If shoes are considered "doping," why aren't all marathons (and indeed, all athletic events) run barefoot and naked[1]? If those are the "rules," then surely they should at least be consistently applied...
[1] Presumably reduced thermal stress due to clothing improves athletic performance, therefore is "doping" by this metric.
Shoes changed. Now all of the shoes have carbon plates. The athletes are still incredible… nobody is getting one of these shoes and becoming some super star overnight.
We let the athletes drink hyper specialized drink mixtures based on studying their sweat content and even adjusting the drinks for their perspiration level during the race.
The shoe foam and carbon plates sell more expensive shoes.
Training definietly induces physiological changes that wouldn’t occur naturally without doing it.
You didn’t say medical intervention in your previous post. You said “Medical inducement” which is a term i’m not familiar with.
Let me think now about it again. Sounds like you just declared anyone doping who is taking multivitamin suplements. It is a medical intervention (a drug), it induces a physiological change, wouldn’t occur naturaly. Sounds like it is doping!
Or anyone who had a dental cavity filled. It is a medical intervention (a surgery), it induces a physiological change, wouldn’t occur naturaly. Clearly beneficial to an athlete, since someone without tooth ache can concentrate more. Ban them all those dopers!
> unless you’re being particularly “internet obtuse”
Look, it is not me who offered a simple definition of what is and isn’t doping. Simple answers are almost always wrong. There is a reason why real doping regulations are hundreds of pages long. If they could write a one sentence rulebook they would. They are just trying to ban real doping without also baning dental fillings, training and multivitamins.
Anything else is just marketing.
The way I see it, if your shoes are supporting your biomechanics in a way that optimizes energy and prevents injury, that is both fine and should be encouraged. I run, my nephew is a track athlete, my son plays football. Injury is a huge barrier to performance and a good experience… anything that avoids it is good.
Doping is this context is just introducing something exogenous to enhance properties/performance, like drugs or industrial process. It seems apt, if anything people should embrace usage more, I like doping my food with spices.
Balls are chosen by the league rather than the players, but these have changed too in recent years. It's not clear if these changes were accidental, or intentionally designed to increase scoring.
Of course none of these equipment adjustments are going to turn your beer league slugger into Babe Ruth, but they're probably in that same ~4% improvement ballpark that super shoes offer.
It turns out that there are many kinds of "doping" and even an article on the supposedly mythical practice of "abortion doping", so there you go.
Admittedly, shoes don't pass the third point as you can just step out of them after the competition, even if they were unhealthy. But still - if extremely optimized hi-tech running shoes are allowed, why not go one step further and add motorized rollers? Where would be the difference?
(This is an actual issue in biking, btw. You could also ask why relentlessly optimizing your bike for low weight and air resistance is allowed, but adding hidden motors is not)
Why don’t they use recumbent bikes at the Tour? They are way faster, way more aerodynamic. But the rules prohibit it because bike companies think (almost certainly correctly) that they won’t sell like normal bikes due to the myriad issues with them.
People may think that something as simple as running is “pure” but they are just uninformed. Aerodynamic skin suits are useful in running (and have been used to win gold at the Olympics).