So now the meat is to blame?

Is there no end to the excuses being used by those responsible for supposedly ensuring that athletes remain "drug free"? 

I have no doubt at all that many athletes use "performance enhancing" drugs. Perhaps even all of them do, some of them unknowingly but others in full awareness of what is going on. 

Yes, at the most elite levels, they are under enormous pressure to "win". This is especially so for athletes from countries like China. I also have absolutely no doubt there are people who are working on developing performance enhancing drugs that cannot be detected - or not detected yet. 

Athletes are still being expected to "break" records even when it is becoming increasingly obvious that there is a limit to all this even if performance enhancing drugs are used. Are we really aiming for a record of a split second in the 100m dash, let alone the 400m relay? Why is it all considered to be so important?

The Olympics are a form of war of course. For all the so called "friendly rivalry" and more the reality is that athletes are competing. Their fellow competitors are foes not friends. The focus on the medal tally is proof enough of that. (I have no idea how Downunder is doing.)

But using the idea that the presence of illicit drugs can be laid at the door of the meat provided by another country is simply nonsensical. That was not the excuse for all those vegan meals in Paris. There were other reasons for that. No, this was about something that happened in Beijing. The athletes involved were supposed to be banned but the meat was blamed. It was meat from Downunder. Really? The odd thing is that the illicit substances found in the blood of the athletes are not something used in this country at all. It has left the meat industry "baffled".  Really?

Going vegan is a woke idea. It is not what nature intended. While some of us may choose to be largely vegetarian (and many people are) there is a difference between that and no animal products at all. Getting enough protein is a real problem. I look at a vegan I know and she looks anaemic, very anaemic. Her diet is definitely lacking in something. Another vegan I know looks much the same and is much too thin to be healthy. If these people wanted to be athletes they would have to ingest something artificial to even have the energy to train. Both of them are keen followers of the Olympics but they also claim the athletes could reach peak performance without resorting to any animal products. They will even name some who supposedly have. 

I rather doubt their claims. I doubt them as much as I doubt the claims of the Chinese when they say the "hamburger" meat from here was responsible. Were elite athletes from their own country actually wandering freely around and buying what amounts to junk food? It really seems very unlikely in a country where everything an athlete does is so closely controlled.

If there are illicit drugs in your system then the most likely answer is that you deliberately took them. You swallowed them or were injected with them. The meat was not to blame.