Play Nice Drugs - we're losing

As a casual observer I look at these events as though everyone is already on some form of drugs. I have no doubt that in 10 years we will hear about the likes of Bolt, Blake, Wiggins etc being investigated for something and I won't be shocked when some (most?) of them are found guilty.

What's the arguement against steroids, EPO, HGH etc though? That it allows people to push beyond 100% of what is 'natural'? How do you define that?

If Cadel Evans woke up the morning of a race and took a panadol would that be cheating? That headache might have prevented him winning the race but because he took an un-natural substance he was able to compete at a higher level than what his body would've 'naturally' allowed.

What about the AFL players who get pain killing injections during games? Are they cheats? If it's too painful to play without pain killers then shouldn't stay off the field?

Races, events, matches, games, whatever you watch or whatever you call it, everything has been decided by some form of chemical stimulant or suppressor taken by one or more participants so I say go the other way - open slather for any and every advancement of the human body.

Low oxygen training, blood doping, gene manipulation and of course, every kind of needle, pill and anal seppository known to science. Go the whole 9 yards. I don't care if guys are juiced up to the eyeballs with bull shark semen, if they manage to run a sub 9 second 100m race I will still have my mind blown!
 
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At some point in sports you have to have rules defining the equipment - you can't use a cricket bat 12 inches wide, you can't use a pushbike with a motor (though there are rumours!).

The human body is the basic equipment we all have and use for sport - so it's fair enough we set some limits as to how much you can 'improve' the human body. Now you can argue about those limits (blood levels for endurance athletes, vitamin supplements, caffeine stimulants), but at some point, you have to set limits. Those are the rules of the game. At the moment, the rules say 'Panadol is allowed - EPO is not'.

If you don't have limits (rules) the race is just won by the person who is first to get hold of the latest gee-whiz superman supplement (or cricket bat, or golf club, or swiming cossie) - and he wins until the next person comes along with the better one.

So we set rules - arbitrary, sure, but all sporting rules are arbitrary. With drugs, there is an added extra consideration of potential health risk, so that makes setting the limits a bit more involved.

I don't have a problem with drugs per se - it's your body, do what you want with it. But drug cheats are sports cheats - they destroy the sport - if you cheat by taking illegal drugs, there is no competition. If you want to play the sport, play by the rules. If you get caught deliberately preparing to cheat (such as doing a course of drugs) - piss off out of the sport.
 
As a casual observer I look at these events as though everyone is already on some form of drugs. I have no doubt that in 10 years we will hear about the likes of Bolt, Blake, Wiggins etc being investigated for something and I won't be shocked when some (most?) of them are found guilty.

What's the arguement against steroids, EPO, HGH etc though? That it allows people to push beyond 100% of what is 'natural'? How do you define that?

.....
I will answer this bitb of your post with something I wrote on page 21 of the Armstrong thread in the cycling forum.

Cycling doesn't need steroids and anarobic power. It needs endurance, high VO2 Max levels and aerobic capacity. EPO killed at least 18 young riders in the peak of their fitness in the late 1980's early 1990's.

How many people have died of steroids?? Maybe they need to be controlled like the doctors in cycling control EPO, blood transfusions and other drugs.

From Blood Sports - The inside dope on drugs in sport. Page 2 and 3 re the EPO epidemic

On 27 February 1990, Lisa Draaijer was woken by an unusual noise coming from her husband, Johannes Draaijer, a champion Dutch racing cyclist, lying next to her. At 27 years of age he was at the peak of his physical fitness. But this night he was gurgling and the air seemed to be rushing too swiftly from his lungs. Johannes had finished 20th in the 1989 Tour de France. When he had taken a full medical in a month prior to the race, doctors had given him the all clear. But now he was lying in an odd position, barely breathing. Lisa tried to wake him, but his body just slumped back, lifeless. There was no response. The ensuing autopsy described Johanne's demise as 'cot death.'

This was just the beginning of an epidemic of 'heart failure' that cut a swathe through young, fit and healthy cyclists in the late 1980's. In total five Dutch cyclists died in 1987; in 1988 a Belgian and two more Dutch riders died. In 1989 five more Dutch died. And in 1990 two Dutch and three Belgians died.

It mattered little whether they were asleep in their beds or furiously pedalling their bikes. The killer was silent, it was unexpected and it left the devestated parents, friends and sporting authorities with the suspicion that their treasured children, siblings and colleagues had 'over doped.'

At around the same time, a new wonder drug to treat chronic renal disease and anemia had been released onto the market. The drug was known as erythropoietin or simply EPO.

Word spread quickly throughout the sporting world of the new drug's wider applications - because it stimulated the bone marrow to produce more red blood cells, it meant the user benefitted from more oxygen in the bloodstream and, as a consequence more stamina. All that was required was three or four self administered jabs a week - far easier than autologous blood transfusions, the popular doping method of the time - and in a matter of weeks, athletes could enjoy up to a phenomenal ten per cent improvement in performance.

For elite sportspeople the world over, EPO was liquid gold - effective, affordable, irresistible and best of all, undetectable. As the Belgian cycling champion Eddy Merckx, once infamously said, 'You don't win the Tour de France by eating sandwiches and drinking mineral water.'
 

footy75

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At some point in sports you have to have rules defining the equipment - you can't use a cricket bat 12 inches wide, you can't use a pushbike with a motor (though there are rumours!).

The human body is the basic equipment we all have and use for sport - so it's fair enough we set some limits as to how much you can 'improve' the human body. Now you can argue about those limits (blood levels for endurance athletes, vitamin supplements, caffeine stimulants), but at some point, you have to set limits. Those are the rules of the game. At the moment, the rules say 'Panadol is allowed - EPO is not'.

If you don't have limits (rules) the race is just won by the person who is first to get hold of the latest gee-whiz superman supplement (or cricket bat, or golf club, or swiming cossie) - and he wins until the next person comes along with the better one.

So we set rules - arbitrary, sure, but all sporting rules are arbitrary. With drugs, there is an added extra consideration of potential health risk, so that makes setting the limits a bit more involved.

I don't have a problem with drugs per se - it's your body, do what you want with it. But drug cheats are sports cheats - they destroy the sport - if you cheat by taking illegal drugs, there is no competition. If you want to play the sport, play by the rules. If you get caught deliberately preparing to cheat (such as doing a course of drugs) - piss off out of the sport.

couldn't agree more. well said.
 

Shane Mead

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Drugs....like the drugs that ruin lives every day such as Cigarettes and Alcohol? How about the prescription drugs kids getting addicted to for a high?

In professional sport there is MONEY to be made, and careers are short. Basically when there is money to be made in sport, athletes will look for ways to get an edge to make more.

There are so many non-athletes who have never been in that position acting as if they wouldn't take that same chance. DELUSIONAL!
 

ablett

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Drugs....like the drugs that ruin lives every day such as Cigarettes and Alcohol? How about the prescription drugs kids getting addicted to for a high?

In professional sport there is MONEY to be made, and careers are short. Basically when there is money to be made in sport, athletes will look for ways to get an edge to make more.

There are so many non-athletes who have never been in that position acting as if they wouldn't take that same chance. DELUSIONAL!

Exactly, sporting careers are enriched by/from success.
So the better you perform the more you make hence the lure to take a PED cos it also enhances your bank account.
Also there's egos to fill which being number one does, another lure of using PED's.
 

hirdy_is_champ

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Exactly, sporting careers are enriched by/from success.
So the better you perform the more you make hence the lure to take a PED cos it also enhances your bank account.
Also there's egos to fill which being number one does, another lure of using PED's.
Well, in that case should sport go back to being non-professional? I know its a bit of a strange point to raise, but chances are a lot of these athletes have not even finished school and are in a career that is only a short term money maker. Hence, you can see why they would make the choice to cheat.
 

ablett

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Well, in that case should sport go back to being non-professional? I know its a bit of a strange point to raise, but chances are a lot of these athletes have not even finished school and are in a career that is only a short term money maker. Hence, you can see why they would make the choice to cheat.

Non professional sport is more a hobby , professional sport is more a career.
Most other careers aren't looked upon in the same context of drug use opposed to sporting careers.
Actors take steroids/HGH to enhance their physiques for specific movie roles & for their anti-ageing effects allowing them to extend their longevity in the show business.

Fireman use steroids because it gives you a big sense of adrenalin & reduces fear which is needed to run into a burning house to save someone.

Steroids are popular in the Army to build bigger stronger soldiers.

Steroids would also be a benefit in the police force for reasons similar to the army plus certain steroids gives you a steadier eye & hand control which would benefit police snipers in a hostage situation.

Yet a sportsman users steroids or peptides to perform &/or recover better or to enhance his career further, they a called cheats?

Society is very uneducated in regards to the use of drugs in sport.

Actually I think that if there's something available that can enhance your performance then you are cheating yourself by not using it.
 

bkozican

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Drugs in sport will always be there.

When we have fans and the media demanding that players play better and in sports were 0.100 of a second determine whether you finish 3rd or 1st, Players will always take drugs.

The fans have made sport this way. Every sport is now a business. No longer sport like you and me know it.
 
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ozgamer

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New revelations in documentary just shown on German TV

-------------------
Athletics doping secrets uncovered in test data leak

JONATHAN CALVERT | THE TIMES | AUGUST 02, 2015 11:55AM

Secret data revealing the extraordinary extent of cheating by athletes at the world’s most prestigious events can be disclosed for the first time today, after the biggest leak of blood-test data in sporting history.

The Sunday Times and the German broadcaster ARD/WDR have been given access to a database containing more than 12,000 blood tests from 5000 athletes, including many household names from across the world.

The blood-doping data reveals that a third of medals, including 55 golds, have been won in endurance events at the Olympics and world championships by athletes who have recorded suspicious tests — yet the authorities have failed to take away any of the medals.

The data shows that athletics is in the same “diabolical state” as cycling in the scandal-hit era of Lance Armstrong, according to world experts who describe the findings as a “shameful betrayal” of clean athletes.

Source: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/spo...n-test-data-leak/story-fniiw3ie-1227466666022

Here's the link to the German program. It is voiced in English with no geoblocking:

http://www.ardmediathek.de/tv/Repor...rste/Video?documentId=29857186&bcastId=799280

[Mod Edit - No Cut and Paste of Full Articles]
 
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Sorry about that mate. I forgot it was premo content. Even the original Sunday Times (UK) article is also premo content :drunk:

I have the article shown in full now :thumbsu:
Ok
 

ozgamer

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Doping in athletics: Russian suspects in IAAF tests scandal

JONATHAN CALVERT, GEORGE ARBUTHNOTT | THE SUNDAY TIMES |
AUGUST 03, 2015 12:00AM


The Russian medal winners in the women’s 1500m final in the 2005 Helsinki World Championships had highly abnormal blood scores. Source: TheAustralian

The flashbulbs popped as the pack of elite female athletes jostled for position in the Helsinki Olympic stadium. At stake was sporting immortality: world champion in arguably the toughest track race of all, the 1500m.

Summoning up her last reserves of energy, Maryam Yusuf Jamal, a young Ethiopian, quickened her stride and battled to the front. Then the extraordinary surge happened. Four women in Russia’s red, white and blue surrounded Jamal and pushed her off-balance as they powered to the front.

Millions of television viewers worldwide saw the Russians sprint to the first three medal positions — an unparalleled triumph. Experts watching that afternoon at the 2005 world championships scratched their heads. Was this extraordinary achievement the result of advanced training and discipline, a freak of nature — or some other, more murky reason?

The anti-doping unit of the International Association of Athletics Federations should have been aware of the answer to that question. It had the results of eight blood tests the Russians had undergone since arriving in Finland. Those test results have now been reviewed by one of the world’s foremost experts in blood-doping who has concluded that the Russian performance was a “slam dunk” case of cheating.

Source: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/new...af-tests-scandal/story-fnb64oi6-1227467100144

[Mod Edit - No Cut and Pasting of Full Articles]
 
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I read a report that said Dr Robin Parisotto was alarmed at the level of abnormal blood tests. Parisotto headed up the AIS team that discovered a blood and urine test for EPO about 8 months before the Sydney Olympics indicating if the athletes were ON or OFF using EPO. If he is alarmed then you know its bloody bad.

I read Parisotto's 2006 Blood Sports - the inside dope on drugs in sport, when it was released. The IOC only adopted the urine test for Sydney but they were allowed to take blood samples for further and future testing. 300 of the 3,000 endurance athletes had blood samples taken. A couple of years later when they tested them they found 7 samples tested positive for EPO. As Parisotto wrote in his book its a fair assumption to think if all 3,000 endurance athletes were test then 70 positives probably would have been found. An Olympics with 70 positives - ie an announcement say every 4 hours starting 24 hours after the first event - would have seen the Olympics shut down.
 
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Why dont you cut and paste some of the content of article?
Sorry about that mate. I forgot it was premo content. Even the original Sunday Times (UK) article is also premo content :drunk:

I have the article shown in full now :thumbsu:

As much as it sucks that its behind a paywall, we can't allow cut and pasting of full articles.

Try the google trick
 
As much as it sucks that its behind a paywall, we can't allow cut and pasting of full articles.

Try the google trick
Can we have the graphic back that was pasted. That was bloody useful.
 

ozgamer

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Can we have the graphic back that was pasted. That was bloody useful.

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