The Allowable Limit of Speculation

By David

There is a good item of gossip on the Race Club website. It’s called “What is an Allowable Limit” and is written by Gary Hall. In the article Hall makes the point that the testosterone level in the average male is 1:1. Until 2005 the IOC approved limit was anything under 6:1. Hall then asks several relevant questions, “Prior to 2005, what was there to stop a male athlete taking testosterone that kept his testosterone level up at a legal 5:1? And what would happen when in 2005 the legal limit was dropped to 4:1 and an athlete, who was previously a “legal” but artificial 5:1, got caught by the rule change? Could this very circumstance be what happened in the Ian Thorpe case?

Hall’s argument is certainly logical. All that he postulates could happen; probably has happened. Does it mean that Ian Thorpe did it? Certainly not: There are many logical events happening in this world that do not happen to everyone. Flying to the International Space Station is quite logical: that does not mean to say I’ve done it.

It would be equally logical for me to hypothesize that there are, in this world, men and women who are born with an advantage. They are bigger or stronger, have more testosterone, have less fat, are taller or shorter than the “normal” population. Thorpe, Armstrong, Ali and Spitz and maybe even Hall could all fall into one of those categories. They have a talent that could well be expressed as a raised and natural level of testosterone. My concern is that a talent that is as natural as the color of an athlete’s eyes becomes illegal. Especially when drug officials tighten and tighten the limits of what is legal. They have no right though, to legislate out the naturally talented.

Remember the disgusting case of Eva Klobukowska, the Polish track sprinter, who passed a qynaecological sex test inspection in 1965 but failed a sex chromosome test introduced the next year. Called the Buccal Smear test, it is based on a sample of cells from the inside of the cheek. Eva had one chromosome too many to be declared a woman for the purposes of competition and she was banned. A few years later, she gave birth. As a result of her case and others such as Maria Patino, the Spanish hurdles champion, ridiculous sex testing has been abolished.

Two of my athletes have been subjected to the Buccal Smear femininity test; Alison at the Edmonton Commonwealth Games and Toni at the Barcelona Olympic. In both cases they received their femininity certificates. In both cases, if there had been a problem, it would have been with the testing criteria, not the athletes. Fortunately, and not before time, Olympic authorities now take the same enlightened view.

In the case of men’s testosterone, my concern is that men do not become the new gender discriminated against, because of the natural level of their manliness. The authorities have tightened the limits from 6:1 to 4:1; a drop of 33%. A change of that amount means either the 6:1 was too high or the 4:1 is way too low.

Two other questions: where are over zealous drug officials going to go next, if normal is 1:1 why allow 4:1 and how prevalent are “natural” men with 4:1? And if you tell me no male has a natural 4:1, you are probably in the same group that believes women with an X and Y chromosome can’t have babies.

For about ten years I used to go to the annual New South Wales State and Australian National Championships. I watched the teenager Ian Thorpe win State Championships in spectacular times. His versatility and speed led me to tell one of Australia’s National Coaches, Peter Freney, that Thorpe was being so exploited; by 16 he’d be gone and forgotten. Not the world’s best prediction; by 16 Thorpe had won the 400m freestyle at the 1998 Perth World Championships in 3:46.29. As a completely irrelevant aside, Toni Jeffs from our Club swam the 50m and 100m freestyle in the same meet.

My point is that from 12 years of age Thorpe was a special case. If by some chance he has been tested over the new 4:1 testosterone limit, I would like to hear his submission before making the accusation of cheat. I would like to know what his normal testosterone levels were before rushing to judgment. I do not want to be included among the brain-dead who said Eva Klobukowska was a man.

Of all the people on this earth, I would have thought Gary Hall was one who would cut “Thorpie” some slack before penning his logical but precipitous hypothesis. Usually people like Hall who have been the subject of scurrilous rumors themselves are more discreet about pointing the finger at others. He may well be right about Thorpe, but he could just as well be as wrong as I was a decade or so ago. I hope Thorpe is as tough on Hall’s prediction as he was on mine.