Doping in sports

[Firestarter]

A blood clot in his right shoulder has taken San Antonio Spurs’ Victor Wembanyama, who many expected to become the best NBA player before the end of the decade, out of play for the rest of the 2024-2025 season.
Normally deep vein thrombosis doesn’t happen to younger people who exercise regularly. It is also rare to happen in shoulders, as these clots are more common in the legs.
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Ernest "Randy" Mims is a longtime friend and business manager of LeBron James. David Alexander was LeBron’s personal trainer.
Alexander and Mims bought performance-enhancing drugs from Acevedo. Mims (like Alexander) claimed that he didn’t buy the steroid testosterone for his friend LeBron but for himself.

Other NBA players that suffered from deep vein thrombosis include Chris Bosh (who won 2 NBA championships with LeBron in Miami), Brandon Ingram and Ausar Thompson.
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In March 2011, Serena suffered from a pulmonary embolism and hematoma.
Embolisms and DVT (Deep Vein Thrombosis) are often associated with sedentary lifestyles, which certainly didn’t apply to Serena. Anabolic steroid can cause these diseases.

In 2011, Serena Williams was hospitalised as a result of blood clots in her lungs. In 2018, Williams suffered another pulmonary embolism that required multiple surgeries: https://archive.is/5CWfp


Reportedly the 2.21 m tall Wembanyama increased his bodyweight with an impressive 11 kg within his first year in the NBA (from 95 kg, 210 lbs to 106 kg, 235 pounds).

See Victor Wembanyama’s 1-year physical transformation…

https://www.msn.com/en-in/sports/footba ... r-BB1oFaMP

That’s even more than Giannis Antetokounmpo, whose weight increased from 196 pounds when he was drafted in 2013, to 222 pounds in the 2015-16 season: https://bleacherreport.com/articles/101 ... s-by-spurs


Steroid use increases the risk of blood clots in blood vessels, which can lead to a heart attack or stroke: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articl ... rt-attacks

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Instead of being banned, Sinner since he was informed of his positive test in April, withdrew from the quarter-finals of the Madrid Open citing a hip injury, and didn’t compete again for 27 days until his first round match at the French Open.

After the “anti” doping agency WADA appealed the decision to not ban Jannik Sinner at all, while accepting Sinner’s lame excuse, the doping violation was settled for a “3 month” ban (from 9 February to 4 May), timed so that Sinner won’t miss any Grand Slam tournament (Sinner won the US Open and Australian Open, after his positive doping test).

Maybe the most surprising here is that this settlement was criticised more than the original non-suspension.
Nick Kyrgios responded with “Sad day for tennis. Fairness in tennis does not exist”, while Tim Henman criticised the ban as “too convenient”.
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In August, tennis star Iga Swiatek – then ranked WTA number one, currently no. 2 - tested positive for the banned heart medication trimetazidine (TMZ) in an out-of-competition test and was secretly banned for a month.

I haven’t even heard criticism on Iga Swiatek’s similarly settling her positive doping test: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/ ... ement-wada


Goran Ivanisevic, Novak Djokovic’s coach in 2019–2024, spoke in defence of Sinner:

With Cilic, I’ve had to deal with WADA and such people, a lot of people that I didn’t like, that just want to destroy someone’s life. I hope that the outcome is positive for Sinner.

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Ivanisevic referred to Marin Cilic, who he coached from 2013 to 2016, who was likewise banned for 4 months in 2013 after testing positive for nikethamide and coming up with some lame excuse.
Cilic went on to win the 2014 US Open: https://archive.is/uiRlq