Originally Posted by
EdTice
In addition to what I learn from our conversations, I try to go out and learn adjacent things. Fortunately I remember at least a small part of high school chemistry. From what I can learn from Coach Google, there isn't a current T/E limit. But if your T/E is greater than 4:1, secondary testing will be performed. Apparently we can't synthesize testosterone exactly and the commercially available testosterone for TRT is synthesized from plant materials and the final product has a C13:C12 ratio different than human-produced testosterone.
I said that the 4:1 is not a limit because, even if you are within the 4:1 ratio, there's always a risk of future testing to detect the use of testosterone and to retroactively disqualify you. Current procedures use 4:1 as a screening but that could change. See Floyd Landis and Lance Armstrong! At some point the isotope tests might be so cheap and easy that they get done regularly. Probably by then, though, better testosterone and epitestosterone will be available for the highest-level athletes.
It's very likely that in some of the former Soviet Republics still aligned with Russia, they are extracting testosterone and epitestosterone from the blood of prisoners and using that for their athletes which would completely mask any publicly-known testing technique and may or may not be future proof.
But I'm just a regular guy from New Jersey, so I have only the commercially available options