A recent post to the ULTRAlist led me to the World Anti-Doping Agency http://www.wada-ama.org/ and its table of prohibited chemicals for international sports of various types. Many steroids and other body-building drugs are catalogued, for obvious good reasons. But two entries near the end of the book of regulations made my brows wrinkle:

• Alcohol, meaning ethanol, is not allowed above a blood level of 0.10 g/L in competition categories Archery, Automobile, Boules, Karate, Modern Pentathlon (for disciplines involving shooting), and Skiing. There is no alcohol tolerance—zero—in Motorcycling. (But you can drink twice as much and still be legal, up to 0.20 g/L, in both Aeronautic and Billiards events. And there are no restrictions whatsoever on blood alcohol in other sports. Hmmm!)
• Beta-blockers, which slow the heart rate and artificially steady the hand, are illegal in a long list that plausibly includes Archery, Billiards, Shooting, and the like. But beta-blockers are also deemed verboten in Bridge and Chess. (Huh? Would a chemically-stabilized hand unfairly keep a player from accidentally dropping a card, or trembling and touching the wrong piece?)

Good News: both caffeine and ibuprofen—termed by some ultrarunners "Vitamin I"—are perfectly fine, at all times and in all concentrations. Whew!

(cf. ProfessionalJuicers (28 Jan 2004), PumpingIron (16 Aug 2004), MoneyOlympics (29 Aug 2004), ... )

TopicHumor - TopicEntertainment - TopicRecreation - 2005-04-08

(correlates: MakeYourOwnWeather, PracticeMakesProgress, Let It Snow, ...)