Greg Doucette Tests Positive in CPU

His explanation of why he wouldn't use EQ doesn't really touch on why his T:E ratio was twice the limit. I predict this will get ugly.

the Novadex might be what tripped him up on the metabolites. there have been all kinds of warnings about it failing drug tests. though still not sure how an otc supplement would push him to an 8:1 ratio.

Only test in a bottle will get you an 8:1 ratio. Test boosters, banned or not, will not alter the test/epitest ratio. If anything they would normalize it when using testosterone. In other words test boosters are also epitestosterone boosters....It won't get ugly. It's done. If you get caught you either fess-up or shut-up. The boldenone is probably a contaminant in the novedex (more likely) or the pronabolin. WADA doesn't care how banned metabolites end up in your piss.

Too bad, I was looking forward to competing (err, getting my ass kicked) with him at the Arnold.

APT Pro Gear
Monster Energy

Agreed if testbooster where that great then evrybody would be using them!

"you cant even drink a cup of coffee at these places with out failing the tests...."

actually they don't test for caffeine any longer.

So, is Greg claiming that he was taking over the counter nutritional supplements with commercial name spellings that are very similar to those of real prescription strength performance enhancers?

And, on that note, what's the thinking behind being anti-steroid yet going out and buying expensive grey area supplements that supposedly work almost as well as real drugs? If a vitamin store hormone booster really did jack your levels up, then how is that different from just taking a low dose of real test, EQ, dbol, ect.?

And if the only barrier to a person's using real steroids is the law, then shouldn't lifters from countries where prescription drugs are available over-the-counter be allowed to use them in competition (since they're no more illegal where they live than the supplement brand pro-hormones)?

Stay 8 to 1 Ratio Strong,
Sean
HardcorePowerlifting.com

Regardless of what happened, you're always responsible for what supplements you take.

So even if it was "just" Novadex, he gets what he "deserves".

Those who are using AAS probably knows if his story has credibility.

I just know that the supplement story isn't making me feel any better about Doucette.

So if he is telling that story in order to win some sympathy, he's dead wrong.

Life ain't over for him. But he should definitely be banned for life from CPU and its affiliates.

Sean,

In response to your third question (and correct me if I'm not reading it right), I think the thing to keep in perspective is that the CPU is a member of the IPF, which follows WADA's guidelines for antidoping.

Regardless of what you can and can't buy over the counter in a country, without following these guidelines in every country, you can't maintain a level playing field, and that is what every organization that belongs to the IPF must prescribe to.

If what you are asking were true, then all Olympians would be fools not to relocate and become citizens of countries where they could obtain performance enhancing drugs legally to be the best athletes in the world, chemically or not, as testing would have to be thrown out the window.

That's a well thought out reply, thanks!

So then, it is routine advice for IPF affiliated lifters to avoid all over-the-counter herbal and nutritional hormone boosters? Are specific brands/bottles listed as being banned?

Thanks again for the info,
Sean
HardcorePowerlifting.com

Sean,
not just IPF, but for all sports WADA advice is to avoid all supplements. I don't believe the no supplements line myself, but basic Creatine and Protein from reputable suppliers won't cause a failed test,
but supplements with labels out of a chemistry lab may. It's pretty easy to check on a supplement with a bit of a google search, and also by asking the supplement manufacturer if the particular supplement could cause a failed test.
WADA generally won't name specific OTC supplements, possibly due to risk of legal proceedings

That would be pretty sensible advice for any athlete in a drug tested sport

Yes, it's routine advice.

No, it's advised to either avoid ALL nutritional supplements or use only certified supplements from the NSF website:

http://www.nsf.org/Certified/Dietary/

or, in the case of medications, check Global DRO to see if they are prohibited.

Global DRO is an online database that allows athletes to quickly and accurately find information on the status of pharmaceutical products over-the-counter medicinal products:

www.globaldro.com

That's some good information, thanks!

Stay Strong,
Sean
HardcorePowerlifting.com

just to be clear, I'm not hating on those that use PEDs. I respect their decision so long as they lift in organizations that are untested

In all reality these lifter/athletes really cant take much. there are alot of these over the counter sups that are almost as strong as the real stuff....but its a shit ton worse on the body.

I agree with you strongly here!! I sometimes can't help to laugh at some of the idiots in gyms, who talk about some athlete that got busted for steroids, in the mean time they're buying this crap form GNC that's supposed to be the best thing over the counter and yet they're too stupid to realize that what they're taking are actual steroids that got through the legal loophole.

I realy think it should be waved when your 50 and up. Your testosterone has pretty much stopped working those guys need it just so they wont get hurt. Its a stupped rule at that age.

I know this is going to piss some people off, but to think that testing really makes a level playing field is ignorance. Those that know how will beat the tests and all the others that don't know how to. I know many naturals whom compete and win in all kinds of sports, including the Olympics, and are everything but natural. The fact that Doucette pasted so many tests in the past is proof of this. Any one whom has been around could look at his physique and his strength and know he was not natural. That he finally tested positive indicates carelessness on his part. If you truly want a level playing field then you need to forget about this war on performance enhancing drugs because competitors will always find a way to get an edge. I'm sure there are many self righteous zealots among you whom will strongly disagree, and you are entitled to your opinions, as I am entitled to mine. But that is the real truth of the matter. I would prefer post my name, and usually do, but there could be legal consequences so for safety reasons I feel it wise to remain anonymous on this subject.

According to the rule book Greg has contravined. There will be others, because we have to accept temptation can get the better of us. My point ? Is a hang em high policy going to deter others or just turn them off. How do you make it more appealing for individuals to stop taking peds or never take them in the 1st place.

Through passion,I gain strength

A more realistic approach might be to do what cycling has done: have specific biomarkers in place to determine whether an athlete can compete or not. For example: a test/epi ratio of 4:1 is acceptable (however you reach it), anything over that means you are not allowed to lift. That way the playing field still isn't perfectly level, but the outliers will be a bit closer to normal.

So your saying some peds is ok (responsible use) but more is (irresponsible use). So where do you draw the line? If we can beat the drug tests now how easy would it to beat a test for some use? FYI, the Chinese dominated Olympic Lifting for the first time ever. Some orientals have a specific gene that enables them to take synthetic testosterone and not produce significant levels of epi-testosterone? Meanwhile, the Bulgarian's all failed the test and where disqualified. There's your level playing field. Wake up! You can put bumps in the road but you cannot stop progress. Cars will go faster, technology will improve, and men will continue to become bigger, faster, & stronger.

And progress? What progress? Improved cheating?

* personally I am an extreme liberal in the traditional sense: personal freedom should be as great as possible. Everyone should be able to decide what they ingest. BUT: right now it is not legal, and so it is fascinating and absurd that it is catered to.

Though I hate to digress this thread further, I just want to add that yes, that IS the law. But anyone educated on the subject KNOWS it is a stupid law, utterly corrupt in spirit. Some laws should simply NOT be respected. Do what you wish, as will I. And I will NOT respect a ridiculous law. I still wont use drugs, but that is not a moral decision. They simply will not help my lifting at this point in my training. At some point, yes, drugs could turn me into a monster should I use them. Maybe I will, maybe I wont. Right now, they'd do more harm than good. But will I heed some corrupt law supposedly devised to save us all from the evil steroids? No chance.

To further my point, I'll address the Americans here.

If your government passed a law tomorrow outlawing ALL privately owned firearms, would YOU comply? We all know they would if they could get away with it. Why? it threatens their corrupt agenda. Is there even a slight difference?

I'm not defending steroids in a tested fed, just the 'law' bit.

Something stinks here. Lets just say for sake of argument that Greg WAS knowingly cheating. He's been a champion or near it for years now. Top natural bodybuilder and top natural powerlifter in the same year? Not to mention AS a powerlifter, his raw strength is considerably higher than average (drugs do not make gear work better). 14 passed drug tests? Again, lets say he was using, any imbecile in the back of the bus would assume he would have to know a little something about drugs.

Now I dont know a lot about drugs. But I do know that EQ would be near the bottom of the list for drugs to do in his situation. There are far better drugs for an athlete that wants to hide his use... EQ isn't even in the remote vicinity. I HIGHLY doubt Greg would knowingly use the substance he was tagged for. He's smarter than that.

Gaspari Nutrition was busted for spiking their supplements with actual steroids when they broke out into the market. Not sure which pruducts, but the ramifications are gross. Thats a BIG company in sports nutrition. This was some time ago, but its not an uncommon practice. I've forgotten how many times I've heard of companies being caught for this.

So who the hell does one trust? Going without isn't an option. Bad enough clean lifters must compete with using lifters here and there, and commonly at the world level, but to leave even basic supplements off the table as well? A good stack of proven supplements (more than just creatine and protein) can give the intelligent lifter a good edge against the competition, not to mention seriously aid in recovery and healing.

That said, I respect WADA's stance for applying their zero-tolerance with this excuse (tainted supps). I do think it is a very valid excuse in some cases, but it would be quickly abused and really, cannot be enforced any other way.

Greg is still the most impressive CPU lifter I think, and I hope he keeps his head up through this mess.

The ONLY way to level the playing field is to abolish drug testing. Sad, but true. Humans will ALWAYS cheat. ALWAYS. The best you can do is take cheating out of the picture. And to the argument that some will restrict themselves to 'responsible' use and others will not, well, this is still a discipline pushing the outer extremes of the human body. Take drugs out of the picture and you'll still get athletes willing to endanger themselves for the gold... putting themselves through insane regimens, will we then call that cheating as well? It will ALWAYS come down to who wants it more, and where you draw the line and say "You know, I'm just not willing to go THAT far to win..." You might as well just allow it and finally sit back and see what the human being is actually capable of. Besides, the best of the best typically take a lot less than most people would think. You'd be surprised how little some dominate their classes on...

A couple of comments.

First, I cannot believe how naive and/or trusting some in the powerlifting community are. Baseball players knowingly take steroids, but powerlifters never do? It's always a tainted supplement! Even assuming arguendo you buy Greg's statement that it was a tainted supplement and he did not knowingly take PED, he would have clearly known within a few weeks thereafter that something was wrong--because the damn thing was working too well. The average 18 year old raging male has a TE ratio of 1:1. The legal threshold is 4:1. At 8.8 to 1, based on the OBJECTIVE research, Greg got a HUGE strength boast from the substance. End of story. (Read scientific research on TE ratios.)

Second, it is not unusual for a drug user to pass several drug tests. And then fail one. A lot of times, users get greedy or careless. Many of the admitted steroid users in other sports admitted to passing several drug tests either never failing one or failing one after beating dozens of drug tests. As noted in old Powerlifting USA articles from the 1980s, per former Soviet Union sports doctors, a user should never fail a known drug test unless they are careless or stupid.

Finally, although drug testing is not perfect, the sport needs drug testing to have credibility in the sporting community and in the public. Not every one at the national level is using drugs. Some are, but not every one. Drug testing puts every one at a level playing field. Some can beat the test. But at least, it requires users to be smart about use, taper their cycle, or go off their cycle. This is still better than no drug testing and having lifters take drugs without impunity.

So if greg got such a huge boost in strength, then why wasn't he strong? He also claimed that he did not feel any effects, benefits, side effects, etc, so how would he know the supplement was "tainted".

Also, I know it doesn't change the point of 1 guys post above, but he wasn't knowingly purchasing "grey market" supps. He has pointed out that he won the supplements. Sure, we as competitors probably should research the hell out of all supplements we take, but sometimes you can take things for granted, and supplements that are sold in canada, in GNC stores for example should be fair game. If he is anything like me, he probably just threw it in the mix just because he had the supplement rather than throw it out or go through the trouble of selling things he won.

Also, I am not an expert on tests, but why can't a supplement that is tainted throw off your test ratio? Back in the day there were supplements sold in the US such as "1-test" and "1-ad" "4-ad", and basically from my understanding they were sprays and creams that would increase test. I knew people who took these with the exact same gains/side effects as found using injectables.

This is a shame, and it's too bad for him, because like he said, it will only make him look like he's been guilty all these years, even though there is now way he was after passing all those tests.

None of this adds up, and greg is a smart guy - he knew he was getting tested, and he was actually HOPING to be out of meet tested. So why would he take something to fail him for up to 18 months?

I for one always am skeptic about top performing athletes...but this is 1 time I think Greg simply got unlucky and had some sort of tainted supplement. It's actually the only thing that makes sense.

Does he really expect us to believe that a top level "natural" bodybuilder would take a supplement without knowing exactly what the supplement did?

Ok, I could accept the explanation from a 16-year old rookie in the gym. That would actually be somewhat believable.

But someone who's competing at the highest level in bodybuilding?

And as a NATURAL bodybuilder?

Give me a break.

Those guys knows exactly what is on the label.

And if it says "Do not take this supplement if you compete in WADA tested events" then you don't take it.

Doucette needs to man up IMO.

Not hating on him.

Just begging him to save face.

I actually think Mark McGwire saved face when he finally admitted.

https://www.svncanada.com/cart_product.php?id=669&type=1

Doesn't say anything about not taking if you compete in tested events...Not saying he did or didn't know what was in it, but its not like it was common knowledge that this was a bad supplement. And yes, doing another few minutes of searching would eventually lead you to find that this could fail a test.

This is all retarded. no one should argue in either direction, since everyone will believe what they want to believe.

Only way for greg to prove himself is to finally go on the sauce, and finally put on that huge spike in muscle that he hasn't had throughout his whole career. At that point, everyone can finally say, hey, I guess NOW he is using.

But if he stays clean, he'll just stay at his current size, and everyone will continue to think he's using.

I read all the comments, I cant remember most but i pretty much wrote what I had to say on the CPU site. I honestly never felt like I was taking anything at all, I lifted less in this meet then nearly every tested meet I have done over the past few years, I was weak in the gym as well.
The last comment I read actually made me laugh and I sure have not done much of that this week. As dumb as it sounds hes probably right.

I'll tell ya what. Lets say we're both about equal in performance and drive. You stick to the above, I'll do that, plus supplement with creatine, BCAA's, glutamine, caffeine and/or other legal stimulants, etc. Lets see who wins. They let us use it, its all more or less natural stuff, just more of it. All safe, all basic stuff.

What I am NOT talking about is 'legal' test-boosters, super-trib products, super NOX-plasmatic Bio-mutating myostatin-inhibitors... People who take that shit and berate those who use REAL drugs are idiots. No... they are worse than idiots. They are cowardly idiots. They are looking for the easy way out, one way or another. They are also stupid, as most of those wonder products simply do not work, and cost more than the actual steroids would. I work out with guys like that... they are amusing.

Okay... I misplaced my quotes there... see above. Damn interwebs...

But also, no, not underground steroids. Drugs that are designed solely to fool tests by virtue of being unknown are still drugs. I also dont mean prohormones (M1T, Mass Tabs, etc.). I consider those to be steroids. Most are, and most dont work as well, and have worse sides. People who use THOSE are stupid as well, and generally are lying to themselves. Jesus people, if you're gonna use drugs, USE REAL DRUGS. Dont buy some shady shit by some shady company and tell yourself you're clean because you bought it over the counter...

No, not abolishing feds, just saying, you know, screw it. Do what you will. PL is no longer tested. Sorry for those who dont or wont use, but this way we can spend your entry fees on other things important to the sport, and there is NO more BS about who is or who isn't. You can create and lift in some new 'tested' fed, for all those purists (or cheaters... haha) out there, but you will STILL be lifting with cheaters. THIS way... at least there are no cheaters.

Besides... I bet the landscape of who's who in the record books wouldn't change as much as you'd think. And this, I think, is the stark and ugly reality that most clean lifters are afraid of. There ARE some lifters at IPF world podium-level who are clean... they are not ALL using. And I have it on good authority that there is at least one top multi-ply (untested) lifter who is clean (could be more, could be lots more, I dont know). That is what scares most haters the most... they'd lose that awesome excuse... "Oh well, *I* could do that if *I* was using too..." Andrey Belayev didn't get to #1 because of the drugs. The drugs helped. For every Belayev who fails a drug test winning gold at worlds there are thousands who dont even come close at National levels taking the same shit...

That what I would do. The way I see it, if you're going to blame me for something I did not do or am not doing (say still assuming I'm using after the two year suspension, which we all know everyone will do) then by all means I'm gonna get my money's worth.

He should jack himself beyond recognition for 18-20 months, then go off just long enough to slip into the next drug test, dominate the show, replace all his old erased records with new staggeringly unbeatable records, then sit back and say "Well, y'all think I'm guilty forever now anyways... Prove it." And enjoy the seizures in the audience.

The hypocrisy never ends. There are certainly clean lifters in the CPU now who have used before, I can name at least two top-tier lifters (but I wont), who've done a lot of drugs in the past. Anyone who knows the drugs cat attest that gains are permanent in a way.

Example: If I top my bench out at a clean 365, then go on for five years till I'm 60lbs thicker and benching 525, all I need to do is go off for a couple years (or less... even a LOT less with some drugs) and I'll still be EASILY benching more than I ever could before. Done correctly I wont lose much at all.

Once you change your body with that stuff it reacts differently to training... and always will. The unfair advantage, while not quite as acute with the stuff still in your veins, will always be there. There are many examples in the IPF. I wonder if they are joining in the anonymous witchhunt here or staying quiet...

if i were greg i would simple take a lie detector test. Floyd Landis ran for cover when a radio host offered him one right then and there. pay the money to clear your name if you are innocent and post the lie detector report.

lie detector wouldn't prove anything - they can be beaten

i think it would be pretty hard to beat a lie detector test. A passed test would hold a lot of credibilty over a failed one in most peoples eyes. I would gladly pay for it and if he failed he would have to give the money back.

There used to be a powerlifter (tested) around here who was also (well, primarily) a "Lifetime Drug Free" bodybuilder. I did not know there was a different contest for those who are not only tested, but 'lifetime drug free'. Anyways, this guy was using, it was no great secret, he definitely looked the part. He was pretty proud of the fact that he could beat the lie-detector tests you had to take to be lifetime drug free. He passed every test. Lie detectors can be beaten. It becomes part of the sport in which these guys compete... just another skill to have that 'champions' need...

Why is it when someone gets a positive drug test they always say the same thing? Greg pulled a Ben Johnson "I have never KNOWINGLY used banned substances", it must have been the supplements. Didn't Sean Brown say the same thing?

The fact is Greg is the one that needs to live with himself, if he really is clean and has never used drugs then he knows in his heart that no matter how long he is banned or how many of his records are taken away he can have peace with himself knowing he wasn't a cheater.

BUT

If he did use drugs I don't see how he can be proud of his accomplishments knowing he is a cheater. Steroids make a HUGE difference in a persons powerlifting ability, if he was clean (assuming he was using) he would be a completely different lifter, although juicers try to diminish the role the drugs play in their success it is undeniable.

Also, what about the powerlifters that he beat that really were drug free, how many times did he steal their "moment of glory".

The facts are this, IF Greg really is a LIFETIME drug free lifter I have the ultimate respect for what he has done, he truly is an incredible athlete. If he is not then he is another steroid loser and he should go compete in untested federations. The lifts he has done become much less impressive if they are drug induced!

Just my opinion.