the big money into the mix and its easy to see why it happens. Nevermind the fact that its a shortcut. But dont kid yourself that its not extremely widespread and not just on the fringes but at the highest level.

 

When a fight is arranged both the fighters should be tested every few weeks or however long the stuff stays in their system and they should be tested by their opponents own doctor so to try and prevent cheating.

 

Exactly.
PEDs are an integral part of professional elite sport.
The modern super-human six-billion-dollar athlete won't be ditching them any time soon.

 

True.
No one wants to see the Olympic men's 100 metres gold won in 10 seconds flat.

 

I dont know. Part of the allure of sports once upon a time was watching the pure athletic competition and the strategy involved. Not these home run derbys or waiting for the eye popping knockout or easy domination of a guy who isnt juicing as much as you. You got to see athletes who were better than the average man but not superhuman. It gave the average joe the ability to live vicariously through his hero. The sandlot baseballer could imagine "if I was just a little bit better." I dont think any high school track athlete thinks "if i was just a bit better I could be Usain Bolt" thats how far from the norm steroids have taken us. If the sport went back to being all natural you might actually see more people interested because they would A. know that steroids had been the major factor behind all of those record breaks and performance increases, and B. they would appreciate that the athlete while excelling isnt so far away from the normal man that its an unattainable ideal.