Everyone comes roided up and doped out of their minds, and we see the limits the human body is truly capable of.
Powerlifters don't die nearly as frequently and it's largely because aesthetic dryness isn't required.
Olympians also aren't explicitly trying to obtain mass as a goal and wouldn't customarily be walking around at 5'10"/300lbs (for instance - extrapolate) as a bodybuilder might in their off-season. Excess mass is usually detrimental in most Olympic sports and is avoided.
Being medically obese, regardless of body composition, is tough on the human heart - add in extreme/forced dehydration, stimulants, and possibly recreational drugs, and you have a recipe for early expiration.
Folks who would participate embrace the "live hard, die young" mantra. We love folks who do this in our society. James Dean is still the coolest man who ever lived, and a significant reason for that is that he joined the 27 club in a car crash.
Which would totally ruin the vibe. If I wanted to watch guys killing themselves for my entertainment, I'd watch motorcycle racing.
Edit: yes https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/olympics/enhanced-games-...
But my real take is this hopefully gets everyone to understand how meaningless/ugly this all is and actually combats PED use that way.
Having seen what kind of adults such bubble wrapped children turn into I think that perhaps some risk should be acceptable, let nature sort a few things out, and understand we're not all going to survive to old age. As sad as it is to see a child die before their time, I think it's more sad to see adults who have never lived.
I taken a lot of PEDs for therapeutic reasons to combat the effects of ME/CFS, mainly hGH peptides and Test Cypionate but also some of the esoteric stuff as well. So I'm generally pro PEDs when done in moderation. Obviously some people go overboard. I think a lot of innate athletic prowess is higher endogenous level of many of the same PEDs so you could probably identify likely athletes with DNA tests. So what are these competitions for, to figure out who has the better DNA + work ethic? I'm all for armature sports done for the benefit of the participants.
Second, not everyone has access to the same "help". I mean to a point this is true today as well as not everyone has access to universities developing snake scale outfits or what have you, but at the same time most olympic sports are still about the human performance. But this is why e.g. F1 has such strict regulations that get tightened every year; if it hadn't, the richest team would win, or the one that has an innovation this year (like side skirts) that other teams don't.
This honestly sounds like a very interesting competition to me that I'd love to see: a competition that is about both the athletes and the engineers behind the winning athletes.
Actually, my entire premise for this is actually based on F1 racing, and how they operate. Every team literally has no rules, other than: Do not kill or injure anyone. Nearly anything else outside of that very broad limit would be allowed. I just think it would end up being very interesting and funny.
Interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRLAiEZLpVg
(Can't find it, I think it was in Omni magazine in the 1980s)
Basketball isn’t really a contact sport, is it? With a few exceptions, making contact results in a personal foul (https://official.nba.com/rule-no-12-fouls-and-penalties/#fou...)