The plain truth is the sport is dead. Especially women's bodybuilding. You guys haven't accepted it yet. The whole darn sport is contaminated. Everyone who has some muscle is tarred by the same brush that you officially are doing bugger all about. Steroids, other drugs, diuretics, synthol, silicon, and who knows what else is used to enhance a physique instead of building muscle. You guys have lost the plot. The fact that DeMilia is waiting in the wings with his alternative contests means you cannot do drug testing in a rigid and strict fashion because most of the big guys would go over there unless and until they test, too.
Vince,
While your point about rampant drug use is valid, I think the powers-that-be in the IFBB realize something you are not considering. If they tested stringently for drugs, then
amateurs would be bigger and more cut than the pros. And if that were the case, why would casual bodybuilders go to shows or buy magazines of guys who are smaller than themselves? Why would a non-bodybuilder want to buy legit supplements or read about training secrets from guys who are smaller than his own cousin Tony, with the acne? Professional bodybuilding and the entire industry would fold like a lawnchair overnight. It would suddenly be that much more obvious to the average guy who hadn't already figured it out that the drugs were more responsible for the pro's size than their supposed work ethic and nutritional regimen. Look at Hulk Hogan for an example.
Sure, pros have good genetics, but it's their genetic response to juice that sets them apart. If anabolic compounds did not exist, I'd wager that only a third of the top current pros would still be on a competitive stage. It's so easy for them to say it's not all about the juice
while they are still on the juice.
At least in established sports like track, football and soccer, the best in the world clearly had a gift before their first cycle. You often see and hear the story of the once-skinny bodybuilder who became a giant, but you don't hear too many stories of the slow kid who went on to become a speed demon. Since
bodybuilding is only about muscle, and not about god given fast-twitch fibers or a natural ability to make good split-second decisions, the most naturally gifted and hard working are not the ones getting pro cards. Can you imagine the heat track and field would take if the best runners in the world actually became slower, once they turned pro and started getting tested for drugs? Would anyone watch the Tour de France if the competitors used to be faster and better as non-tested amateurs? That is what would happen if the IFBB tested for drugs.
So while it may sound like I'm disagreeing with you, I'm not. In fact, I'm going one step further and say this; since anabolics cannot be uninvented, and since steroid users in the general population have little or no fear of seeing a jail cell, bodybuilding will not only continue to die, but this demise was an inexorable part of a larger sequence of events that began long ago. The non-prosecution or persecution of casual users by the Fed means that the IFBB's hands are tied. The IFBB can't let the gap between what their athletes and the general population look like falter or reverse itself and still expect to be in business. And even if the Fed started going after casual users, they'd soon have to go after the more obvious users, such as pro athletes and bodybuilders or risk a public outcry of "Payoff!"
As bad as drugs are for bodybuilders, and as bad as they are for bodybuilding, the genie is out of the bottle. Remove them at this point and no one will bother watching bodybuilders at all. They'll just go see their cousin Tony, who has bad acne, but can bench a truck and has arms two inches bigger than the pros.
